Biology and social thought.

Abstract

Hamilton Cravens. The Triumph of Evolution: American Scientists and the Heredity-Environment Controversy, 1900-1941. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978.351 + xvi pp. Stephen Jay Gould. Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977. 501 + ix pp. Garland E. Allen. Thomas Hunt Morgan: the Man and his Science. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1978. 447 + xvii pp. Here are three books relating to the history of biology, each of which has something to offer students of American culture and social thought. Two of them, however—those by Gould and Allen—have titles that might well discourage the non-specialist who has not been warned of their potential significance. The contributions of all three books are important considering the need for a clearer understanding of the role played in social thought by popularized biological theories. The vague notion of "social Darwinism" promoted by Richard Hofstadter's classic book has been overworked to the extent that it has become an obstacle to clear understanding of the issues involved.1 Herbert Spencer's support for laissez-faire individualism, for instance, may have owed more to his biological Lamarckism than to the Darwinian selection principle. Furthermore, as Cravens' book points out, it is possible to see a far more direct impact by biological theories in the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century—and this was by no means inspired by Darwinism. It was several decades before Mendelian genetics could be combined with the selection mechanism, and in the meantime each could exert its own influence on social thought. One might predict, however, that it will be a fuller recognition of the role played by neo-Lamarckian theories that will generate the more drastic revisions of traditional historical interpretations.