social darwinism is a modern name given to various theories of society that emerged in the united kingdom, the united states,http://autocww.colorado.edu/~flc/e64contentfiles/sociologyandreform/socialdarwinism.html and western europe in the 1870s, and which sought to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics.williams, raymond. 2000. social darwinism. in herbert spencer's critical assessment. john offer. (ed). pp. 186â199 social darwinists generally argue that the strong should see their wealth and power increase while the weak should see their wealth and power decrease. different social darwinists have different views about which groups of people are the strong and the weak, and they also hold different opinions about the precise mechanism that should be used to promote strength and punish weakness. many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism, while others motivated ideas of eugenics, racism, imperialism,leonard, thomas c. (2009) origins of the myth of social darwinism: the ambiguous legacy of richard hofstadterâs social darwinism in american thought journal of economic behavior & organization 71, p.37â51 and struggle between national or racial groups.gregory claeys (2000). the "survival of the fittest" and the origins of social darwinism. journal of the history of ideas 61 (2):223-240. the term social darwinism gained widespread currency when used after 1944 by opponents of these earlier concepts. today, because of the negative connotations of the theory of social darwinism, especially after the atrocities of the second world war, few people would describe themselves as social darwinists and the term is generally seen as pejorative. creationists have often maintained that social darwinismâleading to policies designed to make the weak perishâis a logical consequence of "darwinism" (the theory of natural selection in biology). biologists and historians have stated that this is a naturalistic fallacy, since the theory of natural selection is merely intended as a description of a biological phenomenon and should not be taken to imply that this phenomenon is good or that it ought to be used as a moral guide in human society. social darwinism owed more to herbert spencer's ideas, together with genetics and a protestant nonconformist tradition with roots in hobbes and malthus, than to charles darwin's research.{{cite web | last = | first = | title = ca002.1: social darwinism. | url = http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/ca/ca002_1.html | publisher = talkorigins archive | date = 2003-09-26 | accessdate = 25 april 2
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