Social Darwinism and psychopathology

Social Darwinism and psychopathology

In recent years, aspects of Darwinism have been widely discussed in psychiatry to explain the origins of mood disorders [1-3]. Authors were particularly focusing on the psychopathology of depression, while other considerations in the field of affective disorders have more broadly included the phenomena of mania [4] and temperament [5]. This paper will review aspects of Darwinism in the psychopa...

Darwinism and social Darwinism.

Racism and Social Darwinism

also there was a tendency to borrow heavily from the evolutionary theories of Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin (‘survival of the fittest’ is a vulgarisation of a more complex theory); especially, they drew on the idea of struggle and survival as the natural mechanisms for maintaining and improving the ‘stock’—i.e., genetic characteristics—of human beings. This was the origins of so-called ‘sc...

Social Darwinism in France

women needed a little, and, more frequently, immigrants needed less than the native-born, while black men and women had a natural immunity to pain. In general, the available surgical records of hospitals in the late nineteenth century show these theoretical ideas reflected in the actual frequency of anaesthesia used for different groups of patients. Pernick's account displays the many arguments...

Social Darwinism Lives! (Should it?)

Sociobiology has made a resurgence in recent years, but has become enmeshed in political controversy. Indeed, much of the work in sociobiology has been used to justify repressive or racist measures. It is argued that the unfortunate alliance of some sociobiologists and politicians is a poor basis for discrediting the field itself; that a science of sociobiology is possible and, if we seek to kn...