One of the most ambiguous legacies of the rise of 'Newtonian' science has been the status of social theories in relation to the successes of theoretical physics. In fact, the issue is arguably present already in the question of biological science, but has shown itself to be especially acute on the issue of cultural evolution, or history.  Is there a science of history? This question has assumed a number of forms, with a number ideological overtones, the most famous being the historical inevitability argument tabled by Isaiah Berlin with respect to 'marxist' theories. Associated with this is another such cousin argument, that of Karl Popper, in his Poverty Of Historicism, where his critique of so-called 'historicism' addresses just this paradox of freedom and causality in the claims of science in leftist 'prophecies' taken as scientific predictions of revolution. It should be noted at once that the origin of 'marxist' social theory began precisely with the issues of social theories, economic ones in particular, and that it was the first to lay the charge of ideology against the claims of science in the exhibit of social theories. Thus a nearly rabid attempt on each side arises to charge the other with ideology, in the case of 'marxism', the verdict of the 'end of ideology' being its supposed epitaph, in the triumph, it would appear, of the faction of the bourgeoisie in the wake of the calamities of leftist false prophets. Just a warning before we start: the cleverest form of ideology can be the expose of theories as ideology. 

Less noticed in Popper's classic text is the citation of the story of Oedipus whose tragic tale comprised the episodes of his explicit efforts to avoid the future prophesied, this very gesture being the source of his fulfilling that prophecy. This tale is a suitable masthead for the discussion, and is the source of the idea of the 'Oedipus Paradox', the relationship of theories to the theoretical agent's own behavior in relation to those theories. Such an agent has a dilemma: should he be a passive observer of the future events predicted by that theory, or an historical agent fulfilling those same predictions. We can see that the question makes no clear sense, and generates a contradiction, or else an absurdity. Indeed, what is to prevent such a agent, or his antagonist, from 'falsifying' the theory, in an act of spite against false generalizations. Something is awry, it seems, with the idea of 'theory' itself, at least as this overflows the sound generalizations of physics into the social sphere. 

We can review this issue in the light of Darwinian 'theory' and in the process throw some light not only on the question of what constitutes a social theory, but on that 'casualty of theory' called Social Darwinism that arose in the wake of Darwin, its birth being disowned by all parties, with the culprit too often being the frequently martyred scapegoat Herbert Spencer.