Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

But they never mention the racism. Why not?

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From a book excerpt at Salon, a mag you’d read if you believe you are smart despite evidence:

Over the next two decades Darwin revised the “Origin of Species” five times. Even in his final revision, he did not take the theory to its logical end; but he had already privately concluded that his principles of natural selection applied to the human race as well. “As soon as I had become . . . convinced that species were mutable productions,” he wrote in his later “Autobiography,” “I could not avoid the belief that man must come under the same law.” In 1871 he finally published “The Descent of Man,” an extension of his evolutionary principles to the human race.

The “Descent” brought the full implications of the “Origin of Species” into plain sight.

Charles Darwin had put biology on a collision course with the human race’s most cherished idea about itself: its uniqueness. “The question raised by Mr. Darwin as to the origin of the species,” one reviewer wrote, “marks the precise point at which the theological and scientific modes of thought come into contact. . . . We are brought face to face in this book with the difficult problems which previously had only revealed themselves more or less indistinctly on the dim horizon.”

Those difficult problems were now in plain sight—and would remain there.

Of course, they are too polite to mention that racism is then an inevitable component of Darwin’s theory.

Their formula must work.  The very people one would expect to be most exercised about racism want to declare a national Darwin Day in the United States.

Oh wait. Facts change when we rewrite them. Spin hard at work. Hmmm. Can’t help wondering how much of it is fuelled by tax dollars.

That is the part of Darwinism that bugs me most. The general lack of discussion of serious issues like that (though sometimes, indulged as amused piffle, of course).

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Comments
Mung: Well, you did say bacteria. And other than the archaea, what other prokaryotes did you have in mind? Z: There is evidence that eukaryotes evolved from an endosymbiotic relationship of primitive prokaryotes and proteobacteria and cyanobacteria. The host is usually posited to be a prokaryote, specifically an archaean. We're not completely convinced by Penny, but we'd be happy to modify our statement to be more general, consistent with Penny. Z: There is evidence that modern eukaryotes evolved from an endosymbiotic relationship of primitive protocells and proteobacteria and cyanobacteria. But we're glad you accept that modern cells evolved billions of years ago through natural mechanisms. Zachriel
Zachriel: The term was prokaryotes, not necessarily bacteria. Well, you did say bacteria. And other than the archaea, what other prokaryotes did you have in mind? Wikipedia:
Prokaryotes can be divided into two domains, Archaea and Bacteria, with the remainder of species, called eukaryotes, in the third domain Eukaryota.
Zachriel: ... his citation suggests that the host was a proto-eukaryote. Proto-Eukaryote. That's one you forgot to mention in your original post telling us all how eukaryotes evolved. Zachriel: It is a difficult question to unravel, much of the evidence obscured by intervening evolution. Not really. Someone just had to look at the differences rather than the similarities and drop some prior assumptions. Mung
Virgil Cain: More like an idea, an untestable idea. Well, according to Mung, it has been tested, and his citation suggests that the host was a proto-eukaryote. It is a difficult question to unravel, much of the evidence obscured by intervening evolution. Zachriel
Zachriel:
The most popular theory is an archaen host;
More like an idea, an untestable idea.
Glad you agree with Woese and Penny that cellular structures evolved billions of years ago through natural mechanisms.
Why would anyone agree to something so vague and untestable? Virgil Cain
Mung: On the contrary, there is evidence that eukaryotes did not evolve from bacteria. The term was prokaryotes, not necessarily bacteria. The most popular theory is an archaen host; however, it is possible mitochondrial endosymbiosis occurred after the eukaryotic stem had already diverged from the common ancestral community. Poole & Penny, Evaluating hypotheses for the origin of eukaryotes, BioEssays 2007: “Phylogenetic data fit best with the monophyly of the three domains, a common origin for eukaryotes and archaea, and acquisition of the endosymbiotic precursor of mitochondria early in eukaryote evolution by eukaryotic mechanisms of engulfment.” Glad you agree with Woese and Penny that cellular structures evolved billions of years ago through natural mechanisms. Zachriel
Information Processing Differences Between Archaea and Eukarya—Implications for Homologs and the Myth of Eukaryogenesis by Change Tan and Jeffrey P. Tomkins on March 18, 2015 Abstract In the grand schema of evolution, a mythical prokaryote to eukaryote cellular transition allegedly gave rise to the diversity of eukaryotic life (eukaryogenesis). One of the key problems with this idea is the fact that the prokaryotic world itself is divided into two apparent domains (bacteria and archaea) and eukarya share similarities to both domains of prokaryotes while also exhibiting many major innovative features found in neither. In this article, we briefly review the current landscape of the controversy and show how the key molecular features surrounding DNA replication, transcription, and translation are fundamentally distinct in eukarya despite superficial similarities to prokaryotes, particularly archaea. These selected discontinuous molecular chasms highlight the impossibility for eukarya having evolved from archaea. In a separate paper, we will address alleged similarities between eukarya and bacteria. https://answersingenesis.org/biology/microbiology/information-processing-differences-between-archaea-and-eukarya/ Information Processing Differences Between Bacteria and Eukarya—Implications for the Myth of Eukaryogenesis by Change Tan and Jeffrey P. Tomkins on March 25, 2015 Excerpt: In a previous report, we showed that a vast chasm exists between archaea and eukarya in regard to basic molecular machines involved in DNA replication, RNA transcription, and protein translation. The differences in information processing mechanisms and systems are even greater between bacteria and eukarya, which we elaborate upon in this report. Based on differences in lineage-specific essential gene sets and in the vital molecular machines between bacteria and eukarya, we continue to demonstrate that the same unbridgeable evolutionary chasms exist—further invalidating the myth of eukaryogenesis. https://answersingenesis.org/biology/microbiology/information-processing-differences-between-bacteria-and-eukarya/ Evolutionist’s Overreach on Eukaryote Evolution Fuels Journalistic Frenzy - May, 16, 2015 Excerpt: Ettema’s latest paper, makes the rather startling claim, that complex archaea “bridge the gap” between prokaryotes and eukaryotes and share a common ancestry with eukaryotes. That is quite a claim. What Ettema and co-workers discovered was an archaeal phylum they have named “Lokiarchaeota,”,,, But alas, and as usual, there was no such breakthrough. What in fact the evolutionists found was that using a highly select, prepared, refined and cleansed set of molecular sequence data, with computer algorithms whose logic assumes evolution is true to begin with, their new Lokiarchaeota species align with the eukaryotes. And so from an evolutionary perspective, there is an important evolutionary relationship with the eukaryotes. In all they found a whopping 3.3% of the Lokiarchaeota proteins to be similar to eukaryotic proteins. That leads the evolutionists to declare that today’s Lokiarchaeota shares a common ancestry with eukaryotes. From a scientific perspective that is not merely an unsupported conclusion, it is contradictory to a mountain of empirical evidence.,,, This is beyond absurd, and the evolutionist’s non-scientific truth claims have had the usual effect of fueling yellow journalism. One need look no further than the Washington Post, whose headline declares that: "Newly discovered “missing link” shows how humans could evolve from single-celled organisms" Shows how humans could evolve?,, This isn’t even wrong. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2015/05/evolutionists-overreach-on-eukaryote.html bornagain77
Zachriel:
Zachriel: There is evidence that eukaryotes evolved from an endosymbiotic relationship of primitive prokaryotes and proteobacteria and cyanobacteria.
On the contrary, there is evidence that eukaryotes did not evolve from bacteria.
Instead, the data suggest that eukaryote cells with all their bells and whistles are probably as ancient as bacteria and archaea, and may have even appeared first, with bacteria and archaea appearing later as stripped-down versions of eukaryotes, according to David Penny, a molecular biologist at Massey University in New Zealand.
This isn't even a novel idea, iirc. Independent Birth of Organisms Mung
Zachriel:
Like a river, while there’s no target, it does progress.
To the lowest point. So by your analogy evolution progresses to the lowest point. Sounds like bacteria will evolve into even more simple replicators.
For instance, if we look at the fossil record, we have single-celled organisms, the first multicellular organisms, then vertebrates, gnathostomes, tetrapods, amniotes, theropods, birds.
And evolutionism doesn't have a mechanism capable of explaining any of that. You lose. Virgil Cain
Silver Asiatic: As I said, evolution offers no explanation as to why there’s a directional movement ‘toward a place’, or in other words towards something. Like a river, while there's no target, it does progress. For instance, if we look at the fossil record, we have single-celled organisms, the first multicellular organisms, then vertebrates, gnathostomes, tetrapods, amniotes, theropods, birds. Zachriel
Zachriel:
In other words, per Penny, endosymbiosis occurred after the eukaryote stem was already advanced.
Yet neither Penny nor Woese can scientifically explain the existence of eukaryotes via unguided processes. The problem is there isn't any way to scientifically test their claims. Virgil Cain
Zach
progress, movement toward a place.
As I said, evolution offers no explanation as to why there's a directional movement 'toward a place', or in other words towards something. To say, simply, 'that's what we see in the fossil record' is not an evolutionary explanation for why there appears to be progress in a direction. The environment is cyclical, it doesn't move in a direction. For something like a river, the progress is determined by the length of the slope. It has an end point. Gravity and the properties of water and the landscape determine the path. Stasis, convergent evolution and genetic drift argue against a directional movement also. So, as above, evolutionary theory does not give a reason why progress occurred or should be expected in the future. Silver Asiatic
Silver Asiatic: The progression of water from sky, to mountain snow, to springs, to rivers, to the sea, to the sky, to mountain snow, to springs, to rivers …? The example provided was a river, not the water cycle. While no analogy is perfect, this one is more than sufficient to illustrate a common use of the word progress. Here's the relevant definition:
progress, movement toward a place.
Mung: It is now, and that’s my point. It wasn’t always that way. Woese appeared on the scene and things changed. The diagram you provided is labeled "A phylogenetic tree of living things, based on RNA data and proposed by Carl Woese, showing the separation of bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes." Per the diagram, eukaryotic rRNA and archaean rRNA are sister groups. Woese, On the evolution of cells, PNAS 2002: "There is evidence, good evidence, to suggest that the basic organization of the cell had not yet completed its evolution at the stage represented by the root of the universal tree." Furthermore, Woese found that the mitochondrion belonged to the alpha subdivision of prokaryotes (alphaproteobacteria). See Yang et al., Mitochondrial origins, PNAS 1985. Mung: Penny 2006, or Kurland et al., Genomics and the Irreducible Nature of Eukaryote Cells, Science 2006 Poole & Penny, Evaluating hypotheses for the origin of eukaryotes, BioEssays 2007: "Phylogenetic data fit best with the monophyly of the three domains, a common origin for eukaryotes and archaea, and acquisition of the endosymbiotic precursor of mitochondria early in eukaryote evolution by eukaryotic mechanisms of engulfment." In other words, per Penny, endosymbiosis occurred after the eukaryote stem was already advanced. Mung: Science marches on. Yes. Glad you agree with Woese and Penny that cellular structures evolved billions of years ago through natural mechanisms. Zachriel
Zach
Rivers flow to the sea.
The progression of water from sky, to mountain snow, to springs, to rivers, to the sea, to the sky, to mountain snow, to springs, to rivers ...? Not a good analogy. That's a cycle not progress. It's been about the same since water first existed on earth. Silver Asiatic
Zachriel: Of course there are differences, or they wouldn’t be separate domains. The differences are so significant that the hypothesis that any one of them arose from either of the other two must be rejected. Your position is not sustainable and is in need of modification. Science marches on. Zachriel: It’s a standard phylogenetic tree. It is now, and that's my point. It wasn't always that way. Woese appeared on the scene and things changed. Give it up Zachriel, you've got nothing. While you're at it, read the article linked to by VC in 75. Mung
The nodes of phylogenetic trees denote "something happened" events. :cool: Virgil Cain
Mung: There are significant differences in all three domains, so significant that the hypothesis that any one of them arose from either of the other two must be rejected. Of course there are differences, or they wouldn't be separate domains. Mung: Given the wiki image, which domains arose from which? According the diagram, Archaean rRNA branched from bacteria, then eukaryotic rRNA branched from archaea rRNA. Mung: Can you tell? It's a standard phylogenetic tree. http://openi.nlm.nih.gov/detailedresult.php?img=2793248_1745-6150-4-43-27&req=4 Zachriel
Zachriel:
If by “look like”, you mean have molecular structures associated with bacteria, then yes.
Have some molecular structures that bacteria have. A some even posit that bacteria are spinoffs of those organelles- ie the organelles gave rise to the bacteria- Penny 2006
Not progress, as in better, but a progression, such as a river progresses towards the sea.
Not all rivers progress towards the sea but they all seek a lower point. Is that what you mean- evolution seeks the lowest point? Virgil Cain
Zachriel, There is much more to it than a simple "posit." There are significant differences in all three domains, so significant that the hypothesis that any one of them arose from either of the other two must be rejected. This is based on the actual evidence. This has nothing to do with endosymbiosis, so we can discard that as a red herring. Given the wiki image, which domains arose from which? Can you tell? Did the Archaea arise from the Bacteria? Mung
Mung: I’m talking about his view on the relationship between the three domains. That none of the three arose from any of the other two. Woese posits they arose from a hot common evolutionary cauldron, not as separate events. Mung: That none of the three arose from any of the other two. If Woese is right, then you are wrong. Woese's hypothesis doesn't preclude endosymbiosis, though it may relegate it to a secondary role. Mung: See the image in the wiki article. What about it? Zachriel
Zachriel, I am not talking about Woese's view on endosymbiosis, I'm talking about his view on the relationship between the three domains. That none of the three arose from any of the other two. If Woese is right, then you are wrong. See the image in the wiki article. Mung
Virgil Cain: The “evidence” just says that some organelles sort of look like bacteria. If by "look like", you mean have molecular structures associated with bacteria, then yes. Virgil Cain: Evolution doesn’t posit progress Not progress, as in better, but a progression, such as a river progresses towards the sea. Mung: Didn’t Woese show that this is a false view of the origin of eukaryotes? Your link doesn't seem to include the text you quoted. Woese's view is that the simple notion of endosymbiosis is oversimplistic, and that there was a primordial period of rampant horizontal exchange between archaea and the protoeukaryotes before life crossed what he terms the Darwinian Threshold. Zachriel
Yikes! Virgil Cain 3, Zachriel 0 Querius
Zachriel: There is evidence that eukaryotes evolved from an endosymbiotic relationship of primitive prokaryotes and proteobacteria and cyanobacteria. Didn't Woese show that this is a false view of the origin of eukaryotes? Eukaryotes did not evolve from either the archaea or the bacteria. There is however evidence that "several key organelles of eukaryotes originated as a symbiosis." Mung
Zachriel:
The fossil evidence shows a progression over hundreds-of-millions of years
Evolution doesn't posit progress Virgil Cain
Zachriel:
There is evidence that eukaryotes evolved from an endosymbiotic relationship of primitive prokaryotes and proteobacteria and cyanobacteria.
The "evidence" just says that some organelles sort of look like bacteria. That means the evidence isn't scientific evidence as no one can actually test the claim. Nice try, though. Virgil Cain
Virgil Cain: Given starting populations of prokaryotes you can’t get beyond more populations of prokaryotes. There is evidence that eukaryotes evolved from an endosymbiotic relationship of primitive prokaryotes and proteobacteria and cyanobacteria. harry: For the progression to even begin ... The fossil evidence shows a progression over hundreds-of-millions of years — regardless of any explanatory theory — regardless of how life began. harry: A progression? Yes. Good. From the nest hierarchy of that progression, we can show common descent. Silver Asiatic: With a direction, we can predict the future. Progress and direction point to goals, and therefore purpose. Rivers flow to the sea. Zachriel
Evolutionary theory provides no reason why a progression would be required also. To conclude there is progress from a beginning is to indicate 'direction'. With a direction, we can predict the future. Progress and direction point to goals, and therefore purpose. Why would chemical compounds progress in a direction? What inanimate matter is progressing? Are clouds and rain the same today as they were 40 million years ago? Did they make progress? Did water molecules progress? Oxygen? Human beings understand progress very well. We try to make progress in knowledge and moral goodness. But we also understand this as moving in a direction, for a purpose. That's theism, design and teleology. Silver Asiatic
Zachriel @62, A progression? Yes. A mindless accident? No. For the progression to even begin, a single-celled, metabolizing, self-replicating unit, the required functional complexity of which the best minds of modern science still do not know how to build from scratch, had to somehow come about. Did dumb matter mindlessly and accidentally assemble itself into such nanotechnology? No. Could new features requiring even greater functional complexity be mindlessly and accidentally integrated with such functional complexity? No. A progression? Yes. A mindless accident? Ridiculous. harry
Zachriel, Your position doesn't have a mechanism capable of explaining the diversity of life. Given starting populations of prokaryotes you can't get beyond more populations of prokaryotes. You lose. Virgil Cain
harry: My thought was that that would be a case of confusing evidence that a genome allows for a wild variety within a given kind, with evidence for macro-evolution. The notion of "kind" is ill-defined, but if you look at equine fossils, they look like variations of the horse kind, the early fossils of which resemble the perissodactyla kind, the mammal kind, the amniote kind, the tetrapod kind. That's because when we look at early equines, they closely resemble the fossils of other early odd-toed ungulates. harry: If not for evidence like that, why would anybody use the fossil record at all as evidence for evolution? Because it shows an overall pattern of descent with modification. At one time there were only singled-celled organisms. Then there were simple multi-cellular animals, followed by the first vertebrates, gnathostomes, land vertebrates, amniotes, mammals, primates, hominids. That’s a progression. Zachriel
goodusername @60, So what do you make of the ubiquitous depictions of the evolution of the horse that have been around for generations? My thought was that that would be a case of confusing evidence that a genome allows for a wild variety within a given kind, with evidence for macro-evolution. If not for evidence like that, why would anybody use the fossil record at all as evidence for evolution? Consider the following:
The main impetus for expanding the view that species are discrete at any one point in time, to embrace their entire history, comes from the fossil record. Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their fossils as they pursued them up through the rock record. Instead, collections of nearly identical specimens, separated in some cases by 5 million years, suggested that the overwhelming majority of animal and plant species were tremendously conservative throughout their histories. That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin himself, troubled by the stubbornness of the fossil record in refusing to yield abundant examples of gradual change, devoted two chapters to the fossil record. To preserve his argument he was forced to assert that the fossil record was too incomplete, to full of gaps, to produce the expected patterns of change. He prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search and then his major thesis - that evolutionary change is gradual and progressive - would be vindicated. One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way. Rather than challenge well-entrenched evolutionary theory, paleontologists tacitly agreed with their zoological colleagues that the fossil record was too poor to do much beyond supporting, in a general sort of way, the basic thesis that life had evolved. -- Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution
Emperor Evolution just can't seem to find his clothes. Gould and Eldredge did nothing more than provide the naked Emperor, in a desperate attempt to end the embarrassment, with some clothes woven of the fabric of punctuated equilibrium, which are disintegrating, as is his "junk DNA" garment. The Emperor's garments made from the cloth of random mutations and natural selection applied to the nanotechnology of life are doomed to disintegration as well. This is because such an approach ignores what anybody who has actually developed digital-information based technology knows: A series of random modifications to such a system will destroy functionality, not add new features to it. As unlikely as it would be for a mindless, accidental modification to such a system to turn out to be an actual enhancement, such rare events would still be overwhelmed by the certainty that a series of mindless, accidental modifications to copies of the system will inevitably destroy all functionality in them. harry
harry
Let’s not confuse evidence in the fossil record that indicates no more than what we already knew from dog breeders — that a genome allows for a wild variety within a given kind — with evidence for macro-evolution.
It's interesting that you would say that because I would say you have the fossil record exactly backwards - it's on the smaller scale of evolution that we generally don't have fossils, while we do have many between larger groups. When Gould talks about a lack of intermediate fossils, he's talking about at the "micro-evolution" level: "Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups." Do we have a "lengthy series of transitional forms" in the fossil record showing the evolution of the chihuhua from a different breed? Even one such fossil? Do we have a single fossil that's an intermediate between one dog breed and another? Why do you suppose that is? Probably precisely for the reasons Gould gives. While creationists and ID proponents love the "trade secret" quote - the lack of fossils he's talking about is at what most of them would consider the "micro-evolution" level, a level of evolution that most of them accept anyway. And it's precisely at the level where you don't believe evolution occurs that Gould believes there's an "abundance" of intermediate fossils. goodusername
Mung: There is no progress in evolution. At one time there were only singled-celled organisms. Then there were simple multi-cellular animals, followed by the first vertebrates, gnathostomes, land vertebrates, amniotes, mammals, primates, hominids. That's a progression. Mung: Please explain. Gould hypothesized that finding transitional fossils on the species level is unlikely in some lineages because speciation occurs in small, isolated populations over geologically short periods of time, meaning they are much less likely to leave fossils. The overall pattern of transition above the species level remains, and there are other lineages where transitions are well-represented. Zachriel
Zachriel: The fossil record shows a progression of forms, hardly what can be gathered from dog breeding. There is no progress in evolution. Zachriel: Gould showed, given what we know of evolution, why there was a general limit to the resolution of transitional forms. Please explain. Even Darwin knew that all the expected innumerable transitionals were not in evidence. Mung
harry: — Let’s not confuse evidence in the fossil record that indicates no more than what we already knew from dog breeders — that a genome allows for a wild variety within a given kind — with evidence for macro-evolution. The fossil record shows a progression of forms, hardly what can be gathered from dog breeding. harry: — Gould was responding to the fact that a lengthy series of transitional forms, each one of which obviously being a variation of the preceding one and obviously being the predecessor of the succeeding slight variant of itself, with the beginning of the series being of one kind, and the end of the series clearly being a totally different kind, was not to be found in the fossil record as Darwin predicted. Gould showed, given what we know of evolution, why there was a general limit to the resolution of transitional forms. Zachriel
Hello to all who have engaged in this discussion with me, This has been a quite entertaining discussion! Don't have time to respond to everyone individually this morning. A few quick thoughts: -- Let's not confuse evidence in the fossil record that indicates no more than what we already knew from dog breeders -- that a genome allows for a wild variety within a given kind -- with evidence for macro-evolution. -- Gould was responding to the fact that a lengthy series of transitional forms, each one of which obviously being a variation of the preceding one and obviously being the predecessor of the succeeding slight variant of itself, with the beginning of the series being of one kind, and the end of the series clearly being a totally different kind, was not to be found in the fossil record as Darwin predicted. That was the "trade secret of paleontology" and was due to the fact that all Darwin had really done was offer an unjustified, unreasonable extrapolation of what everybody already knew from centuries of dog breeding, and nothing more. -- Regardless of Darwin's personal views, which don't matter at all to me, the fact is that his unjustified extrapolation, pretending to be "science," gave a pseudo-legitimacy to atheism and eugenics: "If there is no god managing the evolution of life, somebody should, and why not us?" This absurd reasoning combined with the fallen nature of humanity led to unspeakable, diabolical evil being unleashed upon humanity. -- I was convinced of the evil results of Darwinism -- not of Darwin himself, that I couldn't care less about -- long before I found out I had relatives, the descendants of the brother of my great grandfather, who had remained in Europe and were murdered by the Nasis in Aushwitz. Although communicating with some of the surviving descendants of those newly found relatives has led to an appreciation of how the wounds inflicted by the Holocaust are still deeply felt in a very personal way by the descendants of its survivors and victims. The Holocaust reeks of an evil that is greater than fallen human nature can muster up all by itself. There was another, non-human, intelligent entity behind it, who is behind all massive assaults on innocent human life made in the image of God. harry
harry,
Gould’s theory was a response to the fact that the overall pattern clearly did NOT support evolutionary change.
Gould and Eldredge didn’t really come up with a new theory of evolution. “Punctuated equilibrium” is a description for how the fossil record usually appears, and he argues that the pattern of “punctuated equilibrium” in the fossil record is what we would expect if the normal mode of speciation is via Mayr’s allopatric speciation. Allopatric speciation had already become the mainstream view of evolution, and so he wasn’t really proposing anything that wasn’t already widely accepted (although many misunderstood it as such). The new claim was that paleontology can actually say something regarding details of the mode of speciation, something that was previously thought to be the domain of population dynamics. Also Gould didn’t say that there weren’t intermediates (he has written articles describing intermediate fossils), but he says that when intermediate fossils are found that they also are usually evidence for allopatric/peripatric speciation - they are usually found on the periphery of the range of the species while the main portion of the species remains relatively unchanged. goodusername
William J. Murray made a good point on another site that's worth repeating:
You’re conflating what a theory actually states with what some may use the theory to implicate. Darwinism was used to implicate that non-whites & non-Europeans were biologically inferior. Darwinism was used to advance several social agendas. To debate a theory logically or scientifically, one must address what the theory actually states, not what it is used by some to advance or implicate. Darwin himself thought his own theory necessarily implied some very racist perspectives. Does that mean that Darwinism is necessarily racist? Of course not.
*link deliberately not provided so as not to offend rhampton7
harry: Are you denying that a given genome allows for a wild variety of versions of the given kind? No. But we are denying that the necessary alleles to make a poodle are found in the wolf. harry: Where is the plethora of transitional forms in the fossil record? The overall pattern is quite clear, as already stated. Are you saying there isn't a fossil transition from primitive vertebrates to gnathostomes to land vertebrates etc. harry: Gould’s theory was a response to the fact that the overall pattern clearly did NOT support evolutionary change. Really? Have you even read anything by Gould? It's all about evolution. Zachriel
'Darwinism overturned the Judeo-Christian view of death as an enemy, construing it instead as a beneficial engine of progress.' So much for Darwin's consistency. Was he not supposed to have been distraught when his daughter concentrated a terminal illness and died? They'd like to live consistently as psychopaths, but few are able to ascend such dizzy heights of intellectual rigour, Axel
Zachriel,
You do realize that Gould was only referring to evolution on the scale of species, but that the overall pattern clearly supported evolutionary change. Certainly you wouldn’t take Gould out of context.
Gould's theory was a response to the fact that the overall pattern clearly did NOT support evolutionary change. harry
Where does Zachriel get this waffle form TSZ? Andre
Zachriel,
What makes a poodle is not found in wolves, or their common ancestor. It requires novel mutations.
Are you denying that a given genome allows for a wild variety of versions of the given kind? As was demonstrated by dog breeders? That a genome does that while enforcing limits to those variations indicates a brilliant designer, not macro-evolution. Where is the plethora of transitional forms in the fossil record? Waving around rare, dubious instances of what might be construed to be transitional forms is no substitute for the fossil record clearly demonstrating, with an abundance of instances of transitional forms, that life did indeed, through steady incremental changes, evolve as Darwin predicted. harry
harry: The origin of Hitler’s personal views does not define what Naziism came to be. Hitler's views certainly influenced what Nazism came to be. harry: The influence of Darwinism on what it came to be has been well documented. There's no doubt that a mangled view of Darwin's theory influenced Nazism, as did Mendelian genetics, as did Luther and the Bible. Read your own citation. harry: Where did the Nazis get the idea that some human beings were “lives unworthy of life”? Where did the Mongols get the idea? They slaughtered more than the Nazis did, even though the world population was much lower. harry: That princesses and pronghorns share a common ancestor remains a theory; it is not an established fact. Common descent is a strongly supported scientific claim. You might start with the fossil succession and the nested hierarchy. harry: A poodle and a wolf are both of the same kind. That wasn't your claim. What makes a poodle is not found in wolves, or their common ancestor. It requires novel mutations. harry: Rare may not be the same as nonexistent, but a few dubious transitional forms are not verification. The overall fossil record shows transition, from single-celled organisms to simple animals to vertebrates to gnathostomes to land vertebrates to aminotes to theropods to birds, to trace a single lineage. harry: Although extreme rarity does become a falsification of Darwinian theory unless the problem is that the fossil record is so scanty that it is worthless in terms of substantiating or falsifying Darwinian theory. What scientists, such as paleontologists, do is make predictions, then test those predictions, such as the discovery of a fishapod by Shubin and his team. harry: We know the absence of Darwin’s transitional forms in the fossil record is so severe that Gould was compelled to propose his theory of Punctuated Equilibrium You do realize that Gould was only referring to evolution on the scale of species, but that the overall pattern clearly supported evolutionary change. Certainly you wouldn't take Gould out of context. Zachriel
Zachriel,
harry: Darwin’s theory was just a different spin on what we already knew from centuries of dog breeding Zachriel: Well, no. That princesses and pronghorns share a common ancestor is somewhat beyond what people knew from dog breeding.
That princesses and pronghorns share a common ancestor remains a theory; it is not an established fact.
harry: The information to build a cat just isn’t in the canine genome. Zachriel: Nor is the poodle inherent in the wolf.
A poodle and a wolf are both of the same kind. Cats are not of that kind.
harry: As Stephen Jay Gould put it, “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of paleontology.” Zachriel: Rare is not the same as non-existent.
Rare may not be the same as nonexistent, but a few dubious transitional forms are not verification. Although extreme rarity does become a falsification of Darwinian theory unless the problem is that the fossil record is so scanty that it is worthless in terms of substantiating or falsifying Darwinian theory. We know the absence of Darwin's transitional forms in the fossil record is so severe that Gould was compelled to propose his theory of Punctuated Equilibrium, which, instead of making the usual assertion that evolution happens so slowly we can't see it happening, asserted that it happens so fast we don't see it in the fossil record. It either case, we don't see it. harry
goodusername @44, The origin of Hitler's personal views does not define what Naziism came to be. The influence of Darwinism on what it came to be has been well documented. Below is an excerpt from an article by Richard Weikart, professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus:
However, what is most objectionable about the Nazis' worldview? Isn't it that they had no respect for human life? Their rejection of the sanctity of human life led the Nazi regime to murder millions of Jews, hundreds of thousands of Gypsies, and about 200,000 disabled Germans. Where did the Nazis get the idea that some human beings were "lives unworthy of life"? As I show in meticulous detail in my book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, the Nazis' devaluing of human life derived from Darwinian ideology (this does not mean that all Nazi ideology came from Darwinism). There were six features of Darwinian theory that have contributed to the devaluing of human life (then and now): 1. Darwin argued that humans were not qualitatively different from animals. The leading Darwinist in Germany, Ernst Haeckel, attacked the "anthropocentric" view that humans are unique and special. ...
The article can be read in its entirety here: http://spectator.org/articles/43771/darwin-and-nazis harry
harry: If at the same time they believed other races were hopelessly inferior according to Mendelian laws, then they had an irrational double standard. Intellectual consistency was never the strong suit of the Nazis. Some Nazis also thought that the Aryan race was divinely created, and had been diluted with lesser evolved beings. They thought a great many things, borrowing from mythology, the Bible, as well as distortions of science. harry: Evil is always irrational, as is blaming the evil perpetrated by Darwinism on Mendel. We didn't blame the evil on Mendel, but, per your own citation, on a mangled view of Mendelian genetics. Luther has a more direct responsibility as he actually advocated for the persecution of the Jews. Zachriel
harry,
If Nazi eugenicists believed that, they didn’t believe that natural selection had resulted in their own race being superior — which we know they did believe.
Hitler himself wasn’t a Darwinist. Hitler’s ideas look more like those of H. S. Chamberlain and Gobineau, which is also where he tells us he got his ideas from. Chamberlain and Gobineau believed that the Aryan or Teutonic race was superior, but also, even more importantly, that it was the only race capable of civilization. Both thus claimed that race mixing would result in the end of civilization itself - something that many Nazis believed. This is why Hitler, and many other Nazis, preached so much about the importance of the racial purity of the Aryan race. Darwin hardly ever brought up the subject of racial purity - and the few times he did he claimed it was a harmful thing for a population. It hurts fertility and also prevents a population from being able to adapt to change. There were, of course, many eugenist Darwinist Nazis. They coined words like “rassenhygiene” and “Eugenik”. But you’ll never find Hitler using such words because, again, he got his eugenics from different sources. What Hitler was preaching, and what the Nazis were putting into practice, was mostly stuff from opponents of Darwin (e.g. Chamberlain) and pre-Darwinists (e.g. Gobineau). goodusername
Zachriel @42
Mendelism applies to all diploid organisms, including humans. What this meant to racial purists was that character traits were inherited and immutable.
If Nazi eugenicists believed that, they didn't believe that natural selection had resulted in their own race being superior -- which we know they did believe. If at the same time they believed other races were hopelessly inferior according to Mendelian laws, then they had an irrational double standard. Evil is always irrational, as is blaming the evil perpetrated by Darwinism on Mendel.
Luther believed in a creator, but that didn’t stop his advocating for the persecution of the Jews.
All the combined sins of Christians over the centuries don't hold a candle to injury perpetrated on humanity by the godless regimes of modern history that were hostile to theism and to the notion of the inherent dignity and worth of each and every human being made in the image of God. Darwinism and the atheism that flows from it are the enemies of the human race, by virtue of the fact that under atheism humanity has no inalienable rights. harry
harry: Mendel experimented on plants, for goodness sake. Yes, but Mendelism applies to all diploid organisms, including humans. What this meant to racial purists was that character traits were inherited and immutable. harry: the necessary involvement of a creator in humanity’s coming into being. Luther believed in a creator, but that didn't stop his advocating for the persecution of the Jews. Zachriel
Zachriel @40,
The Nazis were into racial purification, which is essentially Mendelian. They did look to competition between ethnic groups as a form of natural selection. Our point was that if you blame Darwin, you also have to blame Mendel.
Mendel experimented on plants, for goodness sake. On the other hand, Darwinism pretended to make it possible to be an "intellectually fulfilled atheist." There is no basis for inalienable, God-given human rights under atheism. A human's claim to an inalienable right to life and liberty has no more of an intellectual foundation under atheism than would that of a cow. Have you noticed cows get butchered by the millions? So have innocent human beings under every godless regime hostile to theism in modern history. And why not, if humanity is truly only the accidental result of mindless, purposeless, evolutionary processes? Why shouldn't those who are in power treat humanity as a herd which is used to serve their interests, the members of which are simply disposed of when no longer useful to them? Why not let those in power control the breeding of their human herd like it consisted of animals being bred by their owners to suit their tastes? Why shouldn't those in power trample on the powerless? Why not, if it's all about the survival of the fittest and nothing more? All of this flows from Darwin's denial of what was obvious -- and has been made more obvious than ever by the discoveries of modern science -- which is, the necessary involvement of a creator in humanity's coming into being. harry
harry: They were into eugenics, which springs from Darwinism and implies furthering the evolution of “superior” races and helping along the non-survival of the “unfit,” “inferior” races. The Nazis were into racial purification, which is essentially Mendelian. They did look to competition between ethnic groups as a form of natural selection. Our point was that if you blame Darwin, you also have to blame Mendel. Let's quote your original citation again: "In this way, the biological sciences of the nineteenth century simply recorded traditional prejudices.” On the other had, Luther had a strong and much more direct influence on German antisemitism. While Darwin never argued for persecution, Luther did, leading to centuries of Jewish persecution. Zachriel
“It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.” “This diversity of judgment does not prove that the races ought not to be ranked as species, but it shews that they graduate into each other, and that it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive characters between them.” “He who will read Mr. Tylor's and Sir J. Lubbock's interesting works can hardly fail to be deeply impressed with the close similarity between the men of all races in tastes, dispositions and habits. …and this fact can only be accounted for by the various races having similar inventive or mental powers.” - C. Darwin, Descent of Man, 1871
Often the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have become actual personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they have eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites. -H. Morris, YEC, The Beginning of the World, 1991
They never mention the racism. Why is that? SamHManning
Zachriel @37
The Nazis were more into racial purification, which is Mendelian, not Darwinian.
They were into eugenics, which springs from Darwinism and implies furthering the evolution of "superior" races and helping along the non-survival of the "unfit," "inferior" races. Consider a document retrieved from the Wannsee Conference, which was a meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the final solution to the Jewish question, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and murdered. Conference minutes were found by Robert Kempner, lead U.S. prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, in files that had been seized from the German Foreign Office. Here is an excerpt:
Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)
The document is made available by Yale University’s Avalon Project and can be read in its entirety here: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/wannsee.asp harry
harry: That doesn’t change the fact that Darwin created a theory of a “scientific” justification of racism that led to eugenics, which is the notion that humanity can self-direct its evolution. According to your citation, Mendelism was also very influential. The Nazis were more into racial purification, which is Mendelian, not Darwinian. harry: Of course, that implies an elite group of people who do the directing, deciding who is inferior and who isn’t. That predates Darwin, as you already pointed out. harry: Funny how the godless social engineers always assume they are in the elite group. Behold the master race. http://41.media.tumblr.com/d2a19c5b548e0595397d4e4d879b2d86/tumblr_mumfz0XhdX1sxwvxgo1_1280.jpg (They look like the kids who got picked on in school.) harry: Darwin’s theory was just a different spin on what we already knew from centuries of dog breeding: Well, no. That princesses and pronghorns share a common ancestor is somewhat beyond what people knew from dog breeding. harry: The information to build a cat just isn’t in the canine genome. Nor is the poodle inherent in the wolf. harry: As Stephen Jay Gould put it, “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of paleontology.” Rare is not the same as non-existent. Zachriel
Zachriel @34,
The point is that you quoted Friedlander out of context. He pointed out that racism predated Darwin and that science was coopted to justify preexisting racism.
Racism is as old as sin and races. That doesn't change the fact that Darwin created a theory of a "scientific" justification of racism that led to eugenics, which is the notion that humanity can self-direct its evolution. Of course, that implies an elite group of people who do the directing, deciding who is inferior and who isn't. Funny how the godless social engineers always assume they are in the elite group. I can't find a Margaret Sanger quote where she is explaining that it is people like her that need to be kept from reproducing. Sanger, and all godless social engineers, are egomaniacal sociopaths. If one really believed in eugenics, then one would have to assume that it is the egomaniacal sociopaths that need to be gotten rid of first.
Of course it’s a science. It was science then, and it is science now. The theory of evolution makes specific empirical predictions that have been repeatedly confirmed.
Darwin's theory was just a different spin on what we already knew from centuries of dog breeding: Nature allows for a variety of versions of a given kind. The new spin was that there were no limits on those versions (macro-evolution). That was contrary to the evidence, which was that nature places boundaries on the allowed varieties of a given kind, in that extreme mutants are infertile or die before reproducing or both. Later we learned that the information to build a creature of one kind just isn't the genome of another kind. In other words, you can breed dogs into a wild variety of dogs, but not into cats. The information to build a cat just isn't in the canine genome. If Darwin's theory was science and not merely an attempt at "intellectual fulfillment" for atheism, the fossil record would be filled with transitional forms -- it would be all transitional forms. As the fossil record is in reality, different kinds suddenly appear out of nowhere and disappear suddenly as well. There may be a record of the "evolution" of a variety of versions of a given kind, such as with horses, but there is no record of one kind turning into another. As Stephen Jay Gould put it, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of paleontology."
Friedlander’s book was your citation. That you didn’t actually read it just means you didn’t understand his point.
I bought Friedlanders book years ago. I haven't re-read it lately, but I understand its main point: Letting the self-appointed directors of the evolution of humanity -- the eugenicists, the egomaniacal sociopaths -- also assume the coercive power of the state is a recipe for unleashing diabolical evil upon humanity. harry
No, my post certainly was not tongue-in-cheek. It remains a fact that nothing of what you have written can expunge the reality of Darwinism's use by Hitler and 'enlightened' European, liberal-intellectual 'bien pensants' to justify eugenics, at least in one degree or another. Whether Darwin should be blamed for his 'oeuvres' being misunderstood may be open to debate. However, the only information I have picked up was in much the same positive vein you ascribe to Darwin. He was mortified and enraged by the Nazi-type cruelties inflicted on slaves by his Portuguese hosts in a South American country, and horrified to hear the Spanish colonials in South America were even crueller. I doubt that would have been possible. Anyway, as a result, Darwin greatly feared precisely what happened, that his ideas would nourish the satanic wickedness of those tyrants, and expressed very deep gratitude in a letter to a friend of his, who had spoken highly of the intelligence and character of the African soldiers under his authority. However, I seem to have read that his views changed through 180 degrees, and in fact, this is not at all uncommon; people's views as they get older vacillate a great deal and can change radically. This is how I construed the views of knowledgeable UDists on here, particularly since I believe they quoted chapter and verse. Oddly gnuff, I read an article - which I believe - in which it was stated that he returned to his Christian faith, and was found reading the Bible by Lady Hope (particularly believable imo, since she had nothing to gain, and was a woman who had given enormous mounts of money to charitable causes, almost if not entirely, to the point of ruining her own family;s finances). He apparently spoke of the Books of Kings as the Royal Books. Moreover, a receipt from the Missionary Society for the last of the regular charitable donations he sent them until his death, was found a few years ago. I think his great misfortune (and science's) was to have had his usually-tentative thoughts perceived by the rabid atheist-activists of his day and ever since, as manna from heaven. And it seems to me highly likely that the flattery his ideas seemed to have won him from 'our friends' turned his head for a while. Axel
harry: The “biological sciences” of the nineteenth century, to the extent that that amounted to diabolical social engineering falsely arrogating to itself the credibility of genuine science, was not science at all. The point is that you quoted Friedlander out of context. He pointed out that racism predated Darwin and that science was coopted to justify preexisting racism. harry: Darwinism is no more genuine science today than it was then. Of course it's a science. It was science then, and it is science now. The theory of evolution makes specific empirical predictions that have been repeatedly confirmed. harry: Mendel confined himself to experiments with plants. Unlike Darwin, his findings were truly scientific. Mendel cannot be blamed at all for the evil brought about by Darwinism. Friedlander's book was your citation. That you didn't actually read it just means you didn't understand his point. Zachriel
F/N: Darwin letter to Wm Graham: ______________ https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-13230 >>Transcription Down, Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R) July 3rd. 1881. Dear Sir I hope that you will not think it intrusive on my part to thank you heartily for the pleasure which I have derived from reading your admirably written `Creed of Science,' though I have not yet quite finished it, as now that I am old I read very slowly. It is a very long time since any other book has interested me so much. The work must have cost you several years and much hard labour with full leisure for work. You would not probably expect anyone fully to agree with you on so many abstruse subjects; and there are some points in your book which I cannot digest. The chief one is that the existence of so-called natural laws implies purpose. I cannot see this. Not to mention that many expect that the several great laws will some day be found to follow inevitably from some one single law, yet taking the laws as we now know them, and look at the moon, what the law of gravitation -- and no doubt of the conservation of energy -- of the atomic theory, &c. &c. hold good, and I cannot see that there is then necessarily any purpose. Would there be purpose if the lowest organisms alone destitute of consciousness existed in the moon? But I have had no practice in abstract reasoning and I may be all astray. Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance. But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? [--> a well known and telling clip, notice how he deploys selectively, to deflect unwelcome metaphysical thoughts, much as Nancy Pearcey has noted] Secondly I think that I could make somewhat of a case against the enormous importance which you attribute to our greatest men: I have been accustomed to think, 2nd, 3rd and 4th rate men of very high importance, at least in the case of Science. Lastly I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilisation than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risks the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is. The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world. [--> this is a decade after the infamous opening remarks in Ch 6 of Descent of Man, and abundantly confirms that Darwin maintained that line of thought essentially to the closing days of his time on earth.] But I will write no more, and not even mention the many points in your work which have much interested me. I have indeed cause to apologise for troubling you with my impressions, and my sole excuse is the excitement in my mind which your book has aroused. I beg leave to remain | Dear Sir | Yours faithfully and obliged Charles Darwin.>> ______________ I maintain, the warning given by H G Wells in the opening words of War of the Worlds is sobering context for all of this. He is the one we need to honour on this, for in his novels he tried to warn. The unresponsiveness above to the pivotal concerns and the attempt to deflect or divert attention flip further warning flags. KF kairosfocus
Axel, People had been slaughtering such peoples for centuries with little opposition and had no shortage of justifications, so it was hardly necessary for Darwin to come up with another. Besides, Darwin made well known his strong opposition of the treatment of Africans and other people. Also, the leading theory at the time was polygenism, which meant that the races were actually separate, unrelated species. For many this meant that there was no difference in clearing land of native Africans than in clearing the land of springboks. The other common justification was that Africans were the cursed descendents of Canaan. If Darwin was trying to come up with a justification for the continued mistreatment of Africans, it would be strange to come up with a theory that discredits both of these prior justifications. And a theory that says that we are all closely related, all one species, and all very similar, hardly sounds like a justification for genocide. Darwin even questioned in Descent of Man whether it's justified to divide humans into separate races, let alone species. Actually, there are those that believe that a major motivation for Darwin publishing his theory was in removing the justifications made for the centuries of genocide, slavery, and mistreatment of sub-saharan Africans. (See, for instance, Darwin's Sacred Cause.) But I'm probably taking your post too seriously as you probably (at least I hope) intended the post to be taken as tongue-in-cheek. goodusername
NEWS, and many other posters here. You are wrong. Darwin was not a racist. He went out of his way to inist selection had no impact on the races in smarts. Yes for ,ale/female but not race. Racism is a myth anyways. Its just a attempt to discredit opinions of one identity towards another. right or wrong, good or evil. its only opinions. In fact , living in toronto, more people, a majority I think, agree today the races/sex are intellectually not equal because of evolution. Just different scores now. You guys are wrong about this stuff. YES evolutionists, AFTER DARWIN, all statrted the race eqials species equals smarts thing. Yet not Darwin or in his ideas. One can believe selection did NOT affect the races after separation from a original breeding single population. Race never had a effect in mankind. Identity did but not from deep ideas about race. Today race matters but very little in the old days in the English world. I'm sure Irisch Catholics were seen as not much different then Asians/Indians/Africans in rural Ireland. Diserali brought that up. Its just opinions on people groups moral and intellectual quotients. IQ today is used to judge race and sex and more then yesterday. Just read Pinkers stuff! and others. You guys are wrong about these matters. Get the evoltiondom and not Darwin. Its a false target. YES creationism can make excellent persuasive points againsts evolutionism on these matters. Don't aim wrong and ruin the first shots. Robert Byers
‘Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga,’ by Pamela Newkirk - By HARRIET A. WASHINGTON - JUNE 5, 2015 Excerpt: The internment of “exotic” peoples in expositions and world fairs was no rare event in the 19th century, when Europeans swarmed Africa and other colonial lands in search of “subhumans” to display. Bodies, typically brown and black, were exhibited by scientists as well as impresarios like P.?T. Barnum. In fact, Barnum’s first success was an 1830s attraction featuring Joice Heth, fictitiously billed as the 161-year-old “mammy” of George Washington. The journalist Pamela Newkirk has ferreted out the truth concerning a singular figure named Ota Benga, a young man from the Congo who was presented to American audiences as an “African Pygmy.” Two years after an appearance at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair, he was brought to the New York Zoological Park (better known as the Bronx Zoo), where he was locked in a cage with an orangutan before a jeering throng. The display was more than mere entertainment; it was propaganda. The low evolutionary status of a monkey-man was supposed to persuade the masses who were resistant to Darwin and evolutionary theory. The real story of Benga’s captivity had been carefully shrouded by those who profited from his plight, notably Samuel Phillips Verner, a failed missionary and self-proclaimed scientist who delivered him to William Temple Hornaday, the zoo’s director. Verner cast himself in the role of Benga’s savior, friend and benefactor in an assortment of contradictory tales that were further obscured by a complicit news media, which documented Benga’s suffering in confinement for weeks only to subsequently deny he had ever been displayed. Even after Benga was rescued and embraced by African-American communities in Brooklyn and Lynchburg, Va., he was haunted by a longing for his Congo home. In March 1916, he committed suicide by shooting a bullet through his heart. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/books/review/spectacle-the-astonishing-life-of-ota-benga-by-pamela-newkirk.html?_r=0 bornagain77
Anyone: Was self-admitted Darwinist Lynn Margulis a racist? daveS
Because. goodusername, their desire for an excuse, a rationale, a cover for their atheism is desperate, Darwinists would simple-mindedly infer from the relatively- belated, technological development of the sub-Saharan Africans, while Europeans had developed industrial societies, that they should be the natural prey of the gloriously 'intelligent' Europeans. Savvy? This misconceived sense of intellectual superiority growing, despite the fact the precocious development of Mayan culture, in comparison with contemporaneous European culture. http://www.history.com/topics/maya And despite the manifest aptitude for worldly intelligence of a high calibre evidenced by the Indians, Chinese, Japanese, etc al, and their relative tardiness in expressing it in terms of technological progress - other than very occasionally in the quite distant past. Axel
KF,
You inadvertently underscore the point at 9:
I'm not sure how; unless you're badly misreading me, or I'm badly misreading you. No one denies that there are racists who used Darwinism (although, again, anyone who thinks that Darwinism made things worse hasn't read the leading texts prior to Darwinism or Darwin's opponents). It's interesting that Darwin, Galton, et al, were all in England, and it's the country where Darwinism was most popular, and, yet, how popular was eugenics there? Not a single piece of legislation was passed there in support of eugenics. And we barely heard a peep out of eugenicists for four decades after Darwinism had became mainstream. Not until the early 20th century - and in America, where Darwinism was least popular - did eugenics start to make waves, for reasons Davenport explains:
Formerly, when we believed that factors blend, a characteristic in the germ plasm of a single individual among thousands seemed not worth considering: it would soon be lost in the melting pot. But now we know that unit characters do not blend; that after a score of generations the given characteristic may still appear, unaffected by repeated unions with foreign germ plasm. So the individual, as the bearer of a potentially immortal germ plasm with innumerable traits, becomes of the greatest interest.
Yet, no one blames Mendelism. Eugenics had support from all quarters, as well as opposition from all quarters. Facing an issue and attempting to learn from it is not done by using it to score political points. But, again, this is all beside the point. My only question was how is racism "an inevitable component of Darwin’s theory"? It seems everyone wants to avoid that. Including the person who was complaining that everyone wants to avoid that. goodusername
bornagain 77 @19, Thanks for posting that link! UD readers will find Maafa 21 very enlightening. harry
Dionisio @22,
Darwinism is not the cause of racism, or euthanasia, or any other evil ideas in this world.
Darwinism is one of the evil ideas in this world, all of which, ultimately, originated in the mind of the Prince of this World, who, we have on good authority, is the Father of lies and was a murderer from the start. Darwinism makes it possible for those whose minds have been darkened by the Father of lies to say "Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." All Darwin really did put a different spin on what we already knew from centuries of dog breeding: Within a given kind nature allows for much variation. Variations in the beaks of Darwin's finches proved no more than did the variations in dogs we already knew were possible. What the dog breeders had the common sense to realize that Darwin didn't, was that there were limits to what one could do with selection. There were boundaries beyond which the products of selection, whether that selection be natural or artificial, would be rendered infertile or would not live to reproduce themselves. Darwinism, ignoring that obvious fact, spun Darwin's idea to mean there was no need for God in the explanation of life as we know it. Who do you suppose was behind putting that spin on it? The Father of lies. We can't find Darwin's transitional forms in the fossil record. We now know life is digital-information-based nanotechnology the functional complexity of which is light years beyond our own. Anybody who has worked with the development of digital-information based technology knows that the idea that it can be improved by mindless, accidental modifications is just stupid. Yet many who know better remain quiet while Emperor Atheism runs around stark naked filling students with hogwash and blind-faith-based atheism -- an atheism that requires a huge, irrational faith -- and insisting other belief systems requiring only a very small, very reasonable faith be banned from schools. Darwinism is one of the evil ideas in this world. harry
Nicely stated, Dionisio. Incidentally, God's attitude toward racism is illustrated in Numbers 12. The gist was * Miriam and Aaron doubted the authority of Moses based on his marrying a black woman. (gasp) * God turned Miriam "white as snow" with leprosy. (seems fitting, doesn't it?) * Moses begged God to forgive Miriam. * God healed Miriam, but she was banned from the camp for a week, as "if her father had spit in her face." (what God thinks of racists) Wow! Now wouldn't that make a good sermon! -Q Querius
kairosfocus @ 9
Seversky, no one has said that all racism is due and only due to Darwin et al. At the same time, it is indubitable that Darwinism was a major contributor to scientific racism and eugenics, including specifically Darwin’s family and Darwin’s book, Descent of Man. All of this is horrifically evident in the Hunter Civic Biology at the heart of the Scopes trial, something that does not come out in the Inherit the Wind stereotypes of fundamentalists that have circulated for coming on ninety years. Eugenics and related movements did much harm in the past 100 years. And much more. That needs to be faced as an origins science and society issue, not swept under the carpet as usually happens, and the sort of objections to bringing up the relevant history give me serious concern on the issue of refusing to learn from painful but important history. In that context, pointing fingers everywhere else as though nothing serious enough to be faced is on the table, trips a red warning flag. KF
I’m not denying that the theory of evolution was enlisted to support racist policies and practices or that some eugenics practices were gross abuses of human rights. Just as you cannot deny that there were religious leaders who enlisted to Bible to support the practice of slavery, that eugenics programs were endorsed by some religious leaders or that Christian organizations were heavily involved in the boarding schools that attempted to forcibly assimilate Native American children into white society. As I said before, the lesson to be learnt is that there is no one group or race or scientific theory or religion that is predominantly responsible for racism. We all are. Anything less is, in one of your favored phrases, a “red herring”. Seversky
Darwinism is not the cause of racism, or euthanasia, or any other evil ideas in this world. Adam and Eve did not read Darwin's papers before they ate the forbidden fruit. The real cause was enunciated long before Darwin was born:
Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Let's refrain from using Darwinism or any other philosophical/theological/scientific theory as a scapegoat for our rotten spiritual condition. The only cure for our malady is found in the One who first turned around the ancient "golden rule" from its passive ("don't") version and made it proactive, in accordance with His perfect definition of genuinely committed agape love for everyone. Let's go to the One and Only, Who died on the cross and poured His blood for the forgiveness of our sinful condition, Who rose from the grave so that we could live too, Who exclusively claimed being The Way, The Truth and The Life; let Him provide the only possible cure to our sick hearts and let's surrender our whole souls to His will. Let Him fill our hearts with pure desires to love God with all our minds and strengths and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Let's be bearers of His grace onto others. Dionisio
GUN, You inadvertently underscore the point at 9:
no one has said that all racism is due and only due to Darwin et al. At the same time, it is indubitable that Darwinism was a major contributor to scientific racism and eugenics, including specifically Darwin’s family and Darwin’s book, Descent of Man. All of this is horrifically evident in the Hunter Civic Biology at the heart of the Scopes trial, something that does not come out in the Inherit the Wind stereotypes of fundamentalists that have circulated for coming on ninety years. Eugenics and related movements did much harm in the past 100 years. And much more. That needs to be faced as an origins science and society issue, not swept under the carpet as usually happens, and the sort of objections to bringing up the relevant history give me serious concern on the issue of refusing to learn from painful but important history. In that context, pointing fingers everywhere else as though nothing serious enough to be faced is on the table, trips a red warning flag.
KF kairosfocus
News/Denyse, Darwin witnessed genocide and slavery first-hand just about everywhere he went on his trip around the world, and deplored it all. I agree with mahuna at #4 - the only issue is his last sentence, "With Darwinism, this was all Science." Read any of the leading science texts or journals in the decades prior to 1859 that discuss human races - it was all science prior to Darwinism. The leading science of his day wasn't that non-whites were inferior races - polygenism held sway - and so they were usually seen as inferior species. (Notice in the Descent of Man how much time Darwin spends arguing against polygenism.) Yes, Darwin was racist, but he was about as close to a racial egalitarian as you'll find from his era. Anyone shocked by anything Darwin wrote has never read the stuff by his opponents. You can find stuff from Lincoln that's more racist than anything from Darwin. I guess we could condemn Lincoln and stop celebrating his bday because of that, but then, I sorta think that in judging people we should factor in their time and place and by their actions. Or else we kinda end up condemning anyone born before us. But maybe that's just me. But this is all beside the point. My question was how is racism an "inevitable component" of his theory? You express puzzlement and annoyance that people are reluctant to talk about this. I share that feeling - especially at your reluctance to do so. goodusername
Harry, here is MAAFA 21: MAAFA 21 [A documentary on eugenics and genocide] https://youtu.be/0eWxCRReTV4?t=342 bornagain77
It seemed obvious to me for a long time now that, if any race could be called a Master Race - apart from the Jews, who are a divinely-favoured race in a unique way - it would be the sub-Saharan Africans. Take a bow Jesse Owens, Jack Johnson, Mohammed Ali, most of the word heavy-weight boxing champions and athletes of all shapes and sizes. Indeed, I strongly suspect that the fear engendered by their general, physical superiority aggravates the racism of white Americans. Three sports they have not excelled in are darts, indoor bowling, and synchronized swimming.... Axel
Zachriel @16
In this way, the biological sciences of the ninetheeth century simply recorded traditional prejudices. --Zachriel citing Friedlander
The "biological sciences" of the nineteenth century, to the extent that that amounted to diabolical social engineering falsely arrogating to itself the credibility of genuine science, was not science at all. Darwinism is no more genuine science today than it was then. Today's godless social engineers are still, as they were then, egomaniacal sociopaths wreaking havoc upon humanity, but they are very careful not to openly describe themselves as "eugenicsists." They only pretend to be the enemies of racism. Take a look at the documentary Maafa 21. It documents every statement it makes (which is rare for modern documentaries, since most are merely propaganda pieces making unfounded, undocumented assertions). It makes clear the direct, unbroken link between eugenics, racism, the Nazis and modern "family planning" organizations. And makes clear they are more racist than ever.
Friedlander also talks about how Mendelianism contributed to the idea of the immutability of hereditary tendencies.
Mendel confined himself to experiments with plants. Unlike Darwin, his findings were truly scientific. Mendel cannot be blamed at all for the evil brought about by Darwinism. harry
harry: from Dr. Henry Friedlander’s The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution "In this way, the biological sciences of the ninetheeth century simply recorded traditional prejudices." Friedlander also talks about how Mendelianism contributed to the idea of the immutability of hereditary tendencies. Zachriel
Some excerpts from Dr. Henry Friedlander's The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution showing the connection between Darwinism, racism and eugenics:
Nazi genocide did not take place in a vacuum. Genocide was only the most radical method of excluding groups of human beings from the German national community. The policy of exclusion followed and drew upon more than fifty years of scientific opposition to the equality of man. Since the turn of the century, the German elite – that is, the members of the educated professional classes – had increasingly accepted an ideology of human inequality. Geneticists, anthropologists, and psychiatrists advanced a theory of human heredity that merged with the racist doctrine of ultra-nationalists to form a political ideology based on race. The Nazi movement both absorbed and advanced this ideology. … The growing importance of the biological sciences in the nineteenth century, following the discoveries of Charles Darwin, led most scientists to advance theories of human inequality as matters of scientific fact. … Darwinian evolution provided a biological basis for judging the human condition … The term “eugenics” was coined in 1881 by the British naturalist and mathematician Francis Galton and described by the leading American eugenicist, Charles B. Davenport, as “the science of the improvement of the human race by better breeding.” Eugenics developed within the larger movement of Social Darwinism, which applied Darwin's “struggle for survival” to human affairs. … … During the Weimar period, both designations – Rassenhygiene and Eugenik – were used in the name of the eugenics society. After the Nazi assumption of power, when the society embraced racial antisemitism and expelled Jewish members, race hygiene was the only term used, and thereafter it became the appropriate term to designate eugenics in Germany. (emphasis mine)
The full title of Darwin's work, which launched diabolical evil throughout the world: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. harry
Of related interest, there is also far more 'genetic individuality' to us than would be presupposed within Darwinian thinking:
Marching to our own sequence: Study finds DNA replication timing varies among people - Nov 13, 2014 Excerpt: The idea that we don't all have the same plan is surprising and interesting," said Steven McCarroll, assistant professor of genetics at HMS, director of genetics for the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad and senior author of the paper. "It's a new form of (genetic) variation in people no one had expected," said first author Amnon Koren, postdoctoral fellow at HMS and the Broad. "That's very exciting." http://phys.org/news/2014-11-sequence-dna-replication-varies-people.html Duality in the human genome - November 28, 2014 Excerpt: The results show that most genes can occur in many different forms within a population: On average, about 250 different forms of each gene exist. The researchers found around four million different gene forms just in the 400 or so genomes they analysed. This figure is certain to increase as more human genomes are examined. More than 85 percent of all genes have no predominant form which occurs in more than half of all individuals. This enormous diversity means that over half of all genes in an individual, around 9,000 of 17,500, occur uniquely in that one person - and (we) are therefore individual in the truest sense of the word. The gene, as we imagined it, exists only in exceptional cases. "We need to fundamentally rethink the view of genes that every schoolchild has learned since Gregor Mendel's time.,,, According to the researchers, mutations of genes are not randomly distributed between the parental chromosomes. They found that 60 percent of mutations affect the same chromosome set and 40 percent both sets. Scientists refer to these as cis and trans mutations, respectively. Evidently, an organism must have more cis mutations, where the second gene form remains intact. "It's amazing how precisely the 60:40 ratio is maintained. It occurs in the genome of every individual – almost like a magic formula," says Hoehe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-duality-human-genome.html Genetic breakthrough that reveals the differences between humans - 2006 Excerpt: The findings mean that instead of humanity being 99.9 per cent identical, as previously believed, we are at least 10 times more different between one another than once thought (99%) - which could explain why some people are prone to serious diseases. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/genetic-breakthrough-that-reveals-the-differences-between-humans-425432.html
In fact, genetic sequences are now known to be far from the dominate player in determining who we are as they were once, (and still are) thought to be by Darwinists:
Ask an Embryologist: Genomic Mosaicism - Jonathan Wells - February 23, 2015 Excerpt: humans have a "few thousand" different cell types. Here is my simple question: Does the DNA sequence in one cell type differ from the sequence in another cell type in the same person?,,, The simple answer is: We now know that there is considerable variation in DNA sequences among tissues, and even among cells in the same tissue. It's called genomic mosaicism. In the early days of developmental genetics, some people thought that parts of the embryo became different from each other because they acquired different pieces of the DNA from the fertilized egg. That theory was abandoned,,, ,,,(then) "genomic equivalence" -- the idea that all the cells of an organism (with a few exceptions, such as cells of the immune system) contain the same DNA -- became the accepted view. I taught genomic equivalence for many years. A few years ago, however, everything changed. With the development of more sophisticated techniques and the sampling of more tissues and cells, it became clear that genetic mosaicism is common. I now know as an embryologist,,,Tissues and cells, as they differentiate, modify their DNA to suit their needs. It's the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/02/ask_an_embryolo093851.html Body Plans Are Not Mapped-Out by the DNA - Jonathan Wells - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meR8Hk5q_EM
Of supplemental note: Although atheists, particularly Richard Dawkins, are notorious for claiming that we live in a universe of 'pitiless indifference' that could care less about us, the fact of the matter is that when the details of chemistry (and physics) are scrutinized, it is found that chemistry appears to be 'set up' specifically for life like human life to exist in the universe:
Privileged Species - Michael Denton - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoI2ms5UHWg Dr. Michael Denton Interview Excerpt Question 14: 14. Q: ,,,you also detail that nature isn’t fine-tuned for just any kind of life, but life specifically like human life. Would you expound on this for our readers? A: there are certain elements of the fine-tuning which are clearly for advanced being like ourselves. ,,,(for instance) its clear that the special fitness of nature for oxygen utilization is for us. http://successfulstudent.org/dr-michael-denton-interview/
Verse and Music:
Numbers 12:1 & 9-10 And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.,,, The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them. When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam’s skin was leprous —it became as white as snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had a defiling skin disease, Mandisa - Esther - Born For This - music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxFCber4TDo
Of supplemental note: The abject failure of unguided material processes to be able to generate functional genetic information, indeed the propensity of unguided material processes to degrade preexistent genetic information, i.e. Genetic Entropy, and the obvious Theological implications that result from realizing there must be an original source for that genetic information, is gone over in the following short interview with geneticist Dr. John Sanford:
Genetic Entropy - Dr. John Sanford - Evolution vs. Reality https://vimeo.com/35088933
bornagain77
In fact, a few studies hold that we are now dumber than cavemen were
Study suggests humans are slowly but surely losing intellectual and emotional abilities - November 12, 2012 Excerpt: "Human intelligence and behavior require optimal functioning of a large number of genes, which requires enormous evolutionary pressures to maintain. A provocative hypothesis published in a recent set of Science and Society pieces published in the Cell Press journal Trends in Genetics suggests that we are losing our intellectual and emotional capabilities because the intricate web of genes endowing us with our brain power is particularly susceptible to mutations and that these mutations are not being selected against in our modern society." http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-humans-slowly-surely-intellectual-emotional.html#jCp Is Human Intellect Degenerating? - February 19, 2013 Excerpt: A recent study of the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database, although incomplete, indicates that about half of all human genetic diseases have a neurologic component, [6], frequently including some aspect of [intellectual deficiency], consistent with the notion that many genes are required for intellectual and emotional function. The reported mutations have been severe alleles, often de novo mutations that reduce fecundity. However, each of these genes will also be subject to dozens if not hundreds of weaker mutations that lead to reduced function, but would not significantly impair fecundity, and hence could accumulate with time... https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/is-human-intellect-degenerating/
Also of related interest to racism: The I.Q. tests, that have shown supposed large differences in the intelligence between races of humans, are all shown to be biased by overlooked environmental factors:
Myth: The black/white IQ gap is largely genetically caused. Fact: Almost all studies show the black/white IQ gap is environmental. (i.e. children from an enriched learning environment always perform equally well on I.Q. tests, no matter what their race may be.) http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-IQgapgenetic.htm
In fact, the innate mathematical ability of supposedly primitive Amazonian people is shown to be just as advanced as adults and school-age children in the United States and France:
Geometric Principles Appear Universal in Our Minds - May 2011 Excerpt: Villagers belonging to an Amazonian group called the Mundurucú intuitively grasp abstract geometric principles despite having no formal math education,,, Mundurucú adults and 7- to 13-year-olds demonstrate as firm an understanding of the properties of points, lines and surfaces as adults and school-age children in the United States and France,,, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/universal-geometry/
Dr. Ben Carson is a prime example of overcoming strong peer pressure trying to tell him to neglect his education:
Gifted Hands – The Benjamin Carson Story – movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfS3chUOi8
Not only did Darwin think that other races were inferior to white races, but women were also biologically and intellectually inferior to men, according to Darwin:
Women were biologically and intellectually inferior to men, according to Darwin. The intelligence gap that Darwinists believed existed between males and females was not minor, but of a level that caused some evolutionists to classify the sexes as two distinct psychological species, males as Homo frontalis and females as Homo parietalis. In The Descent of Man, Darwin argued - “The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man’s attaining to a higher eminence in whatever he takes up, than can a woman—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands.” In The Origin of Species, natural selection was developed along-side of sexual selection. Males were like animal breeders, shaping women to their liking by sexual selection on the one hand along with the recognition men were exposed to far greater selective pressures than women, especially in war and competition for mates, food, and clothing on the other hand. From Darwin’s perspective, males have evolved further than females from a Darwinian perspective. As Jerry Bergman explains, “Natural selection would consequently operate far more actively on males, producing male superiority in virtually all skill areas.” http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2013/08/darwin-zealots-reign-of-terror/
Of related interest: Sexual equality goes back far longer than many feminists may realize
Early men and women were equal, say scientists - 2015 Excerpt: Our prehistoric forebears are often portrayed as spear-wielding savages, but the earliest human societies are likely to have been founded on enlightened egalitarian principles, according to scientists. A study has shown that in contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes, men and women tend to have equal influence on where their group lives and who they live with. The findings challenge the idea that sexual equality is a recent invention, suggesting that it has been the norm for humans for most of our,, history. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists
Moreover, contrary to what Darwinism would presuppose, it is found that the differences between individuals in a population are far greater than differences between races of populations:
Genetic Similarities Within and Between Human Populations – 2007 Excerpt: The proportion of human genetic variation due to differences between populations is modest, and individuals from different populations can be genetically more similar than individuals from the same population. Yet sufficient genetic data can permit accurate classification of individuals into populations. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1893020/ Race in a Genetic World – May-June 2008 Excerpt: ,,85 percent occurs within geographically distinct groups, while 15 percent or less occurs between them. (Agassiz 1972) http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/05/race-in-a-genetic-world-html
bornagain77
The Genetics of Blond Hair June 1, 2014 Excerpt: ,,,When he and his colleagues studied this regulatory DNA in human cells grown in a laboratory dish, they discovered that the blond-generating SNP reduced KITLG activity by only about 20%. Yet that was enough to change the hair color. “This isn’t a ‘turn the switch off,’ ” Kingsley says. “It’s a ‘turn the switch down.’ ” “This study provides solid evidence” that this switch regulates the expression of KITLG in developing hair follicles, http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/06/genetics-blond-hair Melanin Excerpt: The melanin in the skin is produced by melanocytes, which are found in the basal layer of the epidermis. Although, in general, human beings possess a similar concentration of melanocytes in their skin, the melanocytes in some individuals and ethnic groups more frequently or less frequently express the melanin-producing genes, thereby conferring a greater or lesser concentration of skin melanin. Some individual animals and humans have very little or no melanin synthesis in their bodies, a condition known as albinism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin#Humans
In fact, directly contrary to Darwinian thought, over the past several thousands of years, (where the fossil record is best), it is found that humanity as a whole has been devolving, not evolving:
Scientists Discover Proof That Humanity Is Getting Dumber, Smaller And Weaker By Michael Snyder, on April 29th, 2014 Excerpt: An earlier study by Cambridge University found that mankind is shrinking in size significantly. Experts say humans are past their peak and that modern-day people are 10 percent smaller and shorter than their hunter-gatherer ancestors. And if that’s not depressing enough, our brains are also smaller. The findings reverse perceived wisdom that humans have grown taller and larger, a belief which has grown from data on more recent physical development. The decline, said scientists, has happened over the past 10,000 years. http://thetruthwins.com/archives/scientists-discover-proof-that-humanity-is-getting-dumber-smaller-and-weaker Are brains shrinking to make us smarter? - February 2011 Excerpt: Human brains have shrunk over the past 30,000 years, http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-brains-smarter.html Cro Magnon skull shows that our brains have shrunk - Mar 15, 2010 by Lisa Zyga Excerpt: Using new technology, researchers have produced a replica of the 28,000-year-old brain and found that it is about 15-20% larger than our brains. http://phys.org/news187877156.html Human face has shrunk over the past 10,000 years - November 2005 Excerpt: Human faces are shrinking by 1%-2% every 1,000 years. What’s more, we are growing less teeth. Ten thousand years ago everyone grew wisdom teeth but now only half of us get them, and other teeth like the lateral incisors have become much smaller. This is evolution in action." http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/001604.html Are Wisdom Teeth (Third Molars) Vestiges of Human Evolution? by Jerry Bergman - December 1, 1998 Excerpt: Curtis found that both predynastic Egyptians and Nubians rarely had wisdom teeth problems, but they often existed in persons living in later periods of history. He concluded that the maxillary sinus of the populations he compared were similar and attributed the impactions he found to diet and also disuse causing atrophy of the jaws which resulted in a low level of teeth attrition. Dahlberg in a study of American Indians found that mongoloid peoples have a higher percentage of agenesis of third molars then do other groups and few persons in primitive societies had wisdom teeth problems. As Dahlberg notes, third molars were ‘very useful in primitive societies’ to chew their coarse diet. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v12/n3/wisdom-teeth If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking? - January 20, 2011 Excerpt: John Hawks is in the middle of explaining his research on human evolution when he drops a bombshell. Running down a list of changes that have occurred in our skeleton and skull since the Stone Age, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist nonchalantly adds, “And it’s also clear the brain has been shrinking.” “Shrinking?” I ask. “I thought it was getting larger.” The whole ascent-of-man thing.,,, He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.” http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking
also of related note:
“Neanderthals are known for their large cranial capacity, which at 1600cc is larger on average than modern humans.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Anatomy
bornagain77
In the first part of this following video, German Christian Missionaries, in their letters home, are quoted as being shocked in the radical change in racial attitude of ‘ordinary’ German people towards the African natives after Darwin’s theory had gained influence over them:
The holocaust before the holocaust – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa2_1Xb5A7M The Nazi Holocaust is seen by many as a gruesome but aberrant event in history. But 60 years earlier the Darwinian idea that some humans are not fully human resulted in horrifying brutality perpetrated upon the Herero people in South-West Africa.
Ota Benga is a particularly tragic example of the consequences wrought by the pseudo-scientific racism inherent in Darwinian thinking:
Darwinism ‘Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga,’ by Pamela Newkirk - By HARRIET A. WASHINGTON - JUNE 5, 2015 Excerpt: The internment of “exotic” peoples in expositions and world fairs was no rare event in the 19th century, when Europeans swarmed Africa and other colonial lands in search of “subhumans” to display. Bodies, typically brown and black, were exhibited by scientists as well as impresarios like P.?T. Barnum. In fact, Barnum’s first success was an 1830s attraction featuring Joice Heth, fictitiously billed as the 161-year-old “mammy” of George Washington. The journalist Pamela Newkirk has ferreted out the truth concerning a singular figure named Ota Benga, a young man from the Congo who was presented to American audiences as an “African Pygmy.” Two years after an appearance at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair, he was brought to the New York Zoological Park (better known as the Bronx Zoo), where he was locked in a cage with an orangutan before a jeering throng. The display was more than mere entertainment; it was propaganda. The low evolutionary status of a monkey-man was supposed to persuade the masses who were resistant to Darwin and evolutionary theory. The real story of Benga’s captivity had been carefully shrouded by those who profited from his plight, notably Samuel Phillips Verner, a failed missionary and self-proclaimed scientist who delivered him to William Temple Hornaday, the zoo’s director. Verner cast himself in the role of Benga’s savior, friend and benefactor in an assortment of contradictory tales that were further obscured by a complicit news media, which documented Benga’s suffering in confinement for weeks only to subsequently deny he had ever been displayed. Even after Benga was rescued and embraced by African-American communities in Brooklyn and Lynchburg, Va., he was haunted by a longing for his Congo home. In March 1916, he committed suicide by shooting a bullet through his heart. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/books/review/spectacle-the-astonishing-life-of-ota-benga-by-pamela-newkirk.html?_r=0
As well, Aboriginals, who have a distinctive brow ridge which Darwinists perceived, (and continue to perceive), as being ‘archaic’, had also been severely abused in the past because of Darwinian racial thinking:
Aboriginal peoples Excerpt: Because Aboriginals have slightly larger eyebrow protrusions, a more downwardly slanted jaw and a smaller brain volume than Western peoples, they were thought to be living examples of transitional species. In order to produce proofs of evolution, evolutionist paleontologists together with fossil hunters who accepted the same theory dug up Aboriginal graves and took skulls back to evolutionist museums in the West. Then they offered these skulls to Western institutions and schools distributing them as the most solid proof of evolution. Later, when there were no graves left, they started shooting Aboriginals in the attempt to find proof for their theory. The skulls were taken, the bullet holes filled in and, after chemical processes were used to make the skulls look old, they were sold to museums. This inhuman treatment was legitimated in the name of the theory of evolution. For example, in 1890, James Bernard, chairman of the Royal Society of Tasmania wrote: “the process of extermination is an axiom of the law of evolution and survival of the fittest.” Therefore, he concluded, there was no reason to suppose that “there had been any culpable neglect” in the murder and dispossession of the Aboriginal Australian.5 http://harunyahya.com/en/Evolution-Dictionary/16234/aboriginal-peoples Australian Aboriginal with prominent brow ridge - picture http://mmmgroup2.altervista.org/aborig2.jpg
In what would be a profound shock to all the people who may think that Darwin's theory, regardless of its atrocities, actually does proves that white people are more racially advanced than black people, the plain 'scientific' fact of the matter is that Black people are genetically more 'robust' than white people are since they have more genetic diversity than white people and have also accumulated less genetic decay than white people have.
"We found an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations," Tishkoff told attendees today (Jan. 22) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim. "Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians." Tishkoff; Andrew Clark, Penn State; Kenneth Kidd, Yale University; Giovanni Destro-Bisol, University "La Sapienza," Rome, and Himla Soodyall and Trefor Jenkins, WITS University, South Africa, looked at three locations on DNA samples from 13 to 18 populations in Africa and 30 to 45 populations in the remainder of the world.- New analysis provides fuller picture of human expansion from Africa - October 22, 2012 Excerpt: A new, comprehensive review of humans' anthropological and genetic records gives the most up-to-date story of the "Out of Africa" expansion that occurred about 45,000 to 60,000 years ago. This expansion, detailed by three Stanford geneticists, had a dramatic effect on human genetic diversity, which persists in present-day populations. As a small group of modern humans migrated out of Africa into Eurasia and the Americas, their genetic diversity was substantially reduced. http://phys.org/news/2012-10-analysis-fuller-picture-human-expansion.html "...but Natural Selection reduces genetic information and we know this from all the Genetic Population studies that we have..." Maciej Marian Giertych - Population Geneticist - member of the European Parliament – EXPELLED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z5-15wk1Zk Human Genetic Variation Recent, Varies Among Populations - (Nov. 28, 2012) Excerpt: Nearly three-quarters of mutations in genes that code for proteins -- the workhorses of the cell -- occurred within the past 5,000 to 10,000 years,,, "One of the most interesting points is that Europeans have more new deleterious (potentially disease-causing) mutations than Africans,",,, "Having so many of these new variants can be partially explained by the population explosion in the European population. However, variation that occur in genes that are involved in Mendelian traits and in those that affect genes essential to the proper functioning of the cell tend to be much older." (A Mendelian trait is controlled by a single gene. Mutations in that gene can have devastating effects.) The amount variation or mutation identified in protein-coding genes (the exome) in this study is very different from what would have been seen 5,000 years ago,,, The report shows that "recent" events have a potent effect on the human genome. Eighty-six percent of the genetic variation or mutations that are expected to be harmful arose in European-Americans in the last five thousand years, said the researchers. The researchers used established bioinformatics techniques to calculate the age of more than a million changes in single base pairs (the A-T, C-G of the genetic code) that are part of the exome or protein-coding portion of the genomes (human genetic blueprint) of 6,515 people of both European-American and African-American decent.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121128132259.htm
This following study is interesting in that it shows the principle of Genetic Entropy being obeyed for the estimated 60,000 year old anatomically modern humans found in Australia:
Ancient DNA and the origin of modern humans: John H. Relethford Excerpt: Adcock et al. clearly demonstrate the actual extinction of an ancient mtDNA lineage belonging to an anatomically modern human, because this lineage is not found in living Australians. Although the fossil evidence provides evidence of the continuity of modern humans over the past 60,000 years,,, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=33358
In fact, blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, are all the result of a loss of preexisting genetic information. They are not the result of a gain of new genetic information as the Nazi's had presupposed in their racial ideology:
Daily thought: blue eyes and other gene mutations, April 25, 2013 Excerpt: "Research on blue-eyes has led many scientist to further affirm that humans are truly mere variations of the same origin. About 8% of the world's total population has blue eyes so blue eyes are fairly rare. In fact, blue eyes are actually a gene mutation that scientist have researched and found to have happened when the OCA2 gene "turned off the ability to produce brown eyes." http://www.examiner.com/article/daily-thought-blue-eyes-and-other-gene-mutations
bornagain77
The full title of Darwin's book 'Origin of Species' is "On the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life."
Front Cover of: "On the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life." https://books.google.com/books?id=jTZbAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
It is title that is so hard to remember that apparently Richard Dawkins himself needed to call on God to help him remember the title:
Dr Ravi Zacharias - Richard Dawkins Calls On GOD?? - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vXPkql7io4 Fraser: Richard, if I said to you what is the full title of The Origin Of Species, I’m sure you could tell me that. Dawkins: Yes I could. Fraser: Go on then. Dawkins: On the Origin of Species…Uh…With, oh, God, On the Origin of Species. There is a sub-title with respect to the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.,,, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9082059/For-once-Richard-Dawkins-is-lost-for-words.html Richard Dawkins Struggles to Remember "Origin of the Species" Title Against Rev Giles Fraser. - audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv2U2Xp2Nu8
Dawkin's humorous plea to God to help him remember the title of his favorite book aside,,, having 'favored races' in a title of your book may be a sure sign that you just may be a racist:
Bill Engvall - Here's Your Sign (Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ZkdHImCuQ
In fact, Darwin’s subsequent book, The Descent Of Man, explicitly states racism as such:
"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, 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" ? Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1874, p. 178
Although racism was present before Darwinism, that racism had been kept in check by the Theological belief that all men are created equal. In fact that Theological belief is enshrined in the Declaration of independence as the foundation for human rights.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/
Darwinism undermined that sacred right of all men and gave a pseudo-scientific justification towards racism. In other words, Darwinism made it possible to be a 'intellectually fulfilled racist'. Many people are aware that Darwinism played a significant role in Nazi racial ideology,
From Darwin to Hitler - Wiekart - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_5EwYpLD6A The Role Of Darwinism In Nazi Racial Thought - Richard Weikart - October 2013 Excerpt: The historical evidence is overwhelming that human evolution was an integral part of Nazi racial ideology. http://www.csustan.edu/history/faculty/weikart/darwinism-in-nazi-racial-thought.pdf The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution. – Arthur Keith National Socialism is nothing but applied biology. – Rudolph Hess
But fewer people are aware that Darwinian thinking was also integral to the first world war:
The Biology of the Second Reich: Social Darwinism and the Origins of World War 1 – video 14 minutes long (with Richard Weikart) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n900e80R30
bornagain77
Seversky, no one has said that all racism is due and only due to Darwin et al. At the same time, it is indubitable that Darwinism was a major contributor to scientific racism and eugenics, including specifically Darwin's family and Darwin's book, Descent of Man. All of this is horrifically evident in the Hunter Civic Biology at the heart of the Scopes trial, something that does not come out in the Inherit the Wind stereotypes of fundamentalists that have circulated for coming on ninety years. Eugenics and related movements did much harm in the past 100 years. And much more. That needs to be faced as an origins science and society issue, not swept under the carpet as usually happens, and the sort of objections to bringing up the relevant history give me serious concern on the issue of refusing to learn from painful but important history. In that context, pointing fingers everywhere else as though nothing serious enough to be faced is on the table, trips a red warning flag. KF kairosfocus
I wonder if anyone will address goodusername's question in #1? I don't think racism is an inevitable component of Darwin’s theory. Everyone, including "Darwinists" believe that all humans alive today share a common ancestor, perhaps as recently as 3000 years ago. In fact, it's likely that we are all approximately hundredth-cousins or closer according to some models. That's not a cure for racism, but I think if people focused more on the essential unity of the human race, we would do better. Let me extend this reasoning a bit further. Ironically, we see quite a few snarky posts here concerning the general superiority of humans over other primates. It's not that I disagree, really, humans can obviously outperform chimpanzees on the SAT test and on many other tasks. On the other hand, I believe it's likely that we are also literally cousins to these other primates. Anyone who has observed chimps or gorillas can attest that they have a great deal of intelligence. They have "lives", in short, that I think should be respected. There is a kind of chauvinism toward non-human primates that I see here that echoes 19th century statements about "lesser races" and the like. I'm sure I have indulged in this sort of chauvinism myself, so I'm not immune to this criticism. daveS
Racism is, and always has been, a human problem. It can be viewed as an effect of the way we instinctively try to make sense of the world by classifying different parts of it, initially, by visual similarities and differences. That's why We are all capable of being racist at an instinctive level and it can sometimes take a conscious effort to resist it. So, yes, Victorian English gentlemen could be racist by modern standards. So could Canadian, American, European, Asian and African gentle- and not-so-gentle men and women. And they were being as racist long before Darwin published his theory as they were after. Religion is no guarantee against racism either. The men who perpetrated what we would now consider atrocities against native peoples in North and South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand would have vigorously proclaimed themselves to be good Christians and could, like the pastors who defended slavery in the South, quote chapter and verse to justify their actions. I was actually a little shocked to read this story. Not because I didn't know about these residential or boarding schools for native peoples by Christian organizations, no doubt with the best of intentions by their lights, but because I didn't realize it was happening as recently as 1966. I had assumed it was something that had happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but had been abandoned in later years. I wonder how many of yer hacks of that day were protesting about that treatment. Trying to pin racism on Darwin or any other individual or body or group is seriously misleading. Racism a human problem and we'll only be able to really do something about it when we actually accept that. Seversky
Nor was it only the toffs who were racist by any means, Denyse. Empire gave the whole nation that master-race mentality. It's particularly evident in the oldest surviving generation, when they talk more freely. People in their nineties. The weird thing is that the other empires seemed even crueller than the Norman-British empire. I read that British colonial rule was largely content to let the indigenous peoples carry on living the way they chose to, undisturbed, as long as it didn't interfere with their own activities and priorities. Malcolm Muggeridge the British broadcaster and writer reminded Pandit Nehru that when the British came to India they were welcomed by the ordinary people as liberators. It is however, surely - as has long been evident - a reflection, not of a lower worldly intelligence, but of religious cultures, less blessed than our Christian one. This leads us again to the realisation that it has been the desire of the hearts of peoples, not their native intelligence, that has prompted their pursuit of the scientific endeavour. Axel
Congrats to mahuna for pointing this out with illustrations. I have just received a tweet note from some fellow claiming that I should "know better" than to think Darwin was a racist. Of COURSE he was a racist. Virtually all English gentlemen of his day, including those who wrote for encyclopedias were racists. Better thoughts proceeded from other sources. That is why the whole Darwin Day concept is so shocking to me, especially given who is sponsoring it. The politicians must assume that their supporters are uneducated. Indeed, I can think of no other reason. News
It's important to recall the international situation when Darwin wrote. The Americans were finishing up their destruction of the Plains Indians, the English were busily turning half the world into colonies, and the Belgians were killing off half the population of Central Africa. It was abundantly clear that White Men were superior to all of the Colored races, and, per Darwin's Theory, it was obvious that this superiority would only accelerate when mankind entered the 20th Century. Kipling was a racist; read "White Man's Burden". Edgar Rice Burroughs was a racist: Tarzan was superior to all native Africans because he was a "purebred" Englishman. The same is true for heroes like John Carter of Mars, who was superior because of his "breeding". With Darwinism, this was all Science. mahuna
For me I can't see how anyone can be a Darwinist and not be a racist . The 2 fit together like a glove . wallstreeter43
Darwin insisted race was not a facxtor in smarts. He insisted women were bio intellectually inferior but even then by careful breeding could be brought up to mens standards of smarts. His ideas did/do lead to race/identity as the origin for different intellect abilities. They all say it quietly. These days its just they decide winners and losers as they decide. Evolutionism allows/even strongly suggests that the human populations, as in looks, were selected for different levels of smarts. They don't stress this because its not welcome. They wait for a better day. In truth there is no difference between human beings because we are made in Gods image/smarts. Its impossible for any innate differences. Mind problems are also not related to human smarts but , I say, entirely from triggering problems in the memory. YES they hide the race/sex s,arts thing from the public. What can they do? So they lie! Robert Byers
Of course, they are too polite to mention that racism is then an inevitable component of Darwin’s theory.
How so? goodusername

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