Unfittest

Andrew Marr did at least point out, as the general viewer might not have known, that the phrase “the survival of the fittest” was not coined by Darwin (although he did eventually adopt it, though not until 1869), but by a third-rate philosopher called Herbert Spencer.

Every philosopher of science since, including the most ferociously atheistic, has had to explain that it was tautologous: the only way to tell the fittest is that they are the ones that survive. Marr did not bother to mention this, and probably does not know it.

Darwin’s eventual succumbing to this very poor philosophy is not surprising, since he himself was a failed medical student whose only academic qualification, to his dying day, was a pass degree in Theology. Marr did not mention that, either.

Nor did he mention that even a pass degree in Theology from Cambridge in those days would have entailed enough Bible-reading to be aware that the whole human race is of “one blood”, the obvious source of Darwin’s very strong view to that effect.

Still, it was good to see the eugenicism of Winston Churchill (a relative of Spencer’s, perchance?) laid bare. Those of us who grew up in the old mining areas have always been somewhat immune to the strange cult of this man, as was the national electorate even while the War was still going on.

Andrew Marr could very usefully do a three-part series on Churchill: his admiration for Hitler, not omitted from his Great Contemporaries even when it was reissued in 1941; his willingness to give Mussolini Gibraltar, Malta, Suez, Somaliland, Kenya and Uganda; his carve-up of Europe with Stalin; and so on. Just so long as Marr did a bit more research than he has done in this case. Or was a bit more balanced. Or both.

And the above omissions were as nothing compared to the later assertion that the discovery of DNA proved that “all life is linked by common descents, including humans”, so that DNA “provided the missing link”. Of course, it provided, and provides, no such thing, although, by proving that human beings are a single species, it did confirm the teaching of both Testaments.

Until such time as the other particular species from we are descended is identified, there is certainly no reason to assume that any such descent took place, and at least arguably every reason to assume that it did not.

All other species may indeed be “linked by common descents”. Fascinating and enchanting those links may be. But we exist in an entirely different moral category, the first man having been created directly from inanimate matter, the first woman having been created out the first man, and the whole human race being descended from that original pair.

Who can prove any alternative hypothesis?