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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
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
June 13, 2015
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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
June 12, 2015
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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
June 12, 2015
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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
June 12, 2015
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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
June 12, 2015
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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
June 12, 2015
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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
June 11, 2015
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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 offendrhampton7
June 11, 2015
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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
June 11, 2015
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'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
June 11, 2015
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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
June 11, 2015
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Where does Zachriel get this waffle form TSZ?Andre
June 11, 2015
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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
June 11, 2015
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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
June 11, 2015
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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
June 11, 2015
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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-nazisharry
June 11, 2015
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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
June 10, 2015
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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
June 10, 2015
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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
June 10, 2015
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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
June 10, 2015
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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
June 10, 2015
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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
June 10, 2015
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“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
June 10, 2015
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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.aspharry
June 10, 2015
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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
June 10, 2015
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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
June 10, 2015
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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
June 8, 2015
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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
June 8, 2015
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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. KFkairosfocus
June 7, 2015
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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
June 7, 2015
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