Notoriously, the Second International Congress on Eugenics [1921] defined Eugenics as the self-direction of human evolution and saw eugenics as applied evolutionary science with intellectual, logical and factual roots in several linked branches of science, medicine and scholarship.
If you doubt this, simply examine the logo to the right.
Perhaps the best summary of the then prevailing mentality comes from Scientific Monthly, in an article on the congress — noting how it highlights a keynote by a son of Darwin:
>>THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EUGENICS
In this journal special attention has always been given to problems of evolution, heredity and eugenics. As older readers of the THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY will remember, it gave the first American publication to the work of Spencer, and, to a certain extent of Darwin, Huxley and the other leaders in the develop- ment of the doctrine of evolution. It was indeed under the elder You- mans a journal primarily devoted to the cause of evolution at a time when the word stood for heresy not only with the general public, but also among most men of science.
During the past twenty years under its present editorial control, THE SCI- ENTIFIC MONTHLY has continued to devote a considerable part of its space to work bearing on heredity and eugenics. Francis Galton printed here articles laying the foundation of eugenics, and the leading American students of genetics-Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Conklin, Davenport, Jen- nings, Pearl and many others have communicated the results of their work to the wider scientific and edu- cated public through this journal. In like manner, many articles by leaders in the subject have been printed on human heredity in so far as it is open to experimental or statistical study, and in other subjects on which a sci- ence of eugenics must rest-popula- tion, birth and death rates, immigra- tion, racial differences, human be- havior, etc.
We are consequently pleased to be able to record the holding in New York City of the second International Congress of Eugenics and to print in the present issue of the MONTHLY several of the more important ad- dresses by foreign representatives.
Shakespeare left no descendants, and Ben Jonson remarked that nature, having made her masterpiece, broke the mold. The four sons of Charles Darwin have followed scientific ca- reers, a fine example of family heredity and tradition. It is a special privilege to welcome to the United States and to print the address in advocacy of eugenics of Major Leon- ard Darwin, based so largely on the works of his father, Charles Dar- win, and of his cousin, Francis Galton. We hope to be able to publish in subsequent issues a gen- eral account of the congress by Dr. C. C. Little, the secretary, and several of the papers containing the results of more special scientific research.
The program was strong in genetics, in which America now. probably is leading. But all the divisions main- tained good standards, the more doubtful theories and premature ap- plications of ignorance, to which newer sciences such as eugenics and psychology are subject, having been in general avoided.>>
The Canadian Eugenics Archive adds:
>>The Congress was made up of four section[s], the first was “Human and Comparative Heredity,” the second was “Eugenics and the Family”, the third was “Human Racial Differences,” and the fourth was “Eugenics and the State” (International Eugenics Congress, 1934). An Exhibition was also prepared for the public at large, include those without academic training (International Eugenics Congress, 1934). The goal of the Congress was to discuss eugenics, but particularly in a climate of international cooperation for eugenics goals (International Eugenics Congress, 1934).
Over 300 people attended the conference. It was generally considered a success, and a committee was formed after the Congress to help educate and promote eugenic ideas in America. This committee eventually became the American Eugenics Society.
The logo of the conference was a tree – an enduring symbol of the eugenics movement.>>
Such, should already establish how the relevant thinking was, by general consent of the guild of scientific scholarship and that of the wider “educated public”
— [e.g. honorary Conference President was Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of telephony and tied to the Grosvenor family which for years dominated National Geographic, which is similar in current impact to the above cited], —
a matter of science rooted in the work of Darwin and Galton. That was the “scientific consensus” of the day; itself a lesson on the intellectual and moral hazards of appeal to consensus in science. Also, we must note the significance of influential media and campaigns by editors embarking on crusades in the building of such a consensus. At that time, G K Chesterton was very much an outlier, a lone voice pointing out the errors and hazards.
It is the consequences over the next twenty-five years and the general horror that resulted, which led to a change of approach.
In this light, let us now view some of Darwin’s key remarks in his second book, Descent of Man:
>[CH 5:] The lower animals, . . . must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. They must be rendered stronger, or acquire more effective teeth or claws, for defence against new enemies; or they must be reduced in size, so as to escape detection and danger. When they migrate into a colder climate, they must become clothed with thicker fur, or have their constitutions altered. If they fail to be thus modified, they will cease to exist.
The case, however, is widely different, as Mr. Wallace has with justice insisted, in relation to the intellectual and moral faculties of man. These faculties are variable; and we have every reason to believe that the variations tend to be inherited. [–> notice, the key issue of superior/inferior descent among human populations] Therefore, if they were formerly of high importance to primeval man and to his ape-like progenitors, they would have been perfected or advanced through natural selection. [–> notice, natural selection] Of the high importance of the intellectual faculties there can be no doubt, for man mainly owes to them his predominant position in the world.
We can see, that in the rudest state of society, the individuals who were the most sagacious, who invented and used the best weapons or traps, and who were best able to defend themselves, would rear the greatest number of offspring. The tribes, which included the largest number of men thus endowed, would increase in number and supplant other tribes. [–> as in, eliminate and/or replace] Numbers depend primarily on the means of subsistence, and this depends partly on the physical nature of the country, but in a much higher degree on the arts which are there practised. As a tribe increases and is victorious, it is often still further increased by the absorption of other tribes.* The stature and strength of the men of a tribe are likewise of some importance for its success, and these depend in part on the nature and amount of the food which can be obtained.
In Europe the men of the Bronze period were supplanted by a race more powerful, and, judging from their sword-handles, with larger hands;*(2) but their success was probably still more due to their superiority in the arts.>>
That already demonstrates the basic point. But in Ch 6, we find much more:
>>[CH 6:] EVEN if it be granted that the difference between man and his nearest allies is as great in corporeal structure as some naturalists maintain, and although we must grant that the difference between them is immense in mental power, yet the facts given in the earlier chapters appear to declare, in the plainest manner, that man is descended from some lower form, notwithstanding that connecting-links have not hitherto been discovered. Man is liable to numerous, slight, and diversified variations, which are induced by the same general causes, are governed and transmitted in accordance with the same general laws, as in the lower animals.
Man has multiplied so rapidly, that he has necessarily been exposed to struggle for existence [–> key phrase], and consequently to natural selection. [–> again] He has given rise to many races, some of which differ so much from each other, that they have often been ranked by naturalists as distinct species. [–> key racist principle, here, cf. the sub-title of Origin, about preservation of favoured races in the struggle for survival] His body is constructed on the same homological plan as that of other mammals. He passes through the same phases of embryological development. He retains many rudimentary and useless structures, which no doubt were once serviceable. Characters occasionally make their re-appearance in him, which we have reason to believe were possessed by his early progenitors. If the origin of man had been wholly different from that of all other animals, these various appearances would be mere empty deceptions; but such an admission is incredible. [–> notice, yet another theological appeal by Darwin] These appearances, on the other hand, are intelligible, at least to a large extent, if man is the co-descendant with other mammals of some unknown and lower form . . . .
The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form [–> notice, the fossil gaps question]; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution.
[–> a double-edged sword, this: at what point does cumulative systematic evidence of gaps begin to count? for many, patently, never]
Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies- between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae- between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct.
At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked,* [ * Anthropological Review, April, 1867, p. 236] will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. With respect to the absence of fossil remains, serving to connect man with his ape-like progenitors, no one will lay much stress on this fact who reads Sir C. Lyell’s discussion,* where he shews that in all the vertebrate classes the discovery of fossil remains has been a very slow and fortuitous process. Nor should it be forgotten that those regions which are the most likely to afford remains connecting man with some extinct ape-like creature, have not as yet been searched by geologists. [–> the familiar argument, now 140+ years old . . . 1/4 million fossil species, millions of exemplars in museums etc, billions more seen in the ground] >>
It is clear from these writings, that the science is deeply connected to what would be elaborated as eugenics etc. We need to frankly face that, acknowledge it and learn from it if we are to make genuine onward progress. END
A note on eugenics, social darwinism and evolutionary theory
Haven’t we frankly faced that and moved on?
BO’H: From the sort of push-the-point-away remarks that led me to put this up, no. The lesson, clearly, has not sunk in; neither the narrow one on eugenics nor the broader one on the moral hazard implied. Where, we are currently carrying out a much worse holocaust, of our living posterity in the womb, and are warping all sorts of pivotal institutions of our civilisation to enable it. 800+ millions in 40+ years, a million more per week. The recent threads on what Anthropologists are saying on practices in Amazonia should also give us pause. KF
PS: Just to clench over a nail or two,
More can be sourced, but the picture on the main point should be clear enough.
Bob O’H at 2: No, unfortunately, we have not “frankly faced that and moved on.”
As kairosfocus writes, “[Racism] was the ‘scientific consensus’ of the day; itself a lesson on the intellectual and moral hazards of appeal to consensus in science.”
But more, Darwinism – specifically – played a major role in shaping that consensus, which is what needs to be honestly faced, without resorting to flimsy excuses.
For example, in a recent discussion here, someone claimed that the fact that Darwin dismissed polygeny (the view that human groups evolved separately) countered racism.
Nonsense. Polygeny was at odds with most traditions regarding human origins, which saw an original couple as the progenitors of the human race. The “ideas market” for polygeny was small and not likely to grow.
By contrast, Darwin’s idea of universal common ancestry featuring missing links, savages, and gorillas-on-probation fit very well indeed into the science mindset of his and subsequent generations. It made racism up-to-date science. There are vast masses of material on this, unfortunately.
If the specific, explicit role of Darwinism in making racism a consensus science belief is not admitted, without qualification, we cannot just move on. There will always be lots more neglected or misrepresented facts to bring to light.
I suspect that one reason many would not want to admit that Darwinian racism was literally consensus science is not what is says about Darwinism but what it says about consensus science in general.
Oh well, the way things are going, we won’t be starved for a news feed.
News, I see we just about crossed in posting comments. Unfortunately, our civilisation has some re-thinking to do. KF
Bob:
“Haven’t we frankly faced that and moved on?”
In addition to KF’s and News’ responses, I would add that every time an ID proponent or a warming skeptic is dismissed as a “science denier,” we have not learned the lesson that science is not a matter of nose counting.
In the 1920s the opponents of eugenics were “science deniers,” in the sense they were opposing the cutting edge of mainstream science.
Those science deniers were right. The cutting edgers were dead (pun intended) wrong.
So, Bob, we do not seem to have learned that lesson. Thanks for asking.
It reminds me of Jesus rebuke of the Pharisees in Matthew 23: They said “if we had lived in the days of the fathers we would not have killed the prophets.” Very ironic in retrospect no?
Hm, nobody’s quoted haven’t quoted anything that was published recently: everything comes from before either of my parents were born. If you can’t find anything more recent, then I reckon that yes we have moved on.
No one denies that racism was the consensus of its day, and Darwin was certainly racist. It was such a consensus that there wasn’t even a word for “racist” or “racism”. The view was so normal that it wouldn’t have even occurred to anyone to have a word for it.
The part that many are missing was that it was the consensus pre-Darwinism as well – and, in fact, was a racism far more extreme than after Darwinism. It was a racism that Darwin himself battled.
Uh, no. That wasn’t the mainstream polygenist view. I mean, there were evolutionist polygenists, but they were a tiny minority.
What’s being referred to is the consensus science of it’s day that there were multiple human races, and that they were created separately (usually by God). They were almost always anti-evolutionists. In fact, if anyone spoke out against polygenism, you can be sure that they’d be accused of being an evolutionist, whether they were or not. This is because in so many people’s minds, only an evolutionist wouldn’t be a polygenist.
This is why Darwin wrote: “When the principle of evolution is generally accepted, as it surely will be before long, the dispute between the monogenists and the polygenists will die a silent and unobserved death.”
Polygenism was the mainstream science in America in the early 19th century (so much so that it became known as the “American school” of anthropology) but by the mid 19th century it was mainstream in Europe as well.
As Thomas Gossett, author of Race: The History of an Idea in America, writes, “With the exception of Bachman, the monogenic origin theory had no real champion among men of science.”
This is the problem. Many people like to describe how things changed with the arrival of Darwinism – but they don’t have the slightest idea what things were like in 1858. It makes these discussions incredibly difficult.
Take a look at the speeches of Lincoln. He regularly said things in his speeches that would have had anyone seeking the presidency after him booed off the stage because they were so outlandishly racist. And, yet, racism gained respectability AFTER Lincoln? Does that make any sense?
And this was the guy championed by the abolitionists, so you can imagine was his political opponents were saying in their speeches.
For a taste of mainsteam pre-Darwinism science, here’s Louis Agassiz, the most famous and respected American scientist of the 19th century, from Types of Mankind, which, as Gould describes, was “the leading American text on human racial differences”:
Another quote:
In other words, not only is the black race closer to apes than the white race – but the black race is closer to apes than to whites. This is something that Darwin spends a good deal of time in Descent arguing against. (It’s a shame that he’d have to, but that’s pre-Darwinian science for you.)
Types of Mankind is also filled with talk of racial extinction being perfectly normal and God-willed, and as a good thing. Yes, the leading text of human races was a proponent of genocide. (There are many quotes that are tempting to give but I don’t want this to turn into a copy-and-paste fest.)
Pick up just about any of the other leading science texts, journals, newspapers articles, etc and you’ll find the same stuff. Again, this was the mainstream view.
Darwin himself saw this mindset everywhere the Beagle landed on it’s journey, and personally witnessed many genocides in action, and spoke out against it.
Here’s an instance of where racism in evolution studies put us off the track: Was Neanderthal man fully human? The role racism played in assessing the evidence
Good research, goodusername at 8. But neither Agassiz nor these other figures had nearly the effect on culture that Darwin did. Darwin’s version of racism got inherited and the polygenists’ didn’t. We were stuck with the former, not the latter. We are undoing the damage but it takes time. Revisionism does not help.
In 2009, a reader sent these quotations from Descent of Man a while back, to give readers some sense of Darwin’s view.
BO’H: This was at first level a specific response on a particular claim. At second level, it is an instance of the pessimistic induction, in the form of a case study where a scientific and popular consensus sustained for many decades and backed by big names in science was disastrously wrong; opening the door to horrific Government abuses. That should be a cautionary science in society case study. As, BTW, should be the story of the rise of nuclear weapons. And as BA pointed out, the consensus vs “denialism” card (complete with projective allusions to what happened in and around Germany within living memory) is still around and we need to understand why the collective appeal to consensus and thus authority can go dangerously wrong. That’s an epistemology, logic and ethics issue. One we still need to heed. KF
GUN, News is right to emphasise what was consensus and what its impact was. I also think you may need to read again from Ch 6 as clipped; that reference to Australians and gorillas cannot be wished away or airbrushed out. We need to face and learn from history, especially history that had disastrous consequences. KF
PS: Maybe, I need to point out how one of Huxley’s students tried to sound warnings in several Sci Fi novels which were very popular: H G Wells. Time Machine, Island of Dr Moreau and War of the Worlds spoke in extremely widely read literature. Notice this, from literally the opening of War of the Worlds:
News,
Yes, with the arrival of Darwinism, the most extreme racist – yet mainstream- views, were dealt a major blow.
With the arrival of Darwinism, the mainstream view became that all human races shared a common ancestor – a recent one, and are much more alike than they are different.
So, yes, thank goodness that Darwin supplanted the leading scientists of his day in regards to culture.
But does Darwinism still leave room for racism? Absolutely.
One can still easily make the claim that some races are more intelligent than others, or shares more simian features than others, etc. Such views continued to be mainstream for years. But soon after 1859, anyone claiming that the races are unrelated, and/or that some races are closer to apes than to other races, would be mock and denounced. Darwin took a giant step in the right direction in arguing for how alike humans of all races are, he just didn’t go far enough. Darwin knew that much of the anthropology of his age was wrong, he just didn’t realize how wrong it was.
What’s revisionism is to claim that racist views gained respectability or became more common after Darwin.
As much as we find eugenics to be morally unacceptable, the concept is scientifically sound. At its simplest, it was just artificial selection applied to humans. Given our experience with doing so with plants and animals, there is no reason to believe that it wouldn’t work with humans.
Science merely attempts to find the best explanations for what we observe. At present, evolution does just that. How we apply that knowledge is not a scientific question. It is a philosophical one. Blaming the science for its misuses is counter-productive. The understanding of chemistry has greatly improved out lives. But it also resulted in mustard gas. The study of plants, bacteria and fungi have greatly enhanced our lives through the discovery of antibiotics, but it has also provided us with some very strong poisons and toxins. The study of nuclear physics has greatly enhanced medicine but also gave us the nuclear bomb.
Allan Keith:
And that is the problem.
Given that experience tells us we should leave humanity out of it.
That depends on what you mean by “evolution”. Neither Darwin’s concepts nor the modern synthesis scientifically explains what we observe.
AK
So is laboratory experimentation on human beings.
But a key point is that artificial selection works because it is an example of Intelligent Design.
SA,
Yet we do it all of the time. That is what clinical trials do.
But not the type of intelligent design that people here typically are talking about. When we use artificial selection, we can only work with the variation in traits that already exist. We are not “designing” a new structure, or a new protein.
ET,
Irrelevant to the question of whether eugenics is scientifically sound.
Irrelevant to the question of whether eugenics is scientifically sound.
Thousands of people who study biology disagree with you.
AK
We use that as an argument against what blind evolution – random mutations and natural selection — can actually do without intelligence.
No, it gets to the very heart of the question.
Again, it gets to the heart of the question.
That depends on what you mean by “evolution”. Neither Darwin’s concepts nor the modern synthesis scientifically explains what we observe.
So what? They cannot refute what I said.
And artificial selection is an intelligent design mechanism. No if’s and’s or but’s about it.
AK, I was not going to draw the line onwards from Wells through Haekel to Mr Schicklegruber, but your revisionism asks for it. Here is a certain occupant of the Landsberg Prison, laying out where he would go over the next twenty years, why:
If this echoes some very familiar arguments above, you know why. And the echoes from this in history still reverberate.
It is time to face some unpleasant truth on what can happen when some things become the scientific consensus in a day and age that worships at the feet of science.
And maybe, Keynes needs to be heard, too:
Not just in Economics, lord Keynes, not just in Economics.
KF
SA,
Just a couple points. Breeders cross animals to maximize traits. In just a few centuries this has resulted in a massive diversification in size and shape from the original wolves. Your argument is a valid one, but a very weak one. Get back to me after a few million years of breeding. If they are still all dogs, your argument would have some teeth. Shall we make an appointment for three million years from today? 🙂
ET,
There is certainly intelligence involved, but to call it “design” as an analogy of ID, would be a stretch. You are still relying on the natural and unplanned appearance of variation to select from. Are you suggesting that this is how IF functions?
AK,
Yes, the heyday of eugenics was actually more than 2000 years ago. Plato proposed a system of eugenics more extreme than even most fanatical 19th or 20th century eugenicist. And we all know about Sparta. Eugenics was also part of Roman law, and many other societies at the time.
It shouldn’t be surprising though. As Creationists love pointing out, Darwin’s theory wasn’t wholly new. The effects of selective breeding have been known for thousands, probably tens of thousands of years, and so the idea of applying such breeding to humans to improve human populations is also ancient. Plato makes the argument that we carefully breed horses, dogs, and birds, and so should do the same for humans.
From Plato’s The Republic:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/h.....page%3D459
And so Darwinism adds surprisingly very little to the discussion of eugenics, and Darwin himself (and Wallace, Huxley, etc) were anti-eugenics. Eugenics was little more than a curiosity throughout the late 19th century, despite the popularity of Darwinism. It didn’t start really catching on until the second decade of the 20th century, with the rising popularity of Mendelism. The popularity of eugenics reached its height in the 1920s, which actually was the low point in popularity of Darwinism (the “Eclipse of Darwinism”). Starting around 1930 eugenics began declining (in most places) which is also when Darwinism was pulling out of the “Eclipse”.
AK,
Maybe you have not seen what Darwin had to say on human evolution, including things above on “tribes” and “natural selection.” There is, however a letter of July 3, 1881 to a certain Mr William Graham, that speaks quite, quite plainly:
In short, this letter, penned a decade after Descent of Man, shows beyond doubt that Darwin, plainly, was a foundational Social Darwinist, and that he coolly drew out — without serious compunction — that his theory explained and predicted genocide between the diverse races of man, as a way by which more or less “natural” selection would work to improve the human race.
This gives very pointed focus to the fact that it was Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton, who, impressed by the theory of evolution and its implications, pioneered the eugenics movement. Indeed, in the next generation, Darwin’s son Leonard, led the movement. This is in itself troubling, as the modern Social Darwinism-based eugenics movement has been associated with serious abuses such as racist targetting of “inferior” breeds, groups and classes of man to be reduced or eliminated, and with giving “scientific” credibility to racial and social discrimination.
Where, in CH 6 of Descent of Man, we may plainly read what Darwin echoed in his letter:
Generally, such now discredited ideas are often viewed as illegitimate extensions of the science, but in light of evidence such as the above, we can no longer accept such attempts to distance Darwin from such extensions of his thought. For, it is Darwin himself who applied these thoughts to social darwinism.
And, by incorporating the displacement and genocide of the inferior races under “natural selection” he clearly saw that the human intellect is part of the weaponry of struggle and is a part of nature, just as the fangs and claws of say the lion.
By that light, propaganda and policies that reduce then eliminate the breeding of perceived inferior varieties would also be natural selection. In short, eugenics is effectively a form of natural selection, by Darwin’s lights.
If you doubt this, scroll up to the OP and see his remarks on Wallace. Let me clip CH 5 of Descent again:
Again, food for thought to those willing to face the painful lessons of history.
KF
Allan Keith:
Artificial selection is a design mechanism. Breeders can do what natural selection could not nor would not. Natural selection would be good at undoing what breeders have created.
Question begging. How are you defining “natural”? And how did you determine the variations are “natural and unplanned”?
GUN, distractive. It is quite plain from history that eugenics reached peak tide and had its peak impact in the context of the rise of social darwinism over the period from the 1880’s to 1940’s, and that this lingered on to the 1960’s in key parts. The graffiti I recall from that time, “birth control — plan to kill black people” has a point, given some of the writings of leading advocates; though of course, there is such a thing as responsible family planning — as my Mom had to engage as a health educator. (One key step: a comic book — revolutionary, in a day when comics and penny dreadfuls were despised by the educated.) Indeed, eugenics has gone low-key but is still present and surfaces in some aspects of say the current debates on immigrant minorities and IQ metrics. As a point of note, Hunter’s Civic Biology, the book at the heart of the Scopes affair, advocated eugenics . . . as the “Civic” suggests. KF
ET, you may find my 26 useful. Also, go look at Ch 5 of Descent, noting what more is there. KF
Some sobering quotes from Darwin (per News’s link at post 10)
It might surprise Darwin (and Hitler) to know that, in keeping with the principle of Genetic Entropy, (J. Sanford http://www.geneticentropy.org/properties ), Caucasians are actually inferior to Africans.
In fact, blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, are all the result of a loss of preexisting genetic information (i.e. Genetic Entropy). They are not the result of a gain of new genetic information as the Nazi’s had presupposed in their racial ideology:
Also of note: The I.Q. tests, (i.e. “Bell Curve”), that have shown supposed large differences in the intelligence between races of humans, are all shown to be biased by overlooked environmental factors:
Dr. Ben Carson is a prime example of overcoming strong peer pressure from fellow African Americans trying to tell him to neglect his education:
Simply put, Cultural influences play a far more important role in a child’s intelligence than genetic influences:
Verse:
This following studies that show that our brains are shrinking instead of getting larger, (which also supports the principle of genetic entropy), would have really messed with Hitler’s head;
It is also fitting to note the unbridgible chasm between human intelligence and animal intelligence:
Of final note to the fossil evidence and genetic evidence: Here is a video playlist of Dr. Giem’s series reviewing John Sanford’s new book “Contested Bones”. The book “Contested Bones” (by Christopher Rupe and John Sanford) is the result of four years of intense research into the primary scientific literature concerning those bones that are thought to represent transitional forms between ape and man. This book’s title reflects the surprising reality that all the famous “hominin” bones continue to be fiercely contested today—even within the field of paleoanthropology (The last videos in the series deal with the misleading genetic evidence).
BA77 at 30, 31 and 32. [SNIP– slander]. Oops. I apologize. I forgot that it is morally unacceptable to slander anyone on UD who is no longer alive to defend themselves. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Allan Keith, and how many times before have you been banned from UD for trollish behavior?
I have no qualms against lodging a grievance against you if you take to trolling me.
Unlike Darwinists, I provide actual empirical evidence for my claims.
And can provide much more.
The proper response on your part, (since you apparently have no clue what a proper response is), would have been for you to provide real time empirical evidence for your belief in human evolution. And once you have been refuted on that ‘non-existent’ evidence, to concede that Darwinian evolution is false. (That is called being honest.)
Since I have been down this road for years and know for a fact that you have no real time evidence that can withstand scrutiny, you are reduced to trollish behavior. That’s all you have got left.
It is intellectually dishonest and, frankly, pathetic on your part to be so disingenuous to the evidence we now have in hand.
I have no time for your childish antics.
But feel free to try your luck at trolling me again.
KairosFocus,
Even if we agree that eugenics was caused by the general acceptance of evolution, how do you explain the fact that it has declined since its hay day in spite of the general acceptance of evolution continuing to increase?
Allan Keith:
There isn’t any general acceptance of evolutionism.
ET,
I didn’t say ‘evolutionism’, but with regard to the general acceptance of unguided evolution:
https://www.themarysue.com/the-public-acceptance-of-evolution-in-34-countries/
Allan Keith:
Unguided evolution is evolutionism. And seeing that there isn’t any science to support its claims why would anyone accept it?
ET,
Ask all of these people.
https://www.themarysue.com/the-public-acceptance-of-evolution-in-34-countries/
Allan Keith:
Ask the gullible fools who don’t know what science entails? How is that going to help you?
ET,
They already agree with me. You should be attempting to teach them of the folly of their ways. Tou haven’t been able to convince the thousands of scientists who understand the subject or the handful of those commenting here who have no more than a hobbyists interest in the subject. Convincing the hundreds of millions of gullible fools should be child’s play.
Allan Keith:
Gullible fools agreeing with a gullible fool doesn’t help you.
It is a waste of time. They should be attempting to find support for unguided evolution.
Those scientists cannot convince anyone with an objective mind. They can’t even formulate a scientific theory of evolution. And peer-review is devoid of support for unguided evolution.
So in the end all you have is a bunch of liars and bluffers supporting each other.