[newheart]

Personally I would place Origin of the Species at number 1. Certainly neither Marx, nor Hitler's books would have had the philosophical underpinnings they did except for Darwin's efforts.

Although the story has not been proved to be true, I have even heard something to the effect that Marx wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin but Darwin declined. Even if apocryphal, it would fit. We do know that Marx greatly admired Darwin and without question the notion of dialectical materialism could only arise in a milieu which readily accepted the logical consequences of Darwinian naturalism.

And by the way, lest we forget, the full title is: "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."

[Right Wing Professor]

Personally I would place Origin of the Species at number 1

All this hatred for a biological theory.

[RKV]

My perception is that while Darwin's theories have their problems, there is at least some truth to the idea of natural selection. Otherwise every animal breeder in history was a whack job. As to a literal interpretation of Genesis - well, it doesn't look to me like God created the earth in 7 24-hour days.

[Aquinasfan]

Certainly neither Marx, nor Hitler's books would have had the philosophical underpinnings they did except for Darwin's efforts.

And Neitzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil."

[WOSG]

"Personally I would place Origin of the Species at number 1. Certainly neither Marx, nor Hitler's books would have had the philosophical underpinnings they did except for Darwin's efforts."

I completely disagree.

In Marx's case, there is no connection and moreover, his work (Communist manisfesto) was published *before* Darwin, and rested on completely different foundations (errors about labor theory of value, German Hegelian philosophy and a very *unDarwinian* theory of history and economics).

I personally think Freud's work should have been on the list and Darwin's work off it.

If you want to see Darwin's real influence on economics, look at "Bio-nomics", a very good book that explains economic behavior and change in organic ways and which 'rescues' classical economics from the errors of 'equilibrium' economics.

Darwin has been influential and controversial, but not negative. Accusing Darwin of something bad because of the work of others is like saying Einstein's 'relativity' is some how responsible for moral relativism (they have nothing to do with eachother).

Marx and Freud otoh have been *proven wrong* and yet their work has influenced leftist scholars even up to today. Freud in particular, attacked traditional morality by positing dangers in the interactions with children by parents, assuming there is some 'repressed' urges, and wrongly concocting meanings in dreams. Wrong. Schizophrenia, we now know is brain chemical imbalances, not due to how you were potty-trained, etc. Freudian analysis was a fraud, helped only by the fact that every mentally imbalance person is helped by at least being aware of their emotions and impulses, but harmed by the phony Freudian assumptions built on how to change behavior. But what has made Freud harmful really is not how he retarded/distorted brain science, but how leftwing philosophers have used his ideas to apply it to societies, and assume that (a) ancient ills have effects today, and (b) people repress true immoral desires and 'repressing' such impulses is unhealthy.

In other words, phony science in the service of deconstructing morality.

... that is a constant theme of these 'bad books', they challenged the orthodoxy with a 'bright idea' that turned out later to be a hoax: Kinsey, Margaret Mead, Freud, etc. Same story different topic. Those hoexes in turn was used to get moraliy undermined.

[js1138]

Certainly neither Marx, nor Hitler's books would have had the philosophical underpinnings they did except for Darwin's efforts.

This will surprise leftists that blame capitalism on Darwin. Darwin himself got natural selection from Adam Smith via various Scottish economists.