Posted on 01/15/2008 4:32:43 PM PST by wagglebee
'Darwin's Plantation' Breaks New Ground in Study of Subject
Contact: Melany Ethridge, 972-267-1111
PETERSBURG, Kentucky, Jan. 15 /Christian Newswire/ -- Author Ken Ham and theologian Dr. A. Charles Ware take a groundbreaking look at one of the human race's greatest problems – racism – in "Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots." Along the way, they also tackle the questions of the origin of all the people groups, skin "color," and interracial marriage,
Ham is the president of Answers in Genesis and the new Creation Museum, ministries that uphold the authority of the Bible from the very first verse. Ware is the president of Crossroads Bible College (training Christians to reach a multiethnic urban world) and a national leader in promoting multiethnic ministry.
With Darwin's birthday coming Feb. 12, and his 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species" little more than a year away, the time seems right for an accurate assessment of his legacy.
Ham and Ware show that although racism certainly did not begin with Darwin, his beliefs did more to fuel racism than the ideas of any other single individual. "Racism is a consequence of sin in a fallen world infused with evolutionary thinking," Ham writes.
The subtitle of Darwin's "Origin of Species" is "The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." Darwin himself writes in "The Descent of Man" that he would rather be descended from a monkey than a "savage."
Even Stephen Jay Gould, the late leading evolutionist, agreed that the publication of "Origin of Species" had a negative impact on the discussion of racial issues. "Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory," he wrote.
Ham and Ware note that evolutionary theory made its way to American shores during the time of the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation (the 1860s).
"Without the legal ability to enforce slavery, many people turned to the theories of Darwin to justify racism in its many forms," the book says. "They began to use evolution as justification of their views that African-Americans were an inferior 'race' and a 'sub-species' that was not really fully human and not deserving of fair and equal treatment."
Ham, originally from Australia, studied environmental biology at the Queensland Institute of Technology. He notes that the remains of perhaps 10,000 Aborigines, some slaughtered as "specimens," were shipped to Britain to prove that they were the "missing link."
Perhaps most tragically, Hitler used evolutionary thought to justify his concept of a "master race" and the extermination of the Jews and other so-called "inferior" groups of people.
"As soon as one believes that human beings have evolved from creatures of lesser intelligence, it is an easy corollary to assume that some people groups are more evolved than others," the book says.
Ultimately, though, the book is not about assigning blame. Instead, it sets out a Biblical blueprint for harmonious race relations. In fact, with man's history of racial conflict, the authors say that "GRACE (God's Reconciliation At Christ's Expense) relations" provides a much better model than race relations. This concept mirrors the teaching found in a compelling exhibit inside the Creation Museum on the origin of the different people groups.
Ware adds: "'Darwin's Plantation' presents the scientific and Scriptural case for the origin of the so-called races and of their skin color and eye shapes, plus what the Scriptures teach about still-controversial issues like interracial marriage."
The authors paint a picture of a world where churches are multiethnic and interracial marriage is no longer a problem. How can this happen? According to this book, it can only happen when Christians accept the Bible's truth that there is only one race – the human race (Acts 17:26; Genesis 1).
Answers in Genesis is a biblical apologetics ministry which conducts more than 300 teaching meetings each year, hosts an award-winning Web site and produces the "Answers" radio program heard on more than 900 stations throughout the United States. The high-tech Creation Museum, which opened in May, has seen over 300,000 visitors in less than eight months of operation.
Crossroads Bible College is a Christian undergraduate institution in Indianapolis whose particular concern is to train men and women of many cultural and ethnic backgrounds for effective roles in Christian service.
Really? Remind me which groups prior to the mid-19th century were advocating methods to curtail reproduction among blacks and other ethnic groups.
"The great and rapidly increasing army of idiots, insane, imbeciles, blind, deaf-mutes, epileptics, paralytics, the murderers, thieves, drunkards and moral perverts are very poor material with which to "subdue the world," and usher in the glad day when "all shall know the Lord, whom to know aright is life everlasting." There are hundreds and thousands of men and women today to whom in the interests of future generations, some rigid law should say, "Write this one childless." Men and women whose habits of life are such as to curse their offspring, should be prohibited from marrying."
No one disputes the fact that some evangelical Christians advocated the eugenics movement, my guess is that a few decades before they would have also been using the Bible to justifly slavery.
I changed my mind & I was once firmly on the other side of the issue. I grew up with books on evolution in my home. I remember laughing at the kids who brought up God in science class.
The danger with indoctrination is that it sometimes means it's necessary to shape "truth". After the one who'd been indoctrinated has been released, discovery of any messaged truth is almost like a light getting turned on. I've gone from skeptical, to wondering about what they fear. Heaven forbid, teachers allow students to question & think.
I realized as soon as I hit the post button that someone was going to explain how and why they changed their mind.
What I should have said, is that I have never seen anyone change their mind publicly through the course of a debate on the topic here on FR.
I agree that there is a huge danger with indoctrination. Whether Darwin intended as such or not, the education system has latched onto evolution as a way to promote atheism.
But in the end, I still believe that eugenics and how it has been and continues to be used, is by far the most dangerous component of Darwinism.
Wagglebee,
In case you suspect I’m trying to make you believe in natural selection, let me assure you I’m not. Most (though not all) of the people on the Darwin team are my enemy, and I’m not interested in recruiting more members for them. ;-)
I agree that the entire eugenics movement originated with the idea of natural selection. But, judging from his writings, Darwin himself did not advocate eugenics. It doesn’t seem he ever suspected his work would be interpreted the way it was. (Admission: I read “Origin of Species”, but I’ve only heard and read “about” his other writings.) Still, the eugenicists and the Bell Curve crowd have marched on. What they’ve ignored is that Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” wasn’t measured in the terms they are applying. It was measured in terms of adaptation to one’s environment.
The study of genetics is another example of science being misused: Knowledge about genetics may help us fight disease, but the eugenics crowd have latched onto it. It also has led people to draw conclusions without solid scientific evidence that, for example, homosexuality is genetic.
As a side note, I’m glad to see a book written about Scripture that sets the record straight.
I couldn't let you go away disappointed. ;o)
What I should have said, is that I have never seen anyone change their mind publicly through the course of a debate on the topic here on FR.
I've learned quite a bit from the "debates" about the issue. I learn better under fire than I do when I'm in an echo chamber. I had to knock some of the rust off some things that I learned decades ago to recognize the iron beneath the beliefs that I hold now.
I agree that there is a huge danger with indoctrination. Whether Darwin intended as such or not, the education system has latched onto evolution as a way to promote atheism.
Error is created by the belief that there is a neutral position, which is the way that people of faith have been dragged into supporting the hard core atheism that's become the norm in our education system. I fully understand the necessity of materialism in science, but science has always had philosophical underpinnings, where faith was allowed a voice that has been pushed out of the dialog.
But in the end, I still believe that eugenics and how it has been and continues to be used, is by far the most dangerous component of Darwinism.
Eugenics is actually contrary to true Darwinism, which rested upon natural selection, not manipulated selection. When man plays God, we could be selecting out needed traits. Take a look at societies that have made selections against females, resulting in an over abundance of spare young sexually frustrated males. (Islam & China) Too much of an imbalance & it's not a matter of whether or not blood will have to be spilled to restore a balance, but when.
But at least they got an Ivy League prof (Gould) on their side.
That is blatant nonsense. Racism was the rule of the day and Darwin was merely a product of his times.
Have you read "The Bell Curve"?
I wonder how many Freepers have agreed with “The Bell Curve.”
Or how many have condemned its author as a racist.
Probably a lot, just as a guess, but it is not a good plan to extrapolate a hundred posts to be representative of the population. Not only that but we don’t get to vote on science: either the theory explains all the data of nature or it isn’t a good theory.
As I’ve stated before, I consider evolution and eugenics (social Darwinism) to be two distinct components of Darwinism. It cannot be disputed that Francis Galton (Charles Darwin’s half cousin) and Leonard Darwin (Charles Darwin’s son) derived their eugenic theories from Darwin’s works. And it is from this movement that racists like Margaret Sanger and Hitler twisted it into evil and it certainly did not help that influential men like Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. embraced their theories.
Would Charles Darwin have supported this twisted agenda? Probably not, because what they set out to do was place artificial controls on what he considered to be a naturally occurring process and as you noted, it entirely removes adaptation from the equation.
As I’ve said, I have no interest in debating the various points of creationism vs. evolution. I am simply trying to point out that, despite Charles Darwin’s best intentions, his theories have been and continue to be used to promote a very evil and deadly agenda.
Perhaps it was, but the idea that people of certain races should be exterminated and/or prevented from procreating certainly was not.
True, that idea was born, like Communism, in America.
It was a dry, dusty tome that talked a lot about maximizing potentials, not about putting people into pigeon holes & justifying those put into pigeon holes with added limitations based on race.
human reaction to people and events is much more visceral than reading about Darwin....
we can believe that all people are good and have good values, but we don't believe it unless we find it to be absolutely true in our personal lives....
its one thing for the Busing proponents to make it a law that your or my kid has to travel to unfamiliar neighborhoods to attend school, many miles and hours from home, but to send their own kids to public school?.....never....witness all the nitwit phonies in Washington and their private schools for their "precious" children.... in their hearts they know its not safe for their kids to go to public schools...
knowing the violence that some in the black community are prone too, is it racist or is it wisdom to avoid black neighborhoods when you're alone or in a small group?
its also reasonable to assume that if a person is bright and finishes school and is a good citizen AND if that person marries someone similar...their children should by all accounts be bright as well ....
you take two drug addled people with dubious values ( of ANY race) and the kids are going to struggle.....
natural selection...
So “The Bell Curve” differs from 19th century Christianity?
As with any kind of thinking, it can be used or misused.
One of the authors of the book died before it hit the bookstores. I caught the other author on CSpan before I bought the book. He talked about the learning that children are exposed to in their homes before they reach school age, while their brains undergo their maximum lifetime growth.
Cultures can either provide or deprive children of the kind of stimulus that can impact their lives for better or worse.
It's been years since I read the book, but I don't think it went into the genetics of race, which would be a pointless discussion. Arguing the superiority of one kind of culture over another, OTOH, is something that could improve the lives of some if it wasn't against the rules of PC to do so.
My point would be that the findings of science are not affected by their possible misuse, any more than the makers of guns are responsible for their misuse.
As for Darwin and racism, any honest person who reads about him would find that he argued against slavery at times and places where it caused him considerable personal inconvenience.
He probably believed that isolated groups of people could differ, as a group, in many kinds of abilities. In the abstract, I’m not sure there is a way to argue against that.
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