Empathy and Social Darwinism

By happenstance, I heard the last 45 minutes of the Diane Rehm show today on NPR. There was a professor who discussed empathy in nature. What really piqued my interest was that almost as soon as I started listening, he started discussing Social Darwinism.

You can listen to the program here (Real Audio)

or here. (Windows Media)

Here is a link to the program page.

Professor Frans de Waal starts discussing Social Darwinism at about the 10-minute mark. Diane Rehm asks again about the cognitive dissonance (not her words, but the idea) of those who advocate Social Darwinism often not believing in scientific Darwinism (see my last link) at about the 18-minute mark.

I have mentioned Social Darwinism in several of my posts:

Favoritism for the Wealthy

State of the Union Response

The New Apprentice

Health Care's Moral Argument, Part 1

Professor de Waal has a book entitled The Age of Empathy.

Another reason why I thought of this topic is because Professor de Waal discusses the need for cooperation in human relations, which is a common theme in Thai's comments.