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Social Darwinism ultimately came to an end because it was unsupported by science. At the same time, ideas about cultural evolution fell out of fashion, as did ideas about allegedly “primitive” societies. These days, cultures of the past and present are no longer set against each other but appreciated in their own right, without seeking to establish a hierarchy between them.
Another difficulty, related to the first one, is the absence or rarity of transitional varieties in time. Darwin commented that by the theory of natural selection "innumerable transitional forms must have existed," and wondered "why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" [144] (For further discussion of these difficulties, see Speciation#Darwin's dilemma: Why do species exist? and Bernstein et al. [145] and Michod. [146]) When Darwin published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex twelve years later, he said that he had not gone into detail on human evolution in the Origin as he thought that would "only add to the prejudices against my views". He had not completely avoided the topic: [201] Historians have remarked that here Darwin anticipated the modern concept of an ecological niche. [128] He did not suggest that every favourable variation must be selected, nor that the favoured animals were better or higher, but merely more adapted to their surroundings.
When the views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly forsee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history.' Darwin himself was not against the idea of a divine creator. Rather, he sought to situate the scientific reading of the world within a religious worldview. In the book’s conclusion he states: “I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the Creator.” Chapter XIII starts by observing that classification depends on species being grouped together in a Taxonomy, a multilevel system of groups and sub-groups based on varying degrees of resemblance. After discussing classification issues, Darwin concludes: The book produced a wide range of religious responses at a time of changing ideas and increasing secularisation. The issues raised were complex and there was a large middle ground. Developments in geology meant that there was little opposition based on a literal reading of Genesis, [240] but defence of the argument from design and natural theology was central to debates over the book in the English-speaking world. [241] [242] The liberal theologian Baden Powell defended evolutionary ideas by arguing that the introduction of new species should be considered a natural rather than a miraculous process. [243] such species were only what “naturalists having sound judgment and wide experience” defined them to
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in 1871; his second major book on evolutionary theory. In the fourth chapter of the Origin, the intelligent, compassionate being that Darwin had described in his earlier essays reappears. It reassuringly manifests the wisdom and moral concern that Darwin had originally supposed. In this respect, its behavior is far superior to that of the human breeder. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely the production of the higher animals directly follows. The struggle for existence, for example, becomes tangible in several seedlings of the mistletoe competing for resources on the same branch of a tree; variation and natural selection has resulted in insects with the astonishing ability to mimic features in their natural environment such as leaves or branches. Correlations between physical characteristics of animals emerge in a whole plethora of minute observations such as these: Discussing this in January 1860, Darwin assured Lyell that "by the sentence [Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history] I show that I believe man is in same predicament with other animals. [192] Many modern writers have seen this sentence as Darwin’s only reference to humans in the book; [187] Janet Browne describes it as his only discussion there of human origins, while noting that the book makes other references to humanity. [193]Chapter IV details natural selection under the "infinitely complex and close-fitting... mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life". [126] Darwin takes as an example a country where a change in conditions led to extinction of some species, immigration of others and, where suitable variations occurred, descendants of some species became adapted to new conditions. He remarks that the artificial selection practised by animal breeders frequently produced sharp divergence in character between breeds, and suggests that natural selection might do the same, saying:
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