New book links Darwin to Hitler and Stalin
A news article said,
People don't need a "scientific justification for separation of the races." For example, before Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859, the constitution of Illinois prohibited blacks from settling in the state.
I have previously stated my opinion that there is an unquestionable connection between Darwinism and Nazi eugenics programs. In the USA, the Eugenics Record Office merged with the Station for Experimental Evolution in 1920 to form the Carnegie Institution's Dept. of Genetics, and the Nazis were inspired by the American eugenics programs. However, Nazi anti-semitism did not target the mentally and/or physically handicapped and so was not a true eugenics program.
Linking Darwin to Stalin is something new to me.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - The founder of a popular Kentucky Christian museum that rejects evolution says in a new book that Darwin's theory fuels racism and genocide.
Ken Ham, who opened the Creation Museum last year, and co-author Charles Ware, president of Crossroads Bible College in Indianapolis, have written ''Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots,'' arguing that the theory inspired the Nazi belief in racial superiority and the murderous policies of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
"What Darwinian evolution did I would say is provide what people thought was a scientific justification for separation of races," Ham said in an interview.
Ham is not the first to try to tie Darwin with racism. The charge has been made for years.
It came up last month in arguments over science curriculum at a South Carolina state school board meeting. In 2001, Louisiana's state legislature considered a bill that said Darwin supported racist ideologies. . . .
. . . "Stalin, Hitler and Mao were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions -- and it can be shown they did this because of the influence of Darwinian naturalism...," Ham writes . . .
In South Carolina, that state's board of education approved a biology textbook that references evolution. One board member had argued that the scientific theory was used by Nazi Germany as an excuse to kill millions of people.
People don't need a "scientific justification for separation of the races." For example, before Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859, the constitution of Illinois prohibited blacks from settling in the state.
I have previously stated my opinion that there is an unquestionable connection between Darwinism and Nazi eugenics programs. In the USA, the Eugenics Record Office merged with the Station for Experimental Evolution in 1920 to form the Carnegie Institution's Dept. of Genetics, and the Nazis were inspired by the American eugenics programs. However, Nazi anti-semitism did not target the mentally and/or physically handicapped and so was not a true eugenics program.
Linking Darwin to Stalin is something new to me.
.
Labels: Darwin-to-Hitler
posted by Larry Fafarman | 2/12/2008 02:00:00 PM
9 Comments:
It isn't only "fundies" who have pointed out a Darwin-to-Hitler connection: reputable historians who certainly aren't "fundies" have done so. And so has Darwinist evolutionary biologist Michael R. Rose, in his book Darwin's Spectre: Evolutionary Biology in the Modern World (1998.) Rose wrote:
"Through eugenics, Darwinism was a bad influence on Nazism, one of the greatest killers in world history. Darwinism probably contributed to the upsurge in racism in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and thus helped to foment twentieth century racism generally. Darwinism was also used to exacerbate the neglect of the poor in the nineteenth century. All things considered, Darwinism has had many regrettable, and sometimes actually vicious, effects on the social climate of the modern world." (p.210)
"The 1937 edition of the Hitler Youth handbook was full of Darwinian theory...This is not to deny the long-standing racist elements in German culture. Darwinism did not bring them into being. But it was fuel for that demonic fire." (p.143)
Thus Nazism was not spawned by Darwinism alone, but it was one important influence.
Rose, who is a materialist and an atheist, is prominent enough among Darwinist evolutionary biologists to rate two mentions in the Encyclopedia Britannica Online edition article on Evolution: on p.67 and p.71 of that article. Having been born in Germany in 1955, he has obviously had occasion too look into the roots of Nazism, and to lament the vicious impact of Darwinism on history. He teaches at the University of California, Irvine.
I'd suggest reading the entire quotes from Rose in full context. His point is that given that Darwinism stresses individual competition rather than group selection, there is no theoretical reason to link either Darwin or Darwinism with genocide, no matter what atrocities individuals or states performed in the name of evolution.
>>>>>>>>>In 2001, Louisiana's state legislature considered a bill that said Darwin supported racist ideologies. . . .
Oh good, this is real solid evidence of a connection because politicians always know what's right (/irony, just in case you miss it).
Rose is talking about the vicious influence of Darwinist ideas on social life, not about theoretical considerations. And Darwin thought that race-war does favor the progress of civilization. In a letter to W. Graham, July 3, 1881, Darwin wrote:
"I could show fight on natural selection having done more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk that nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher races throughout the world."
He was writing about the Russo-Turkish wars of his era.
> In fact, the mentally and physically handicapped were targeted before the Jews. <
Larry loses on all counts.
Kevin, where have you been? We missed you. Of course Larry has been losing all of the arguments and dodging questions as usual in your absense.
Kevin Vicklund said,
>>>>>> Nazi anti-semitism was part of a larger eugenics program that also targeted the mentally and physically handicapped, among others. <<<<<<
As I said, Nazi anti-semitism was not a true eugenics program -- it had nothing to do with trying to improve the physical and/or mental characteristics of the human race. It was a eugenics program only if the definition of eugenics is expanded to include any program that attempts to eliminate undesirables.
>>>>>> In fact, the mentally and physically handicapped were targeted before the Jews. <<<<<<
Wrong. One of the first things the Nazis did after coming to power was fire Jewish civil servants.
ViU drivels,
>>>> Larry loses on all counts. <<<<
As usual, dunghill ViU chimes in before I even have a chance to answer. Anyway, I find it very odd that both Kevin and ViU hold that the connection between eugenics -- and, by extension, Darwinism (eugenics is considered to be part of "Social Darwinism") -- and Nazi anti-semitism is even stronger than I claim it is.
> Wrong. One of the first things the Nazis did after coming to power was fire Jewish civil servants. <
Wrong, cretin. Kevin was referring to murder victims. Firing them was not the same as murdering them. Kevin is right and you, as always, are wrong. Good grief Larry. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. You can't even match that.
>>>> Larry loses on all counts. <<<<
> As usual, dunghill ViU chimes in before I even have a chance to answer. <
As usual, Larry chimes in to demonstrate that he doesn't understand something. My point was that you meet all three criteria mentioned to qualify you for a trip to the oven.
> Anyway, I find it very odd that both Kevin and ViU hold that the connection between eugenics -- and, by extension, Darwinism (eugenics is considered to be part of "Social Darwinism") -- and Nazi anti-semitism is even stronger than I claim it is. <
Yes, it is odd that you find that since neither of us stated anything that a sane person would read that way. Of course you aren't sane.
Oh ye of little faith...
"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."
-Hitler, from Mein Kampf
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922
Hitler justified the persecution of the Jews largely through biblical references. Maybe Darwin's works had some influence on his eugenics program, but Holocaust engineered mainly through Christian-themed propaganda.
ViU driveled,
>>>>>> Wrong, cretin. Kevin was referring to murder victims. <<<<<
Kevin said "targeted," not murdered, dunghill: "Nazi anti-semitism was part of a larger eugenics program that also targeted the mentally and physically handicapped, among others. In fact, the mentally and physically handicapped were targeted before the Jews."
>>>>> My point was that you meet all three criteria mentioned to qualify you for a trip to the oven. <<<<<
Anyone can be mistaken for a Jew, including you, dunghill. There are blond-and-blue-eyed Jews and black Jews. There are all kinds of Jews.
>>>>> Anyway, I find it very odd that both Kevin and ViU hold that the connection between eugenics -- and, by extension, Darwinism (eugenics is considered to be part of "Social Darwinism") -- and Nazi anti-semitism is even stronger than I claim it is. <
Yes, it is odd that you find that since neither of us stated anything that a sane person would read that way. <<<<<<
Kevin said "Nazi anti-semitism was part of a larger eugenics program" and I disagreed with that statement, you lunatic.
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