Evolution and Social Darwinism
War and oppression have always been components of human history, however with the advent of Darwin's theory of evolution man had a new justification for his cruelty. Recall that the prime component of Darwin's ideas revolves around the notion that life progresses by natural selection - the survival of the fittest. Couple this with the racist teachings in scientific world and you have the rational to pursue any racially exploitive agenda. "Might makes right", so why not declare yourself the master race and conquer others? After all, we arrived here by time and chance and there is no God goes the thinking. Any problems with taking over a few lower races?
Both sides of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 used Darwinism as a rational. When Cecil Rhodes established the famous Rhodes Scholarships it was for uniting English-speaking peoples for greater racial development. Theodore Roosevelt maintained that a racial war to the finish with the Indians was inevitable and there should be a spread of English-speaking people all over the world [Morris 1989, 68-70].
The idea that some races progressed further than other was rationalized by Ernst Haeckel's "recapitulation theory" or "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" where stages of embryonic development express the evolutionary sequence. Here the activities of children [of advanced races] were equated to the activities of adults of the lower races.
The notions of racial superiority were more pronounced in Europe. Friedrich Nietzsche of the "God is dead" fame adapted Darwin's ideas and promoted a "superman" or "super-race" philosophy. He took the idea of natural selection further, suggesting that warfare, eugenics, and the merciless extinction of inferior races. Nietzsche would later go insane (venereal disease?).
Another German of greater influence was the great evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). Haeckel is known for his "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" (the embryo re-traces evolution) contribution to the field of evolution. This theory is now discredited but still lingers. Incidentally, the illustrations that Haeckel used to illustrate embryonic development were fabricated. Haeckel established the Monist League (Monism is the philosophy that bases all reality on matter alone) and "became one of Germany's major ideologists for racism, nationalism and imperialism" [Morris 1989, 68-70]. One could argue that the ideas of Darwin, Nietzsche and Haeckel were seeds of World War I - British Anglo-Saxonism vs German Teutonism.
References:
[Morris 1989, 68-75]
Photo Credits:
http://www.creationism.org/books/TaylorInMindsMen/TaylorIMMg07.htm
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/images/v18/i2/p34_fakeDogHuman.jpg