Of course, Darwin would have been appalled at such misuse of his ideas. But it is perfectly obvious that Nazism is in many ways a descendant of the Social Darwinism of the later 19th century, in which nations were generally referred to as "races," as in "the expansion of the Anglo-Saxon race."
All Hitler did was add a veneer of (inaccurate) biology to this previously more cultural concept.
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, 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?
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.
They aren't. At least not by science.
The only group (or group of groups) that claim the BB and Abiogenesis as 'Darwinian' are those that have a vested interest in denouncing biological evolution. The origin of the universe has nothing to do with Evolution and until Abiogenesis can show Darwinian mechanisms worked on pre/proto-life we would be jumping the gun to include it in the study of Evolution.
The 'survival of the fittest' description of natural selection was put forward by Herbert Spencer (the philosopher who is credited with Social Darwinism) as a metaphor. It is not used by biologists. The Darwinian version of the metaphor, had Darwin actually coined the phrase would have been 'survival of the reproductively fittest'. In this modified version, the cooperation within a species, even the cooperation between species has just as much an effect (or more) as the struggle between groups. Human cooperation is as much a Darwinian feature as human struggle. In fact our development of morals against Hitlerian style violence is very much Darwinian.
Since several selection pressures are active in any population, singling one out as somehow 'special', especially when it is countered by a second, is at best silly and at worst manipulative and dishonest.
That being said, science, because of the necessity to control as many variables as possible, needs to examine each selection type individually.
There is a big difference between scientifically examining one mechanism at a time and using a single mechanism to justify political action.