[Dimensio]

But in the case of Darwin, as with Marx, there is a specific logic to their ideas which lends itself to the sort of misuse (if it is misuse...) that later occurred.

In what way can a description of events in biological systems be "misused"?

[r9etb]

In what way can a description of events in biological systems be "misused"?

A softball question, to be sure. I'm rather certain that you raised the applications in your own mind as you posted your question to me.

Eugenics is one such application -- the idea that one can apply the scientific principle of "survival of the fittest" to a "scientific" approach to improving the human animal by selective breeding.

One can also justify racism in its various forms by invoking the ideas.

Huxley's Brave New World suggests one manner in which it might occur; but of course, the Nazis were the ones who really tried it.