Darwin’s Really Dangerous Idea – the Primacy of Variation
Evolution is the scientific study of variation and selection. As such, establishing the Darwinian perspective in the social sciences has been much impeded by political and religious ideologies. The Institute is especially concerned to resist encroachments on scholarship by forces of “political correctness.”
Some of the politically inspired resistance to Darwinism in human affairs comes from evolutionary scientists themselves. By overemphasizing the search for universals, that is, pan-human traits (partly to show people’s commonalities), many evolutionists abandon the very comparative method that created the Darwinian Revolution in the first place.
Ignoring or minimizing the role of heritable variation goes against the two basic postulates of Darwinian theory: (1) that genetic variation exists within species, and (2) that differential reproductive success favors some varieties over others. In both Origin and Descent, Darwin left no doubt about the importance he ascribed to variation. In the Origin (p. 107), he wrote:
Hence I look at individual differences, though of small interest to the systematist, as of high importance for us, as being the first step towards such slight varieties as are barely thought worth recording in works on natural history. And I look at varieties which are in any degree more distinct and permanent, as a step leading to more strongly marked and more permanent varieties; and at these latter, as leading to sub-species, and to species. . . Hence I believe a well marked variety may be justly called an incipient species.