Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who grew up in England, is sometimes called the second founder of sociology. Spencer disagreed sharply with Comte. He said that sociologists should not guide social reform. If they did, he said, it would interfere with a natural process that improves societies. Societies are evolving from a lower form ("barbarian") to higher ("civilized") forms. As generations pass, a society's most capable and intelligent members ("the fittest") survive, while the less capable die out. These fittest members produce a more advanced society-unless misguided do-gooders get in the way and help the less fit (the lower classes) survive. Spencer called this principle the survival of the fittest. Although Spencer coined this phrase, it usually is credited to his contemporary, Charles Darwin. Where Spencer proposed that societies evolve over time as the fittest people adapt to their environment, Darwin applied this idea to organisms. Because Darwin is better known, Spencer's idea is called social Darwinism. History is fickle, and if fame had gone the other way, we might be speaking of "biological Spencerism." Like Comte, Spencer did armchair philosophy instead of conducting scientific research.