Scholar Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler asked me to publish this essay to Uncommon Descent. You can read more from Weikart here and my review of his highly recommended book is here. (Note: If you care about this subject, don’t listen to glib excuses and misdirection; read the book.)
I am glad to say that the Expelled flapette on this subject has spiked demand for Weikart’s meticulously researched work, especially because it features the work of Darwinist Nazis who had never before even been translated into English:
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,259 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories: (What’s this?)
#3 in Books > Professional & Technical > Medical > Medicine > Medical Ethics
#6 in Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Discrimination & Racism
#11 in Books > History > United States > African Americans
(at 9:41 am EST)
For a while, Weikart was the target of unscholarly attacks by people determined to obscure the role of Darwinism as an underlying belief very well suited to Hitler’s Third Reich.
Anyway, here is his essay:
Was It Shameful for “Expelled” to Connect Darwinism and Nazi Atrocities?
Many critics of Ben Stein’s new film, “Expelled,” have expressed distaste—and some have gone absolutely apoplectic—over his linking of Darwinism with Nazism. In an MSNBC article bioethicist Arthur Caplan called the film immoral and even ridiculously calls Stein a Holocaust denier, because of his audacity to link Darwinism with Nazi atrocities. Scientific American calls this aspect of the film shameful.
We need to clarify first that neither Stein nor anyone else in “Expelled” ever claimed that Darwinism was the sole culprit for the Nazi program for killing the disabled or exterminating the Jews. The argument was more circumspect: Darwinism was an important—but by no means exclusive—ingredient in the Nazi worldview that motivated them to pursue death for the “inferior” as a means to foster evolutionary progress. This is irrefutable, if anyone will simply examine the evidence (just read the chapter “Nation and Race” in Mein Kampf).
If we focus on the Nazi program to kill the disabled, we find that just about all historians who have examined the evidence have concluded that Darwinism did have something to do with it. The museum in Hadamar (which Stein visited in the film) and the accompanying book for sale there both explain the influence of Darwinism on the Nazi euthanasia program. Read More ›