8/11/2023 0 Comments Darwin galtonHe found the lectures boring and could not stand watching operations performed without benefits of anesthesia (which had not been invented yet). Academically, matters did not improve much when, at 16 years of age, Darwin entered medical school at the University of Edinburgh. Outside of school, he spent most of his time collecting and classifying plants, shells, and minerals. It was Spencer, however, who featured such thinking and emphasized the belief that societies, like individuals, what approximate Perfection if natural forces were allowed to operate freely.Īfter receiving his Early Education at home, Charles Darwin was eventually sent to school, where he did so poorly that his father predicted that someday he would disgrace himself and his family. As might be expected, social Darwinism was especially appreciated by US industrialist. Indeed, when Spencer visited the United States in 1882, he was treated like a hero. In the United States, Spencer's ideas were taught in most universities, and his books sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Clearly, Spencer's idea were compatible with the US capitalism and individualism. Spencer's application of his notion of the survival of the fittest to society came to be called social Darwinism. That is, evolution has a purpose it is the mechanism by which Perfection is approximated. There was a basic difference between Spencer and Darwin and how they viewed Evolution. The concept of the 'survival of the fittest' (a term Spencer introduced in 1852 that was later adopted by Darwin) applied in either case. When Darwin's work appeared, Spencer merely shifted his emphasis from acquired characteristics to Natural Selection. Those associations that preceding Generations had found to be conducive to survival were passed on to the next Generation that is, there is an inheritance of acquired associations. Spencer claimed that an offspring inherited the cumulative association's its ancestors had learned. The contention that the frequency or probability of some Behavior increases if it is followed by a pleasurable event and decreases if it is followed by a painful event came to be known as the 'Spencer-Bain principle.' The Next Step that Spencer took tied his theory directly to Lamarck's. Spencer's synthesis of the principle of contiguity and evolutionary theory has been called "evolutionary associationism". Spencer placed Bain's observation within the context of evolutionary theory by asserting that a person persist in behaviors that are conducive to survival (those that cause Pleasant feelings) and abstain from those that are not (those that cause painful feelings). To explain the differential existence of various behaviors, Spencer accepted Bain's explanation of voluntary Behavior. Through the process of contiguity, our ideas come to map environmental events. Environmental events that occur either simultaneously or in close succession are recorded in the brain and give rise to ideas of those events. In his explanation of how associations are formed, Spencer relied heavily on the principle of contiguity. Are highly complex nervous system allows us to make an accurate neurophysiological (and thus mental) recording of events in our environment, and this ability is conducive to survival. The fact that we now have complex nervous systems allow us to make a greater number of associations the greater the number of associations and organism can make, the more intelligent it is. Everything, according to Spencer, begins as an undifferentiated hole. In fact, he applied the notion of evolution to everything in the universe. An early follower of Lamarck (and later Darwin), Spencer took the notion of evolution and applied at not only to animals but also to the human mind and human Societies. Spencer's education was also enhanced by small group of intellectuals he befriended. One especially influential book was John Stuart Mill's 'System of Logic'. Spencer's interest in Psychology and in evolutionary theory came entirely from what he read during this time. In 1848 he gained employment in London as a journalist-first as a junior editor of the journal 'The Economist' and then as a freelance writer. At age 17, Spencer went to work for the railroad and for the next 10 years worked at jobs ranging from surveyor to engineer. Herbert Spencer never received a formal education.
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