Holocaust revisionism favors Darwinism
* "Evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology"
-- the new Florida state science standards
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The charge that Darwinism was a major cause of the holocaust is diminished to the extent that the holocaust itself is diminished, so logically it seems that Darwinists should support holocaust revisionism, but they don't. My holocaust revisionism is shunned by Darwinists as well as critics of Darwinism. The spreading Darwin-to-Hitler idea has finally given the Darwinists a very good reason to support holocaust revisionism. Even though the Darwin-to-Hitler link has nothing to do with the scientific merits of Darwinism, this link might be used as an excuse to avoid or minimize the teaching of Darwinism in the public schools.
One of the fundamental principles of my holocaust revisionism is that a "systematic" Jewish holocaust was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews. Even today we don't know what a Jew is, and even if we knew, we could not possibly find them all or even find most of them and in an attempted holocaust we could not avoid a lot of inadvertent "collateral damage" to non-Jews. If there had been a real attempt by the Nazis to have a "systematic" holocaust, we would have heard a lot of complaints from holocaust survivors who believed that they were mistakenly identified as Jews and I am not aware of any such complaints.
In an article about the holocaust on Evolution News & Views, historian Richard Weikart portrays Darwinists as unethical, amoral "mad" scientists and philosophers:
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Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor who endured the horrors of Auschwitz, astutely commented on the way that modern European thought had helped prepare the way for Nazi atrocities (and his own misery). He stated, "If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone. I became acquainted," Frankl continued, "with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment--or, as the Nazi liked to say, of 'Blood and Soil.' I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers."
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posted by Larry Fafarman | 7/22/2008 02:48:00 PM
25 Comments:
Wow. It gets explained to you again and again, but you still somehow miss it. There is no reason for 'Darwinists' to support Holocaust denial because there is no basis in evolution for the Holocaust to happen. Period.
The only way in which you can connect the sort of mass-scale, directed genocide as happened in the Holocaust with evolution, is if you fundamentally misunderstand evolution in several ways.
The fact the 'Darwin-to-Hitler' concept has spread amongst creationists/IDists only goes to show that they will immediately latch onto anything that appears to crticise evolution, even if it has absolutely no basis in reality.
As to your whole idea that the Nazis had no way of identifying Jews for sure, they did. For a start, the procedure for the killing of the Jews was not done in one fell swoop - it was a gradual thing. From the early 30s onwards, they began to pass laws that effectively meant that any Jew would have to register themselves as a Jew in order to adhere to their religious practices. The Nazis also not only condoned, but actively promoted, identification of Jews as Jews by a simple 'carrot and stick' method (offering rewards for identifying Jews and passing laws that made it illegal not to). Of course, there was also the fact you could be stopped in the street and ordered to drop em. If you were circumsized, that would be a pretty big hint. If you had any Jewish religious icons in your house, that was also a bit of a giveaway (and, remember, many Jews, as part of their faith, had a mezzuah on the doorpost of their house, so that would be clue number 1). You also seem to think the Nazis operated on the 'innocent until proven guilty' mindset. They didn't. If they thought you were a Jew, it was up to you to prove you were not, often by providing an 'Ariernachweis' (Aryan certificate), which was, essentially, a document of proof that your parents and grandparents were not Jewish, so, by extension, you were not either.
That's just a small taster of the kind of things the Nazis did to identify Jews.
The only reason that Larry thinks this is possible is because he thinks that "Darwinism" is an ideology, or rather, an identity. Darwinists have their own day, their own t-shirts, their own blogs (some of which are places where Larry is not allowed to play, btw), etc. Since it's an identity and not a scientific position it means that its adherents accept their positions based on their identity and not on ontological or epistemological evidence of any claims for behaving in certain ways (say, accepted evolution as the most plausible explanation for the development and diversification of life on the planet, for example). "Darwinists," in Larry's mind, are "Darwinists" because that is who they are; that's why he can't reason with them (even when he's proved wrong dozens of times). Since it makes sense for someone who supports "Darwinism" (less an ideology than an identity, though ideology seems to have become an identity, making the terms somewhat coterminous or even redundant when used in succession) would support positions beneficial to "Darwinism," such as claiming that "the Holocaust couldn't have happened because there was no way to systematically identify Jews" to counteract creationist claims that "Darwinism" is bad because it supported the Holocaust. If there was no Holocaust then "Darwinism" isn't evil (even if a number of Jews died, btw, good for Xians because now they have Israel in place -- as an indirect result of WW2 -- ready for the fulfillment of the Book of Revelations).
I'll leave it for the ... well, 3 or 4 avid readers of Larry's ... well, I guess you still call it a blog (even with these poor standards)... to continue this line of thought and show how the argument breaks down and shows the weaknesses (well, another dimension thereof) of Larry's feeble mind.
Anonymous said (Tuesday, July 22, 2008 4:16:00 PM) --
>>>>>>> From the early 30s onwards, they began to pass laws that effectively meant that any Jew would have to register themselves as a Jew in order to adhere to their religious practices. <<<<<<<
That was just in Germany -- what about the rest of Europe?
Supposedly many of the "Jewish" victims of the holocaust did not even think of themselves as Jews -- so adherence to religious practices had nothing to do with it.
>>>>>>> The Nazis also not only condoned, but actively promoted, identification of Jews as Jews by a simple 'carrot and stick' method (offering rewards for identifying Jews and passing laws that made it illegal not to). <<<<<<
That's what I mean -- how can a "reward" be offered for identifying Jews when no one even knows what a Jew is.
>>>>>> Of course, there was also the fact you could be stopped in the street and ordered to drop em. If you were circumsized, that would be a pretty big hint. <<<<<<<
I haven't heard stories about the Nazis going around pantsing people. For one thing, the Nazis hated homosexuals and certainly would not have wanted to act like homosexuals. Also, this wouldn't work in identifying female Jews.
>>>>>>> If you had any Jewish religious icons in your house, that was also a bit of a giveaway (and, remember, many Jews, as part of their faith, had a mezzuah on the doorpost of their house, so that would be clue number 1). <<<<<<
One would have to be pretty stupid to have a mezuzah on one's home in Nazi Europe, but a lot of the Jews in Europe were pretty stupid. I think that a lot of Jewish victims of the Nazis dressed like Jews. Anyway, the Nazis just rounded up a lot of people on the street, so what you had in your home had nothing to do with it.
>>>>>> If they thought you were a Jew, it was up to you to prove you were not, often by providing an 'Ariernachweis' (Aryan certificate), which was, essentially, a document of proof that your parents and grandparents were not Jewish, so, by extension, you were not either. <<<<<<<
That's begging the question -- why would they suspect you were Jewish in the first place? And how would they know anything about your grandparents? And why haven't we heard complaints from people who thought that they were mistakenly identified as Jews?
>>>>>> That's just a small taster of the kind of things the Nazis did to identify Jews. <<<<<<
And it is a no-taster. You are just grasping at straws. You are really desperate.
Well, I am stunned at the above, Larry, as, to summarise it, you appear to be saying that you doubt that anyone could be identified as a Jew (even though all it took to 'identify' a Jew was a neighbour saying 'he's a Jew', even if this was not true), and you claim that things never happened because you, personally, didn't witness them.
All I can say is my father did. Essentially, you're calling him a liar.
>>>>>>Larry asked, "Did the Nazis sincerely desire to exterminate the Jews, even if a program to exterminate the Jews was a practical impossibility?"
Yes. Just because it's impossible doesn't mean they can't try. <<<<<<
So are you conceding that a "systematic" holocaust was impossible?
Even an attempt to exterminate the Jews would have had negative repercussions. Non-Jews were likely to be mistaken for Jews, and many non-Jews would have been afraid that they would be mistaken for Jews in this reign of terror. Non-Jews would have objected to the persecution and murder of Jewish relatives and friends.
>>>>>"If the Nazis desired to exterminate the Jews, did Darwinism contribute to creating that desire?"
No, that desire was around for hundreds of years. See Martin Luther. <<<<<<
Yes, anti-semitism existed before the Nazis, but it rarely took the form of violence. Of course, there were pogroms, but a lot of persecution of the Jews consisted of confining them to ghettoes or expelling them. In many instances, Jews were allowed to convert and I think that the general Christian attitude was that Jews could be saved. I think it was the Nazis who first established the idea of Jews being a racial group -- the idea of once a Jew, always a Jew. BTW, Ashkenazi Jews sometimes show racial characteristics -- e.g., the inherited Tay-Sachs disease occurs primarily in Ashkenazi Jews (interestingly, it also tends to occur in French Canadians).
>>>>>>"And if Darwinism contributed to creating that desire, does that make Darwinism bad?"
No. Why would it. Is Xity bad because of the existence of the Inquisition, the Conquest and forced baptism/conversion of all natives of the Americas <<<<<<<
But the difference is that these bad effects of Darwinism persisted into the supposedly enlightened 20th century.
Many Darwinists don't just regard evolution as a necessary evil but -- like mad scientists in a horror movie -- they shamelessly celebrate it with Darwin Day festivities, "I love Darwin" items, "Friend of Darwin" certificates, etc.. They don't just regard it as science but consider it to be a worldview, a philosophy of life, and even a religion. Darwinists themselves have thus been inviting the Darwin-to-Hitler idea.
>>>>>> or the kid-raping priests in the Catholic church <<<<<<
That doesn't count because that is not the official policy of the church and has in fact been condemned by the church.
>>>>>>, or even because of evangelists who rake in big bucks from their followers only to be revealed to be meth-addicted gays? <<<<<<<
The Catholic church opposes homosexuality but the Anglican church has accepted gay bishops and even approved gay marriage. Anyway, what does all this have to do with the pernicious social effects of Darwinism?
Larry answered, "So are you conceding that a "systematic" holocaust was impossible?"
No. I thought you meant all the Jews in the whole world. Maybe even all the Jews in Germany was impossible, but that didn't stop them from trying.
Larry wrote, "Even an attempt to exterminate the Jews would have had negative repercussions. Non-Jews were likely to be mistaken for Jews, and many non-Jews would have been afraid that they would be mistaken for Jews in this reign of terror. Non-Jews would have objected to the persecution and murder of Jewish relatives and friends."
I think that this is likely and could have happened. I suspect a number of non-Jews were scared and concerned. Maybe that's why some non-Jews turned in Jews -- if they sent Jews away, then they wouldn't be looked on with suspicion.
Larry wrote, "Yes, anti-semitism existed before the Nazis, but it rarely took the form of violence."
Blood libels -- resulting in the burning of all Jews in town (one town now known as Judenberg, see wikipedia and PZ Myers's post on his host/Koran desecration) were violent. The expulsion or forced conversion of people is also a form of violence, not to mention the pogroms you already conceded.
Larry wrote, "But the difference is that these bad effects of Darwinism persisted into the supposedly enlightened 20th century."
It doesn't matter when it happened -- it did happen. The Inquisition is still an effect of Xity, regardless of when it happened. Is Christianity bad because of it? Yes or no, you are avoiding the question (as usual).
Larry wrote, "That makes the holocaust seem especially silly -- there were millions of Jews beyond the reach of the Nazis, so what was the point in trying to exterminate the Jews of Europe."
Hitler's plan seems to have definitely included the Jews of England and Ireland, besides those of other countries occupied by Germany (half of the six million figure commonly cited is from Poland; "only" a bit over 200,000 were from Germany or Austria). I don't know how far Hitler's ambitions ran; I assumed that he had some interest in taking over the world. If that were the case, then yes, he wanted to eliminate the world of Jews.
Regarding identifying the Jews in Germany and other countries -- not one group stood up in solidarity for the European Jews. Not one. Not churches, not industry, not civic organizations. No one. This made it easier. Birth records and church records made it easy to figure out who was Jewish. It's not that hard. I remember a Catholic kid saying that he knew who was Catholic and Jewish at our high school (one of the largest in its state, about 2000 students over 3 years).
In Nazi Germany, if you had three Jewish grandparents, you were definitely Jewish. Today I know third-generation atheists who are also Jewish because of ancestry.
There were also many non-Jewish victims -- political dissidents, gays, Roma, Poles, Slavs, Jehovah Witnesses, Freemasons, and others for a total of about 11 million. Oh, and not all Jews died in concentration camps. Many died in deplorable conditions in ghettos and other areas.
Larry wrote, "I checked the Wikipedia article on Judenberg and there was no mention of a massacre of Jews"
Look under host desecration. It lists a number of massacres of Jews dating back to the 13th century.
Larry wrote, "Do you think that it makes no difference whether the Crusades and the Inquisition happened in the 20th century or several centuries ago?"
1) You're still avoiding the question
2) I didn't mention the Crusades -- thanks for including them
3) Not really. If the Church is about forgiveness and the teachings of Jeebus include "turn the other cheek" and "do unto others...", they didn't need any Enlightenment to figure out that hurting other people is bad. Besides, the Church was at the center of intellectual life during their period of dominance; they should have figured a few things out. Instead they denounced Galileo simply because he proved that the geocentric model was wrong.
Earlier Larry wrote (in reference to kid-raping Catholic priests), "That doesn't count because that is not the official policy of the church and has in fact been condemned by the church."
So it's settled. Since it wasn't official policy, it doesn't matter. Social Darwinism was never part of evolutionary theory. It represented at best an abuse of the theory by those wanting to advance a racist agenda -- in the same way that numerous priests, aided by bishops and cardinals who didn't really care all that much, abused their position to rape and molest children.
Larry, you avoided the key issue, if kid-raping isn't the official policy of the Church (though it was permitted by bishops and cardinals who moved the priests to other parishes without reprimand or warning to the new parish) then why should evolutionary theory -- of no scientific kinship to Social Darwinism -- be held accountable?
Larry wrote, "So you are saying that the Nazis exterminated a lot of people indiscriminately, but may have had some specific kinds of victims such as political dissidents."
I didn't say that they Nazis exterminated a lot of people "indiscriminately" -- they knew what they were doing and had a wonderfully sick bureaucracy to handle it. Too bad you can't handle the events. Denial is one stage of grief, btw.
Larry, your dumbness overwhelms me. Do you actually bother to do any research whatsoever into the subject you're babbling about before you start? The answer to that seems to be 'no', from what I've seen here. You keep going on about 'how would the Nazis know'? Newsflash - if they got it wrong, THEY DIDN'T GIVE TOO MUCH OF A FUCK!!!!
As to how they would know about whether your grandparents were not Jewish, another poster gave you one of a variety of methods above - the Ariernachweis. This was proof that your grandparents, your parents, and therefore also yourself was not Jewish. You obtained this by providing proof of the non-Jewishness of those folk, usually simply proof of baptism, and you got that certificate in return. If the Nazis suspected you might be Jewish for any reason at all, and you failed to provide this certificate, or similar proof, this was seen as proof you were Jewish. The fact this probably meant that quite a few non-Jewish folk got sent to the camps or killed for being Jewish, what you refer to as 'collateral damage', didn't matter very much. Hell, you even refer to this yourself (and I quote) 'Supposedly many of the "Jewish" victims of the holocaust did not even think of themselves as Jews'. Basically, if the Nazis thought you were a Jew, you had to prove this could not be the case, under any circumstances whatsoever, or else they assumed they were right.
As for the comments about the 'bad influence' of 'Darwinism', well, you've totally, completely and utterly failed to show how 'Darwinism' causes these 'bad influences'. The nearest you've come is asserting this in multiple blog posts, seemingly in the hope someone won't point out in what way this is wrong on each and verey one of them.
>>>>> Basically, if the Nazis thought you were a Jew, you had to prove this could not be the case, under any circumstances whatsoever, or else they assumed they were right. <<<<<<<<
That is what I mean about the Nazis mistaking non-Jews for Jews and about non-Jews being afraid of being mistaken for Jews. Even the Nazis' definition of "Jew" was arbitrary. You are arguing my case for me.
And what reason would the Nazis have to suspect you were Jewish? Your looks? That is not a positive identification. Your name? A lot of Germans and other Europeans have Jewish sounding names.
As I said, the Nazis often rounded up people on the street en masse -- the Nazis couldn't do investigations of individuals.
The issue of Jew identification is -- or should be -- central to holocaust history but has been largely ignored. Edwin Black thought that his book "IBM and the Holocaust" solved the big mystery of how the Nazis identified Jews but the book fell flat on its face. The book claimed that the Nazis found all the Jews of Europe by using very primitive IBM Hollerith machines to process data stored on billions of Hollerith cards but the machines obviously had no such data-processing ability.
>>>>>> As for the comments about the 'bad influence' of 'Darwinism', well, you've totally, completely and utterly failed to show how 'Darwinism' causes these 'bad influences'. The nearest you've come is asserting this in multiple blog posts, <<<<<<
Wrong -- those "assertions" have been backed up with numerous references. I am more realistic than many people who claim that there is a link between Darwinism and Nazi anti-Semitism -- I recognize that Nazi ant-Semitism was not a true eugenics program because it targeted fit Jews as well as unfit Jews. I said that the main influence of eugenics on Nazi anti-Semitism was to create the idea that it is morally OK to get rid of undesirables. And the Nazi eugenics programs themselves were bad.
>>>>>> why should evolutionary theory -- of no scientific kinship to Social Darwinism -- be held accountable? <<<<<<<
It is not just a matter of "being held accountable" -- it is a matter of studying history objectively. The ADL thinks that we should ignore the Darwin-to-Hitler link just because Hitler did not "need" Darwin.
>>>>That is what I mean about the Nazis mistaking non-Jews for Jews and about non-Jews being afraid of being mistaken for Jews. Even the Nazis' definition of "Jew" was arbitrary. You are arguing my case for me.
And what reason would the Nazis have to suspect you were Jewish? Your looks? That is not a positive identification. Your name? A lot of Germans and other Europeans have Jewish sounding names.
As I said, the Nazis often rounded up people on the street en masse -- the Nazis couldn't do investigations of individuals.<<<<
One word - ghettos.
>>>>The issue of Jew identification is -- or should be -- central to holocaust history but has been largely ignored. Edwin Black thought that his book "IBM and the Holocaust" solved the big mystery of how the Nazis identified Jews but the book fell flat on its face. The book claimed that the Nazis found all the Jews of Europe by using very primitive IBM Hollerith machines to process data stored on billions of Hollerith cards but the machines obviously had no such data-processing ability.<<<<
Well, the answer to your supposed problem is so simple, it's absurd. It is this - the Jews were Jewish. This means that if they didn't look Jewish, but were known to go to a synagogue, they were still 'guilty'. If their neighbours accused them of being a Jew, and couldn't disprove that accusation, they were 'guilty'. If they had a Jewish name, then that was seen as strong evidence of their 'guilt', even though it wasn't. If they were circumcised, they were 'guilty'. You see, what Hitler actually wanted was the race purified by the extermination/sterilisation of all 'non-Aryans' (even though it seems Hitler's concept of an 'Aryan race' was an utter myth - it never existed), so it didn't really matter too much if the supposed Jew wasn't REALLY a Jew, but, because the Jews were the ones being targetted, the majority of the time, they were. This is why the total number of those killed under the Nazi regime is somewhere in the region of 11 million. The reason the genocide by the Nazis is connected so closely with the Jews is because they were made the scapegoats. The German people were fed propaganda to make them hate the 'dirty Jews' and encouraged to 'out' them. As a result, the Jews were the largest single group killed by the Nazis - totalling about 6 million of the 11 million total.
>>It is not just a matter of "being held accountable" -- it is a matter of studying history objectively. The ADL thinks that we should ignore the Darwin-to-Hitler link just because Hitler did not "need" Darwin.<<
No, I think you'll find that the main reason the ADL thinks we should ignore the Darwin-to-Hitler link is because there isn't one.
>>>>>> No, I think you'll find that the main reason the ADL thinks we should ignore the Darwin-to-Hitler link is because there isn't one. <<<<<<<
That's not what the ADL said -- the ADL said that Hitler did not "need" Darwin.
Many Jews -- particularly orthodox Jews -- are strong opponents of Darwinism, and I just hope that these Jews will someday give the ADL some big hell for its fanatical pro-Darwinist stance. A prominent orthodox rabbi has already apologized for the ADL's denunciation of the Coral Ridge Ministries for its "Darwin's Deadly Legacy" TV program.
>>>>That's not what the ADL said -- the ADL said that Hitler did not "need" Darwin.<<<<
And why did he not need Darwin? Because, if you actually read what Darwin wrote, that gives plenty of reasons NOT to do as Hitler did. A fact that Hitler seemingly was aware of, as, on the list of banned books under the Nazi regime is 'Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism.'
>>>>Many Jews -- particularly orthodox Jews -- are strong opponents of Darwinism<<<<
Yeah, for pretty much the same reason Christian creationists are - their holy texts, when taken literally, say evolution can't have happened.
>>>>and I just hope that these Jews will someday give the ADL some big hell for its fanatical pro-Darwinist stance.<<<<
What, for the ADL advocating that scientists practice science, not religion?
>>>>A prominent orthodox rabbi has already apologized for the ADL's denunciation of the Coral Ridge Ministries for its "Darwin's Deadly Legacy" TV program.<<<<
Yes, and this is why:
I believe it appropriate for thoughtful Jews to support the Coral Ridge documentary and perhaps even for it to be shown in Jewish schools because there really are only two ways to account for human presence on our planet. One is that God created us in His image. The other is that by a lengthy and random process of totally unaided materialistic evolution, primitive protoplasm evolved into Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven. This approach, ruling out any role for God, is simply incompatible with Jewish values
Nothing whatsoever to do with the idea that the Darwinism-Hitler link actually exists - he's just supporting it on principle, as it attacks evolution, which he thinks is 'incompatible with Jewish values'.
Anonymous said...
>>>>That's not what the ADL said -- the ADL said that Hitler did not "need" Darwin.
And why did he not need Darwin? Because, if you actually read what Darwin wrote, that gives plenty of reasons NOT to do as Hitler did. <<<<<<
All I care about is what the ADL said -- and all that the ADL said was that Hitler did not "need" Darwin. The ADL never claimed that Darwin did not influence Hitler.
>>>>> What, for the ADL advocating that scientists practice science, not religion? <<<<<<
That is no business of the ADL -- the ADL is supposed to be an anti-hate organization.
So what does Larry make of this passage from Mein Kampf: "The consequence of this racial purity, universally valid in Nature, is not only the sharp outward delimitation of the various races, but their uniform character in themselves. The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc., of the individual specimens. But you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice."
How does this passage support contemporary evolutionary theory? Isn't it more closely related to views of creationists?
>>>>>> How does this passage support contemporary evolutionary theory? <<<<<<<
Hitler may have believed that either (1) evolution occurred in the past but is not occurring now or (2) evolution is occurring now but is too slow for us to observe. And his statements showed that he believed in "the survival of the fittest."
Also, Darwinism's influence on Hitler was indirect if not direct. Social Darwinism inspired American eugenics programs, which in turn influenced the Nazis.
The ADL only said that Hitler did not "need" Darwin -- the ADL never claimed that Hitler did not use Darwin or that Darwin did not influence Hitler, directly or indirectly.
More information is in posts listed under my "Darwin-to-Hitler" post label in the sidebar.
Larry wrote, "Hitler may have..."
May have? So you have no evidence for either claim. As usual.
Larry wrote, "And his statements showed that he believed in 'the survival of the fittest.'"
Of course, the phrase 'survival of the fitness' is not in the first edition of Origin of Species, and was added only at the urging to Spencer, who convinced Chucky D to add it (Spencer did support eugenics, et al). When applied to contemporary evolutionary theory, or even the theory of evolution as Darwin stated it, it is at best misguided and at worst a tautology. When species survive while others go extinct, those that survive are evidently the fittest. What are the traits that make survival more likely? That depends -- and it's not clear which ones are best. Marx apparently thought that the lower classes would prevail due to their wider range of abilities. Others would take royal families and the nobility in general. Science does not have an answer for what traits are ideal for continued survival of the human species.
Of course, there is only one human species. Any separation of homo sapiens sapiens into races is an artificial construct that has no basis in modern science. DNA shows no substantial difference between members of different "races." In fact, once you compare the DNA of two unrelated people, the distinction between the DNA of members of different "races" is as different as that between any two unrelated individuals (of the same "race"). That makes any attempt to connect Darwin and Hitler wrong on several levels.
>>>>>>Larry wrote, "Hitler may have..."
May have? So you have no evidence for either claim. <<<<<<<
And you have shown no evidence for your claim that Darwin did not influence Hitler, indirectly if not directly. As I said, American eugenics programs, which were inspired by Social Darwinism, influenced the Nazis. And as I said, the ADL only made the silly statement that Hitler did not "need" Darwin -- the ADL never said that the Nazis did not use Darwin or that Darwin did not influence the Nazis.
>>>>All I care about is what the ADL said -- and all that the ADL said was that Hitler did not "need" Darwin. The ADL never claimed that Darwin did not influence Hitler.<<<<
Here's an idea for you, Larry - maybe the ADL did not specifically say 'Darwin did not influence Hitler' because anyone who actually knows what they're talking about will already know this, so to say it would be utterly redundant. And you still haven't explained how Darwin could have influenced Hitler when books on 'the false enlightenment of Darwinism' were banned by the Nazis.
>>>>That is no business of the ADL -- the ADL is supposed to be an anti-hate organization.<<<<
Wow. You honestly seem to think that a film about one of the worst acts of genocide and 'ethnic cleansing' in the entire history of mankind is of no interest to an anti-hate organisation.
Astonishing.
>>>>Hitler may have believed that either (1) evolution occurred in the past but is not occurring now or (2) evolution is occurring now but is too slow for us to observe. And his statements showed that he believed in "the survival of the fittest."<<<<
Really? Where? The passage I read only showed that Hitler believed that a fox was always a fox, a goose was always a goose and a tiger was always a tiger, etc. He says that individual specimens may vary, but he makes no reference to the 'fitter' individuals surviving, and also utterly REJECTS the idea that one species can become another.
>>>>Also, Darwinism's influence on Hitler was indirect if not direct. Social Darwinism inspired American eugenics programs, which in turn influenced the Nazis.<<<<
And where's the connection between 'Darwinism' and 'Social Darwinism'? As has been explained to you, several times, if you actually read up on what evolution says, both in the form of he modern evolutionary synthesis, and what Darwin originally wrote, it gives quite a few very good reasons for 'Social Darwinism', as you continue to call it, to simply not exist.
>>>>The ADL only said that Hitler did not "need" Darwin -- the ADL never claimed that Hitler did not use Darwin or that Darwin did not influence Hitler, directly or indirectly.<<<<
I pointed this out above, but it bears repeating - you still haven't explained how Darwin could have influenced Hitler when books on 'the false enlightenment of Darwinism' were banned by the Nazis.
>>>>And you have shown no evidence for your claim that Darwin did not influence Hitler, indirectly if not directly.<<<<
1) You need to work on your reading comprehension. Such evidence HAS been provided.
2) That's not how it works - if you make a claim, YOU have to back it up. You have utterly failed to provide any link between what you call 'Darwinism' and what you call 'Social Darwinism', and also failed to explain how there can be a link, given what has been explained to you, here and on other comment threads, about evolution, which you not only seem to be ignorant of, but seem to be utterly unwilling to be educated about.
>>>>>> Here's an idea for you, Larry - maybe the ADL did not specifically say 'Darwin did not influence Hitler' because anyone who actually knows what they're talking about will already know this, so to say it would be utterly redundant. <<<<<<
As the saying goes, don't feed the trolls.
>>>>As the saying goes, don't feed the trolls.<<<<
Translation:
"Damn, he's making points that I simply can't answer. I better just call him a troll and leave. Quickly."
Oh, and can you actually answer the question of why the Nazis banned books about 'Darwinism', if they were so influenced by it?
Larry wrote, "As I said, American eugenics programs, which were inspired by Social Darwinism, influenced the Nazis."
I don't disagree with this claim -- but it has nothing to do with Darwin and Hitler. You have yet to point to a valid link between Darwin and others' evolutionary theories and Social Darwinism.
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