Darwinian Conservatism: How Darwinian science refutes the Left’s most sacred beliefs.

The American Thinker ^ | 23 July 2006 | Jamie Glazov and Larry Arnhart

[PatrickHenry]

An interview by Jamie Glazov with Larry Arnhart, a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University, about his new book Darwinian Conservatism.

Glazov: Larry Arnhart, thanks for taking the time out to talk about your new book.

Arnhart: It’s a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

Glazov: Tell us briefly what your book is about and your main argument.

Arnhart: I am trying to persuade conservatives that they need Charles Darwin. Conservatives need to see that a Darwinian science of human nature supports their realist view of human imperfectability, and it refutes the utopian view of the Left that human nature is so completely malleable that it can be shaped to conform to any program of social engineering.

Glazov: How exactly does Darwinian science of human nature demonstrate the imperfectability of humans?

Arnhart: In Thomas Sowell’s book A Conflict of Visions, he shows that ideological debate has been divided for a long time between what he calls the “constrained vision” and the “unconstrained vision.” I see this as a contrast between the “realist vision” of the political right and the “utopian vision” of the political left.

Those with the realist vision of life believe that the moral and intellectual limits of human beings are rooted in their unchanging human nature, and so a good social order has to make the best of these natural limitations rather than trying to change them. But those with the utopian vision think that the moral and intellectual limits of human beings are rooted in social customs and practices that can be changed, and so they believe the best social order arises from rationally planned reforms to perfect human nature.

Those with the realist vision see social processes such as families, markets, morality, and government as evolved rather than designed. Darwinian science is on the side of this realist vision of the conservative tradition. The main idea of the realist vision is evolution—the idea that social order is spontaneously evolved rather than rationally designed. Friedrich Hayek saw this. Steven Pinker, in his book The Blank Slate, shows how modern biological research on human nature supports the insight of the realist vision that there is a universal human nature that cannot be easily changed by social reform.

Glazov: Why do you think so many Conservatives and religious people have always been so afraid and disdainful of Darwinianism?

Arnhart: They associate it with a crudely materialistic and atheistic view of the world—a “survival of the fittest” in which the strong exploit the weak. One of the books promoted by the Discovery Institute is Richard Weikart’s book From Darwin to Hitler. He claims that all the evils of Nazism come from Hitler’s Darwinism. But I show in my book that Weikart’s arguments are weak, because there is no support for Hitler’s ideas in Darwin’s writings. In response to my criticisms, Weikart now says that he cannot show a direct connection “from Darwin to Hitler.”

Glazov: Then what do you think about a book like Ann Coulter’s book Godless?

Arnhart: Coulter’s attack on Darwinism as a threat to conservative values illustrates the sort of mistake that I want to correct. Her arguments against Darwinism as a liberal religion are shallow. It’s clear that she has never read Darwin and doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. She has memorized some talking points from the proponents of intelligent design theory at the Discovery Institute—people like Bill Dembski and Mike Behe. But she hasn’t thought through any of this. For example, she assumes that Darwinism promotes an immoral materialism. But she says nothing about Darwin’s account of the natural moral sense implanted in human nature. And she doesn’t recognize that conservative thinkers like James Q. Wilson have adopted this Darwinian view of the moral sense.

Glazov: Can you tell us a bit about Darwin’s account of the natural moral sense that is implanted in human nature? This in itself is an argument for the existence of a God right?

Arnhart: It could be. If you already believe in God as a moral lawgiver, then you might see the natural moral sense as created by God. In The Descent of Man, Darwin sees morality as a uniquely human trait that is a product of human evolutionary history. We are naturally social animals who care about how we appear to others. This natural human concern for social praise and blame combined with human reason leads us to formulate and obey social norms of good behavior. Darwin drew ideas from Adam Smith’s book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, particularly Smith’s claim that morality depends on “sympathy,” the human capacity for sharing in the experiences of others, so that we feel resentment when others are victims of injustice. Darwin thought these moral emotions of indignation at injustice would have evolved to favor cooperative groups.

Glazov: What do you make of the creation/intelligent design/evolution debate?

Arnhart: In my book, I explain why the arguments of the intelligent design folks are weak. They assume unreasonable standards of proof in dismissing the evidence for Darwin’s theory, and they don’t offer any positive theory of their own as an alternative. But, still, I don’t see anything wrong with allowing public school biology students to read some of the intelligent design writing along with Darwinian biology, and then they can decide for themselves.

The problem, of course, is whether this could be done without introducing Biblical creationism. In the case last year in Dover, Pennsylvania, school board members who wanted to teach a literal 6-days-of-creation story used the idea of intelligent design as a cover for what they were doing. In fact, the Discovery Institute actually opposed the policy of the school board because their motives were purely religious, and they had no interest in the scientific debate. In Ann Coulter’s book, she misses this point entirely.

Glazov: Ok, kindly expand on why you think conservatives should welcome Darwinian science rather than fear it.

Arnhart: Sure. I argue that Darwinism can support some of the fundamental conservative commitments to traditional morality, family life, private property, and limited government. For example, a Darwinian view of human nature would reinforce our commonsense understanding of the importance of parent-child bonding and family life generally as rooted in our evolved nature as human beings. Or a Darwinian view of human imperfection might support the need for limited government with separation of powers as a check on the corrupting effects of political power. Religious conservatives fear Darwinism because they think it has to be atheistic. But that’s not true. There is no reason why God could not have used natural evolution as the way to work out his design for the universe.

Glazov: Can you talk a bit more about on the theory and possibility of how God may have engineered a natural evolution? And why would anyone think this is not a religious concept? Even Pope John Paul accepted the reality of evolution.

Arnhart: Yes, the statement of John Paul II in 1996 assumed that all life could have evolved by natural causes. Traditionally, Catholics have had no objections to Darwinian evolution, because they believe that God works through the laws of nature, which could include the sort of natural evolution identified by Darwin. The religious objections toDarwin come from fundamentalist Christians and Muslims who read the opening chapters of Genesis literally, so that God created everything in six days. But very few religious believers take that seriously. Even William Jennings Bryan, at the Scopes trial, admitted that the six days of Creation did not have to be 24-hour days.

Glazov: Larry Arnhart, thank you for taking the time out to talk about your book.

Arnhart: Thank you for having me.

[Restorer]

"Fitness" in the context of evolution is relative to environment with no absolute standard.

Absolutely. If eventually only Aryans survived, because they had killed everybody else, Aryans would by definition be the most fit.

[Junior]

Just read in Friday's local paper on an article that there are 35 million reasons why humanity didn't evolve from chimps ...

Huh? Methinks you either misread the article or are making this up. Science has never said man evolved from chimps. Man and chimps evolved from a common ancestor and split somewhere between 5MYA and 7MYA.

[Dimensio]

Absolutely. If eventually only Aryans survived, because they had killed everybody else, Aryans would by definition be the most fit.

It would remain to be seen if such extermination did not ultimately adversely affect the reproductive success of the Aryans.

[Restorer]

Free market capitalism is just Darwinism applied to economics.

It is a very odd fact that many of the most ardent supporters of biological evolution are equally ardent against its economic application, and that the reverse is also true.

Most American Creationists are big fans of the free market, despite the fact that a "planned economy" is in many ways an economic expression of Creationism.

[ToryHeartland]

Just read in Friday's local paper on an article that there are 35 million reasons why humanity didn't evolve from chimps and that scientists have turned elsewhere to explain humanity's evolution.

Not Darwin, nor any other scientist has ever claimed that humanity evolved from "chimps." Only Creationists state that--as a grotesque and ignorant paradoy of the actual theory of evolution.

Somebody wasted an awful lot of time compiling "35 million" reasons for refuting a strawman.

[PatrickHenry]

If various modern concepts regarding the origin of life and the universe can be referred to as Darwinian, as they often are, despite Darwin's never discussing such issues ...

I'm not going to get involved in an argument premised on a clear misuse of terms.

... then on what basis can similar extrapolations on his work to the "racial struggle" be refused status as Darwinian in type simply because you disagree with their conclusions?

Darwin used the term "race" interchangeably with "species" and "sub-species," (or variety). Regarding humans, in disagreement with most educated opinion of his day, he clearly concluded that all humans were the same species. His biological theory has no connection to the racial prejudices of other people -- except that other people may claim such a connection.

[cornelis]

The primary difference between knowledge and ignorance is that knowledge has limits.

The biggest problem with limited knowledge is a presumption that what we don't know therefore doesn't exist. This can lead to the fallacy that Socrates pointed out: thinking to know something when you don't, which is called hubris.

[GarySpFc]

Though not much in vogue currently, the fascistic systems of Hitler, Mussolini, and others almost conquered the world a generation ago. There are even now neo-Nazi movements which bear watching, as well as various dictatorships of similar character around the world; not to mention the “new left” student movement which strangely resembles the early days of Nazism.

In any case, all such ideologies, built up as they are on the concepts of racism and statist totalitarian aggression and control, are direct products of the Darwinian doctrines of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest. Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosophical father of these systems, was an ardent evolutionist, as were his spiritual children, Hitler and Mussolini.

From the ‘preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life’ (i.e., Darwin’s subtitle to Origin of Species), it was a short step to the preservation of favoured individuals, classes or nations—and from their preservation to their glorification. Social Darwinism has often been understood in this sense: as a philosophy, exalting competition, power and violence over convention, ethics and religion. Thus it has become a portmanteau of nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and dictatorship, of the cults of the hero, the superman, and the master race .recent expressions of this philosophy, such as (Hitler’s) Mein Kampf are, unhappily, too familiar to require exposition here. And it is by an obvious process of analogy and deduction that they are said to derive from Darwinism. Nietzsche predicted that this would be the consequence if the Darwinian theory gained general acceptance.

Fascism is generally held to be a right-wing movement and Communism a left-wing. Both, however, are the variants of the same species, evolutionistic, totalitarian collectivism. In any case, it is clear that the basic rationale of Communism, just as that of Fascism, is the dogma of materialistic evolution.

In an age of social Darwinism, the combination of the ideas of struggle, of historical evolution, and of progress proved irresistible. The Marxists became merely a sect in the larger church . In urging these lessons, Marx and Engels set the pattern of all subsequent Marxist polemics by using what may be called the evolutionist’s double standard: when you do it, it’s wrong, because you are the past; when we do it, it’s right, for we are the future. The mood—borrowed from science—is that of a mighty ruthlessness. History like nature, is tough.

It is well known that not only the early Communists, such as Marx and Engels, were atheistic evolutionists but also that all the leaders of Communism since have been the same. Though they have fluctuated between Darwinian and Lamarckian biology in their application of evolutionary mechanisms to communist theory, they have never varied in their commitment to evolution itself.

[ModelBreaker]

The conclusions of evolutionary biology about human nature at their core, restate the doctrine of Original Sin.

[A0ri]

The article is nonsense and philosophically weak, as is to be expected of generic Leftist justifications or twists for social ideologies. Darwinists are categorized as Leftists due to the idea that humans are... well... human. Nothing more and nothing less -- a sort of animal and creature of raw or flawed nature that is in tremendous need of correctional measure. These supposed human animals are considered weak besides themselves, inferior of mind, and in need of the superior "controls" provided by society, whether such controls be to shape the human mindset, or to design yet another "superior" animal through nature. Social "Left" would state that to reach perfection, the unintelligent and weak person(s) is/are in need of the superior scientific corrections provided.

[Coyoteman]

Though not mu [snip] tment to evolution itself.

Horsefeathers. This is evolution.

---

Fossil: Sts 5

Site: Sterkfontein Cave, South Africa (1)

Discovered By: R. Broom & J. Robinson 1947 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 2.5 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, floral & faunal data (1, 4)

Species Name: Australopithecus africanus (1, 2)

Gender: Male (based on CAT scan of wisdom teeth roots) (1, 30) Female (original interpretation) (4)

Cranial Capacity: 485 cc (2, 4)

Information: No tools found in same layer (4)

Interpretation: Erect posture (based on forward facing foramen magnum) (8)

Nickname: Mrs. Ples (1)

See original source for notes:
http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=24

[steve-b]

it is an interesting approach to claim Darwinism refutes leftism

The coterie of court philosophers responsible for propping up Soviet ideology understood this perfectly. That's why the Stalin regime sent people to Siberia for the crime of believing the evidence for Darwin rather than the Party's preference for Lamarck.

[Restorer]

Some quotes from Darwin that the Nazis would certainly have agreed with:

"A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection."

He was apparently not opposed to the idea that natural selection also applied to human groups.

"Many races, some of which differ so much from each other, that they have often been ranked by naturalists as distinct species."

"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world... The break between men and his nearest allies will then be wider."

The Nazi program in a nutshell, presented by Darwin as inevitable. He also pretty clearly viewed the "inferior races" as closer to the apes than us superior beings.

[labette]

I propose a simple test we can make.
Keep a notepad with you while driving.Whenever you see this on the back of a car:

Check the bumper for stickers indicating political affiliation.Be sure to keep an honest score now!

[steve-b]

they have fluctuated between Darwinian and Lamarckian biology

The latter being "Intelligent Design", of course.

[Restorer]

FYI, the author of this article is by no means a leftist.

[PatrickHenry]

"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world... The break between men and his nearest allies will then be wider."

That's a classic out-of-context quote, often used by creationist websites. Darwin was discussing gaps in the fossil record, and he used as an example how some varieties go extinct, leaving an inevitable "gap" in the record. He never advocated genocide -- although loads of creationist websites attempt to give that impression.

[tallhappy]

Nothing like people trying to waste as much time on the aughts equivalent of navel gazing.

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

[ClaireSolt]

I am generally opposed to most -isms and -ists. I find the work of Howard Bloom very interesting. He calls himself an evolutionist. Behe, on the other hand is a biochemist, I believe. Darwinism is too limiting.

[tallhappy]

Check the bumper for stickers indicating political affiliation.Be sure to keep an honest score now!

Hey man "Darwinists" do not want rationality or actual inquiry any more than any kneejerk fundamentalist.