Of mice and men: evolution and the socialist utopia. William Morris, H.G. Wells, and George Bernard Shaw.
During the British socialist revival of the 1880s competing theories of evolution were central to disagreements about strategy for social change. In News from Nowhere (1891), William Morris had portrayed socialism as the result of Lamarckian processes, and imagined a non-Malthusian future. H.G. Wells, an enthusiastic admirer of Morris in the early days of the movement, became disillusioned as a result of the Malthusianism he learnt from Huxley and his subsequent rejection of Lamarckism in light of Weismann's experiments on mice. This brought him into conflict with his fellow Fabian, George Bernard Shaw, who rejected neo-Darwinism in favour of a Lamarckian conception of change he called "creative evolution."
Hale
Piers J
PJ
Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, 601 Elm Avenue, PHSC, Rm. 610 Norman, OK 73019-3106, USA. phale@ou.edu
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005197:Famous Persons; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012950:Socialism / Q000266:history*; D012961:Sociology / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom; D014601:Utopias