Darwinism evolves
Saturday, 03 September, 2005
It's strange that our society, which prides itself on being tolerant, should be so committed to Darwin's ideas. If you believed in evolution and followed it to its logical conclusion, it doesn't seem like you have much of a basis for treating all people around you equally and fairly—or even nicely.
In the nineteenth century, the best minds of the day thought this way—Christian and non-Christian. Everybody did because that was normal. And because they thought that way, it affected the way they treated people of other races, particularly Africans.
Consider Sir Francis Galton, “Victorian polymath: geographer, meteorologist, tropical explorer, founder of differential psychology, inventor of fingerprint identification, pioneer of statistical correlation and regression, convinced hereditarian, eugenicist, proto-geneticist, half-cousin of Charles Darwin and best-selling author” who wrote, in a book called The Art of Travel in a chapter entitled, “Management of Savages”,
Look [on the African] as you would a kicking mule, or a wild animal, whose nature is to be unruly and vicious, and keep your temper quite unruffled.
(Source)
Consider Henry Drummond, “[t]heological writer, revivalist, explorer, geologist”, who, in a “scientific” report on an area where British Anglican and Presbyterian missionaries were working, wrote,
[It] is a wonderful thing to look at this weird world of human beings-half animal and half children, wholly savage and wholly heathen.
Consider Augustus Henry Keane (ethnologist and popularizer), who tried to classify all the races of the world. He put Africans at the bottom and Caucasians at the top and said, of the Sudanese, that they were
Sensuous, indolent, improvident ... culturally the lowest division of mankind.
Consider William Winwood Reade who, in The Martyrdom of Man, wrote,
The original inhabitants of Africa were the Hottentots or Bushmen, a dwarfish race who have restless, rambling, ape-like eyes, a click in their speech, and bodies which are the wonder of anatomists.
(Source)
And consider this:
Historian Richard Weikart explores that topic in a book called From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. Despite that provocative title, Weikart is no sensationalist. He's not out to prove that Hitler and the Nazi party were directly inspired by Charles Darwin's theories. But what Weikart does demonstrate, through exhaustive research, is that Darwin's ideas about the origin of species helped create a culture that devalued human life. And in that culture, Nazism was able to thrive.
Darwin wasn't the first person to claim that the strong and healthy have higher value than the weak and sick, or that some races are inferior to others. Those ideas, Weikart says, were around long before Darwin. What Darwin provided was a scientific foundation for these beliefs. Weikart writes, “Only in the late nineteenth and especially the early twentieth century did significant debate erupt over issues relating to the sanctity of human life ... It was no mere coincidence that these contentious issues emerged at the same time that Darwinism was gaining an influence. Darwinism played an important role in this debate, for it altered many people's conceptions of the importance and value of human life, as well as the significance of death.” And it wasn't just the sanctity of life that came under attack. Darwinism also strengthened what Weikart calls “scientific racism,” the theory that some races were less fully evolved than others.
Because of Darwin's theories, leading scientists in the early part of the twentieth century felt emboldened to propose radical ideas about how the sick or members of other races should be treated. Even as we read them today, some of their statements still sound shocking in their willful ignorance. Several scientists, for example, compared the mentally ill to apes. Textbooks were written that allegedly demonstrated scientifically that Africans, Native Americans, and Australian aborigines were subhuman. The eugenics movement—advocated in America as well as Europe—was able to bring about the sterilization of thousands of supposedly “inferior” people.
(Source. NB: You may have to register to view the rest of the article)
The Bible, on the other hand, sees all peoples, races and cultures as being equal. It tells us that all people have been created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27) and this is why murder is wrong (Genesis 9:5-6). All people are equal in their sinfulness (Romans 3:23, cf. v. 9) and, through the blood of Jesus, they are equal in their salvation and redemption (Romans 10:12-13).
How strange that people would rather have Darwin taught in schools instead of the Bible.
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I would rather have both.
I dont think it is Darwinism that is the problem so much as godlessness. Slavery, racism etc all existed long before the 19th century.
If you understood Evolution as it stands today you wouldn’t be taking this point of view and quoting people who do not represent Evolution as a scientific theory today. Darwin wasn’t the start of Evolution theory but did popularise it and convince many people. Have you even read his book?
I could also take a point of view which shows where Christianity has been used as a excuse for killing many people all around the world and then show how stupid it must be to be a Christian to represent this past. see http://www.truthbeknown.com/victims.htm
The same reasoning and logic being used here represents the same tact you have taken. Take bad events in the past and use them to try to represent a current group of belivers.
Its sad that you have let society polarise your thinking and you think you must choose a side when you have no idea what your talking about.
Craig, I agree with you. I am not saying that Darwin shouldn’t be taught in schools. I just think it’s somewhat ironic in our present climate that people would prefer Darwin taught in schools than the Bible, given the consequence of ideas. I’ve been following the Breakpoint commentaries about how lobby groups in certain states are outraged that high schools in America would dare to teach creationism as a valid scientific theory alongside Darwin. (Ironically, these are the same people who uphold the First Amendment and the right to free speech.) Sometimes I think it’s almost gotten to the point where people react purely by reflex if you say something negative about evolution because they are so convinced that it is right.
Also, somewhat ironically, our society espouses tolerance and equality however it seems to me that the logical extreme of Darwinism is elitism, racism, bigotry and perhaps even genocide (if you take Weikart’s line).
We have a long cultural heritage but we don’t often stop to think how that heritage has affected us or the values we hold. There is nothing wrong with being critical however, I fear, these days being critical is seen as a mark of intolerance. (It is not.)
Creationism is not a scientific theory. It is a belief. Research it. Find out what something has to be qualified as to be considered a scientific theory.
A lot of the points made here by Karen are just plain wrong and I’ll just address one of them.
Darwinism logical extreme isn’t “logical extreme of Darwinism is elitism, racism, bigotry”. If you read current Evolution theory you will come across the concept of co-evolution and evolutionary co-operation. The fittest do survive that is true, but it makes you fitter as a species if you help others and they help you, this is known as co-operation. This co-operation can evolve and this has been shown in animal societys as well as human.
Evolution taken at a shallow level does appear to be about the fittest surving, but what determines fitness may not always be selfishness.
Well I disagree Philip, and I have read a lot on Darwinism (though only about half of “Origin of Species”).
Natural selection is a key component of Darwinism, and you seem to be down-playing it. If we take natural selection and use it as a basis for ethics, I believe we will have all sorts of problems.
As Karen mentioned, it is true that the Nazis appealed to Darwinism to uphold their ideology. I recall Stephen Jay Gould wrote an essay on it.
I’m not wrong. Natural selection in Evolutionary Theory as it currently stands today AND as it stood in Darwins thought suggests that cooperation is often better for a individuals survival than individual selfishness.
“Charles Darwin took this view in 1871, Wilson contends. The father of evolutionary theory wrote in The Descent of Man that groups of altruists ready to sacrifice for the common good survive longer and have more offspring than groups composed of self-serving members. Human morality sprang from this brand of group selection, Darwin reasoned”
Reference
http://dieoff.org/page49.htm
Go read some books.
If you wish to consider how the Church worked within the Nazi party consider this
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s946813.htm
“Go read some books”
That is really patronising and unnecessary. You are saying that anyone who disagrees with you is, by implication, ignorant.
I have read many books. I just happen to think you are wrong in this instance. Can we agree to disagree?
No we can’t agree to disagree about what I consider to be facts. You can agree with yourself to disagree.
Yes it is patronising, but I’ve been told by my psycharist I should add emotion to my language to emphasise points.
You can agree with yourself to disagree
I’m sorry to nitpick, but that statement is incoherent…
Which books (specially) are you recommending we read?
Yes it does appear to be incoherent.
I think your missing a key part of karen’s point here. Correct me if i’m wrong karen.
Can you accept that darwinism has (in the past) been used as a justification for hideous crimes?
Given that assumption, I personally find it concerning that there are people that are so certian of the safeness, the rightness of this theory that they dont even want the alternative theories taught to their children.
Noone here has argued for teaching creationism and ignoreing darwinism, but the concern is the reverse, teaching darwinism, and not teaching the alternatives.
Does that make any sence?
that said, Philip also has a point.
Christianity (not perhaps our creationism belief, but the religion in general) can be blamed for at least as much damage to society as the application of darwinistic theorums to social development.
Neither theorum (since there both theories from the point of view of someone on the other side) is in and of itself evil, and both have been used to justify/support evil ends.
And christians can be just as unreasonable defending christianity as darwinists are defending darwin.
I have lots of Christian supporters, get over it.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11145-christian-faith-in-the-iotheri-good-book.html