Evolution Wars

For anyone remotely familiar with the history of Darwinian thought as a prop for socially recalcitrant views of "human nature," there's not much new in this Times piece -- though it's always heartening to hear conservatives returning with childlike wonder to the great intellectual debates of the 1880s.

All that aside, there's also nothing new in the sloppy invocations of "fascism" and "communism" in the effort to undermine the very notion of Darwinian theory. And so:

Skeptics of Darwinism like William F. Buckley, Mr. West and Mr. Gilder also object. The notion that “the whole universe contains no intelligence,” Mr. Gilder said at Thursday’s conference, is perpetuated by “Darwinian storm troopers.”

“Both Nazism and communism were inspired by Darwinism,” he continued. “Why conservatives should toady to these storm troopers is beyond me.”

It's good to know that between servings of warm bean paste and pureed bananas, William Buckley can still mumble the cliches that sustained him for all those years. [Evidently, all the time I've spent not grading this week has ruined my reading comprehension skillz. As pointed out in comments, the "storm troopers" line was from Gilder, who isn't quite old enough for a bean paste and bananas diet.] It's also good to know that the meaning of phrases such as "storm troopers" has been so diluted from overuse that it can now apply to science educators and school boards. Still, it's worth pointing out that statements like Buckley's reveal what I can only see as willful ignorance of the history of biological and social thought. The basis of the error is pretty simple. Nazism and communism are teleological, perfectionist narratives; the Darwinian view of adaptation and descent with modification is not. The problem is that many intellectuals -- like Republican presidential candidates paying worship to the name of Ronald Reagan -- attached Darwin's name to ideas that owed little to Darwin himself.

From the 1860s through the 1940s, nearly everyone with an elaborate social vision claimed -- however implausibly -- to be influenced by "Darwin," most of whose writings they had not apparently bothered to read. Aside from some speculative remarks in The Descent of Man, Darwin didn't much bother to apply his ideas to contemporary civilization in any systematic way. Racists, socialists, patriarchs, single taxers, vegetarians, feminists, robber barons and philanthropists each borrowed selectively from Darwin and drew their own lessons, all of which claimed the authority of science. Same for communists and Fascists, whose visions of human destiny were in any event always more Lamarckian than Darwinian, no matter what their advocates claimed in public. (Nor does this fact mean that Lamarck was responsible for the horrors of the death camp and the gulag; it just means that fascists, on top of their other flaws, were deeply stupid as well.)

As a product of 19th century European culture, there are certainly some teleological, "progressive" elements to Darwin's work, but I've always been struck by the degree to which Darwin's writings describe a natural world that's disorderly and unpredictable and not the servant of human "will." If Darwin's ideas validate any particular social arrangement, then, I think the old leftist complaint about Darwin still applies -- at times, The Origin of Species reads like a science fiction novel about the virtues of classical liberalism. But this certainly doesn't "prove" that classical liberalism (or contemporary conservatism) is the appropriate way for creative, dynamic, pluralistic human societies to order their business. Any idiot can see that.

As for Darwin's later work on vegetable molds and climbing plants, though, I think there are many relevant lessons there for anyone seeking to understand the rise of the New Right. In the very least, those books help explain why William F. Buckley continues to find an audience.