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北京大学科学史与科学哲学论坛第99讲


时间：2014年9月26日 下午3点—5点

地点：北京大学承泽园西所科社中心一楼学术报告厅

报告人：Dr. Piers J. Hale, University of Oklahoma, Department of the History of Science

题目：Malthus or mutualism? Charles Darwin and the politics of evolution
                                                                                    

讲座提要：

Western historians who study Charles Darwin and the development of his theory of evolution by natural selection are familiar with the work of Thomas Robert Malthus.

Darwin acknowledged the influence that Malthus’s Essay on the Principles of Population had had upon his thinking about the origin of new species. Malthus’ argument that population would always outstrip the available resources was the crux that led Darwin to natural selection. Scarcity would lead to a competition in which the fittest would survive.

Darwin’s contemporaries noted the connection between his theory of natural history and the prevailing political economy of the day. Thomas Huxley, who was to become famous as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, and later recognised as one of the most significant men of science of the nineteenth century was not alone in embracing Origin of Species as advancing liberal political and economic ideas. Others acknowledged the connection, but with less enthusiasm. Karl Marx was but one of many in the British socialist tradition who did so. However, rather than reject evolutionary ideas, the majority of British socialists advanced a non-Malthusian version of it. They still called it ‘Darwinism’, but, rejecting the individualism and competition of Malthus, they emphasized cooperation and mutual aid as fundamental to the evolutionary process. They were influenced in this by the Russian naturalist Peter Kropotkin, whose essays on the mutual aid were widely circulated, but also by an earlier generation of radical thinkers. Selection favoured those that cooperated, and adaptation was more significant than competition.

Evolution was taken to have a lot to say about the kind of creatures humans are, and thus about what kind of politics are appropriate for us. The anti-Malthusian tradition in evolutionary politics not only pre-dated Darwin, but persisted long after the publication of Origin. Acknowledgment of the persistence of this tradition will help us more fully appreciate the ways in which Darwin was read, and will highlight the moral and political debate about the meaning of evolution from the nineteenth century to today.

Further, looking at this debate also leads us to recognize that Darwin was deeply concerned about the political implications that others were taking his theory to have. Despite the emphasis upon individualism and competition that were central to Origin, when it came to Descent of Man, the book in which he explicitly tackled human evolution, it is clear that he was determined to show that human moral sentiments were not based solely upon self-interest, as many of his contemporaries suggested. Darwin described at length now natural and sexual selection had worked to favour those who were willing to risk their own lives for their fellows, and the development of ‘other-regarding’ altruistic sentiments. He looked forward to a day when human sympathies would be extended across all peoples of all nations, and even to sentient non-human animals.



Piers Hale介绍：

Dr. Hale is Associate Professor in the History of Modern Science at the University of Oklahoma in the United States. He researches the development and reception of evolutionary ideas in Britain, and the connections between science and society.

His first book Political Descent. Malthus, Mutualism and the Politics of Evolution in Victorian England has just been published by Chicago University Press, in which he argues for a reappraisal of the history of the politics of evolution that western historians have told as a part of the story of the ‘Darwinian Revolution’.