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Darwin the Man of His Times

33 points by mrcgnc

by xg15

1 subcomments

> All of this reeks of the entrenched (pre-) Victorian British worldview, where it is natural and appropriate for the "more civilized" to look down on the "savages" of "lower order", as if a moral ladder like that were as clear as daylight.
For a long time that literally was the dominant philosophy in the west: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being

by dissent

0 subcomment

> I cringed while reading his many comparisons between people of different regions, as if they were species of finches
Only because we know better now. It must have seemed self evident at the time and we can forgive Darwin for making that mistake. He was a scientist and I'm sure he'd have accepted the evidence that all the so-called races are embarrassingly alike.
Not a fan of these retrospective moralistic takes.

by like_any_other

1 subcomments

> I cringed while reading his many comparisons between people of different regions, as if they were species of finches
Wasn't exactly that one of the most revolutionary insights of his theory? That humans evolved and are governed by the same forces of natural selection as other animals? It is amusing that, 166 years after On the Origin of Species, that part is still controversial.