From Hitler to UNESCO

Familiar lines of argument were followed in the interwar years and into the second great conflict. There was concern about the eugenical effects of war, with some reassuring, biologically informed thinking by the geneticist J. B. S. Haldane. Julian Huxley was significant in the period, arguing that evolution is indeed a progressive process up to humankind; that biological arms races play a significant role in this process, thus showing that in some sense war has been a good thing; and that now, thanks particularly to technology, we are in a position to move beyond war. Against this we have continued bellicose thinking in Germany, although the extent to which Hitler was influenced by Darwin is often overestimated. Homegrown philosophies were more important. We do see the rise of influential peaceful interpretations of Darwinism, notably by the American Quaker evolutionist, Warder Clyde Allee. He wrote in opposition to Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz who was happy to report on the support his thinking gave to National Socialism. The Inklings, the Christian fantasy writers, especially C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, hated the thinking of Julian Huxley. They knew an alternative religion when they saw one.