What do Design Detection and Nazis Have in Common?

_{July 12, 2008

Intelligent Design}

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Perhaps someone can explain to me what the science of design detection has to do with Nazis, the Holocaust, or Hitler.

I sure can’t think of anything. Help me out here.

It’s things like this that ~~undermine~~ ruin the effort to get ID accepted as good science. It gives our critics the ammunition they need to convince people that ID is nothing more than a tool being used to promote social reform.

Science has left the building once the Nazi card gets played. As far as science is concerned it doesn’t matter if Hitler and Darwin were the same person. The only thing that matters is whether his theories can stand up to scientific scrutiny.

It’s a crying shame that people just can’t seem to drop this obsession with Darwin and Nazis. If we can stick to the science we can win this thing. Evolution solely by unintelligent causes doesn’t have a leg to stand on when put under the microscope of math & physics. The only legs it has are the ones we intelligent design proponents give it when we wander off the reservation of science and reason and start waving our hands in the air shouting that Darwinism is evil, Darwin led to the holocaust, and Darwin is killing God. Those are not scientific arguments, they never will be scientific arguments, and if we keep doing it we’re never going to get ID accepted as scientific argument. Period. End of story. Keep it up at your own peril and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Comments

kairosfocus wrote:
BTW, great job on Blender Underground!
Thank you/i>/i> very much. :oApollos_{July 15, 2008
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Jerry No, you're wrong. Miscegenation laws predated Darwin by hundreds of years in colonial America. Those were the real roots of the eugenic movement. And by the way, eugenics was heavily promoted by both individual Christians and Christian churches both in its roots in miscegenation law but also when it became a national movement in the United States in the early 20th century. Using the same logic used to indict Darwin we can indict Christianity as a "necessary" factor in evolution. Without the backing of the major western world religion the eugenics movement would never have gained any traction. However, that would still be a bogus claim because we can't turn back the clock, erase the promotion of racism and eugenics by Christian people and Christian organizations, and see if the holocaust still happened. The point remains though that indicting Christianity is just as valid (or as invalid) as indicting Darwinism in fomenting the holocaust.DaveScot_{July 15, 2008
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Kairos Darwin's *theory of evolution* is being indicted as a necessary factor in the holocaust for an intended effect of making it appear that modern belief in Darwin's theory of evolution may lead to bad things. THAT is a bogus claim easily refuted by pointing out that the only scientific theory that Nazis employed in their quest for a super race of man were drawn from the very old science of animal husbandry. If other things that Darwin wrote that aren't part of neo-Darwinian theory today are believed to have influenced the Nazis then it should be made clear that those writings aren't part of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory as it exists today. But you see, that wouldn't serve the purpose of casting aspersions on neo-Darwinian theory as it exists today. Remember, the intention is to smear neo-Darwinism and its proponents today with the blood of holocaust victims. Anything less than that doesn't serve the purpose so wouldn't be worth making into a talking point. DaveScot_{July 15, 2008
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Dave, You said "Darwin’s theory is about natural selection leading to speciation not about selective breeding of animals to produce superior stock of the same species." The main argument in Darwin's OOS was artificial selection and its power to produce so called superior versions of the same species. Darwin extrapolated these ideas to what nature could do if it had lots of time. (Darwin's idea is both true and false but that is another argument.) What Darwin did was to open Pandora's box and let loose a bunch of ideas that had not been tied together before but which existed separately. It directly led to eugenics even if all the pieces had been there before. Darwin tied them up in a neat package and thus changed thinking patterns. He made eugenics respectable. Darwin did not create the anti Jewish feeling that led to the holocaust. That had been around for centuries. His ideas may not have been necessary for the holocaust to happen but it certainly gave it some sort of distorted legitimacy in Nazi minds. The idea of a master race definitely flowed from Darwin's thinking even though the pieces were theoretically there before. I am not sure if the idea of master race existed before Darwin but if it didn't it definitely flows from OOS and Descent of Man.jerry_{July 15, 2008
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Dave et al: As plumbers well know, sometimes, we do have to muck around in a rather unpleasant mess, if we are to fix it or avert an even worse mess. Sigh . . . I think there is need to look at the basic fact that Darwin produced two major books, not only Origin [1859] but Descent of Man [1870] -- not to mention letters that reveal his inner patterns of thought as the one I cited in 43 did]. In the latter he explicitly applied the thinking in the former, to the human race. Weikart et al have drawn and abundantly substantiated the lines of influence from the associated rise of Darwinist scientism that run, sadly, to the onward eugenics and genocide. We may view it as an abuse of science, but we must never forget that the abusers were thinking in terms of the science as was generally accepted in that day, and that that science undermined those who were trying to object to the emerging social darwinist policies. The end of that unequal context is a matter of historical record, and its consequences are equally the record of a horror of a century just past. In that context and in that light, kindly read again the revealing words of Professor Provine, from a key early public debate with one of the founders of the modern design movement, prof Phil Johnson. IMO, these are words that should be as memorialised and just as often repeated in public as the evolutionary materialist secularists do when they try to put up a distorted view of the Wedge Document, one that in the end, frankly, boils down to grossly irresponsible slander [or worse, in some cases, plain outright malice]. So, let us look closely, again:
. . . There is no intelligent design in the natural world. When mammals die, they are really and truly dead. No ultimate foundations for ethics exist, no ultimate meaning in life exists, and free will is merely a human myth. These are all conclusions to which Darwin came quite clearly. (Stanford University, April 30, 1994)
Then, consider how Provine closely ties together the claim that there is no design in the natural world to the materialist agenda, which entails that there is no foundation for ethics of fro freedom of the will. That is, mind, responsible freedom, personhood and morality are decisively undercut. In that context of an underlying power struggle over resources and reproduction, anything that promotes one's faction seems justified. That is, might makes right and the end of survival justifies any means, in a context where there is no inherent dignity of the human person that demands respect. Then, listen to 100 million moaning ghosts on the on- the- ground consequences of that sort of will to power thinking. (Cf. here the selections from Darwin, Nietzsche and Hitler in 43 -- even after the text truncation problem.) And if you doubt that Darwin foresaw the consequences, consider this extract from this second major work, ch 6:
. . . 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.
Read the context, and see if you can find there any twinge of moral compunction on what was likely in his estimation to happen, or any note of warning and suggestion that something should be done to avert such. (I, with regret, found none.) Then, compare the destructive tyrannical consequences of that sort of thought once it acquired the powers of the state without effective checks and balances. Then, look at the current ruthless patterns of disrespect, slander, abuse, contempt, career busting and oppression being far too often used by evolutionary materialist advocates in the current disputes over ID. In such a context, a warning of what can happen if such trends spin further out of control or check, by reference to rather grim lessons of history, is -- regrettably, and painful though it be to ask such ghosts to moan out their story for us to hear -- sadly well warranted. (That is why Stephen B is right to raise the points he did at 42. And, it is why he is right to raise those points to JK, who was personally and professionally involved in the agendas of the Kansas Citizens for Science, as was debated at length here a few months ago. [FtK's remarks here, for instance, are utterly telling given what was being claimed by JK before her intervention.) Sigh . . . GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 15, 2008
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Apollos Thanks for your tries to fix the problem. There is however a deeper problem that caused the offending italics -- there is a text skip problem at UD for some weird reason. (You can see the gap in the middle of a quote from Nietzsche. I have seen the same in several other posts too.) GEM of TKI BTW, great job on Blender Underground!kairosfocus_{July 15, 2008
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Dave, I hope I'm not trying your patience with my (so far) futile attempts to hack and end to "italics hell" through off-topic comments.../i> /i> /i> /i> /i> /i>/i>/i>/i> Test number 3.Apollos_{July 14, 2008
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"So Darwinian biological science isn’t to blame because the only biological science the Nazis used as justification was animal husbandry which predated Darwin. Now it’s some sort of social influence as in man is an accidnet of nature not a creation by God? That won’t wash either." Dave, no-one is changing the subject. No-one was saying, certainly not the Expelled folks nor Berlinski, that the Darwinian "science" had anything to do with it. It always has been about the cultural/philosophical baggage that came along with it. Are you suggesting that the Nazis did not read Darwin, did not write about Darwin-inspired ideas, did not use Darwin to justify some of their atrocities? Is it your position that the Nazi regime could not possibly have found support in either Darwin's ideas or the extra Darwinian-inspired baggage that came along with it? No-one is claiming Darwin single-handedly caused the holocaust. But was there a contribution? If it is possible, then it is a legitimate area for discussion and research and one way or another the facts will ultimately speak for themselves. As I said, I agree with you that ID proponents should focus on the science. I also said that I would have preferred the movie to spend more time on the science and less on the Darwinian cultural baggage. Nevertheless, I find your insistence that there is no demonstrable link and that it is not even a legitimate topic for discussion a bit strange. It is this procedural aspect I am responding to -- not the factual question of whether or not there is a link.Eric Anderson_{July 14, 2008
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Kill italics attempt #2... Testing...something's gotta work...Apollos_{July 14, 2008
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Eric So Darwinian biological science isn't to blame because the only biological science the Nazis used as justification was animal husbandry which predated Darwin. Now it's some sort of social influence as in man is an accidnet of nature not a creation by God? That won't wash either. David Hume established natural philosopy in the modern era a century before Darwin and William Paley the modern era design argument. So what, exactly was Darwin necessary for? I'm not convinced Darwin was even relevant to say nothing of necessary.DaveScot_{July 14, 2008
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Didn't work -- the offending tag is near the text "Thou shalt not procreate!" in KF's #43 and looks like this: <i<i <i>Apollos_{July 14, 2008
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off-topic: this post is an attempt to end the runaway italics.Apollos_{July 14, 2008
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"Darwin’s theory is about natural selection leading to speciation not about selective breeding of animals to produce superior stock of the same species." The question isn't what Darwin actually said in the specific area of a theory regarding speciation. (In my view he certainly didn't say much of consequence -- at least from a scientific standpoint.) The question is whether there is a broader thesis. It is clear that materialism has larger social and philosophical implications, to wit, Dawkins, Provine, et al. One can suggest that Darwin's ideas and materialism are completely separate. Logically, perhaps, we should view them as completely separate. It is then very much a curiosity, however, that there is such deep reverence for Darwin's ideas among committed materialists. Certainly far more than is warranted for a simple idea about how selective pressure might affect existing organisms. The fact is that Darwinism also has a social/psychological component, which has a life of its own. You are right that we "can’t go back in time, kill Darwin, and see if the holocaust still happened." Of course, we also can't do that with any other historical event. Allowing that the effort to study history and understand the trends and impacts of ideas on historical events in the past is a legitimate intellectual endeavour, what then do we do? Look at writings. Look at what was said by those involved in the events. Look at threads and currents of ideas that were percolating at the time. I'm not sure Berlinski is correct to assert that Darwin was a necessary condition; and it certainly was not a sufficient condition. But did it play a role, did it have an influence, was it an important part of the mix of the times? Berlinski and Stein may both be less than partial, due to their family backgrounds. However, precisely due to that background, I suspect they also have a bit more familiarity with the issues than many of us do. I have no idea whether the holocaust would have occurred without Darwin, but trying to tease apart the influences of the day, what people were reading and discussing, and how those trends were manifested in historical events is certainly a legitimate endeavour. I personally would have liked a film that was more about design in biology and less about the potential implications of Darwinism in society. But if Stein wants to make a movie about those implications, it seems that is a legitimate topic for discussion. Well, enough ink spilled on that. I disagree with the idea that discussions of either the Nazi regime or the implications of Darwinism, or both, are inappropriate. However, if what you are suggesting is that the focus for ID proponents should be on the science and the exquisite design in biology, then I certainly agree.Eric Anderson_{July 14, 2008
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"has decent evidence to the contrary then let it be heard" Tell me what about the science behind the Nazi plan to produce a "super race" wasn't known from animal husbandry, a science that preceded Darwin by hundreds if not thousands of years. Darwin's theory is about natural selection leading to speciation not about selective breeding of animals to produce superior stock of the same species. The premise that Darwin was a necessary factor for the holocaust is sheer speculatin. We can't go back in time, kill Darwin, and see if the holocaust still happened can we? So we can't say it was a necessary factor. Darwin's science wasn't needed and we can't demonstrate that Darwin was necessary. Pretty big flaws in the Darwin-was-necessary-for-the-holocaust assertion if you ask me.DaveScot_{July 14, 2008
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BTW, nice to see another viewpoint above disputing the McVeigh meme . . .Eric Anderson_{July 14, 2008
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DaveScot asks: "Perhaps someone can explain to me what the science of design detection has to do with Nazis, the Holocaust, or Hitler." Nothing. No-one is saying it does. On the other hand, whether Darwin's ideas contributed, to a greater or lesser extent, to the Nazi regime is a factual question. If they did, then they did. If someone, including Dave, has decent evidence to the contrary then let it be heard. So far, it seems Weikart and those of his views have the more presuasive argument. Thinking that a discussion of what contributed to the Nazi regime is an example of Godwin's law is simply wrong. If someone is using references to the Nazi regime to cast stones at proponents of Darwinism and avoid discussing the science, then yes, it would be an example of Godwin's law and should be avoided. However, if the question itself is what contributed to the Nazi regime, then one of course must discuss the Nazi regime. This has nothing whatever to do with Godwin's law. I thought Expelled was somewhat one-sided in its presentation of the connection of ideas from Darwin to Hitler, but contrary to what Dave seems to be concerned with, the discussion of the Nazi regime in Expelled was precisely in the context of what contributed to the Nazi regime -- certainly a legitimate topic for debate and discussion. Otherwise, we would be in the catch 22 of never being able to discuss the Nazi regime or what led to it -- an absurd perversion of what Godwin was trying to point out.Eric Anderson_{July 14, 2008
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I am guiltless of italics abuse this time. DaveScot: I've heard the McViegh issue raised in the past, and it just doesn't have legs in that it doesn't rise above statistical noise. If we examined every serial killer, every terrorist incident, school shooting, I don't think we would end up with a trend of "A-Ha!, we have a Christian problem here." I suppose if you took the combined actions of people who perpetrate criminal acts in America in general you might be able to make a case -- but once you look at countries abroad, it becomes ambiguous. There is crime everywhere, and it is hardly large groups of people going to college, following complex philosophical arguments, going through years of academic jousting, then finally self-consciously taking those ideas and implementing them across entire nations -- and every single time they did it, they ended up, as Czeslaw Milosz said: Soon enough, many from Jassy and Koloshvar, or Saigon or Marrakesh Would be killed because they wanted to abolish the customs of their homes. Soon enough, their peers were seizing power In order to kill in the name of the universal, beautiful ideas. The same with Truman -- if there was a Just War in the history of man, it was heading off The Axis in WWII. Taking the rates that we lost men (on both sides) in the island hopping campaign, it is easily demonstrable that the nuking of two cities caused the least amount of lives taken. In any case, it was a "stick with shit on both ends," not something you can attribute to consistently applying Christian principles to public life. Now, if you want to go back and draw attention to, say, the fact that the same guy who headed up the translation team of the King James translation, took time out to hang/imprison the odd Puritan, then, fine, I hear you -- but that was over 300 years ago, and it hasn't been a systemic problem since. You then have to look at the fact that we have scientific evidence that ANY time unbelief as it is exhibited in Enlightenment motifs, is consistently applied to society, you have a bloodbath or police state in succession. And in terms of real threats to humanity, the secular state has no rivals that we rationally need to be concerned with. The Tim McVeighs of the world don't represent any sort of philosophical drift, or "new understanding" of Christianity.wnelson_{July 14, 2008
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Italic! The new standard!tribune7_{July 14, 2008
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Jack -- the ugly motivations that drove Hitler have surfaced in human societies time and time again since the dawn of recorded history. That is true. But check this list. Note that most of the bloodiest wars and greatest genocides were post-Darwin or were instigated by non-Chrsitians or anti-Christians. Now, two on the noncombatant list that occurred with Christian-professing nations in control of events -- the Atlantic slave trade and the slaughter of Native Americans use tallies obtained over three and four centuries and included deaths involving circumstance beyond the control of governing powers i.e. African tribal wars and disease. The same holds true in the genocide category. The point is that while someone who holds (not just professes) Christian values may be just feel greed, envy and other things that could lead to murder, those values provide a check, and an apparently measurable one at that. When Christian values are undermined -- whether individually or institutionally -- you have the 20th Century.
Christianity -- and that is its greatest merit -- has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. ... The old stone gods will then rise from long ruins and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and Thor will leap to life with his giant hammer and smash the Gothic cathedrals. ... ... Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder ... comes rolling somewhat slowly, but ... its crash ... will be unlike anything before in the history of the world. ... At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in farthest Africa will draw in their tails and slink away. ... A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll. --- Heinrich Heine (1832)
tribune7_{July 14, 2008
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It look like tag isn't workingtribune7_{July 14, 2008
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Timothy McVeigh comes to mind. He was a Catholic. Actually, you it looks like McVeigh was simpatico with PZ in 1995 Science is my religion. Now, he attended Mass in his youth and he was given Catholic rites at his death, but in the middle there when he planned and carried out the bombing he clearly wasn't being guided by Christ or anything the Catholic Church taught.tribune7_{July 14, 2008
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Pardon . . . But I think there are a few points that need to be cleared up in light of the3 just above: 1] McVeigh: Wiki:
Religious beliefs After his parents' divorce, McVeigh lived with his father; his sisters moved to Florida with their mother. He and his father were devout Roman Catholics who often attended daily Mass. In a recorded interview with Time Magazine[4] McVeigh professed his belief in "a God", although he said he had "sort of lost touch with" Catholicism and "never really picked it [back] up". The Guardian reported that McVeigh wrote a letter claiming to be an agnostic.[5] He was given a Catholic ritual before his execution . . . . McVeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge for "what the U.S. government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge."[25] McVeigh visited Waco during the standoff, where he spoke to a news reporter about his anger over what was happening there.[26]
In short, Mr McVeigh was plainly not a practising Christian in the period leading up to his attack, nor was his murder motivated by specifically Christian beliefs; but by a most un-Christian motive: revenge (probably against perceived Gov't tyranny -- the shooting of the wife of the man besieged at Ruby Ridge, and the undoubtedly questionable circumstances of the deaths of 80+ people at Waco -- think about the gross irresponsibility of using 60 ton tanks to push into the sides of an occupied building largely made of wood and lighted by lamps, on a day of high winds . . .). 2] ". . . A better way to ask the question is to phrase it as killing instead of murder." But that is to precisely beg the specific question at stake! MURDER is unlawful, unjust shedding of innocent blood. There are, by contrast, specific circumstances that may well make the taking of life excusable, being the lesser of evils. And, in light of Rom 13:1 - 7 [cf discussion], Christians [or pagans for that matter, Nero being in view in the specific NT text] who are agents of legitimate states would be justified in taking life under approproiate circumstances of acting in defence of justice. Abuse of that power is known as TYRANNY, and under certain circumstances warrants the orderly removal of said authorities, preferably by ballot; but sometimes the ballot is not enough. [Thence, we get to the issue of what may justify war. (For a first level look, cf here.] (Whether Mr Truman fits in under that may be a matter for debate [e.g. the realistic alternative of invading Japan may credibly have cost over an order of magnitude more lives . . .], but it is not at all the same as a simple question of murder.) The situation of the Nazis and their use of Darwiniam as "Science" to "justify" euthanising of cripples [including WW I veterans], the mentally retarded etc [including bed-wetting children . . .] and their onward genocide of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians and others, amounting to 12+ millions is simply not in the same league. Similarly, the wider wave of totalitarian regimes with ideologies incorporating significant elements of Darwinist and/or evolutionary materialist thought across the past 100 years, accounting for in excess of 100 millions through democides, is a significant issue for the moral implications of evolutionary materialism. That issue, I already addressed in part, this morning at 43 above. Kindly, cf again the key 1994 statement of Provine, and the historical and ideas chains from Darwin to Nietzsche to Hitler. Yes, people will sometimes abuse their principles and power to do awful things [from which we all need to learn so that wee may prevent it from happening yet again], but that is not at all to justify turning a blind eye to such a chain of ideas and associated history. For, the classic "you're another" fallacy does not justify what was done, or how people were led in the cases in view to do great evil. It may indeed intimidate into silence, but silence in the face of evil soon becomes enabling behaviour. Worse, the real link between these issues and the inference to desigfn lurks right there in Provine's statement of his evolutionary materialism and the onward ideas it makes plausible:
There is no intelligent design in the natural world. When mammals die, they are really and truly dead. No ultimate foundations for ethics exist, no ultimate meaning in life exists, and free will is merely a human myth. These are all conclusions to which Darwin came quite clearly. (Provine, Stanford University, April 30, 1994)
So, StephenB has a very serious point:
If Darwinists are going to renounce Hitler’s Nazi-like policies in government, then they also ought to renounce their own Nazi-like tactics in academia. If they are going to express disdain about Hitler’s proclivity for murder and genocide, then they also ought to be embarrassed by their own proclivity for intimidation and slander . . .Let us think again. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 14, 2008
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“When was the last time Christians murdered people for nothing more than expediency?” Timothy McVeigh comes to mind. He was a Catholic. Murdered 168 people not long ago. "Murder" is a legal term. A better way to ask the question is to phrase it as killing instead of murder. Then we get to examine a lot more subject area as Christians are just as warlike as anyone else, more proficient at it than most, and have killed uncounted millions in this century alone. One dramatic example is Christian president Harry Truman ordering the death of tens of thousands of Japanese women and children via atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was strictly for expediency in ending the war. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.DaveScot_{July 14, 2008
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PPPS: On looking closer, it seems that there is now a "text-skipping" technical problem at UD. For, Will to Power is skipped, and there is where the closed off italics vanished. I have now seen this problem with several posts by various commenters. GEM]kairosfocus_{July 14, 2008
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PS: Ouch, I seem to have left an open italics tag. Pardon. PPS: Stephen and Russ: well said.kairosfocus_{July 14, 2008
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Folks: Pardon an intervention: I think a little facing of the chain of historical facts and trends in ideas that tie Darwin's thought and books [read esp chs 5 - 6 of his 1870 Descent of Man . . .] to the mass murderers over the past 100 years, will be wise. (Nor, is drawing attention to these potentially all too relevant historical facts "dishonest." Just the opposite, for we had better learn from sad history lest we repeat it -- the precise point Expelled was trying to make.) The first key observation is that in the past 150 years, "Science" has been in key quarters "redefined" in evolutionatry materialist terms. Fact, obvious -- even "celebrated" (though historically and philosophically ill-founded) -- fact. Cf here the notorious Judge Jones Dover "ACLU copycat" ruling. Fact no 2: These terms have lent themselves -- as a matter of well-documented [though often hotly dismissed] history -- to the rise of statist, racist, classist etc totalitarianisms, which have in turn led to the as yet unfinished mass slaughters of the past 100 years. Death toll, well in excess of 100 millions -- not counting the ongoing abortion holocaust. Fact no 3: It is equally plain that evolutionary materialism, in itself lacks a framework that adequately grounds morality and mind. Indeed, it -- by its explanatory programme -- reduces mind and morals to purposeless, blind chance + necessity acting on matter + energy, thus undermining responsibility. As the recent Provine thread documented, through citing a debate with Philip Johnson in 1994, Prof Provine aptly summed this up (as he also did in 1998, and as many other leading materialist thinkers have stated or conceded in significant contexts or works):
There is no intelligent design in the natural world. When mammals die, they are really and truly dead. No ultimate foundations for ethics exist, no ultimate meaning in life exists, and free will is merely a human myth. These are all conclusions to which Darwin came quite clearly. (Stanford University, April 30, 1994)
But, if there is no real freedom to choose, then it immediatrely follows that we can neither truly think nor know nor be moral. In short, we have here an issue of reductio ad absurdum. Also, let us note how closely Prof Provine ties the rejection of design to the breakdown of foundations for ethics and responsible choice. Fact no 4: Sadly, it is not a very big step from that to the sort of reasoning we can see in comparing Darwin, Nietzsche and Hitler -- note the trend-line from the scientist, to the philosopher and on to the politician:
DARWIN: I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turk, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized 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 civilized races throughout the world. [Letter to Wm Gray, July 3, 1881. That is, yes, Virginia, Darwin was in key respects a Social Darwinist . . . and drew it out of his understanding of his theory.] NIETZSCHE: The biblical prohibition "Thou shalt not kill" is a piece of naïveté compared with the seriousness of Life's own "Thou shalt not" issued to decadence: "Thou shalt not procreate!"Life itself recognizes no solidarity, no "equal right," between the healthy and the degenerate parts of an organism… . Sympathy for the decadents, equal rights for the ill-constituted—that would be the profoundest immorality, that would be anti-nature itself as morality!ll to Power] HITLER: A stronger race will supplant the weaker, since the drive for life in its final form will decimate every ridiculous fetter of the so-called "humaneness" of individuals, in order to make place for the true "humaneness of nature," which destroys the weak to make place for the strong. [Mein Kampf]
(NB: Materialists can indeed be "moral" but as Provine highlighted, they lack a coherent and solid foundation for morality; as was argued out at length in the Charles Darwin thread of about a year ago, from about 46 on, here. Note, this intuitive struggle to be moral is a foundational claim of the Judaeo-Christian framework, as say Rom 2:1 - 15 will explicitly document.) __________ IMPLICATIONS & FAIR COMMENT: So, even while often boasting of their superior enlightenment, evolutionary materialism-based [or influenced (i.e here, Nazism)] ideologies have not been self-restraining or self-correcting on matters of morality; until mass slaughters and oppressions have become so undeniable and so plainly a hazard to the community that there has been either a collapse or a recoiling in instinctual horror. (An instinct for morality that reflects, on the Judaeo-Christian frame, the candle of the Lord within, cf. Prov 20:27 -- and Locke's use of this with 2 Pet 1:2 - 4 in his introduction to the essay on Human Understanding, section 5.] It is true that the madness of crowds and rage-driven hysterical politics can too often find some way to pervert even the best principles to sustain horrors that now stain our history books [for, we are plainly finite, fallible, too often ill-willed and evidently morally fallen], but that does not detract from the force and relevance of the point Expelled is making. Namely, that there is abundant evidence that points to a very dangerously oppressive trend in contemporary Darwinism, a trend that as comment 22 above shows, even a Dawkins recognises. A trend that anyone committed to liberty should acknowledge, expose and resist. And, sadly, one to which far too many people are blind to the point of enabling behaviour. (Remember Burke on what it takes for evil to triumph: that good men stand by and do nothing.) GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 13, 2008
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----Jack Krebs: "the ugly motivations that drove Hitler have surfaced in human societies time and time again since the dawn of recorded history." Yes, and those ugly motivations can be scaled down and softened to fit any agenda. The real problem is the lust for power and the consuming passion to dominate. If Darwinists are going to renounce Hitler’s Nazi-like policies in government, then they also ought to renounce their own Nazi-like tactics in academia. If they are going to express disdain about Hitler’s proclivity for murder and genocide, then they also ought to be embarrassed by their own proclivity for intimidation and slander. If they are truly scandalized by Hilter’s attempt to rule the world, then they also ought to abandon their own attempt to rule science.StephenB_{July 13, 2008
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People did atrocious things to other people for centuries before Darwin, and always with some type of institutional rationale. Blaming the tendency of human beings to band together in violence against others who are seen as different on Darwin is absurd - the ugly motivations that drove Hitler have surfaced in human societies time and time again since the dawn of recorded history.
In America, racism provided a moral justification for slavery that for a time overcame the Judeo-Christian conscience of the nation. But racism was not just a fig leaf "institutional rationale" for slavery. It was a powerful argument that if believed, made it reasonable to perpetuate injustice. "If a man is not really a man, then I may treat him like an animal". I think that "Expelled" argues that Darwinism is this kind of idea. A racist might recoil from slavery, even though racism gives him permission to indulge in it.russ_{July 13, 2008
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"When was the last time Christians murdered people for nothing more than expediency?" Murder is murder regardless of how or why it's done.FtK_{July 13, 2008
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I think it misses the point to not keep things in context. When was the last time Christians murdered people for nothing more than expediency? The latest I'm coming up with is the exploration of the New World -- or I guess the persecution of the Puritans by the Church of England -- and some of that is iffy as to the "Christian" motivations. Even granting that -- it's 300-500 years in the past. We are talking about entire countries who until 20-30 years ago [some still are] systematically followed[ing] Kant, Hume, Hegel, Marx, etc.; who scientifically applied the latest and greatest technology, the latest and greatest understanding of Psychology. And it ended in one bloodbath after another. No exceptions.wnelson_{July 13, 2008
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