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Some thoughts on this topic, and on the "problematic" affinity of Marxian and Darwinian thought on certain questions, from Loren Eisley [sic] (at the time of this writing, chairman, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania):

I can't tell if you mean "at the time of your writing" or "at the time of Eiseley's writing," but in any event, Loren Eiseley died in 1977. The article you very selectively edit was published by him in 1959. It can be found in its entirety at positiveatheism.org, and it is titled "An Evolutionist Looks At Modern Man."

Eiseley made no reference to Marx or communism in this rather poetic piece, and how you perceive it to be a commentary "on the 'problematic' affinity of Marxian and Darwinian thought" is perfectly mysterious. Must be the result of some supernatural ability I don't posses.

atlaw, you and js1138 and many others here go bananas when it is suggested that there is a good deal of convergence between Darwin’s theory -- at least as it is popularly imagined today and Marxism – a/k/a “social Darwinism.”

If correcting your misrepresentations constitutes "going bananas," I plead guilty.

As for your new contention that it is Darwin's theory "as it is popularly imagined today" that converges with Marxism (nice double twisting backflip there, by the way), it is the creationist imagination that has concocted this supposed convergence, just as it is the creationist imagination that concocted a convergence between Darwin and ruthless laissez-faire capitalism. Any non-sequitur will do, I suppose.

Also, to the extent that humans can transform their environment, they transcend the environmental context that controls Darwinian evolution theory. In a certain way, there is a resemblance here to Lamarck’s theory of heritable acquired traits – taken to the cosmic level. The acquisition of a radically changed environment is actually “inherited by” our descendants.

Cosmic Lamarckism. Interesting (although a little odd, since it certainly seems from your comments that you would want to avoid at all costs the discredited science that actually enchanted Marx and Engles).

I didn't coin the term "social Darwinism," and frankly don't know who did. I am not so much denigrating Darwin's theory (other than to say that I think it is incomplete, as noted and for the reasons given in my post). My problem is with its appropriation by people who seek to use it to justify sociocultural transformation. I strongly doubt that Darwin had any interest in doing that. But it is clear to me that some of his modern adherents do. When a respected biologist like Richard Dawkins claims that Darwin's theory has enabled him to become "an intellectually fulfilled atheist," and uses it as a club to attack the traditions, symbols, and institutions of Western culture -- and above all to claim that people who believe in God are morons -- I am not amused.

One thing I noted about Eiseley's article, which was published in the book I cited in 1960, is how much anthropology has changed over the past forty-something years. At that time, one could still speak (poetically as you put it) about the spiritual dimension of man. Today, most of the promoters of Darwin's theory say that spirit is a total fiction. And people who not only believe in spirit, but have had experiences of it, are "Dims," while atheists are "Brights."

This to me is Marx redux: This is akin to dividing the social world of men into the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Marx had an irritating habit of not permitting his "system" to be questioned at all. And the sense I get from some folks around here is that they also refuse to admit any questions at all WRT Darwin's theory: You either accept the doctrine whole cloth, or you are an "enemy." I think this is blatently an anti-scientific attitude. Science is supposed to be about following the evidence wherever it leads, not about censoring points of view that question an existing theory.

Eiseley does not have to cite Marx chapter and verse for me to see how Marx's ideas correspond in so may ways with the "pop" version of evolution theory that is so evident today.

I have a bias: I believe that truth is indivisible. At some ultimate level, the reports we get from science and philosophy are complementary, finally reconciled in universal truth. Both knowledge disciplines are needed, but they need to be distinct. When a scientist is smuggling philosophy in through the back door -- which happens all the time -- this is illegitimate. For instance, materialism is a philosophical doctrine, as such a presupposition. Science itself has not yet gotten to the bottom of matter yet, and it has been observed that the ultimate entity in nature is not the material particle, but the universal field with which it is associated. Darwin's theory, moreoever, implies an ontology, a theory of being. But the theory does not reach to man himself in his radical differentiation from the rest of nature: It has no theory of man. Methodological naturalism -- and its strong form, metaphysical naturalism -- are effectively schools of philosophy when you boil it all down.

I see the pronouncements of the Dawkins and Lewontins etc., etc., of this world as an attempt at social renovation quite along Marxian lines. They wish to obliterate Western culture and eradicate historical memory. Yet as Eiseley says, "in a society without deep historical memory, the future ceases to exist and the present becomes a meaningless cacophany."

But Darwin's theory itself -- which is essentially an historical account -- would be spared from this historical leveling....

If you don't like the way I "cut" Eiseley's article -- which was fairly lengthy -- then I invite you to cut it your way and post your result here. Then we can discuss that. "Equal time"....