Evolution is racist!!!!! (Page 14)  Adam Southworth: Hitler needed the support of Christians to gain power. We know how he persecuted Christians once he took power. He and other Nazis despised Christian virtues like mercy and compassion and saw the power of the church as a threat to the state. Nietzsche, who saw Christian virtues as an inversion of noble, pre-Christian values was Hitler's favourite philosopher. I don't think we know whether Hitler read Darwin; but we know that Nazi ideology was directly and indirectly influenced by him. Evolutionary theory was the view of most scientists (not long after the theory was published, despite the paucity of evidence at the time). The culture resounded with echoes of the theory. I just finished a book on Christian Mysticism from the 1920s which talked about the "evolution of the higher mystic type", among other such phrases. You can't read someone like Nietzsche and be unaware of Darwin. It is simply the case that evolutionary theory tells us different groups are adapted to different environments, not humans made in the image of God. Evolutionists like Alfred Russell Wallace believed God imbued mankind with a soul, but this was not a core element of evolution. Darwin and other evolutionists, including Nazi evolutionists like Lorenz and Weinert, thought in terms of natural hierarchy. This seemed to them a natural extension of evolutionary theory. Such concepts as the universal war of nature, the survival of the fittest or "highest races in the struggle for life", hard heredity, and an emphasis on groups before individuals are thoroughly Darwinian. (Edited by Adam Southworth)  MJ59: BiologyHistory Was Hitler a Darwinian? No! No! No! "In addition, the claim that Hitler was influenced by Darwin, either directly or indirectly, can be authoritatively rejected. In one of the only direct references to evolution by Hitler that can be found, he wrote “nothing indicates that development within a species has occurred of a considerable leap of the sort that man would have to have made to transform him from an apelike condition to his present state.” As Richards remarks, “Could any statement [rejecting Darwinism] be more explicit?”" https://thisviewoflife.com/was-hitler-a-darwinian/ zeffur: Extermination of all of the Jews that they could control--case closed! Because you all know Hitler wasn't behind the horrors that his evil followers engaged in... Ole Adolph was just misunderstood, right? Germans were evolution believers without a doubt.. Only liars & other nitwits would pretend otherwise... (Edited by zeffur) MJ59: Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler, one of the world’s most notorious eugenicists, drew inspiration from California’s forced sterilizations of the “feeble-minded” in designing Nazi Germany’s racially based policies. Hitler began reading about eugenics and social Darwinism while he was imprisoned following a failed 1924 coup attempt known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler adopted the social Darwinist take on survival of the fittest. He believed the German master race had grown weak due to the influence of non-Aryans in Germany. To Hitler, survival of the German “Aryan” race depended on its ability to maintain the purity of its gene pool. The Nazis targeted certain groups or races that they considered biologically inferior for extermination. These included Jews, Roma (gypsies), Poles, Soviets, people with disabilities and homosexuals. By the end of World War II, social Darwinist and eugenic theories had fallen out of favor in the United States and much of Europe—partly due to their associations with Nazi programs and propaganda, and because these theories were scientifically unfounded. IE: he made up his own version, not unlike creationists (Edited by MJ59) zeffur: "The Darwinian underpinnings of Nazi racial ideology are patently obvious. Hitler's chapter on "Nation and Race" in Mein Kampfdiscusses the racial struggle for existence in clear Darwinian terms.Richard Weikart, Historian, Cal. State, Stanislaus1" MJ59: An imagined connection between evolutionary theory and the Holocaust relies on the fact that Hitler's conception of national struggle and supremacy was rooted in a type of social Darwinism, an obsolete political theory that holds that the concept of "survival of the fittest" applies to nations, races, or ethnicities. Social Darwinism was derived from a misapplication of scientific thinking, has no real basis in the biological theory of evolution, and was not an idea advanced by Charles Darwin, whom Hitler never mentioned in any of his surviving speeches or writings. Even if Hitler believed that evolutionary theory justified his destructive and oppressive vision, this does not undermine the theory's basis; what people do with an idea has no bearing on the scientific validity of that idea. Using Hitler's supposed belief in evolution as an argument against evolutionary science is an example of the logical fallacy of an argument from adverse consequences, suggesting that we should not accept the theory of evolution because it could lead to the kind of racist views perpetuated by Hitler. It is also an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, implying that because Darwin's theory came into being before Hitler's racism, the former necessarily caused the latter. Even if there were connections between the theory of evolution, social Darwinism and the Holocaust, this does not imply that evolution is a dangerous theory, only that Hitler perverted the theory to justify his beliefs and actions. By way of contrast, Hitler admired Robert Koch, an important figure in the discovery of the germ theory of disease, and Hitler compared his campaigns against the Jews and other "undesirables" to a type of social or national disinfection. But this is completely irrelevant to the universal medical/scientific acceptance of germ theory. Also, the Nazis were concerned about cancer, and believed that most non-"Aryan" people were like cancer. The Nazis preceded the rest of the world in documenting the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer and other environmental causes. However, it seems that there is at least some evidence to suggest that, far from embracing Darwin's work and Social Darwinism, the Nazis had proposed they be banned. The 1935 edition of the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, Die Bücherei, contains a list of books to ban. One of the entries in this edition of Die Bücherei is "Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)". zeffur: "Hitler’s ideas about race and racial struggle derivedfrom the theoriesof Charles Darwin(1809-1882), either directly or through intermediate sources. So, for example, the historian Richard Weikart, in his book From Darwin to Hitler(2004), maintains: “No matter how crooked the road was from Darwin to Hitler, clearly Darwinism and eugenics smoothed the path for Nazi ideology, especially for the Nazi stress on expansion, war, racial struggle, and racial extermination.”2In a subsequent book, Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress(2009),Weikart arguesthat Darwin’s “evolutionary ethics drove him [Hitler] to engage in behavior that the rest of us consider abominable." https://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Was%20Hitler%20a%20Darwinian.pdf Adam Southworth: Common descent is a specific element of evolutionary theory. The fact someone rejects common descent doesn't mean they reject evolution as a whole. In any case, I can quote Hitler too. From a speech he gave in 1937: “When we know today that the evolution of millions of years, compressed into a few decades, repeats itself in every individual, then this [modernist] art, we realize, is not ‘modern.’” From Mein Kampf: "In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female grants the right or opportunity to propagate only to the healthiest. And struggle is always a means for improving a species’ health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of its higher evolution." (Edited by Adam Southworth) MJ59: It is also an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, implying that because Darwin's theory came into being before Hitler's racism, the former necessarily caused the latter. Even if there were connections between the theory of evolution, social Darwinism and the Holocaust, this does not imply that evolution is a dangerous theory, only that Hitler perverted the theory to justify his beliefs and actions. Oh your source: Richard Weikart | Discovery Institute ^^^ BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (Edited by MJ59) Adam Southworth: The survival of the fittest races, a universal battle for life, the elimination of the less fit, hard heredity. These are all Darwinian ideas which directly and indirectly influenced Nazism. I don't see how you can deny that. (Edited by Adam Southworth) MJ59: Charles Darwin not only did not coin the phrase “survival of the fittest” (the phrase was invented by Herbert Spencer), but he argued against it. In “On the Origin of Species,” he wrote: “it hardly seems probable that the number of men gifted with such virtues [as bravery and sympathy] ... could be increased through natural selection, that is, by the survival of the fittest.” Darwin was very clear about the weakness of the survival-of-the-fittest argument and the strength of his “sympathy hypothesis” when he wrote: “Those communities which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best and rear the greatest number of offspring.” What Darwin called “sympathy,” in the words of Paul Ekman, “today would be termed empathy, altruism, or compassion.” Darwin goes so far in his compassion argument as to tie the success of human evolution (and even “lower animals”) to the evolution of compassion. He writes that as the human race evolved from “small tribes” into large civilizations, concern about the well-being of others extended to include not just strangers but “all sentient beings.” He even calls compassion “the almost ever-present instinct” when a fellow human witnesses the suffering of another. In other words, Darwin believed that compassion was a natural instinct that we all share. The bumper-sticker way of teaching and labeling Darwin’s ideas as exclusively focused on the “survival of the fittest” is not only misleading; it completely misses his idea that humanity’s success hinges on its level of compassion or sympathy. What Hitler did was a total perversion of that ideal (Edited by MJ59) MJ59: "Survival of the fittest" is a term that is used inappropriately. Explanation: Natural selection refers to the process by which organisms evolve. There are selective pressures in their environment that affect reproductive success. For example, a mouse that lives in an area with black rocks can have babies with dark colored fur or babies with light colored fur. The mice born with light colored fur are more likely to be eaten by predatory hawks because they can be seen more easily against the dark background. The dark colored mice are less likely to be seen as easily and will live longer to reproduce more. The more the dark colored mice reproduce, a larger portion of the population will become dark colored and the allele frequency of the population shifts to favor dark colored fur. In this instance, the dark colored mouse is said to have higher reproductive fitness since it is more likely to reproduce more in this environment. "Survival of the fittest" is a phrase that is related to this idea of reproductive fitness, but doesn't really mean what most people that use it think. Those people are usually thinking of intelligence or physical strength. Fitness affects the survival of alleles and genetic material, but not the survival of the organism. Adam Southworth: My argument is not that evolutionary theory is nature red in tooth and claw - but that is a core part of it. The "fittest" creature could be the more intelligent or the more empathic. I agree, Darwin believed both traits distinguished higher from lower races. “Nor is the difference slight in moral disposition between a barbarian, such as the man described by the old navigator Byron, who dashed his child on the rocks for dropping a basket of sea-urchins, and a Howard or Clarkson; and in intellect, between a savage who uses hardly any abstract terms, and a Newton or Shakespeare. Differences of this kind between the highest men of the highest races and the lowest savages, are connected by the finest gradations.” "Some savage races, such as the Australians, are not exposed to more diversified conditions than are many species which have a wide range." He says the barbaric behaviour of some animals: "...is not much worse than that of the North American Indians, who leave their feeble comrades to perish on the plains; or the Fijians, who, when their parents get old, or fall ill, bury them alive." There are even places where Darwin compares the size of the brain and shape of the skull (precise measurements) and infers to superior and inferior races. From The Descent of Man: "The belief that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the skulls of the savage and civilized races, of ancient and modern people, and by the analogy of the whole vertebrate series." "Professor Schaaffhausen first drew attention to the relation apparently existing between a muscular frame and the strongly-pronounced supra-orbital ridges, which are so characteristic of the lower races of man." As to the phrase "survival of the fittest", Darwin might not have coined these precise words, but that is a natural extension of his theory. They are implicit in much of his work. You claim that altruism differentiates Darwin from Nazism. Altruism is one side of evolution Nazi evolutionists accepted, albeit confined within the group. Indeed, some saw their concern for the "Aryan race" as a form of altruism. A Nazi is nothing compared to the race. As to the modes of evolution, evolution is about every way genes survive: cruelty and compassion, warrior and peacemaker, intelligence and unconscious forces. Everything which furthers the survival of the genes. Everything is permitted, including merciless savagery. A core element of Darwin's vision nature is a universal war of individuals and groups: "With animals having separated sexes there will in most cases be a struggle between the males for possession of the females. The most vigorous individuals, or those which have most successfully struggled with their conditions of life, will generally leave most progeny. But success will often depend on having the weapons or means of defence, or on the charms of the males, and the slightest advantage will lead to victory." -Origin "As natural selection acts by competition. it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to have been specially created and adapted for that country, being beaten and supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land." - Origin "...the struggle for the production of new and modified descendants will mainly lie between the larger groups, which are all trying to increase in number. One larger group will slowly conquer another larger group, reduce its numbers, and thus lessen its chance of further variation and improvement." - Origin "Within the same large group, the later and more highly perfected sub-groups, from branching and seizing on many new places in the polity of Nature, will constantly tend to supplant and destroy the earlier and less improved sub-groups." - Origin And the telos of this universal war: "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows." - Origin Darwin elaborates on what characters will likely survive this universal war: "Generally, the most vigorous males, those which are best fitted for their places in nature, will leave most progeny." I could also find oblique support for eugenics: "When a race of plants is once pretty well established, the seed-raisers do not pick out the best plants, but merely go over their seed-beds, and pull up the 'rogues', as they call plants which deviate from the proper standard. With animals this kind of selection is, in fact, also followed; for hardly any one is so careless as to allow his worst animals to breed." - Origin (Edited by Adam Southworth) MJ59: Evolution myths: Evolutionary theory leads to racism and genocide By Michael Le Page Darwin’s ideas have been invoked as justification for all sorts of policies, including some very unpleasant ones. But evolutionary theory is a descriptive science. It cannot tell us what is right and wrong. Rather than attack evolution directly, some try to tar it by association. The claim is often made that the theory of evolution leads inevitably to eugenics and to atrocities like those perpetrated by Hitler. These claims are irrelevant to the reality of evolution and are also largely untrue. Let’s start with Darwin himself, who is often accused of being a racist and a eugenicist. Yet Darwin went very much against the ideas of his time by dismissing some of the perceived differences between races. For instance: “…this fact can only be accounted for by the various races having similar inventive or mental powers.“ The following passage is often quoted by those who accuse him of supporting eugenics: “It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” The next few paragraphs are often left out: “…If we were to intentionally neglect the weak and the helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with overwhelming present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind…” Eugenical Christians There is no doubt that some of those who supported eugenics cited Darwin’s theory of evolution as inspiration or justification, but then evolution has been invoked to support all kinds of notions and schemes, from communism to capitalism. Biology tells us what is, not what ought to be. It is descriptive, not prescriptive or normative. It can inform our decisions by telling us what the likely outcome of different actions will be, but not which of these outcomes are ethical or desirable. In retrospect, it is clear that many of the eugenic policies implemented in the early 20th century were based as much if not more on racial and social prejudices than on any understanding of genetics and evolution. Some may have used evolutionary theory as an excuse, but that does not make it the cause. What’s more, many of the most enthusiastic promoters of the eugenics movement in the US, which led to policies such as compulsory sterilisation, were evangelical Christians. As Mary Teats explained in her book The Way of God in Marriage: “The great and rapidly increasing army of idiots, insane, imbeciles, blind, deaf-mutes, epileptics, paralytics, the murderers, thieves, drunkards and moral perverts are very poor material with which to ‘subdue the world’, and usher in the glad day when ‘all shall know the Lord’.” As for the Holocaust, the murder of able-bodied and able-minded people solely on the basis of their religion can hardly be called eugenics. It is incredible to blame Darwin while overlooking the role of Christianity in fostering anti-Semitism over the centuries. In 1543, for instance, Martin Luther wrote a booklet called On the Jews and Their Lies calling, among other things, for Jews to be expelled or forced to do manual labour, and their synagogues and schools burned. The booklet was displayed at Nazi rallies. And this is how Hitler described his motivations in Mein Kampf, in which there is no mention of Darwin or the theory of evolution: “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” | Science Chat Room 3 People Chatting Similar Conversations |
