Hitler and Darwin

The Hutchinson news ^ | 11/26/07 | KIRT R. POOVEY

[kathsua]

Regarding Alfred Weichers' letter on Russell Steen's column equating Darwinian evolution to Nazism, Weichers should read the history of Nazism and Hitler before he makes such comments.

Contrary to Weichers' claims and in full support of Steen's column, Nazi Germany under the tutelage of Adolph Hitler completely and totally supported the theory of Darwinian evolution as the basis for the superiority of the Aryan race. The Jews were looked down on as early stages of the evolution of the human race and not worthy of the esteemed progression of evolution of the Aryans. It was Hitler's desire to keep the gene pool unpolluted that led him to exterminate the Jews. That is also why no self-respecting Nazi would have sex with a Jew. Remember that Hitler also looked down on the blacks as inferior also.

Hitler wanted to selectively breed a purer Aryan race, and this was all based on the theory of evolution. This theory also gave him the "authority" to dominate other races. After all, Darwinian evolution is all about "survival of the fittest."

I have been to the museums in Germany that completely document this line of thought and experimentation. There are massive amounts of literature written by the Nazis that document their "proof" of the inferiority of the Jews and the superiority of Aryans. Numerous facial pictures are used to "prove" this evolution along with other data.

Weichers claims that Hitler and the Nazis used "eugenics" and not evolution to justify their deeds. Well, eugenics is merely "the self-direction of human evolution." Sounds like it's still based in Darwinian evolution.

Steen was 100 percent accurate in everything that he said regarding Nazism and Darwinian evolution. Weichers shoots from the hip without any historical evidence to back up his claim and comments: "You'd better make sure that your history is correct." Yes, he should, before making brash, unfounded and false statements about which he seems to know very little.

[kathsua]

And the ACLU uses the courts to force public schools to teach the Aryan belief of the origin of life over the Jewish belief of creation. Here's the original article the writer is referring to:

Backing up theory

I stand by my premise that there most certainly was a connection between Darwin's theory of evolution and the Nazis inhumane activities, and I feel quite justified in complaining that this has been largely ignored and therefore not adequately taught. I invite anyone else interested in the subject to pick up Richard Weikart's well-researched book "From Darwin to Hitler" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Here is a review from the back cover: "(Weikart) demonstrates with chilling clarity how policies such as infanticide, assisted suicide, marriage prohibitions, and much else were being proposed for those considered racially or eugenically inferior by a variety of Darwinist writers and scientists, providing Hitler and the Nazis with a scientific justification for the policies they pursued once they came to power," Dr. Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of

Cambridge and author of "The Coming of the Third Reich."

Though I know of no one besides myself who makes the connection, I also stand by my assertion that the propaganda film "Triumph of the Will" is an intentional reference to Nietzsche's claim that "life is precisely the Will to Power."

Watch that film, then tell me if understanding the prewar culture of Germany is an important subject to get a handle on and teach to the next generation. I am not asserting that anyone who holds to Darwinian evolution is a Nazi or communist. I am asserting that it is irresponsible and dangerous to ignore the logical conclusions of the underlying assumptions of Darwin's theory.

Call the discussion philosophy or religion if you want to, but before trying to make a materialist out of every student in Kansas, let's think carefully about all of the implications.

RUSSELL STEEN

http://hsn.live.mediaspanonline.com/Westernfront/theory

[ari-freedom]

when kids believe they came from animals, expect them to act like animals

[Alter Kaker]

Not this crap again...
< rolls eyes >

[spunkets]

"rolls eyes"

Ditto.

[Alter Kaker]

when kids believe they came from animals, expect them to act like animals

Conversely, when kids believed they came from dirt, expect them to fly planes into office towers.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Osama bin Laden is a Creationist.

[ari-freedom]

Osama believes Jews descended from apes and pigs. We believe everyone was created in the image of G-d.

[razzle]

I do not believe in macro-evolution (one species miraculously changing into a new species) which is the backbone of darwin’s theory; but I believe that the Nazis were following the theory of micro-evolution (improvements, changes and differences within a species (namely man)) and this is observable in the natural world all the time.

[Alter Kaker]

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."

-Adolf Hitler, April 12, 1922.

Hitler cited lots of stuff as a source. Only he quoted the Bible a heck of a lot more than he ever quoted Charles Darwin.

[wagglebee]

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[wagglebee]

Pro-Life Ping

[wagglebee]

Not this crap again...

Obviously you are incapable of differentiating the belief in evolution with the indisputable link between Darwin, his family and eugenics.

[vikk]

Riiight...because no one has ever been killed by people perverting the word of Christianity...

[L98Fiero]

And I thought the left was kooky with their Hitler comparisons. They look sane by these standards.

[vikk]

Riiight...because no one has ever been killed by people perverting the word of Christianity...

[Alter Kaker]

Obviously you are incapable of differentiating the belief in evolution with the indisputable link between Darwin, his family and eugenics.

This article is about Hitler. Are you suggesting Hitler was a member of Darwin's family? I'm not sure I follow.

[wagglebee]

This article is about Hitler. Are you suggesting Hitler was a member of Darwin's family?

I am saying that it is an absolute FACT that Hitler was a student of eugenics and that the eugenics movement was developed almost exclusively by the Darwin family.

[ari-freedom]

Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."

This is an example of one of the not so favored races:



The sign on the Bronx Zoo Monkey House reads: "The African Pigmy, "Ota Benga." Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches. Weight, 103 pounds. Brought from the Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Cen- tral Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner. Exhibited each afternoon during September."

[wagglebee]

Hitler cited lots of stuff as a source. Only he quoted the Bible a heck of a lot more than he ever quoted Charles Darwin.

Hitler might have QUOTED the Bible, but he adhered to the dictates of the social Darwinist eugenicists. The Bible does not suggest an inferior or master race, eugenics does.

[Sherman Logan]

I thought it was generally recognized that Nazi racial theories were largely based in a corruption of Darwinist theories of evolution to apply to human “races,” which were also misdefined by the Nazis as the rough equivalent of species.

Nazism was in many ways an outgrowth of Social Darwinism of the late 19th century, only with the theory of “survival of the fittest” applied to “races,” not social classes or individuals, and given a more direct approach to the weeding out of undesirables.

This seems so obvious I didn’t realize anyone claimed otherwise.

Of course, the fact that Hitler misused Darwin and the theory of evolution tells us nothing at all about the validity of that theory, as he equally misused every other bit of science he could get his hands on and twist to his evil purposes.

[wagglebee]

Read up on the eugenics movement that was founded by the Darwin family and you will find that Hitler followed their beliefs almost to the letter.

[Ben Chad]

Not this crap again...

Make that a steaming pile of crap.

[Alter Kaker]

I am saying that it is an absolute FACT that Hitler was a student of eugenics and that the eugenics movement was developed almost exclusively by the Darwin family.

By the Darwin "family"? What kind of garbage is that? The only reason you're saying that is because a half-cousin of Darwin's was an influential early eugencist. Dishonest garbage! That's like saying the "Cheney family" is influential in the Democrat party because Obama is Cheney's 5th cousin. Charles Darwin wasn't a eugencist. Period. End of story. Stop playing games.

[jwalsh07]

Hitler perverted Darwins theories to advance his perverted philosophy. Likewise he perverted his own Catholicism to advance his perverted philosophy. Hitler was not interested in science or Christianity except as a means to an end and that end was Naziism. There is nothing conservative about letting Adolph off the hook for the murdering bastard he was be it those arguing that Hitler was a Christian or those arguing that Hitler was a Darwinian.

[metmom]

Riiight...because no one has ever been killed by people perverting the word of Christianity...

Yes, by PERVERTING it. There is no need to pervert the ToE in order to use it to justify killing people.

[Sherman Logan]

Hitler twisted the eugenics movement, as he twisted everything else he could.

Again, that evil was done by people in the name of eugenics does not invalidate eugenics itself, or the theory of evolution on which it is based.

There are, however, lots of other good reasons to reject eugenicist notions, especially 50 to 100 years ago when the mechanisms of genetics were poorly understood.

We’re actually implementing eugenics today, only at present it is being performed on an individual/family basis rather than a state basis. For instance, something around 90% of Down’s Syndrome children in this country are presently being aborted, a classic example of Hitler’s weeding out of “life unfit to live,” only done through abortion rather than murder (to the extent there’s a difference.)

The best reason to reject even today’s better-informed eugenics is the fact that I doubt the human species is wise enough to control its own evolution, even though we have the power to do so.

[Alter Kaker]

Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."

More dishonest garbage. Have you read "On the Origin of Species?" The word "race" is used exclusively to refer to what we'd refer to as a species.

This is an example of one of the not so favored races:

Again, you're wrong and to my mind, dishonestly wrong. Ota Benga was kidnapped decades after Charles Darwin's death. Give me a break.

[Coyoteman]

Not this crap again...
< rolls eyes >

They are unable to combat the theory of evolution in the realm of science, so now they resort to the equivalent of 1st grade insults. Pathetic.

[Just mythoughts]

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."

Please note carefully Hitler said My feelings as a Christian, he did not and cannot claim these to be Christian instructions. Specifically Christ told this bunch that he cleansed from the Temple that to destroy the Temple (HIM) and in three days it would be raised again. There wasn't anything about what Christ did or said that man can or could replicate although many have come in HIS name trying.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can look at the Darwin illustrations of their supposed descendants and get the message about who is most fit for survival... although in more modern secular disguise the test comes in various forms of intelligence testing as the survival meter.

[Alter Kaker]

The Bible does not suggest an inferior or master race, eugenics does.

Darwinian evolution doesn't suggest an inferior or master race either. Get yourself a new argument.

[metmom]

Hitler twisted the eugenics movement, as he twisted everything else he could.

Hitler twisted the eugenics movement Christianity, as he twisted everything else he could.

Again, that evil was done by people in the name of eugenics does not invalidate eugenics itself, or the theory of evolution on which it is based.

Again, that evil was done by people in the name of eugenics Christianity does not invalidate eugenics Christianity itself, or the theory of evolution Bible on which it is based.

[jwalsh07]

They are unable to combat the theory of evolution in the realm of science, so now they resort to the equivalent of 1st grade insults. Pathetic.

And they are different how from the loons on your side who portray Adolph as a practicing Catholic?

[fetal heart beats by 21st day]

If I am not mistaken, the guy who came up with the term, Eugenics, was Darwin’s cousin.

The American Eugenics movement sprang from the concept, and went on to catalogue, incarcerate, and sterilize those on their hit lists.

They nurtured a doctor who wrote for The Birth Control Review, journal of Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger.

The movement went international.

This doctor crossed the ocean and went to work for an obscure man with dark hair and a mustache.

His name was Adolf Hitler.

“America’s War Against the Weak,” by Edwin Black

[ari-freedom]

Race means race and species means species. To say that Darwin thought otherwise is pretty ridiculous from the very beginning

In 1813 Dr. W.C. Wells read before the Royal Society “An Account of a White Female, part of whose skin resembles that of a Negro”; but his paper was not published until his famous “Two Essays upon Dew and Single Vision” appeared in 1818. In this paper he distinctly recognises the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated; but he applies it only to the races of man, and to certain characters alone. After remarking that negroes and mulattoes enjoy an immunity from certain tropical diseases, he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then, he adds, but what is done in this latter case “by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental varieties of man, which would occur among the first few and scattered inhabitants of the middle regions of Africa, some one would be better fitted than others to bear the diseases of the country. This race would consequently multiply, while the others would decrease; not only from their in ability to sustain the attacks of disease, but from their incapacity of contending with their more vigorous neighbours. The colour of this vigorous race I take for granted, from what has been already said, would be dark. But the same disposition to form varieties still existing, a darker and a darker race would in the course of time occur: and as the darkest would be the best fitted for the climate, this would at length become the most prevalent, if not the only race, in the particular country in which it had originated.” He then extends these same views to the white inhabitants of colder climates. I am indebted to Mr. Rowley, of the United States, for having called my attention, through Mr. Brace, to the above passage of Dr. Wells’ work.

[vikk]

I see...because you say so? Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.

[Rudder]

Livestock and domestic pets were bred for specific qualities long before Darwin’s grandfather was a gleam in his great-grandfather’s eye.

[norton]

I almost responded to that post, but restrained myself in the spirit of open discussion.

[Strategerist]

All scientists in Hitler’s Germany believed force=mass x acceleration and used it to build weapons that killed millions; that’s not an argument against Newtonian mechanics.

[Coyoteman]

And they are different how from the loons on your side who portray Adolph as a practicing Catholic?

Complain to me about what I write, not what someone else writes.

[ari-freedom]

evolutionists need public schools because they know that it won’t survive if everyone was homeschooled

[Sherman Logan]

True enough. I have no intention of discrediting Christianity, though.

[Alter Kaker]

Race means race and species means species. To say that Darwin thought otherwise is pretty ridiculous from the very beginning

Ok, I'm asking you a second time:

Have you actually READ the book you're criticizing?

If the answer is YES, please show me where precisely Darwin uses the word race in the manner you're suggesting.

Thanks!

If you can't, you should admit that once again you're playing games with a contempt (or at best reckless disregard) for the truth.

[mysterio]

Oh, please. Hitler liked dogs, too.

This is the weakest argument against evolution I've seen in a long time.

[ari-freedom]

I just did.

[fetal heart beats by 21st day]

WAR AGAINST THE WEAK: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race by Edwin Black Four Walls Eight Windows September 2003, 592 pages, $27.00 (US) by Vince Carducci :. e-mail this article :. print this article :. comment on this article Heart of Darkness National Socialism is nothing but applied biology. — Rudolf Hess These days, the term "eugenics," if used at all, evokes discredited notions of social Darwinism and other racist ideologies. But it once defined a way of seeing things that for many seemed as sound as the evolutionary principles upon which it was based. In the stunning new book, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, investigative journalist Edwin Black traces the development of eugenics in England, America and elsewhere. Black uncovers a long-repressed chapter of social history significant enough to command reappraisal of the legacy of eugenics for today and for the future. Black's last book, the award-winning bestseller IBM and the Holocaust, told of how Big Blue created what marketers call a customized business solution to help their Third Reich clients plan and carry out the Final Solution. The shocking revelation of War Against the Weak is how much German ideas about rassenhygiene (literally "race hygiene") were modeled on research methods and social engineering practices that began in the United States decades before Adolf Hitler wrote a single word of Mein Kampf. Nearly as astonishing is the overwhelming evidence linking the eugenics movement to the highest levels of American academia, philanthropy and government. And there are other surprising facts as well. The central theme of War Against the Weak can be summed up in the declarative sentence that opens the second chapter: "Mankind's quest for perfection has always turned dark." From the first statement by Herbert Spencer in the mid-1800s of the concept of the survival of the fittest to Hitler's announcement nearly a century later that he would exterminate the Jews "like lice," Black chronicles a descent into horror even Joseph Conrad's character Mr. Kurtz would be loathe to imagine. English statistician Francis J. Galton invented the term eugenics in 1883 from Greek roots meaning "well born." A cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton also devised the first weather maps and the first system for cataloging fingerprints, another word he coined. Galton looked past Spencer, Darwin and Gregor Mendel to analyze the hereditary patterns of human beings for superior characteristics. He believed that promoting marriage among those with superior traits would improve the human species over time. He called this "positive" eugenics. While eminent Victorians, including historian and novelist H.G. Wells, pondered managed human reproduction, American "can do" put it into practice. In the wake of the Civil War and the mass immigrations of the late 19th century, the specter of "mongrelization" haunted the American psyche. One of those concerned about the fate of the nation was Charles Benedict Davenport, a Harvard-educated zoologist. In 1902, he used his position as director of the Brooklyn Institute's biological research center on Long Island to secure major funding from the newly formed Carnegie Institution to investigate "methods of Evolution." The theory embraced by Davenport and his colleagues across America was "negative" eugenics. As opposed to the positive version, it sought to improve the species from the bottom up by preventing reproduction among what was termed the "submerged tenth" of the population. It proposed segregation, sterilization and, if necessary, euthanasia to achieve its goals. Black's research shows that America's elite supported these ideas from the beginning. Besides Carnegie, early patrons of Davenport's research included the Rockefeller Foundation and Mrs. E.H. Harriman, widow of the railroad tycoon. Eugenics was taught at Harvard, Yale and Princeton. It had the approval of public figures like Margaret Sanger, Woodrow Wilson and Alexander Graham Bell. It even received the imprimatur of the U.S. Supreme Court with an opinion written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. By the late '20s, more than half the states in the union had laws to eliminate "undesirables." Tens of thousands were forcibly sterilized; tens of thousands more were denied the right to marry or were institutionalized. Some died because doctors withheld treatment from them in an effort to stop "defective germ plasm" from flowing into the American gene pool. The "Ultimate Program," as it was called in 1923, was to extend negative eugenics to every nation on earth. Against the mongrelization of the submerged tenth, the eugenicists posed the purity of the Nordic races. Peoples of the north, they held, had forged their superiority over generations through the struggle to survive in severe environments. The weaker members had long been eliminated by natural selection. This was set out in texts like The Passing of a Great Race by American eugenicist Madison Grant, which Hitler read while imprisoned in the mid '20s for inciting mob violence. (The German translation was published by Hitler's co-conspirator Julius Lehman; Hitler even wrote Grant a fan letter declaring the book his "Bible.") There can be no doubt, given the extensive documentation Black presents, that American eugenicists and their supporters were at least willing fellow travelers if not out-and-out collaborators in the German pursuit of racial purity. Rockefeller money was still going to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics and other Nazi research centers up to the eve of the invasion of Poland. The Eugenical News, official journal of the American Eugenics Research Association, openly praised Nazi Jewish policies even as blitzkrieg raged. Lest anyone think it an isolated moment in American history, Black proposes that eugenics lives on in new forms. Instead of the term eugenics, with its incendiary associations, the preferred label is now the more neutral "human genetics." However, remnants of the eugenic philosophy can be discerned in practices like premarital blood testing, IQ and other standardized tests, and so-called free market solutions to social welfare. James Watson, co-discover of the DNA double helix and current head of the laboratory complex formerly occupied by Charles Davenport, has been quoted as saying 10 percent of the world's population suffers from irreversible genetic defects. The genetic code of the entire population of Iceland resides on an Internet database managed by IBM under the heading "Life Services--Nordic." The dilemma of reducing life to DNA is determining at what point it ceases to be human and therefore subject to laws of ethics and morality. In his 1998 book Homer Sacer, Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben distinguishes between sovereign power, the rule of law, and "bare life," biological existence outside state protection or religious sanctity. For Agamben, this cold logic of objectivity pervades modern politics and science alike. It's not happenstance that non-Jewish Germans were the only prisoners not tattooed in the concentration camps and that all Jews, regardless of nationality, were officially stripped of citizenship before being murdered. When Black differentiates, as he does throughout, between eugenics as "pseudo-science" and human genetics as pure biology, he muddles one of the fundamental lessons of his book. If nothing else, War Against the Weak is a cautionary tale of how power creates knowledge and the terrible consequences that can result. Black seems to sense this with concerns he expresses in the conclusion about "self-directed evolution," which only the rich can afford, and the emerging "genetic underclass." Edwin Black has distinguished himself as a journalist for more than two decades, both in the United States and abroad. A masterpiece of research and style, War Against the Weak is arguably his most important work to date and certainly one of the noteworthy books of the year. — 17 September 2003

[Alter Kaker]

evolutionists need public schools because they know that it won’t survive if everyone was homeschooled

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

If every child were home-schooled, then presumably I would have home-schooled my children. Are you telling me that I'd teach my children creationism?

Maybe you need to enroll yourself in a basic logic class.

[mysterio]

I do not believe in macro-evolution

Microevolution X 3.4 billion years = macroevolution.

[Sherman Logan]

The word "race" is used exclusively to refer to what we'd refer to as a species.

That's because the modern distinctions in terminology had not yet been thoroughly set when Darwin wrote. He used the common terminology of his time.

Was Darwin racist? By today's standards, probably, as the vast majority of scientists and other educated people of his time were. To not be at least mildly racist at the time required rejecting the science of the time. Few succeeded, with most of those basing their rejection on Biblical principles.

But Darwin was certainly no proponent of Nazi methods, and it is an egregious anachronism to impute responsibility to him for what the Nazis did a century after his death.

[Coyoteman]

evolutionists need public schools because they know that it won’t survive if everyone was homeschooled

“Evolutionist” is a term used by creationists to include all scientists who disagree with them.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymple/creationist_age_earth.html

[Hacksaw]

Complain to me about what I write, not what someone else writes.

Yet you were just complaining to Alter Kaker about what someone else wrote, using the plural "they".

[ari-freedom]

no, but you wouldn’t be able to force everyone else’s kids to believe in evolution.