The Road to the Holocaust — Darwin or the Pope?

_{William Dembski

April 20, 2008

Expelled}

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Mainstream reviews of Ben Stein’s EXPELLED are going apoplectic over the movie’s connection between Darwin and Hitler. Take, for instance, the review in the Village Voice: it describes the connection between Darwinism and Naziism as “bizarre and hysterical.”

Yet this weekend saw the opening not only of EXPELLED but also of CONSTANTINE’S SWORD. Here’s what the Village Voice has to say about that film:

X marks the spot, literally, where Christianity and the Catholic Church fostered the centuries of religious hatred and anti-Semitism that culminated in the Holocaust…. But if his film is more provocative personal inquiry than reportorial knockout punch, it still pokes needed holes in the concept of papal infallibility and provides historical context for the dangers of linking the church and military. If nothing else, it demonstrates why we should feel cold shivers whenever President George W. Bush bandies the term “crusade.” GO HERE FOR FULL REVIEW

So a film that shows how Christianity “culminated in the Holocaust” constitutes cutting-edge cultural commentary. But a film like EXPELLED, which shows explicitly how the Nazis appropriated Darwin’s ideas, is “bizarre ad hysterical.”

Thank God for EXPELLED, which is holding the secular media’s feet to the fire.

Comments

Reg, Did you notice that in each verse you quoted that a reason was given for the Israelites going to war? Numbers 31: "take vengeance for the Israelites." 1 Samuel 15: "for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them..." I'd hardly call defending myself against genocidal neighbors in a harsh land 'self-righteous.'Barb_{April 20, 2008
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I think it would help if we were to dispassionately analyze the relationship between Darwin's theory of evolution and eugenics. Eugenics is not a science, but rather a technology. That is, the application of scientific knowledge to the deliberate alteration of nature in the pursuit of a goal or goals desired by humans. In this sense, therefore, all technologies (including eugenics) are a direct outgrowth of a system of social morals (i.e. ethics). From our perspective today, we almost universally decry that branch of technology known as eugenics, but we do this mostly as the result of our historical knowledge of what the technology of eugenics resulted in: at the very least, injustice, and at the very most (and most horrific) genocide. It would do everyone thinking about this issue good to consider what the early supporters of eugenics thought about their new "technology" and why they supported it. We can look back now and condemn them all, but without the perspective gained from having the history of the 20th century behind us, I believe that such blanket condemnation does not give either the founders of eugenics (nor its more modern critics) enough credit. "By their fruits shall ye know them" is just another way of saying that empirical knowledge of the effects of a particular system of thought is generally superior to a theoretical understanding of that same system, but devoid of the lessons of experience. Knowing what we know now about the political and social effects of eugenics, would anyone (including any evolutionary biologist I know) advocate it, especially in the ways in which it was advocated during the first two decades of the 20th century? I believe that the answer is no; that would certainly be my answer. However, I also believe that one might come to a different conclusion were one to put oneself in the position of, say, Ronald Aylmer Fisher, one of the founders of the "modern evolutionary synthesis". Fisher was an extraordinarily creative evolutionary biologist, a brilliant mathematician, and a dedicated eugenicist. He was also a life-long and very devout member of the Church of England who often penned essays on christian faith that were published and widely read by his fellow Anglicans. How would a partisan for either side of the EB-ID debate reconcile Fisher's devotion to evolution, eugenics, and Christianity? Only be taking a much less simplistic and more nuanced view of all three of these very human endeavors.Allen_MacNeill_{April 20, 2008
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The point wasn't whether or not Darwin himself supported eugenics, the point was that Darwin admitted that evolutionary philosophy can give a scientific rationale to eugenics. And he was right. The point they were making is that evolutionary philosophy legitimizes immorality with scientific imprimatur. Of course you don't need to believe in evolution to be immoral and kill people, but what evolutionary philosophy did was give the people who wanted to reduce human population (based upon Malthusian principles http://www.trufax.org/avoid/manifold.html ) the ability to do so under the cover of rational progressive enlightened science. Without evolutionary theory they couldn't have done what they did in the way they did it. Government and elite academic and corporate institutions were supportive of eugenics because the people they wanted to get rid of were no longer seen as "endowed with unalienable rights by their creator", but instead were seen as products of "nature" and therefore could be treated as you would treat an invasive weed. Just because Darwin said he had a higher vision of humanity doesn't change the fact that he said it was rational from an evolutionary viewpoint that human could be treated immorally. It's like if I could make people believe that jumping off of a building won't hurt them, but then say that I am afraid of heights so I won't do it, then when many people get hurt people say that I have no responsibility for their actions because I said was afraid of heights.mentok_{April 20, 2008
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See also The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis by Rabbi David G. Dalin.Jonathan Sarfati_{April 20, 2008
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Reg wrote:
To be clear, I am not saying the Nazis were inspired by the Old Testament, or were religiously motivated.
Of course, that's why you mentioned the OT... to say that it wasn't the Nazis' inspiration. See, usually when somebody doesn't want to say something, they actually don't mention it. Or at least that's how I do it. You smart people do things so weird sometimes.
What I am saying is that the claim made in ‘Expelled’ that the theory of evolution was a ‘necessary, but not sufficient requirement’ for the holocaust, is absurd. Given that books exist from millenia beforehand which countenance the slaughter, enslavement and dispossession of whole groups of people, Darwinism is absolutely not required for any program of slaughter, enslavement and dispossession - such as the holocaust.
It's not absurd. In Hitler's lifetime, Germany led the world in science education and science literacy. How do you quickly convince an entire nation of relatively smart, scientifically literate people to do something that has long been considered horrible and repugnant? By convincing them that your horrible and repugnant ideas are based in strong science. Today we're seeing the same kind of persuasion happening with radical environmentalism. Neo-Luddites are being created, ironically enough, in the name of science. You have the supposedly smartest, most educated people in the world ready to throw away most of the technological progress we've made in the past 150 years. Someone who is an apologist for Al Gore, using your same argument, would say that Gore didn't come up with it, it was in the works long before he got here, and as a matter of fact has its roots deep in ancient pagan religions. All of which is true, of course, but without the scientific legitimacy underpinning the whole thing, Gore would have no chance of convincing anyone. In the same way Darwinism was not required for programs of slaughter and enslavement which happened before Darwin ever put pen to paper, such as the transatlantic slave trade.
angryoldfatman_{April 20, 2008
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-----Dave: “If you’re so well informed on Darwin’s writings then please answer why you left out the rest of the quote. If not ignorance then it must be dishonesty. A lie by omission.” How charitable of you to offer me only two options, either that of ignorance or dishonesty. I could ask you the same question. Why did you leave the quote out of the discussion in the first place and offer another one as the definitive example about Darwin’s attitude on these matters? Did it ever occur to you that someone might disagree with you about your interpretation of Darwin’s comments? .The answer to you question is that the added words do not, in my judgment, change the meaning in any significant way.. Darwin quite clearly felt that allowing inferior breeding is a sign of ignorance. The following sentences are, as I pointed out, a way of making an immoral statement seem moral, or to put it more bluntly, a way of covering his anatomy. If you want to put a smiley face on it, go ahead. Nor am I buying your story about Darwin’s belief in man’s nobility. Its just diplomacy, more covering of his anatomy.. Darwin felt that there was a bigger nobility gap between blacks and whites than between animals and blacks. What are you going to do with that one?, Are you going to downplay the obvious racism. I restate that point: This is the way Darwin always does business. He makes the shocking point that he really wants to make then he follows up with a humanizing comment to make it palatable.StephenB_{April 20, 2008
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stephen If you're so well informed on Darwin's writings then please answer why you left out the rest of the quote. If not ignorance then it must be dishonesty. A lie by omission.DaveScot_{April 20, 2008
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Bill, Stuffing the positive evidence for ID into a 90-minute documentary is impractical too and the audience wouldn't have understood much of it. I've been studying it for perhaps thousands of hours and I'm still learning more every day. That said, I'd have done a little more explantory work with the inner cell animation. People intuitively grasp the complexity of a machine and instinctively know that they don't assemble themselves out of thin air, lightning bolts, and dirt. The problem here is it's not in my nature to withhold criticism. 90% of Expelled is great. 10% of it is rubbish. I'm not sure if positive evidence of ID was really necessary though. The theme is academic freedom of inquiry and the underhanded tactics being used to repress unpopular ideas. It's a freedom of speech issue. If the shoe were on the other foot and creationists were the majority in academia like they are in the general public, and the creationists were the ones using the dirty tactics, I'd be out defending PZ Myers' and Richard Dawkins' right to a fair and open hearing to whoever chose to listen to them. Even though I vehemently disagree with them and consider them intellectual degenerates with IQs hardly greater than a turnip they still deserve the right to make their stupid case on a level playing field.DaveScot_{April 20, 2008
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Yes Bill, I agree that there should have been more time addressing the theory of ID that states that aspects of nature reveal design. I think Stephen should have gotten into that a bit more. He probably did but it was edited out. I would have liked to have seen you talk about ID's two main scientific observations which are the NFL observations about the origins of information and organization and your criteria and the functioning of the Explanatory Filter. Once again, Bill I think this movie has and will do more for ID then you know. ID is now more mainstream then ever and in this movie you don’t have someone with a political agenda like Eugene Scott (as featured in the movie on that jerk Abrams) making false claims such as that ID has NO peer reviewed articles. A blatant lie. I think ID has a long way to go but I sense a bright future for it. I might add that I have contacted Steve Fuller by email and he makes an important point that ID is viewed by man (thanks to the media in large part) as a right wing political movement. I think ID needs to reach out to people regardless of their political persuasion. It has been my experience with politics that people aren't as dissimilar as we think they are during an election year. We also need to try very hard (and it is very hard) to not force religion into the subject and not be argumentative. My view on all of this is that I respect the right of Dawkins and his creed to have their opinions but in the real world “The people who say it cant be done have to get out of the way of those who are doing it.” And I say all of this as a card caring Republican.Frost122585_{April 20, 2008
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To be clear, I am not saying the Nazis were inspired by the Old Testament, or were religiously motivated. What I am saying is that the claim made in 'Expelled' that the theory of evolution was a 'necessary, but not sufficient requirement' for the holocaust, is absurd. Given that books exist from millenia beforehand which countenance the slaughter, enslavement and dispossession of whole groups of people, Darwinism is absolutely not required for any program of slaughter, enslavement and dispossession - such as the holocaust. In the same way Darwinism was not required for programs of slaughter and enslavement which happened before Darwin ever put pen to paper, such as the transatlantic slave trade.Reg_{April 20, 2008
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-----Dave: ""I’ll accept your pleading guilty to any one of those. I prefer to think you’re merely uninformed though." So, on the one hand, we are “ignorant” for allowing our worst to breed, but, on the other hand, we are too noble to be anything other than ignorant. That’s one hell of a pep talk. I any case, your interpretation is naive. Reading “The Descent of Man” carefully, one notices that this is the way Darwin always does business. He makes the shocking point that he really wants to make then he follows up with a humanizing comment to make it palatable. This pattern cannot be a coincidence. It is all part of his attempt to make the unacceptable acceptable. I am ignorant on a great many matters, but this isn't one of them.StephenB_{April 20, 2008
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Dear Dave, Was it a mistake for EXPELLED to address the connection between Nazism and Darwin? If I had done the film, I probably would have used that time to outline more clearly what ID is as a scientific and intellectual project. But the movie we have is the one we have. And in my view the connection between Darwinism and Nazism is stark. I realize that scholarship differs here. But if EXPELLED was going to wade into these waters, I'd say they did as good a job as could be done in 8 minutes. It's a moot point whether 8 minutes was enough.William Dembski_{April 20, 2008
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StephenB Thanks for the Darwin quote.
Dishonest? Uninformed? Try this passage: “We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. 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 itself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed,”
Now let's not leave off the rest of what Darwin wrote immediately following the passage you quoted. I wonder, did you leave it out because of being misinformed, ignorant, or dishonet? I'll accept your pleading guilty to any one of those. I prefer to think you're merely uninformed though.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.
DaveScot_{April 20, 2008
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DaveScot I don't deny that some of what the Nazi's philosophized can be "sourced" pre-Darwin. But most of their eugenics philosphy they in fact did source to Darwin's ideas, illegitimately, but to Darwin nonetheless. Might they have cobbled their philosophy together from other non-Darwinian ideas? Yes, they perhaps could have had they worked at it independently, but Darwin advanced the bulk of what the Nazi's wanted to believe and they grabbed that ball and ran with it.Charles_{April 20, 2008
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charles re; segregation of inferior races You mean like the anti-miscegenation laws in the United States dating back to colonial times that prohibited the marriage of blacks and whites? Perhaps the colonists were prescient and anticipated Darwinian theory 200 years before Darwin was born.DaveScot_{April 20, 2008
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I've not seen Expelled yet, so I'm assuming the connection the movie makes to Nazi's and the holocaust is that when you allow "just so" stories to dominate your "science" and suppress intellectual dissent, the resulting philosophy and worldview is warped, to say the least. When, in the case of Nazi's, that warped worldview is further backed by the might of an army and an industrious and angry (if mislead) nation, the result is the holocaust. But several dots must be connected, Darwinism only being the first. The remaining dots of "just so" stories and suppression of dissent is in play today, that's the argument of "Expelled". Does that equate Darwinists to Nazi's? No. Rather I think the Nazi wrought holocaust is shown as an extreme example (enabled by the rise to political leadership and concomitant military might) of allowing "just so" stories to hijack your science. Darwinian atheists don't seem poised to take over the world politically as were the Nazi's, but Darwinian evolutionary science and philosophy has been similarly hijacked by "just so" stories and suppression of dissent, which is the point being made by "Expelled", I suspect and anticipate.Charles_{April 20, 2008
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Bill, There is no possibility that even if Expelled did nothing but document the road to the holocaust it would be anywhere near comprehensive. In the other place where I mentioned Godwin's Law one of the other participants wrote a 700 page book attempting to connect Darwin to Holocaust and it remains unconvincing to many. Moreover it doesn't even bother to mention that the eugenics movement in Germany was preceded by the eugenics movement in the United States. That's a pretty big omission given the subject and detracts considerably from the integrity of the rest of the tome. Bringing the holocaust into Expelled was nothing but gratuitous. It has no bearing at all on academic persecution of those who believe the universe has purpose and design. It all but destroys that message. Comparing the wholesale slaughter of many millions of people to perhaps hundreds of people losing their jobs trivializes the former in a lame to attempt to elevate the latter. People find that disgusting and virtually every review not authored by ID sympathizers focuses on it. Some reviews start off good to glowing but in the end wind up with an overall rating of "disgusting" because of the holocaust connection. To add insult to injury Expelled, by omission, conflates Social Darwinism with Biological Darwinism. The general public doesn't know the difference. All they hear is Darwinism. DaveScot_{April 20, 2008
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Well, it's an overview, but a good one? Citation history provides a clue. Published sixteen years ago, it's been cited only once, and that is a self-citation.evo_materialist_{April 20, 2008
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angry Eugenics started in the United States. Germany modeled their eugenics program after ours. A few differences: 1) We didn't sterilize people by killing them but we did let them die of neglect in institutions for the mentally and physically infirm. 2) We only sterilized or killed about 50,000 people. That said, make no mistake, Germany used the United States as the inspiration and model for its eugenics programs.DaveScot_{April 20, 2008
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FYI all here's a good overview: Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith Volume 44 Number 2 June 1992 Eugenics and the Development of Nazi Race Policy : (intro) From: PSCF 44 (June 1992): 109-124. A central government policy of the Hitler administration was the breeding of a "superior race." This required, at the very least, preventing the "inferior races" from mixing with "superior" ones in order to reduce contamination of the latter's gene pool. The "superior race" belief is based on the theory of group inequality within each species, a major presumption and requirement of Darwin's original "survival of the fittest" theory. A review of the writings of Hitler and contemporary German biologists finds that Darwin's theory and writings had a major influence upon Nazi policies. Hitler believed that the human gene pool could be improved by selective breeding, using the same techniques that farmers used to breed a superior strain of cattle. In the formulation of his racial policies, he relied heavily upon the Darwinian evolution model, especially the elaborations by Spencer and Haeckel. They culminated in the "final solution," the extermination of approximately six million Jews and four million other people who belonged to what German scientists judged were "inferior races."Charles_{April 20, 2008
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Angry So you believe Darwin was the first one to notice that humans are mammals?DaveScot_{April 20, 2008
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DaveScot, I think what you want me to say is that Darwinism alone did not cause the rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust. That is absolutely correct, it didn't. What it did do was to add a scientific underpinning (no matter how flimsy we may perceive it to be now) to other nihilistic and utilitarian philosophies floating around Germany in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Without this underpinning, it may (note: may) have been possible to avert the Nazi menace, but when you have scientists, doctors, nurses, and politicians all pushing concepts like lebensunwerten Leben and "useless eaters", it becomes more difficult to tell a little mustachioed maniac repeating their nonsense that he doesn't know what he's talking about.angryoldfatman_{April 20, 2008
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-----Dave: "Ridiculous. Darwin didn’t discover what could be accomplished through artificial selection. That’s been common knowledge for thousands of years. Darwin first asserted that selection takes place in nature (natural selection) and works the same way as does in artificial breeding of animals. He then extrapolated selection as something that explained not just variation between individuals of the same species but also explained the origin of new species. Attributing more than that to Darwin is either mistaken, uninformed, or dishonest." Dishonest? Uninformed? Try this passage: "We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. 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 itself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed,"StephenB_{April 20, 2008
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Inunison, you make very good point. Jews, overwhelmingly, perished in the Holocaust, but the inclusion of Jews along with gypsies, the disabled and handicapped, homosexuals, and other populations deemed “weak” was a plank in the platform of “racial hygiene” in the service of creating the Master Race. Traditional Christianity was an obstruction along this route to “biological salvation.” Therefore the State Church (“Reichskirche”) was coopted early on by the Nazis. As Goebbels said in 1938: “OUR STARTING POINT IS NOT THE INDIVIDUAL, AND WE DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO THE VIEW THAT ONE SHOULD FEED THE HUNGRY, GIVE DRINK TO THE THIRSTY, OR CLOTHE THE NAKED . . . . OUR OBJECTIVES ARE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT: WE MUST HAVE A HEALTHY PEOPLE IN ORDER TO PREVAIL IN THE WORLD.” The linkage clearly runs from Darwinism to eugenics to Nazism. The Nazis saw themselves as incorporating state-of-the-art biological science into their platform of biological salvation. This is demonstrated amply (with documents, photos, and videos) in the National Holocaust Museum’s exhibit entitled, “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” which may be accessed online at http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/ In fact, Pope Pius XI condemned Nazism in the encyclical “Mit Brennender Sorge,” issued in 1937. This encyclical, issued in German rather than the traditional Latin, said in part: “God, the Sovereign Master, has issued commandments whose value is independent of time and space, country and race. As God's sun shines on every human face so His law knows neither privilege nor exception. Rulers and subjects, crowned and uncrowned, rich and poor are equally subject to His word...None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are ‘as a drop of a bucket’ (Isaiah xl, 15). " That Pius XI referenced Isaiah (in the Hebrew Bible, which the Nazis deemed “a book of Jewish lies”) was especially stinging. Bob O’H, you wrote:
I’ll get in the queue for the popcorn - somehow I think there’s going to be a response to this on Pharyngula.
Fortunately, the “Deadly Medicine” exhibit is currently touring at the Science Museum of Minnesota until May 4. http://www.smm.org/deadlymedicine/ Possibly Dr. Myers could swing over to St. Paul and learn something from this exhibit. If he needs some help with the cost of a ticket, I think Ms. O’Leary has volunteered to help. I agree that the long and shameful history of Christian antisemitism played a significant role in the labeling of Jews as “weak.” I also agree that the Church in Germany capitulated far too readily to the Nazis. (Hitler referred to the leaders of the German Church as “those submissive little dogs.”) That is something we who call ourselves “Christian” need to come to terms with, continually and repeatedly. But it does no good for those who claim to stand in Darwin’s lineage to deal with this awful episode simply by denial.Lutepisc_{April 20, 2008
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DaveScot wrote:
I’m not sure what you’re trying to [s]ay. Darwin exten[d]ed the principles of artificial selection to explain the origin of species. Eugenics, which was hardly confined to Nazi Germany, and indeed was widely embraced in the U.S. before anyone heard of Hitler, is based on artificial selection. Darwin didn’t invent artificial selection.
All of this is true. None of it is relevant to whether or not Nazi justifications for their actions were related to Darwinism. I could write an essay in response here, but it would just be a less eloquent version of what you can read from the pen of Dr. Leo Alexander. Suffice it to say, the road to the Holocaust was being paved a decade or more before Hitler rose to power. He just assigned more workers to the construction crew.
So my question is: are you saying there is no scientific legitimacy to selective breeding of livestock for desireable traits? Surely you’re not. That doesn’t require scientific legitimacy unless you consider farmers to be scientists.
You seem to try and equate farming with eugenics. This is only possible when you consider humans to be nothing but animals. There is only one modern scientific theory that lends legitimacy to this view. In that case, scientists would become farmers. People-farmers.angryoldfatman_{April 20, 2008
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DaveScot, I would agree that, on its own, neither evolution nor darwinism (insofar as darwinism is a description of evolution's mechanisms, devoid of philosophy - and yes I know some people argue 'darwinism' includes philosophy by its nature, which I disagree with) is responsible for nazism or eugenics. However, clearly people have leaned on darwinism and evolution to not only justify their desired policies and philosophies, but to pass them off as 'scientific' as well. That, I believe, is the real problem with the history people here are talking about, and the problem that's popping up to this day: The use of intellectual sleight of hand where suddenly scientific theories 'prove' philosophical conclusions that they simply cannot. I don't believe darwinism as described or evolution in general necessitated eugenics. But I'm damn willing to argue that people saying 'Aha, look! Man is mere a beast, we need to purify our gene pool, and science dictates this as the proper path!' - and a scientific establishment that was, frankly, supportive of such a conclusion - were responsible, as much in America as in Germany. I think the problem then is the same as the problem now - scientists who want to not only be scientists, but politicians and priests as well. Forced sterilizations and the rest of the eugenic and nazi bandwagon were the result of people mixing a little science with a whole lot of philosophy/politics, and advertising the result as truth and utter fact. Expelled does a good job of showing that some scientists - and possibly a larger establishment as a whole - is still playing this game. It drives the point home that a lot more tolerance for questioning the prevailing views should be allowed.nullasalus_{April 20, 2008
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Well, Hitler and his types thought they were spearheading nature and therefore were riding with the waves of deterministic inevitability. An interesting thing happened in nature though- the people of the truth- those who wished and sought to protect the meek with even their own lives, sent Hitler and his army of darkness to hell. The destruction of all those young strong brilliant Germans was some natural selection I might add. In this case it was apparently “out with the strong and in weak.” Unless of course natural selection just simply got rid of the Darwinian world view because “it was itself unfit.” God had his vengeance and nature's truth was vindicated. WW2 was marks one of the greatest triumphs of the human sprit and proofs for the power of good over evil in known history. What happens when nature rejects Darwinism?Frost122585_{April 20, 2008
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Reg @ 21 So the ideas of self-righteous massacre, slavery and theft predated Darwin. As far as being a necessary condition for Nazism is concerned, isn’t that sort of thing at least as relevant as anything Darwin wrote? Hardly. The Nazi's were not presuming to obey the God of the bible, rather they were trying to snuff out Jews, persecute Christians who disagreed and eliminate/replace the church. Had the Nazi's been using bible passages as justification for their genocide, you might have a point. But they weren't. They were pursuing what natural selection failed to do, eliminate the unfit and propagate the "fittest" (by their warped philosophy) without moral consequence because Darwin had "proven" there never was a God to impose any morals or judgement, and hijacking Darwinian philosphy (not God) to justify their actions.Charles_{April 20, 2008
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DLH If you do any serious searching, you will find that Darwin’s principles of evolution were foundational to both Nazis Ridiculous. Darwin didn't discover what could be accomplished through artificial selection. That's been common knowledge for thousands of years. Darwin first asserted that selection takes place in nature (natural selection) and works the same way as does in artificial breeding of animals. He then extrapolated selection as something that explained not just variation between individuals of the same species but also explained the origin of new species. Attributing more than that to Darwin is either mistaken, uninformed, or dishonest.DaveScot_{April 20, 2008
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DLH, apology insufficient. The Pope did not mention Darwinism.evo_materialist_{April 20, 2008
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