Weikart’s new book on Darwinian racism drops February 1, free webinar February 3

_{Denyse O'Leary

January 21, 2022

Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Racism}

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Historian Richard Weikart’s new book, Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism drops February 1 and is available for preorder.

From the publisher:

To hear some tell it, Adolf Hitler was a Christian creationist who rejected Darwinian evolution. Award-winning historian Richard Weikart shows otherwise. According to Weikart, Darwinian evolution crucially influenced Hitler and the Nazis, and the Nazis zealously propagated evolutionary theory during the Third Reich. Inspired by arguments from both Darwin and early Darwinists, the Nazis viewed the “Nordic race” as superior to other races and set about advancing human evolution by ridding the world of “inferior” races and individuals. As Weikart also shows, these ideas circulate today among white nationalists and neo-Nazis, who routinely use Darwinian theory in their propaganda to advance a racist agenda. Darwinian Racism is careful history. It is also a wake-up call.

You can register for a webinar with Weikart, with John West as host here.

Given the recent influx of social unrest, are you seeking some clarity on the historical roots of Western racism? Are you looking for a solid, evidence-based rebuttal to the naturalist argument that evolutionary theory has done no evil? Don’t pass up this spectacular opportunity to get answers from a reputable and well-researched scholar. Buy the book today so you can be prepared in time for the webinar.
Join us on Thursday, February 3rd, at 6 PM PT (9 PM ET)

(Time zones.)

You may also wish to read: Historian Richard Weikart On Acceptance Of Darwinian Evolution And Racism … In connection with the Scientific American op-ed claiming that “denying evolution” is a form of white supremacy, Weikart, whose specialty is racist politics, notes, among other things, “Now what happens if we examine the real white supremacists today? Are they creationists? I have done a good deal of research on this topic, and as it turns out, the vast majority of white supremacists today embrace Darwinian evolution and use it as evidence for their white supremacy.”

Comments

PS, Hitler, indeed used Darwinist type thought in his book and policy.
Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents . . . Consequently, it will later succumb in the struggle against the higher level. Such mating is contrary to the will of Nature for a higher breeding of all life . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings [--> i.e. evolution] would be unthinkable. The consequence of this racial purity, universally valid in Nature, is not only the sharp outward delimitation of the various races, but their uniform character in themselves. The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc., of the individual specimens. But you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice [--> Jewish or Polish or Russian geese and mice, take due notice] . . . . In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female grants the right or opportunity to propagate only to the healthiest. [That is, Darwinian sexual selection.] And struggle is always a means for improving a species’ health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of its higher development. If the process were different, all further and higher development would cease and the opposite would occur. For, since the inferior always predominates numerically over the best [NB: this is a theme in Darwin's discussion of the Irish, the Scots and the English etc in chs 5 - 7 of Descent of Man], if both had the same possibility of preserving life and propagating, the inferior would multiply so much more rapidly that in the end the best would inevitably be driven into the background, unless a correction of this state of affairs were undertaken. Nature does just this by subjecting the weaker part to such severe living conditions that by them alone the number is limited, and by not permitting the remainder to increase promiscuously, but making a new and ruthless choice according to strength and health . . .
That's from My Struggle, itself a telling title given "struggle for existence." It is unsurprising that his ideological heirs would use the same ideas. IIRC, a typical frame would run like, severe survival challenges in cold climates led to emergence of a superior Aryan race that has subsequently been diluted through ill advised interbreeding and needs to be restored to its pristine breed standard. Somehow, the Eskimos don't get counted. Then of course, land held by inferiors needs to be taken to provide adequate living space. Mix in, life unworthy of life and sobering consequences follow. The notion, Hitler was a Christian acting from Christian ethical principles, is of course, a blood libel.kairosfocus_{January 21, 2022
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Seversky, when a theory indulges a priori ideological imposition, refuses to address the Newton rule that explanatory causal mechanisms be observed to produce the like effect before being extended to where we cannot observe [and, gross extrapolation does not count given complexity-functional specificity threshold], and actually undermines the credibility of minds required to think about itself, it is time to recognise ideology dressed up in a lab coat. It is time to see that the theory is failing. Then, when the ideology leads to undermining of morality, a key governor of our rational, responsible freedom and provides rhetorical ammunition for destructive agendas, it is time to point that out. For, it is a matter of well established analysis of politics that the end of ideology is power and to be a shield that gives legitimacy . . . too often, fallaciously . . . to power classes or aspirants. At the very least, we need to draw lessons from history on how even quite legitimate points such as the power of markets to promote prosperity can be twisted into destructive abuses such as robber baron capitalism. KFkairosfocus_{January 21, 2022
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This sounds like one long argumentum ad consequentiam Even if it's all true it doesn't have any bearing on the soundness of the theory of evolution.Seversky_{January 21, 2022
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