Social Darwinism In The 20th Century

Did Darwinism prove that some races were inferior to others? Darwinism had a huge impact on America in the 20th century. It gave people a whole new world view, a way of looking at the world and how everything began. Charles Darwin, originally born a Christian, rejected the religion because as a boy he felt God let him down and that He must not actually be real. This lead Charles to come up with his own theory of how humans came into the world. This world view was heavily based on the concept of natural selection. Natural selection was the idea that only the fittest survived and some species were more superior because of their adaptations allowed them to thrive in the environment (Sechandice, 2014). This theory later led to people applying it …show more content…
Many laws and restrictions began coming about, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act which excluded many Chinese people from coming to America. In an article titled “Closet Full of Bones”, written by Peter A. Quinn talks about many of the twisted and backwards thing going on with immigrants at the time, he even goes into that Hitler approved of many of the ideas that Eugenics provided, such as laws on immigration, intermarriage, and sterilization (Quinn, 1995). Many of the races and ethnicities were being cut off from America. The phrase, survival of the fittest, made up by and English philosopher named Herbert Spencer was now truly coming to life in America (Schultz, 2013). Furthermore, around the time of the Irish potato famine when so many Irish fled Ireland to America for their lives, many of them were emaciated and sickly looking when they arrived. This gave social Darwinists ammunition against the Irish and blamed it on their adaptations to the environment. The Irish had already been through so much and yet still people were saying things like “I am daunted by the human chimpanzees I saw among that hundred of miles of horrible country… to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black one may not feel it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposer, are as white as ours” (Quinn, 1995, p.3). These disgusting comments were rampant throughout America, they were almost dehumanizing …show more content…
Specifically, the fundamentalist Christians. The Christians bellied in the Bible which tells that there was a divine being, God, who created the universe by just speaking it into existence (Southgate, 2011). This totally contradicts Darwinism, that people evolved by themselves in order to adapt to the environment around them. Hence, why the Christians refuted the Darwinist approach. One of the main ways that the Christians combat it is with the human body itself. The body is so complex with all of its functions, even down to a single cell within the body. Scientists cannot even begin to create life compared the natural way. There is no way mold or an organism could evolve into something so complex. Also, the difference between animals and humans is evident. Animals have little to no snese of reason, no emotion, or soul. However, humans have such a complex mind full of emotions like compassion, sadness, and love. They are intelligent and can reason way beyond any other living creature. No animal even begins to compare to a