---
title: "Social effects of evolutionary theory"
chunk: 1/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_effects_of_evolutionary_theory"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:26:22.590814+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The social effects of evolutionary thought have been considerable. As the scientific explanation of life's diversity has developed, it has often displaced alternative, sometimes very widely held, explanations. Because the theory of evolution includes an explanation of humanity's origins, it has had a profound impact on human societies. Some have vigorously denied acceptance of the scientific explanation due to its perceived religious implications (e.g. its implied rejection of the special creation of humans presumably described in the Bible). This has led to a vigorous conflict between creation and evolution in public education, primarily in the United States.

== Evolution and ethics ==
The theory of evolution by natural selection has also been adopted as a foundation for various ethical and social systems, such as social Darwinism, an idea that preceded the publication of The Origin of Species, popular in the 19th century, which holds that "the survival of the fittest" (a phrase coined in 1851 by Herbert Spencer, 8 years before Darwin published his theory of evolution) explains and justifies differences in wealth and success among societies and people. A similar interpretation was one created by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, known as eugenics, which claimed that human civilization was subverting natural selection by allowing the less bright and less healthy to survive and out-breed the smarter and more healthy.
Later advocates of this theory suggested radical and often coercive social measures in an attempt to "correct" this imbalance. Thomas Huxley spent much time demonstrating through a series of thought experiments that it would not only be immoral, but impossible. Stephen Jay Gould and others have argued that social Darwinism is based on misconceptions of evolutionary theory, and many ethicists regard it as a case of the is-ought problem. After the atrocities of the Holocaust became linked with eugenics, it greatly fell out of favor with public and scientific opinion, though it was never universally accepted by either, and at no point in Nazi literature is Charles Darwin or the scientific theory of evolution mentioned.
In his book The End of Faith, Sam Harris argues that Nazism was largely a continuation of Christian anti-Semitism. Jim Walker compiled a list of 129 quotes from Mein Kampf in which Hitler described himself as a Christian, or mentioned God, Jesus or a biblical passage. Some argue that six million of the people killed during the Holocaust were killed because of their religion (Judaism) not their race, "strength," or any reason with an obvious link to the mechanism of Darwinian evolution. Hitler often used Christian beliefs like, "Jews killed Jesus," to justify his anti-Semitism.
The notion that humans share ancestors with other animals has also affected how some people view the relationship between humans and other species. Many proponents of animal rights hold that if animals and humans are of the same nature, then rights cannot be distinct to humans.
Charles Darwin, in fact,  considered "sympathy" to be one of the most important moral virtues — and that it was, indeed, a product of natural selection and a trait beneficial to social animals (including humans). Darwin further argued that the most "sympathetic" societies would consequently be the most "successful." He also stated that our sympathy should be extended to "all sentient beings":

As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shows us how long it is, before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. ... This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honored and practiced by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually becomes incorporated in public opinion.

== Evolution and religion ==

Before Darwin's argument and presentation of the evidence for evolution, Western religions generally discounted or condemned any claims that diversity of life is the result of an evolutionary process, as did most scientists in the English scientific establishment. However, evolution was accepted by some religious groups such as the Unitarian church and the liberal Anglican theologians who went on to publish Essays and Reviews, as well as by many scientists in France and Scotland and some in England, notably Robert Edmund Grant. Literal or authoritative interpretations of Scripture hold that a supreme being directly created humans and other animals as separate Created kinds, which to some means species. This view is commonly referred to as creationism. From the 1920s to the present in the US, there has been a strong religious backlash to the teaching of evolution theory, particularly by conservative evangelicals. They have expressed concerns about the effects of the teaching of evolution on society and their faith (see Creation–evolution controversy).
In response to the wide scientific acceptance of the theory of evolution, many religions have formally or informally synthesized the scientific and religious viewpoints. Several important 20th century scientists (Fisher, Dobzhansky) whose work confirmed Darwin's theory, were also Christians who saw no incompatibility between their experimental and theoretical confirmations of evolution and their faith. Some religions have adopted a theistic evolution viewpoint, where God provides a divine spark that ignited the process of evolution and (or) where God has guided evolution in one way or another.

=== Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church ===