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BTW, I appreciate your more nuanced statements on this thread regarding Darwinism's connection to Communism & Naziism. They're much more reasonable than most of what I've read from creationists - including your own words on the Indian Dinosaur thread!

The problem is, it's obvious that Hitler & Marx were latching on to whatever widely-accepted beliefs (both religious beliefs & scientific theories) they could find to lend an air of legitimacy to their psuedoscientific views. There is no way you can blame legitimate science - or most established religions - when they get mininterpreted or intentionally twisted to serve a charlatan's purposes.

If Darwin & Wallace had never existed, Marx could easily have come up with a rationalization for the inevitable march of history via some sort of "dialecticial materialist calculus". After all, Dialectical materialism asserts a predictability to historical progress which is well-suited to sketching out as a function thru time. If I hadn't blocked out my horrid college calculus classes from my memory, I could probably come up with some plausible-sounding equations to "explain" this inevitable dialectical March of History.

All Marx & Hitler needed was some plausible sounding rhetoric to inspire the readers of their Magnum Opuses. Once they took control of the universities, they didn't need to justify themselves intellectually, as all the books with critical arguments would've been burned and the skeptical professors would be in jail or assassinated.

BTW, I appreciate your more nuanced statements on this thread regarding Darwinism's connection to Communism & Naziism. They're much more reasonable than most of what I've read from creationists - including your own words on the Indian Dinosaur thread!

I believe I was just as nuanced there. I was accused of saying some things I did not say and you can check the record on that one. I never called a single poster a Nazi, for example, yet that was the accusation. I also didnt' "run away" or "give up" as was said about me afterwards. I made a decision to stop posting on that thread. Posting on this one shows that I'm still in the game.

The problem is, it's obvious that Hitler & Marx were latching on to whatever widely-accepted beliefs (both religious beliefs & scientific theories) they could find to lend an air of legitimacy to their psuedoscientific views.
Let's separate the two. Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. Darwin published about 10 years later. I don't see a connection with the advent of Communism and with Darwinism.

Hitler is another story. He didn't "latch on" to Christian beliefs. He propagandized using Christianity while expressly going against its teachings. He did latch on to Darwinism, and this latching on was given support in the words of Darwin himself and his followers. There is a difference there. Again, I'm not saying Darwinism is solely or mostly to blame for Nazism. However, it sure didn't hurt it and some of the statements of its followers supported it quite nicely. You can't make the same case for Christianity (as I have defined above).

There is no way you can blame legitimate science - or most established religions - when they get mininterpreted or intentionally twisted to serve a charlatan's purposes.
Read the quotes I posted above and the link above and tell me if something can be misinterpreted about Darwin and Huxley et al believing that certain races were superior to others in humanity. Hitler's racism found ample support in Darwinism as it was taught and promoted prior to his time and during his time. Where Hitler, and Kinkle, and Harris and Klebold took it a step beyond Darwinism is in being the instrument of "natural selection" which would purify the races. (Although, I recall Darwin predicting that the stronger races would one day subjugate and maybe even kill off the weaker ones, so it's possible that some support could be found there- but I'm not prepared to make that case).

If Darwin & Wallace had never existed, Marx could easily have come up with a rationalization for the inevitable march of history via some sort of "dialecticial materialist calculus". After all, Dialectical materialism asserts a predictability to historical progress which is well-suited to sketching out as a function thru time. If I hadn't blocked out my horrid college calculus classes from my memory, I could probably come up with some plausible-sounding equations to "explain" this inevitable dialectical March of History.
I don't think Marx was influenced by Darwin all that much if at all. Certainly not in the writing of the Communist Manifesto. If anything, it was the other way around since Darwin was later (though I've never heard of him reading Marx). I do think that they both sprang up in an intellectual environment that was increasingly anti-God. This goes back at least to Rene Des Cartes "If I can't see it, I ain't believing it".

All Marx & Hitler needed was some plausible sounding rhetoric to inspire the readers of their Magnum Opuses. Once they took control of the universities, they didn't need to justify themselves intellectually, as all the books with critical arguments would've been burned and the skeptical professors would be in jail or assassinated.

Again, separating the two. You are dealing with folks who were 80 years apart here so they weren't necessarily all that connected. Hitler got his plausible rhetoric in part from Darwin but more from his followers such as Huxley. He may even have gotten some of it way back with Lamarck, though the language he uses in Mein Kampf sounds remarkably Darwinian.

"dialecticial materialist calculus". After all, Dialectical materialism asserts a predictability to historical progress which is well-suited to sketching out as a function thru time. If I hadn't blocked out my horrid college calculus classes from my memory, I could probably come up with some plausible-sounding equations to "explain" this inevitable dialectical March of History.

Lyndon LaRouche has the "Riemann-LaRouch equations of economics" Somehow nonEuclidean N-space proves that LaRouche oughta be President.