USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Social Darwinists believe in “survival of the fittest”-the idea that certain people become powerful in society because they are innately better. Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century and a half.

Detailed explanation-2: -Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in Western Europe and North America in the 1870s.

Detailed explanation-3: -Social Darwinism was a sociological theory popular in late nineteenth-century Europe and the United States. It merged Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Herbert Spencer’s sociological theories to justify imperialism, racism, and laissez-faire (i.e. conservative) social and economic policies.

Detailed explanation-4: -In this lecture from 1900, British professor of mathematics Karl Pearson justifies European colonization on racial grounds.

Detailed explanation-5: -Social Darwinism is a term scholars use to describe the practice of misapplying the biological evolutionary language of Charles Darwin to politics, the economy, and society. Many Social Darwinists embraced laissez-faire capitalism and racism.