Jeffrey Schloss, and Now Richard Weikart’s Reply to Him

_{William Dembski

August 7, 2008

Expelled, Intelligent Design}

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Jeff Schloss, formerly an ID supporter and Senior Fellow of Discovery Institute (until August 2003 — click here for Way Back Machine), has since been distancing himself from ID and even going on the offensive against it. I witnessed the beginnings of this offensive at a symposium featuring Ron Numbers, Howard Van Till, Schloss, and me in 2007 at Grove City College (go here for the program). His criticisms of ID at that event seemed to me naive and ill-considered. Yet he did seem to advance them sincerely, and I hoped to have an opportunity try to persuade him otherwise, which unfortunately never happened.

Schloss’s critical review of EXPELLED, however, raised his opposition against ID to a new level and frankly upset me for what I perceived as its disingenuousness (the review appeared with official sanction of the American Scientific Affiliation [ASA] on its server here). By offering so many nuances and qualifications, his review missed the bigger picture that many ID propoents really are getting shafted. I confronted Jeff about this and we had an exchange of emails. As it is, Jeff and I go back and had been friends. He contributed to the MERE CREATION volume (1996) that I edited (his essay was a fine piece on altruism and the difficulties conventional evolutionary theory has in trying to account for it). I even had occasion to visit him in the hospital after he had a surfing accident. The exchange ended with my asking him to admit the following four points:

(1) ID raises important issues for science.
(2) Politics aside, ID proponents ought to get a fair hearing for their views, and they’re not.
(3) A climate of hostility toward ID pervades the academy, which often undermines freedom of thought and expression on this topic.
(4) That climate has led to ID proponents being shamefully treated, losing their reputations and jobs, and suffering real harm.

As it is, Schloss never got back to me. I suppose I could have responded to him on the ASA website — Randy Isaac, the executive director of the ASA, invited me, as an ASA member, to do so. But by putting Schloss’s review front and center as the official position of the ASA on EXPELLED, I saw little point of trying to argue for EXPELLED in that forum.

In any case, Richard Weikart has now responded to Schloss’s review on the most controversial aspect of EXPELLED, namely, the Nazi connection. Weikart’s response may be found by clicking here.

Comments

If you want to see some support for ideas related Weikart's (about WW1 and German militarism, not about WW2 and Nazi anti-Semitism), from a rather surprising source, look up Gould's article, "William Jennings Bryan's Last Campaign." I agree with his discussion there, including his view that Bryan had identified a genuine problem, but offered the wrong solution.Ted Davis_{August 10, 2008
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CORRECTION: One of the two ASA members I mentioned above in post 92 is not in fact a fellow of TDI. I think he might have been at one time, but I am not sure about that. I am sure that he is not listed presently as a fellow, and I apologize for the error. A fellow of TDI recommended this particular person, whom I also had thought of in this connection; perhaps that is the source of my faulty impression. No one however would doubt his commitment to ID.Ted Davis_{August 10, 2008
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Hi Ted Davis, Good replies. I get your larger point and am gratified by your remarks on Weikart, Gonzalez and Sternberg. With that said I feel rather foolish questioning an historian such as yourself but your use of the Crusades strikes me as odd. To say that without Christianity we wouldn't have had the nastiness of the Crusades sounds a little like saying that without the Allies we wouldn't have had the nastiness of Passchendaele and Normandy. You say that those of us arguing for the historical connection between Darwin and Hitler won't like where the chickens return to roost but I think that most people making these arguments have a good idea where they will settle and feel prepared to deal with them. The attempt to smear Christianity with the tu quoque brush just doesn't work well as the many references to glass house dwellers have shown. As we've seen above, Christianity has admitted and apologized for its part in Hitler's program, as it has for the Crusades, as has the Luterhan Church for Luther's remarks. Perhaps many of us (myself for certain - being less than a dilettante ) are still ignorant of important points, but its not as though Christianity has turned a blind eye to its errors, missteps and atrocities. Many of us are quite aware of them, having been raised in schools and an era which are not exactly shy about pointing out the failings of Christendom. It's not as though even an army of internet infidels is going to open our eyes to something we haven't wrestled with for years, vis, witch hunts, the Crusades, the Inquisition, Calvin's Geneva, residential schools, Galileo, missions, etc.. == As for Expelled, the point was made several times ( definitely by Berlinksi and Weikart) that the Darwin to Hitler connection is not one of logical necessity, nor does a two-dot line segment join them. At the same time, of course the point was to present the perspective that, as we've heard here many times (re. for example: Church Burnin' Ebola Boys), "ideas have consequences". === Stein himself does make the connection more explicitly, if not in the movie (which he didn't write or produce) at least in subsequent promotional interviews. In such careless instances, (The Dennis Prager show comes to mind) he did step back and restate the thesis properly (I think Prager actually did it for him, if I recall). In his interview on CBC's The Hour he more accurately (on this point - though he's quite weak on the scientific challenges) calls Darwinism one of the wellsprings of Nazi thought and says that some Nazis invoked Darwinism while also stating that Darwinists are not Nazis. By the way, I've not read Schloss' review and have only commented on Weikart's response and his case. I called it "Perfect. Logical, historical, factual, measured, comprehensive …."Charlie_{August 10, 2008
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Let me say now that I think Schloss made every effort to document his claims, and even more effort to use a respectful and even helpful tone, however he may have felt about some of things in the film. It is IMO a model of both clarity and charity. Would that we could all do that, all of the time (who does?). This doesn't mean that I agree with everything Jeff wrote. For the record, I do not share his conclusions about what happened to Guillermo Gonzalez; if I had seen the film and written the review, I'd have restated my intense objections to how his case was handled at OSU, esp how the faculty advisor to the campus atheist organization poisoned the atmosphere for him and probably (IMO) pretty much killed his chances for tenure. This is old news, but perhaps some here are not aware of the fact that I made this point at length in two letters I wrote (one last year and one a few years earlier) to the ISU president. Jeff obviously sees this one differently. Jeff also is a bit more hesitant than I would be to defend Sternberg, but he's very fair IMO in stating what is actually known to have happened and what is contested. I have also defended Sternberg (on PT, where I go only when people's reputations are being smeared), but I would say that his case seems a bit less clear to me than that of Gonzalez. As for Crocker, I don't think that a situation involving an adjunct faculty member compares with the other two cases, regardless of the merits of her situation, and if I were Stein I'd have left that one out.Ted Davis_{August 10, 2008
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Now I want to provide some information about the ASA having Schloss's review on their web site. This information is first hand: I am the ASA V-P at the moment, and I was directly involved in all of this. Whatever rumors may be flying, and whatever inflammatory statements about the ASA may be made, the following information is entirely factual. First, go take a look at the site and see what's there regarding "Expelled." In addition to a link to the discussion (by various parties, some of them ASA members and some not) on the ASA list, there are 8 further links, to comments by a range of organizations and individuals. Including TDI. This is hardly a case of "one man's opinion," or even one single person speaking on behalf of the ASA. In fact, I was asked to write the review that Jeff wrote. I was (as stated above) in Europe at the time, and given the difficulty of writing a review of a film you haven't seen (though frankly I think I've read some reviews in that category, we probably all have), I recommended that Jeff be invited to write a review--along with another ASA member who happens to be a fellow of TDI. The latter person, a good friend of mine who won't be identified further, also had local circumstances that precluded him from doing this in the time we wanted (we wanted to post both reviews pretty quickly), and so another ASA member who also happens to be a fellow of TDI was then invited to write. Once again, local circumstances made this difficult, but that person forwarded to us Richard Weikart's response. I would have preferred to have a second review by one of our own members (Weikart is not a member), since we wanted to feature our own people, but given the situation (in which neither me nor two other members were able to do this in a timely manner), I recommended that Weikart's reply be added to our site since his work had received such extensive discussion in Jeff's review. And, as I've already said, I think it's a first-rate reply. (What would interest me even more would be to see a 3-way conversation, in which both Weikart and Schloss could talk to Stein about how he presented Weikart's ideas.) MORE comingTed Davis_{August 10, 2008
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However, in defense of Jeff Schloss, it needs to be pointed out that Jeff was reviewing Stein's film, not Weikart's book. That's an absolutely vital distinction to make. Ironically, I am not able to say myself whether Stein's film overstates and thereby distorts Weikart's book. I was in Europe for several weeks when the film was released, and it disappeared from the one local theater that was showing it within just a couple days of my returning--too quickly for me to set aside an evening to watch it. I still have not seen it. However, the film did apparently make an historically unjustified claim about Darwinism and Hitler -- namely, that there are these two dots and you just connect them. DaveScot put it like this above: "Expelled’s argument wasn’t "WATCH OUT!! The Darwinists are NAZIs!!” It sure seemed that way to many viewers including me. If the Holocaust connection wasn’t made to smear modern Darwinists what then what the hell was it included for?" On the reasonable assumption that DaveScot is not exactly a hostile viewer of a pro-ID film, I'll take this as confirming what Schloss and many others have said on this point. This suggests that Schloss' scholarship was a lot better than has been suggested above. MORE coming.Ted Davis_{August 10, 2008
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I do think that one can find some hard and fast "causes" in history that stand up. For example, I do think that slavery caused the American Civil War--no slavery, no civil war, and probably also that such a war was almost inevitable (though I can conceive of a scenario of further compromise, had Lincoln been defeated in 1860, that would have led to an independent slave-holding state in the South). As I say, these things are very tricky. One I have written on myself, is the claim that Christianity caused modern science. (I don't buy that one, though I do believe that Christianity was very important in shaping modern science. I'll spare the details here.) I get very suspicious, especially, of the grand, far-reaching theories that (ironically) seem to reduce a lot of bad things to one or two clear causes. For example, though I was attracted to the scholarly life partly by reading the late Francis Schaeffer, I was soon rather disappointed by the great over-simplifications in his analyses of the history of Western thought and culture, which might in turn be over-simplified (by me) into the claim that Aquinas takes the blame. Coming back to Weikart, however, the statement he wrote for the ASA, resonding to Jeff Schloss, is IMO an excellent example of an historian explaining and defending his ideas. On the one occasion when I've heard Weikart speak (on a podcast), he came off very well, and I would say the same in this case.Ted Davis_{August 10, 2008
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However, I also agree strongly with DaveScot's cautions. Your instincts are right on, DaveScot, IMO. It's one thing for an historian to point out the flow of ideas (or practices, or technological tools, or whatever) from one person/culture to another, and so on. It's another thing entirely to draw "lessons" from this. Before reading DaveScot's posts, I was already thinking of some of the very examples he offered (despite his use of grossly exaggerated data about witches). Two of the best such examples in this context, IMO, would be these: (1) without Christianity, there'd have been no crusades (and I don't believe that the crusades were something to be proud of); and (2) creationism (in the general sense, not necessarily the YEC view) was a central plank in the racist views of a lot of white people in the US and South Africa for many years. So, anyone who wants to make the "Darwin = Hitler" argument for ideological purposes (e.g., to draw the conclusion that we'd better not endorse Darwinian evolution) had better be very careful. This is not to say that one should ever make such connections, simply that one had better be very careful. Them chickens can come home to roost, in ways you might not like.Ted Davis_{August 10, 2008
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I just got caught up with this exchange, and I'm going to jump in--several times, to keep the individual posts better focused. I'll begin with jj cassidy's comment above: "If we need to end this, then we can end it unresolved. However, I doubt that two biologists (Schloss and you) win by default over a historian (Weikart) citing current historical study. Since when is the default resolution that the dilettantes win?" I'm an historian of science, and thus not exactly a dilettante on this question; however, I'm no expert on Hitler or German science in any period, and on such matters I would in most cases (perhaps all, though not necessarily all) be willing to submit to Weikart's conclusions. (The most that any honest historian can do, in such cases, is to examine methodology in detail--we're all experts on historical methods, more or less--and to read reviews by other experts from the same subspecialty. I've not examined Weikart's methods scrupulously, though I've read several reviews by experts without forming a verdict of my own; those reviews diverge widely on the validity of his conclusions.) I have myself defended Weikart's larger claim (at least this is what it seems to be to me) that Hitler was influenced in some important ways--whether directly or indirectly (and the difference is very important to anyone who wants to make an ideological argument out of this) -- by Darwinian ideas. There were also large influences of Darwinian ideas on earlier generations of German thinkers, and I'm a bit more familiar with some of those myself. Specifically, I defended this basic point of his a couple of years ago on the ASA list, in response to one or two very critical reviews that were copied to the list by someone. I've never met Weikart (I would like to), but I like to quote one of his articles in a certain course I teach, and I regard him as a very competent (or better) historian. MORE coming.Ted Davis_{August 10, 2008
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Larry Darwinism introduced the idea that death of the unfit is essential for progress. No, Darwin didn't introduce the idea. He pointed it out as a self-evident truth and he didn't phrase it the way you did. He called it "natural selection" and he supported it by comparison with "artificial selection" which was a well understood concept from animal husbandry predating Darwin by centuries if not millenia. The death of the unfit isn't essential. What is essential to his theory is differential reproduction and this he presents as a self-evident truth. Later Darwin reluctantly adopted the term "survival of the fittest" which was suggested by British economist Herbert Spencer. The only new idea that Darwin proposed was that "survival of the fittest", often described as a tautology, operating over the course of millions of years resulted in the origin of new species. The major ramification of his new idea is that it overturned the biblical narrative describing created kinds. It allowed, as Dawkins famously put it, the intellectual fulfillment of atheists. The Nazis did no more than apply well known principles of animal breeding to the human population. Darwin didn't introduce any principles of animal husbandry. DaveScot_{August 10, 2008
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H'mm: Muy interesante. Especially, JJ Cassidy -- good job! I think it may be helpful to note on several (hopefully, balancing) points. In particular, I think we need to learn the point that we should learn from history, let we -- once again -- repeat its big mistakes. (That is the issue is not that Darwinists (or Christians . . .) are "Nazis," but that we had better learn from the all too recent past and make a decision to nip abuses in the bud, before they have time to bear rotten and massively destructive fruit. So, pardon the somewhat lengthy (in aggregate)comment : 1 --> History, science, power and ethics: We are looking at a historical exemplar that serves as a warning. Since, one of the clearer lessons of history is that ANYTHING that absolutises power in finite, fallible and fallen hands [such as we all have] without accountability is destructive or at minimum dangerous. But, we tend to ignore or be ignorant of such lessons; thus the tendency of the worst chapters to repeat. Can we avert this sad trend this time around? 2 --> Theocracies vs secularist or neopagan tyrannies: Historically, the mere establishment of religion is not sufficient for tyranny and a high incidence of large scale genocide etc, e.g. in much of Europe, i.e the realm of Christendom [as opposed to other religious traditions that tend to entrench absolutism], for many centuries and up to today -- across time, the examples run into the thousands of cases -- there have been established churches. In many of these cases, we have of course had a significant [but comparatively speaking relatively low] incidence of abuses of power and great sins and massacres [such is the nature of the beast potentially within us all . . .], but equally we have had liberty, reformation of evils and progress as there is a sensitising of conscience and as there is a rise of the principles of accountability in government: accountability before God, before prophetic, reforming spokesmen and before the people. (Cf my discussion here on the Judaeo-Christian contribution to the rise of modern liberty.) By contrast, the secularist and neopagan tyrannies of the past century have by and large consistently been horrors that beggar description. KEY LESSON: Absolutising revolutions, whether open or creeping, and however motivated or rationalised, are the precursors to democides, and in the past 100 or so years, such revolutions have generally been anchored in more or less respectable "Scientific" claims. [BTW, on this, I am now quite concerned that the extreme radical environmentalists of our day -- if they continue to politicise and subvert science and to undermine democratic political institutions while demonising those who differ with them -- could well become a creeping-in case in point . . . So, environmentalists, please, please, look carefully at how you are operating; before it is too late.] 3 --> Rationales for tyranny: Given the inescapably moral nature of humans [which of course has very strong hints as to our origin!], power has always needed a "legitimising" rationale. In religious eras and cultures, it will be religion or religiously linked ideology, and in the Judaeo-Christain case, this is immediately balanced by the moral restraints in that tradition; they can be subverted, but they are there as resources for protest and reform. In a "scientific" age, the rationale has been "science," which claims to be the basis of knowledge, but which by its nature as a methodology of investigating "what is" has no real framework for morality, i.e the "what should be -- but too often is not." The resulting key issue is, what then happens to the moral issues that are connected to power, and whether there is room for corrective protest and restraint on power, and effective provision for peaceful removal of rulers gone bad. That in turn is why the reformation era breakthrough of envisioning state power as existing in a context of conditional covenants of nationhood and government under God, so that the ruler becomes accountable to the lower magistrates and the people at large led to the wave of liberating and democratising revolutions from the 1580's to the 1780's. [Thereafter, revolution was absolutised in the French Revolution; its subsequent history has been both sad and bloody, massively bloody. in the name of scientific and rational enlightenment and liberation, much has been done that should shake us all, making us forever wary of political-utopian messianism.] 4 --> Absolutising "science": In this context, Darwinism served as in effect a second scientific revolution, one that over the past 150 years has made "science" into the generally accepted arbiter of "knowledge" and the handmaiden and rhetorical champion of atheism and its travelling companions. One consequence of this has been to reduce human-ness in our civilisation from the image of God to the image of the ape. Thus, the intrinsic value of human life and worth has been lost in the minds of many. That, beyond reasonable doubt, has historically undercut a major restraint on abuse or murder of the powerless; especially where a revolution has triumphed openly or by creeping in. 5 --> Darwinism, racism, nationalism, classism and state power: While improper and abusive appeals to race, nation and class predate the rise of Darwinism, there was a decisive shift in ideological and worldview framework due to the rise of Darwinian science, so that the "more progressive" had a handy "scientific" rationale for seeking the elimination of the less advanced. Thus, we see social darwinism, we see eugenics, we see euthanasia and we see class-based or race-based genocide. And, on the race/nation basis, coolly predicted -- without serious moral stricture -- by no less a figure than the very first social darwinist, Charles Darwin himself. [Onlookers cf the recent lengthy exchange in this blog on this, here.] We must never forget Darwin's own words in his Descent of Man, Ch 6; first from near its beginning, then as he begins to draw his conclusions and makes "scientific" projections:
Man is liable to numerous, slight, and diversified variations, which are induced by the same general causes, are governed and transmitted in accordance with the same general laws, as in the lower animals. Man has multiplied so rapidly, that he has necessarily been exposed to struggle for existence, and consequently to natural selection. He has given rise to many races, some of which differ so much from each other, that they have often been ranked by naturalists as distinct species . . . . 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.
--> As I have noted before, there is not the slightest sign of compunction in this. --> We must observe, too, that here CD has made "races" into a stand-in for diverse species, which has serious implications for the dehumanising of the identifiable other in society. 6 --> The Communist and Nazi-fascist revolutions: it is in this context that in the first half of C20, we had the rise of Communist and Nazi-fascist parties to absolute power. Perhaps most telling on this is the often overlooked fact that it is precisely in those places and times where there was still a fairly strong church influence that there was a restraint on the dynamics. E.g. Fascist Italy was nowhere near as destructive as Nazi Germany, though of course the tendencies are there. [The Ethiopians have much to say about Mussolini!] Another overlooked fact is that weakness or want of effective democratising accountability structures and restraints -- which in major part trace to the impact of the reformation era developments as most powerfully exemplified in the British isles and the United States -- was another key factor. [Contrast how the Wiemar republic and even the Hohenzollern and Austrian Empires in Germany and Austria-Hungary were far, far less destructive than Nazi Germany; with the same basic social attitudes and general culture prevailing. Lutheranism and Catholicism were not sufficient to get to Nazism, of which Social Darwinism was an integral and highly material component, at a time where as a consensus across the leading lights of the day, various now regretted social applications of Darwinism were popular and seriously held to be "scientific." (Maybe that too is a lesson on how the label "science" can enable and then help to cover up a multitude of sins . . . )] It is the difference that needs to be explained. --> Moral equivalency arguments simply don't wash for that. --> Nor does the longstanding tradition of restraining "inferior" animals and plants from breeding explain the "scientific" massacre of dozens of millions of people who were of the wrong class or race in the past century. 7 --> The amorality of Darwinian "science": Much of that explanation -- historically -- lies in the amorality of Darwinian science, which gave "scientific" credentials to the notion that might makes right and then to policies that exploited that principle. This is of course precisely what men like Nietzsche pointed out and foreshadowed. Power has now been substituted for morality, in a context where the value of human life and personhood have been relativised through the effective principle that power decides morality. [Thus, the 40 - 50 mns of slaughtered unborns since 1973 in the US as it moved ever farther away from its Judaeo-Christian foundations is utterly unsurprising.] 8 --> Weikart's first point: In this context, we can see that there is a clear HISTORICAL chain of influence and ideas from Darwin to Hitler, as Weikart has massively and correctly substantiated. [If you doubt me on this, just read Ch XI of Mein Kampf in light of Chs 5 - 6 in Darwin's Descent of Man.] So, if Christendom needs to account for its historic sins, which are many, so does Darwinism and associated evolutionary materialist science. Also, if evolutionary materialists wish to highlight the contributions of science to progress in the past 200 or so years, then they should be willing to acknowledge the contributions of the Judaeo-Christian tradition as well; including the massive contribution to the founding of modern science and major subfields in it. 9 --> Weikart's second point: Further, given the historic tendency of evolutionary materialist thought to devalue moral considerations, we must recognise that this can lead to -- and in fact has historically led to -- tyrannical consequences, in institutions and in the community as a whole. Not as mechanical necessity, but through undermining the worldview level basis for moral restraint and for respect of persons with whom one differs; thus, for restraint in the handling of conflicts with them, especially where one holds power. The cases in Expelled and many others should give us pause on this problem -- whether or not they may at first make some of us feel angry or want to blame the victim. Nor should we be intimidated by "how dare you raise that" rhetoric or attempts at immoral equivalency. Yes, all cultures, worldviews and ideologies have sins to address, but that means: THERE MUST BE NO EXCEPTIONS; including the currently dominant worldview in institutions of science, education and policy. 11 --> But Hitler did not "need" Darwin: If he had not drawn deeply from Darwin's well as it was dug in Germany and Austria, he would not have had the actual historic ideology of Nazism as we know it. In other words, Darwinism, Social Darwinism and associated ideas and ideological claims were as a matter of historical fact, key components of Nazism as an ideology. If Nazism had been differently rationalised and rooted, it would have been a different ideology from what we know from history. [And, we should contrast the the Kaiser [for all his sins] was a very powerful Monarch, from the Protestant, Franconian branch of the Hohenzollerns. Did he or his Chancellors rationalise mass-murder of Jews based on Lutheran teachings, for all the sins of Luther? Similarly, I am unaware that the monarchs of Austria-Hungary had a policy of Concentration Camps for Jews etc [for all their sins]. Something made a difference to that culture in early-mid C20, and that is what needs to be explained. The rise of Darwinism and Social Darwinism in late C19 - early C20 leading to the rise of Nazism as a political messianic movement which then defeated the looming red threat in Germany and put into effect its "scientific" "racial hygiene" programme once it seized absolute power makes a far better explanation than 400-year-old half-mad rantings by Luther that that worthy should have known cut clean across the ethical principles of the Gospel he preached. (I am sure that the Son of David, the Lion of Judah, has long since had a word or two with Luther on that!)] 12 --> Communism: Communism is inherently rooted in evolutionary materialist, atheistic views, through the concept of Dialectic Materialism. And, though the most direct intellectual progenitors of Marx lie in Fuerbach and Hegel etc, this simply shows how Darwinist thought from 1859 on fitted into and was rapidly integrated with the emerging post-Christian "enlightened" and "scientific" revolutionary era Europe of the mid C19. Indeed, there is serious basis for dating Modernity as the era from 1789 to 1989, from fall of the Bastille to the fall of the Berlin wall. 12 --> Fit vs Unfit Jews: Hitler viewed the Jews as a menacing and inferior race that would corrupt the Aryan race. So it had to be segregated socially and reproductively [recall, you had to prove your racial credentials by ancestry to get married . . .], and when it could not be simply expelled, it had to be wiped out. _________ GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 10, 2008
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Darwinism introduced the idea that death of the unfit is essential for progress. Death of the unfit prevents them from reproducing and/or makes room for the fit or the fitter. Death of the unfit in the form of natural selection created the human race from protozoa. The human race owes its existence to death of the unfit. The "fundamental concept underlying all of biology" is death of the unfit. Isn't death of the unfit wonderful? If we don't have natural selection in the human race, let's replace it with artificial selection. Let's buy "I love Darwin" T-shirts and coffee mugs. Let's confer "Friend of Darwin" certificates. Let's celebrate Darwin Day and the Darwin-Lincoln birthdate coincidence. Etc.. Also, some basic principles about Darwinism's influence on the Nazis are still largely being missed -- (1) Anti-semitic Nazi programs targeted fit Jews as well as unfit Jews and so were not true eugenics programs. Eugenics' contribution to Nazi ant-semitism was to create the idea that it is morally OK to get rid of undesirables. (2) A "systematic" Jewish holocaust was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews. Another issue is the need for objectivity in the study of history. When the Anti-Defamation League says that we should ignore the Darwin-Hitler connection because Hitler did not "need" Darwin ("O, reason not the need!" -- King Lear), that is not being objective.Larry Fafarman_{August 10, 2008
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jjcassidy What scientific findings about the value of human life could restrain them? E=MC^2 seemed to do the trick well enough. how can it end Once you realize that no one can win. This isn't science or math. We can't turn back the clock, erase Darwin, and see if the Holocaust still happened. It's stupid unending BS until you figure that out and accept it. Expelled’s argument wasn’t “WATCH OUT!! The Darwinists are NAZIs!!” It sure seemed that way to many viewers including me. If the Holocaust connection wasn't made to smear modern Darwinists what then what the hell was it included for? The movie was supposed to be about suppression of ID in academia. The Holocaust seems pretty far removed from that theme. What am I missing? DaveScot_{August 9, 2008
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After I wrote that I actually thought my sarcastic nature would be my undoing and somebody would show up with such a quote.Charlie_{August 9, 2008
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I still can’t find Luther’s writings on the mentally ill, who were the first targets of the Nazi program. Nor on the Romani and the slavs.
Hahahaha! Great point, Charlie. As you point out, Luther is not a "racist" in the modern sense, since he has no understanding of genetic contribution to future generations. His heinous pamphlet "On the Jews and Their Lies" was written toward the end of his life...three years before he died. It was not exactly his finest moment...he was long past his prime, and frankly some of us Lutherans wish he'd died before writing something like that. But write it he did, and it left a permanent stain on his reputation which those of us who bear his name must repeatedly disavow. (Which I do without hesitation.)Lutepisc_{August 9, 2008
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Hey! A quote from Luther:
There is no difference whatsoever with regard to birth or flesh and blood, as reason must tell us. Therefore "neither Jew nor Gentile" should boast "before God of their physical birth.
If they can't be pure Darwinians, they weren't pure Lutherians either.jjcassidy_{August 9, 2008
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Lutepisc, Hitler said that the Jews were on the lowest rung. But from reading him, I can't believe that was his full belief. Let's face it, the Jews were a peculiar people. They were singular in that they 1) had a strong sense of identity that Eurpoeans had only seen the parallel in nationalism. 2) Yet had no nation. Since nationalism was the way that every other people answered the question of who was the better strain, the Jews situation appeared unnatural. Hitler practically admitted that the Jews had been very successful (although never explicitly) in their competitive strategy: 1) Spreading universal socialism which made people fictional citizens of the world and dissolved the pride of nation and native culture, and 2) amassing wealth and power in business and media. A successful competitor cannot be completely unfit. Hitler is forever problematic because he flat out endorses the value of propaganda to motivate the masses. Any one explicit statement of Hitler's--especially in speeches--can prove deceptive. However, in MK he is at least trying to play the intellectual scientific observer, expanding on his vision. And here, he flat out endorses propaganda. I can believe that Hitler had contempt for the Jews as the only "nation" that won't engage in honest competition for supremacy. It is also reasonably clear to me that Hitler saw the Jews as an universal menace. They dissolved any culture. And their hopes for a Messiah to put all their enemies at their feet seemed to prove that they at least had desires in that area.jjcassidy_{August 9, 2008
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I still can't find Luther's writings on the mentally ill, who were the first targets of the Nazi program. Nor on the Romani and the slavs.Charlie_{August 9, 2008
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If your thesis be correct, Lutepisc, then Hitler placed Muslims, predominantly Arab, and the Japanese above Germans - genetically - as he envied them their religions.Charlie_{August 9, 2008
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Of course, I want to very succinctly say that the biggest annoyance out of all this is the seemingly willful obliviousness that Expelled's argument wasn't "WATCH OUT!! The Darwinists are NAZIs!!" It was that a godless, scientificcy worldview is NOT an unquestionable good. I think it was mistaken by many liberals (who tend to fall on the other side) because they are so used to making the argument conservatives ARE fascists.The connection between talking about Hitler has a common connotation in their heads, whose simplest resolution is "Watch out for the opposition!! They're nazis! (Oh, and they spread fear. Make you fear things--watch out for them fear-spreading nazis--they'll take us back to the Dark Ages!!)" That's probably reason #1 that Schloss criticism of Weikart and Expelled is invalid. As far as I know Expelled does not make the consequentialist's fallacy, that Darwinism is wrong because it's dangerous. The point about the danger is given in the part of the film where they are talking about the social cost of ID. [I wrote more on this but deleted it. I'm done. ]jjcassidy_{August 9, 2008
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Thus it becomes not the religious prejudice of the masses, but the particular prejudice of the NAZIs. Hitler identifies that existing religious prejudice cannot accomplish the goal.
I think this is a good point, jjcassidy. Luther's disposition toward the Jews was religiously-based, and has properly been called "antijudaism." His goal would have been to have all Jews baptized...not incinerated. The Nazis, however, were out to improve the human genome by eliminating the Jewish "race." Religion was not a factor in their calculations...except for the pockets of resistance they encountered from within the church (both Catholic and Protestant). But as far as I can tell, the Nazis' notion that the Jews occupied the bottom rung of the "race" ladder links to the prior notion that their religion was somehow inferior and incomplete. So the historic antijudaism, with its social/psychological and economic effects over time, coupled with modern understandings of biology, ensued in the antisemitism of the Nazis. It is necessary to add still a couple more steps to get from antisemitism to the Holocaust.Lutepisc_{August 9, 2008
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Ignored in that exposition on human sacrifice is the fact that the Aztecs and Mayans were imperialists and they had very material reasons for the action.
And therein lies a clue as to a reason for human sacrifice in addition to those of a purely religious nature: submission.The institution of human sacrifice served to glorify the status of these elites and to intimidate their subjects both at home and abroad. The religious aspects of human sacrifice reinforced the status of the elites as favourites of the Gods and as those privileged to eat rather than to be eaten. The bloody reality reinforced the structure of domination and submission - any sign of resistance or even resentment was a sure ticket up a steep temple staircase.
Rodney Stark, Discovering God And it is not cherry-picking to look at the Aztecs and Mayans as they are not isloated. Probably every tribe that can be studied will reveal slavery, rape, brutality, torture and human sacrifice. All records show that sacrifice in Meso-America existed across all cultures and eras. == On witches, the estimate of "millions" killed is a gross exaggeration. For over a millennia Christianity stood against the Pagan practice (of hunting and burning) on the premise that there was no such thing as a witch. In 400 years of witch-hunting (the early modern era of the Renaissance and Enlightenment) the death totals are more likely 30-50,000. http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0056.html Neither were the majority burned, but rather hanged. http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch/werror.html Pavlac, Brian A. "Ten Common Errors and Myths about the Witch Hunts, Corrected and Commented," Prof. Pavlac's Women's History Resource Site. (June 6, 2006). URL: (date accessed).Charlie_{August 9, 2008
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Dave, The Luther-Hitler connection is poor. It could be argued that Hitler played into the existing Lutherian prejudice in the populace. How that makes for genocidal prejudice is then problematic, because the dirtiest of NAZI secrets were hidden from the masses. Thus it becomes not the religious prejudice of the masses, but the particular prejudice of the NAZIs. Hitler identifies that existing religious prejudice cannot accomplish the goal. In fact in Chapter 2, where he ends it with the Will of Almighty God quote which Schloss misuses in the traditional form of its misuse, Hitler explains that he rejected religious prejudice, as his father didn't raise him that way. Instead, Chapter 2, about his life in Venice explains how he learns of the "true" malice of the Jews. I know that Luther found the Jews deceitful, and Hitler no doubt comes to the same conclusion. Dave, it's hard to end an argument when you keep raising explanations that don't explain or equivalencies that aren't equivalent. So, how can it end if you use the Luther angle--one of the weakest argument in the standard Hitler toolkit? (Schloss doesn't even begin to answer me with that line, because he seems oblivious (as many do) of the previous four paragraphs as to why Hitler felt that he was serving the Will of the Almighty God in his fight against the Jews.) If we need to end this, then we can end it unresolved. However, I doubt that two biologists (Schloss and you) win by default over a historian (Weikart) citing current historical study. Since when is the default resolution that the dilettantes win? Especially when a third dilettante (me) hasn't found one thing in Schloss' critique that he doesn't already know how to defeat based on his reading of Mein Kampf and knowledge of German history from late 18th to early 20th century. But I really want to ask what has as much "street cred" as Science? What other scientific development contributed to the NAZI ideology? What scientific findings about the value of human life could restrain them? What would William Provost say?jjcassidy_{August 9, 2008
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Then we stopped in my favorite Amish destination, a food & craft store. I live very close to Amish country. I think the Amish might be the happiest people on Earth. I am still amazed at how they were able to pray for that man who killed their children. the Catholic church, in its historical zeal to preserve patriarchy, instigated the burning at the stake of perhaps millions of innocent women in the larger estimates. Ah but that's not true :-) Witchburnings did not become common until the Reformation and they were more likely than not to occur in Protestant countries -- or at least places where the influence of Rome was weakened due to religious conflict. In fact, up until the Reformation it was the belief in witchcraft, not the practice, that was considered a sin. The Malleus Maleficarum, which was the handbook of the witch hunters was published in 1487 and condemned by Rome in 1490. One of the ironies of history was that Spain under the Inquisition had very few witch burnings.tribune7_{August 9, 2008
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That depends on who’s theism wins out. If for instance it’s fundamentalist Islam that wins out I shudder to think of what happens to the billions of infidels who refuse to accept it. Dave, that's a very good point. Whatever undermines good values is bad. And theocracies are very undesirable. No matter how good the system of values are upon what they are based, those who wield power will inevitably do something selfish/unjust/cruel/stupid/incompetent and bring the basis of governance into disrepute. One of the many things that make the USA great is that the foundation of our political process is predicated on the expectation that those who wield power will inevitably do something selfish/unjust/cruel/stupid/incompetent and hence should never be completely trusted.tribune7_{August 9, 2008
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As Schloss pointed out Hitler leveraged Martin Luther’s hatred of the Jews to whip up German Christians’ support for Jewish genocide. Thus it can be just as rightly said that Christianity was a “necessary factor” in the Holocaust…There’s plenty of blame to spread around in both camps and none of it serves any good purpose.
I agree that both Christianity and Darwinism played prominent roles in the Holocaust. Within months of the end of the War, for example, the Protestant Church in Germany issued the Stuttgart “Declaration of Guilt.” http://tinyurl.com/4lgyv7 From this beginning, many statements of apology and repudiation have been issued by Lutheran church bodies in Germany and around the world. For example http://jcrelations.net/en/?id=993 I can’t agree that Darwinists and Christians should enter a conspiracy of silence about the roots of the Holocaust. On the contrary, I believe an open, honest exploration of those causes will help to prevent such a catastrophe from happening in the future. Moreover, I would like to propose that it is an essential characteristic of the Christian ethos to take such stock of oneself so that corrective action can be taken. I will leave the Darwinists to contemplate whether such an ethos is also present in their ranks.Lutepisc_{August 9, 2008
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Dave, Thanks for the input. The Mexica were indeed a very bloodthirsty people, but it would be a mistake to think that this was representative of First Nations peoples as a whole. They were death obsessed (as seen in their art and ritual sacrifice), but only represent one people out of literally thousands that built cities and inhabited this hemisphere. Why bring the practices of one group (the Mexica) up? (No one was arguing the goodness or wickeness of the people involved, Jewish or Gentile, only discussing the historical genocide committed on two hemispheres) And as you mentioned, we could to get into the torture methods practiced by the Europeans and Spanish in particular...Atom_{August 9, 2008
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-----Dave: "People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Period. The ID movement would benefit greatly by distancing itself as far and as fast as it possibly can from this Darwin/Holocaust connection. I simply cannot comprehend why this dead horse is still being beaten." The Darwinists are the favorites in this fight and we are the underdogs. Inasmuch as they are playing hardball, we had better play a little hardball ourselves. Here's an analogy: Even though both claim to be “turned off” by negative advertising, politicians use it anyway---because it works, and the public is affected by it anyway---because it works.StephenB_{August 9, 2008
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Atom FYI I don't know about anyone else but in all the history of the world I've read the bloodiest people of them all were the Aztecs but the rest of the indigenous American cultures weren't far behind. The Amerindians had some awfully bad forms of torture; staked out on an ant hill; tied to a stake and having the limbs cut off in small pieces while a fire underneath cauterized each fresh wound so the victim didn't bleed to death; having one's gut cut open, an intestine tied to a stake, and the victim being made to circle around the stake with his intestines pulling out and wrapping around it as he went; the guantlet, scalping, and simple burning at the stake were humane practices in comparison. The Christians in Europe had some rather inventive methods too; the rack, impalement, drawing and quartering; but I digress. These were modes of deterrance or punishment, not human sacrifices for sake of sacrifice and sacrifice alone. Regarding the Aztecs, behold, from http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/AZTECS.HTM
Slavery was common among the Aztecs; it was not, however, racial or permanent. One became a slave by being captured in war, by committing certain crimes, such as theft, by voluntarily entering into slavery, or by being sold by one's parents. If one was captured in war, slavery was a pleasant option, for the purpose of Aztec warfare was primarily the capture of live human sacrifices. If, however, one had a useful trade, the Tenochca would forego the sacrifice and employ the captive in that trade. There was little distinction between the religious and the secular hierarchy, although historians and anthropologists argue that the Aztecs developed farther than any other Mesoamerican group a secular aspect of society. At the very top of the hierarchy was the tlacatecuhtli , or "chief of men." He dominated all the religious ceremonies and served as a military leader. Below the tlacatecuhtli were a series of religious offices and some secular functions, such as military generals. Religion The religion of the Aztecs was incredibly complicated, partly due to the fact that they inherited much of it from conquered peoples. Their religion was dominated by three gods: Huitzilopochtli ("hummingbird wizard," the native and chief god of the Tenochca, Huitzilopochtli was the war and sun god), Tezcatlipoca ("Smoking Mirror," chief god of the Aztecs in general), and Quetzalcoatl ("Sovereign Plumed Serpent," widely worshipped throughout Mesoamerica and the god of civilization, the priesthood, and learning). Below these three gods were four creating gods who were remote and aloof from the human world. Below these were an infinity of other gods, of which the most important were Tlaloc, the Rain God, Chalchihuitlicue, the god of growth, and Xipe, the "Flayed One," a god associated with spring. The Wall of Skulls, Tenochtitlan The overwhelming aspect of Aztec religious life in the imaginations of non-Aztecs was the predominance of human sacrifice. This had been practiced all throughout the Mesoamerican world, but the Tenochca practiced it at a scale never seen before or since. We don't know a great deal about the details, but we have a fairly good idea of its general character and justification. Throughout Mesoamerica, the theology involved the concept that the gods gave things to human beings only if they were nourished by human beings. Among the Maya, for instance, the priests would nourish the gods by drawing their own blood by piercing their tongues, ears, extremities, or genitals. Other sacrifices involved prayer, offerings of food, sports, and even dramas. The Aztecs practiced all of these sacrifices, including blood-letting. But the Aztec theologians also developed the notion that the gods are best nourished by the living hearts of sacrificed captives; the braver the captive, the more nourishing the sacrifice. This theology led to widespread wars of conquest in search of sacrificial victims both captured in war and paid as tribute by a conquered people. Great Temple Stairs, Mexico City We can successfully reconstruct Aztec human sacrifice with a high level of accuracy. Some sacrifices were very minimal, involving the sacrifice of a slave to a minor god, and some were very spectacular, involving hundreds or thousands of captives. Aztec history claims that Ahuitzotl (1468-1502), who preceded Mocteuzma II as king, sacrificed 20,000 people after a campaign in Oaxaca ("O-a-sha-ka"). No matter what the size of the sacrifice, it was always performed the same way. The victim was held down by four priests on an altar at the top of a pyramid or raised temple while the officiant made an incision below the rib cage and pulled out the living heart. The heart was then burned and the corpse was pushed down the steep steps; a very brave or noble victim was carried down the steps. The most brutal of human sacrifices were those dedicated to the god Huehueteotl. Sacrificial victims were drugged and then thrown into a fire at the top of the ceremonial platform. Before they were killed by the fire, they were dragged out with hooks and their living hearts were pulled out and thrown back into the fire. While human sacrifice was the most dramatic element of Aztec sacrifice, the most common form of sacrifice was voluntary blood-letting which occurred at every religious function. Such blood-letting was tied to rank: the higher one was in social or priestly rank, the more blood one had to sacrifice. There was an urgency to all this sacrifice. The Aztec believed that the world was controlled by divine forces that were in constant conflict and opposition to one another. The universe was poised between conflicting forces of creation and destruction; human beings could, in part, influence this balance through the practice of sacrifice.
DaveScot_{August 9, 2008
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-----Dave: “That depends on who’s theism wins out. If for instance it’s fundamentalist Islam that wins out I shudder to think of what happens to the billions of infidels who refuse to accept it. One might make a reasonable case that some moderate form of Christian theocracy would be a good thing but I’d argue that we already have, in the United States, a moderate form of Christian theocracy. I’d also argue that as Christianity’s influence on US society has eroded over time that societal interaction has suffered for it.” Excellent! That is precisely the point. You can only build a well-ordered society around a well-ordered God. Only a Judeo/Christian God that is both TRANSCENDENT, (a God who instructs on the natural moral law) and IMMANENT, (a God who confers inherent dignity on humans) can edify the culture and protect human rights. Islam accepts transcendence but it rejects immanence, so it leads to an abundance of law and a scarcity of freedom. Atheism rejects both, and leads to the same thing. The only difference is that the former tyrannizes in the name of God while the latter does it in the name of the state. Insofar as the United States has abandoned the Judeo/Christian God, it has, to that extent, degenerated into vulgarity and mediocrity.StephenB_{August 9, 2008
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