“Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker. Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute.”

— Peter Singer

Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 3, From Evolution To Ethics?, p. 61

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Peter Singer 54

Australian philosopher 1946

Neethi Padmanabhan Indian academic

Globalisation Lived Locally: A Labour Geography Perspective on Control, Conflict and Response among Workers in Kerala https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263155852_Globalisation_Lived_Locally_A_Labour_Geography_Perspective_on_Control_Conflict_and_Response_among_Workers_in_Kerala, 2012, at ResearchGate

“One of the factors that caused Spencer's ideas to lose popularity was social Darwinism… Social evolution is different from biological evolution: it's faster, it's Lamarckian, and it makes even heavier use of altruism and cooperation than biological evolution does. None of this was well understood at the time.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995)

“If Engels had not been the constant companion in arms of Marx in the revolutionary struggles of the 19th century, there is no doubt that he would be remembered chiefly as one of the foremost scientist-philosophers of the century. It was an ironical tribute paid to the correctness of his views as to the relations between politics and ideology that he suffered complete neglect from the scientists of the Victorian age. But time now has taken its revenge, and Engels’ contemporary views on 19th century science seem to us now in the 20th far more fresh and filled with understanding than those of the professional philosophers of science of his day, who for the most part are completely forgotten, while the few that linger on, such as Lange and Herbert Spencer, are only quoted as examples of the limitations of their times.”

John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971) British scientist

Bernal (1930s) "Labour Monthly Pamphlets, No. 6" (No date). Online ( here http://www.marxists.org/archive/bernal/works/1930s/engels.htm) on Marxists Internet Archive (2008).

“It has been a long time since philosophers have read men's souls. It is not their task, we are told. Perhaps. But we must not be surprised if they no longer matter much to us.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“A fundamental problem in such studies stems from the long tradition that has regarded artistic productions as social facts.”

Norman K. Denzin (1941) American sociologist

By regarding such productions as social facts the analyst is relieved of the burden of demonstrating what meanings these productions have for the artist and his audience. It is too frequently assumed that such meanings can be identified by a capable analyst, independent of the interpretations brought to such works by the artist or his audiences. In my judgement artist productions must be seen as interactional creations; the meanings of which arise out of the interactions directed to them by the artist and his audience.
[The Sociology of Rock, 1978, Frith, Simon (ed.), ISBN 0094602204]