Did Karl Marx and or Frederick Engels or Vladimir Lenin ever talk about Evolution/Dar [Archive]

Dave B

13th September 2011, 18:41

There is quite a bit scattered around, examples of some of it is as below,

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch05.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch10.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch02.htm

And;

Darwin, by the way, whom I'm reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done. Never before has so grandiose an attempt been made to demonstrate historical evolution in Nature, and certainly never to such good effect.

One does, of course, have to put up with the crude English method.(Fuck off)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/letters/59_12_11.htm

Apparently there is no direct evidence that they had read the second book but thinking that they hadn’t would be like believing bears don’t shit in the woods.

Anyway Engels appeared to be at least familiar with a central idea that was 'unique' to it.

(6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the war of every man against every man was the first phase of human development. In my opinion the social instinct was one of the most essential levers in the development of man from the ape. The first men must have lived gregariously and so far back as we can see we find that this was the case.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_11_12.htm

That was interesting because the Feuerbach came up with a materialist social instinct idea that Karl and Fred had also adopted pre 1845, before abandoning it for lack of a materialist explanation/ theory, that Darwin was later to provide.

Fred has been ridiculed for having believed in Lamarkism, although he may end up having the last laugh.

There is some evidence for genes being switched on or off before being passed on and being selected for or against in the generation of the gamete (is it), or in other words the egg or sperm.

According to environmental pressures etc.

Eg, I think the proportion of offspring that are male or female in some animals can depend on the age of the males when they mate with females etc.

The Darwinian theory was in fact an old one and was put forward in the eleventh century by a ‘Muslim’ from Basra (Iraq) in a book called ‘On Animals’ or something like that.

Lenin was an idiot.