Darwin's theory was not empirical in nature, because the evidence he presents is not the kind that is easily reproduced in a lab setting. Even his "bulldog" had misgivings about it because of this. What gave his theory celebrity was its explanatory power which his supporters quickly applied not onlto to natural history but to every aspect of human life. So we quickly get "social darwinism" and eugenics, because each serves the purposes of those who rule society. Just as Christianity was used to keep the weak "in their place",now science was used. This fact is what made William Jennings Bryan an implacable enemy of evolution. Conventional wisdom to this very day makes Bryan out to be a fool, because he resisted the claims of the powerful to a natural superiority.
A lab setting is only one way to collect empirical evidence. If the inside of a lab was the only way to gather empirical data, there would be no archeology, paleontology, astronomy, geophysics, oceanography, etc. Empirical evidence can also be collected and observed in nature, and commonly is.
So we quickly get "social darwinism" and eugenics, because each serves the purposes of those who rule society.
Both social darwinism and eugenics are discredited principles based on faulty pseudoscientific applications of evolutionary biology. The emergence of these dangerous ideas only emphasizes the point that evolution needs be learned and understood properly; poor education about the principles of evolution only makes its misapplication more likely.
Conventional wisdom to this very day makes Bryan out to be a fool, because he resisted the claims of the powerful to a natural superiority.
I don't believe Bryan was a fool; but he definitely went down the wrong route with the Scopes trial. Keep in mind that even William Jennings Bryan conceded that not everything in the Bible was meant literally; he did not believe in a literal six-day Creation within the last few thousand years, for example.
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