Darwinism and Eugenics. Charles Darwin. History Essay

Darwinism and Eugenics
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Charles Darwin was a popular theorist and scientist who played a vital role in explaining the origin of man and evolution. In his theories he believes in the survival for the fittest. This means that the resources available in the world are limited and in order to live to see the next day, one has to fight and adapt, evolve and toughen up to overcome challenges (Gould, 2002). The theories were further expounded to explain the variances in ethnicity and gender equality in the community. Most importantly, Darwin’s relative Sir Francis Galton launched Eugenics which was a social Darwinism aimed at getting rid of the undesirable or unfit in the society.
Darwinism is one of the major causes for class segmentation and the classification of people as inferior and it justifies the inequalities done to them. Social Darwinists contend that people of the lower social classes are weak and have not put up a fight good enough to secure wealth and status. On the other hand, the rich and wealthy deserve to be there since they are strong enough and have proven themselves the best adapted to be in that class (Hofstadter, 2016). They also argue that helping the poor and distributing resources to them would distort the natural order and selection. Moreover poverty comes with the inclination of peoples behaviors that pushes them poverty such as being lazy or drunk. In order to improve the world, the poor had to be eradicated so that the allegedly bad traits causing poverty would not be passed down to another generation.
Eugenics and Darwinism critically shaped the immigrants experience in America. Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection and survival for the fittest to explain evolution. The Social Darwinists exploited the theories to bend them to their economic, social and political advantage. For instance t...