Posted on 03/18/2009 9:55:10 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Darwin and eugenics
Darwin was indeed a ‘Social Darwinist’
by Bill Muehlenberg
Poor old Darwin. So misunderstood by his followers. He was actually a nice old chap with fairly tame ideas, but his extremist disciples took his thoughts a bit too far. At least that is the spin being put out by many Darwinists and atheists today.
While more sober minds see a clear line between Darwin’s ideas and many of the horrible social experiments of the twentieth century, including Nazism, defenders of Darwin argue that at best there is no connection, or at worst any such episodes are aberrations or perversions of what Darwin believed.
But is that the case? Most people are not even aware of the full title of his 1859 masterwork: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. That last half of the title, often overlooked, sounds like it could come straight out of a Ku Klux Klan manual.
A very interesting article appeared lately in the decidedly liberal religious journal Commonweal, taking on this notion of the ‘gentle Darwin’.1 The anti-creationist Peter Quinn argues in that Darwin was not quite so squeaky clean when it comes to dangerous social implications of his theory.
Quinn argues that Darwin’s biological theory had very real ramifications for social theory. Says Quinn...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
Two can play that game: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html
I suggest you take the time to educate yourself about the scientific method and the constraints different disciplines operate under. To say that “Darwinism” is “irrelevant to real science” is bullshit and you (should) know it. How do I know, you may ask? I’m one of those who actually works in the field of biology - gasp - a real scientist!
I've noted before that some of the Founders held slaves and didn't see fit to specify that women could vote. Does that invalidate their theories and documents?
Intellectual consistency obviously isn't a valued commodity among Creationists.
It is pernicious and dubious to judge people by today's standards.
Just as it is pernicious and ignorant to try to use a word from the 1860’s and ascribe to it the colloquial meaning of today.
I too am a working biologist, and I wholeheartedly endorse your observation on the utility of the theory of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation to the biological sciences.
Make that...
It is pernicious and dubious to judge [historic] people by today’s standards.
Most social darwinists are borderline eugenicists, which makes them generally not neutral in their approach. There’s really not much reason for a label on philosophy “leave it alone it’ll take care of itself”. The “don’t pick at that” philosophy of life is kind of boring to argue.
==“Races” in Darwin’s subtitle didn’t refers to different variations within a species, not people of different skin color.
So when darwin said the following, it is your contention that he wasn’t referring to “inferior” human races?
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”
==Your author is a charlatan writing for the ignorant, and is either a deliberate liar, or just as ignorant as his target audience.
Given the evidence, the lengths Darwinists will go to deny Darwin’s obvious racism either means THEY are deliberate liars, or utterly delusional.
You can lie or delude yourself over that point as much as suits you, it simply is not true that “races” in Darwin's title refers to human races. Anyone who starts an article based upon that premise is either promulgating falsehood or absolutely ignorant.
Your quote was from “The Descent of Man” not “The Origin of Species”.
Americas founding fathers were slave owners, should we throw out their contributions to our Constitution because they were slave owners?
A scientist need not be above personal reproach to have contributed mightily to science.
But I guess when all you have is ignorance and hatred you have to try to find some avenue of attack, no matter how many lies you have to tell to try to further it.
The founding fathers planted the seeds that would end slavery by declaring that all men are created equal. Darwin’s theory planted the seeds of Social Darwinism, decaring that men are not created, but are at different stages of evolution, and are therefore not equal. Big difference.
According to historic religious theology about race, dark skin was almost universally taken as a mark of sin and as a convenient excuse for enslavement and servitude (Children of Ham, Mark of Cain, Mormonism, etc).
According to scientific reasoning about race, dark skin is an adaptation for equatorial sunlight, and is has no relevance to that persons superiority or inferiority in anything but melanin content.
Moreover, if we are going to go with the ‘there is only genomic degeneration, no gain of information’ paradigm you promote; the original pristine state of humanity would be with the full gamut of working skin pigmentation genes of a BLACK BLACK BLACK person. Any deviation from a fully pigmented skin would be from degeneration of those perfect and pristine pigmentation genes, thus making light skin an example of the degeneration of the perfect genetic state that God intended for humanity.
Care to address this?
Do you think the original humans were black?
Is the prevalence of non working copies of skin pigmentation genes in light skinned people an example of the “genomic degeneration” you like to talk about?
I’m also a working biologist. I’ve stored a useful Darwin quote on my page. I post here rarely nowadays, but feel free to use it when you come across blither about Darwin’s so-called racism.
Didn’t see it, mind reproducing it here?
You don't need to know of genetics to be aware of the concept of species variety. That we now call it genetic variation doesn't alter the fact that any moderately observant person could see it.
==There is nothing racist about evolution.
Darwin made clear that his understanding of favored races extended to humans, and that it was only natural to for the favored races to exterminate the unfavored ones.
==Moreover, if we are going to go with the ‘there is only genomic degeneration, no gain of information’ paradigm you promote; the original pristine state of humanity would be with the full gamut of working skin pigmentation genes of a BLACK BLACK BLACK person...Care to address this?
From a creationist perspective, it makes much more sense that since God commanded man to inhabit the whole world, He designed that which controls our pigmentation to adapt to many different latitudes.
Let's say for the moment that's true. What is it you expect people to do with that fact? Are we supposed to think, "I used to accept the theory of evolution as the best explanation of the evidence, but Darwin was a racist, so the theory must be wrong"? Seriously, what effect to you expect that info to have, and why?
Nonfunctional alleles is one of the mechanisms of white skin, a “fully functional” genome would be black if you think there is only degeneration and no evolutionary mechanism for adaptation and change through mutation.
I post it because I think it is true, and because the Darwinists seem to do everything in their power to turn a blind-eye to the obvious. But more importantly, I want my fellow Christians to become aware of Darwin’s anti-Christian, racist, pseudoscientific ideology.
I never said degeneration is the only thing that is going on. I have put forward the idea of preprogrammed/directed mutation for quite some time.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.