Wade Davis Anthropologist Quotes

Evolutionary theory, distilled from the study of bird beaks, beetles, and barnacles, slipped into social theory in a manner that proved useful to the age. It was anthropologist Herbert Spencer who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest.” At a time when the United States was being built by the labour of African slaves, and the British class system was so stratified that children of the wealthy were on average 6 inches taller than those of the poor, a theory that provided a scientific rationale for differences in race and class was a welcome convenience. Evolution