D
Darwinism Narrowly construed, Darwinism
refers to the theory of evolution developed by
Charles Darwin (1809–82) and initially pub-
lished inThe origin of species(1859). The term
itself was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in
his 1860 review ofThe originto identify the
central component of the theory; namely, the
mechanism of natural selection, according to
which organisms born with any advantageous
feature have selective advantage over rivals
in the struggle for life. Yet Darwinism, more
broadly understood, conveys numerous asso-
ciated ideas including common organic des-
cent, gradualism and the multiplication of
species, and such additional mechanisms
of evolutionary transformation as sexual selec-
tion, group selection and correlative variation
(Bowler, 1989).
At the same time, Darwinism is also associ-
ated with at least two further suites of ideas –
social Darwinism and neo-Darwinism.Social
Darwinismis usually taken to refer to the appli-
cation of Darwinian principles and mechan-
isms to humansociety, and often is thought
to have justified anti-interventionist,laissez-
faireeconomic policies on the basis of a survi-
val of the fittestideology. Trading on organic
analogies, the idea is that human societies and
institutions are subject to the laws of evolution
by selection and struggle, and that human
intrusion constitutes unwarranted interference
in the processes of natural development. Such
perceptions need modifying in at least two
respects. First, there are good grounds for
supposing that social thinking, notably in the
form of Malthusian demography (seemalthu-
sian model), was integral to Darwin’s theory
from the beginning and it is thus not simply
a case of extending its applicationfromthe
naturaltothe social world (Young, 1969).
Darwinism, in this reading, always was social
(Greene, 1977). Second, revisionist social
evolutionists could equally mobilize the the-
ory, sometimes drawing on its Lamarckian
counterpart, to justify interventionism and
political reform (Jones, 1980).Neo-Darwinism
(or the neo-Darwinian synthesis as it is usually
known), refers to the classical theory of evolu-
tion that emerged during the 1930s when R.A.
Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane and Sewall Wright –
building on T.H. Morgan’s earlier chromosomal
theory of inheritance – combined Darwinian
natural selection with a quantitative approach
to population genetics that served to show the
compatibility between Mendelian genetics and
Darwin’s mechanism (Smocovitis, 1996).
This synthesis rescued Darwinism from the
attacks to which it had been subject in the
decades around 1900 from figures such as
William Bateson and Hugo DeVries, who had
argued that evolution took place by saltation;
that is, by discontinuous variation (Bowler,
1983).
Withingeography, Darwinian thinking in
its various guises – sometimes in association
withlamarck(ian)ism–has exerted consider-
able influence. Stoddart (1966) identified ideas
of change through time, organization and
ecology, selection and struggle, randomness
and chance, as key Darwinian influences on
geography, though some of these were already
established in the tradition prior to Darwin’s
intervention and were, in any case, compatible
with Lamarckism. Whatever the precise
genealogy, evolutionary thinking in one form
or another found expression in almost every
sub-disciplinary specialism of geography.
W.M. Davis’ cycle of erosion gave an evolu-
tionary reading oflandscapedevelopment –
though hardly in any specifically Darwinian
sense, given the absence of sexual reproduction
and inheritance as the drivers of change, as
Darwin envisaged it (see alsophysical geog-
raphy). Frederick Clements’ plant geography
displayed his fascination with organic modes of
thought, and the Russian geographer and ich-
thyologist Lev Semyonovich Berg developed a
Darwinian theory of ‘nomogenesis’ that, by
emphasizing mutations, allowed for evolution-
ary ‘jumps’ (see alsobiogeography). Friedrich
Ratzel’s anthropogeography disclosed an
organismic conception of thestateand trans-
lated intohumangeographyMoritzWagner’s
Lamarckian-inspired migration theory.
Derwent Whittlesey’s scheme of sequent
occupance and H.J. Fleure’s geographical
anthropology and anthropometric cartog-
raphywere also evidently imbued with evolu-
tionary thinking. In the latter case, the interplay
of racial type, evolutionary mechanisms,
anthropometric localization and psycho-social
factors were of central importance.Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_D Final Proof page 142 1.4.2009 3:15pm