Darwin/Wallace

The West has been distorted by nonscientific application of scientific thinking. The Progressive movement in the early 1900s is a classic study of vague minds thinking specifically and badly.

The Eugenics movement for example. Darwin's theory of natural selection profoundly influenced early Eugenicists. But there was a key difference between Darwinism and the "theory" put forward by early Eugenicists. Darwinism, applied to humans, predicted the fit would survive, without intervention, naturally. But there was a counter-argument. The British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist A. R. Wallace made the case early on that the doctrine of natural selection did not apply to humans. Recognizing that humans could not count on such a tendency, Eugenicists recommended that human (State) action should used to obtain it.
 

Wallace was no lightweight. He developed his thesis working in the Dutch East Indies at the same approximate time Darwin was coming to his conclusions and actually sent Darwin a letter on his ideas. The two men published a joint paper in 1858, arguing the theory of evolution and natural selection.    

The following year, Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species.
 

But Wallace had a different slant. In 1864, Wallace argued that the doctrine of natural selection did not apply to humans because of ethical concerns generated by human sympathy. Our morals do not allow us to let the infirm perish. This approach, whimsical and improvable, was picked up by the Progressives who used it to advance the notion that governmental intervention was necessary to set history right.