"He has devoluted, folks." --Inherit The Wind (1960)
…Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means. There should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring.""We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”
-Charles Darwin, Descent of Man
In the Darwinian view of humans as animals, what would cause us to stop practicing animal husbandry within our own species? Reduce the meaning of "human" to "just another animal", and eugenics is fair game. Scientific data is well supported in animal husbandry. Eugenics is only abhorrent to those who recognize that there is something transcendently special about humans.
In the early decades of the 20th century, Human Zoos were created where thousands of indigenous peoples were put on public display and touted as “missing links” between man and apes. Their public display was arranged with the enthusiastic support of the most elite members of the scientific community, and it was promoted uncritically by America’s leading newspapers.
With Darwinism, there is always an inferior race and a superior race – there must be an intermediate bridging the gap – or as Darwin states:
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”If Darwin allowed Dawkins to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist then he also allowed scientists to be an intellectually fulfilled racist.
- Charles Darwin, Descent of Man
Racism and eugenics were the hallmarks of the theory of human evolution in the early 20th century, representing a clear consensus of evolutionary biologists as well as other scientists and leaders in higher education and government (endorsed by the Supreme Court in 1926). Eugenics is an ugly part of American history that was taught to our children (See: Hunter’s Civic Biology ) – a movement that caused the compulsory sterilization laws in 30 U.S. states that resulted in more than 60,000 sterilizations of disabled.
Even today we have not rid society of eugenics as we see in; high rates of abortion among the poor, the killing of female infants in China and India, and the selection of desired traits from sperm banks and frozen eggs.
So no, evolution is a not a crowning achievement for western civilization – in fact it is the opposite. As a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge puts it:
"For two millennia, the design argument provided an intellectual foundation for much of Western thought. From classical antiquity through the rise of modern science, leading philosophers, theologians, and scientists. From Plato to Aquinas to Newton, maintained that nature manifests the design of a preexistent mind or intelligence. Moreover, for many Western thinkers, the idea that the physical universe reflected the purpose or design of a preexistent mind, a Creator, served to guarantee humanity's own sense of purpose and meaning. Yet today in nearly every academic discipline from law to literary theory, from behavioral science to biology, a thoroughly materialistic understanding of humanity and its place in the universe has come to dominate. Free will, meaning, purpose, and God have become pejorative terms in the academy. Matter has subsumed mind; cosmos replaced Creator."
- Stephen C. Meyer
Now compare this quote above to the one below from a college textbook:
"Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. Together with Marx's materialistic theory of history and society and Freud's attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, Darwin's theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism --- of much of science, in short --- that has since been the stage of most Western thought."
Futuyma, D. J., Evolutionary Biology, p. 2
I will say this, I do agree with Razib Khan that ”evolutionary biology is nothing for conservatives to fear” - it is not something to fear – it’s something to learn what lies at its core. So to reiterate at evolutions core is; no design, no goal, and no purpose.
So for a theist/deist to say the ‘creator’ used evolution to create mankind – is to say evolution was goal directed – and this is not the current theory of evolution.
Further to the point, for a theist/deist to say the ‘creator’ used evolution for mankind to adapt morality would also be incorrect according to the current theory of evolution. As Darwin himself stated:
If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering.At the core of the current theory of evolution is materialism/naturalism and this is a worldview with consequences. For example, -the constitution assumes:
- Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, and Selection in Regard to Sex
In contrast, under the materialistic picture of reality pervasive in our culture, you get this:
These are not Conservative principles.
Thanks for posting.
“There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox.”
Ha, looks like Chuckie Darwin was an anti-vaxxer, but only because it runs contrary to the principles of eugenics!
Evolution was one of the top Low IQ ideas ever invented.
Thus conferring the chicken with unalienable rights . . .
I think it’s important to note that social Darwinism is a misuse of science, since Darwin himself didn’t advocate actively taking a role in eugenics or determining which societies were unfit to survive. The Nazis certainly didn’t put it to good use when they decided to “help evolution along” by eliminating groups thought of as weak. It’s not the strong who survive anyway, but those most able to adapt. Even anti-evolutionists agree that adaption occurs, since we can see it. Evolution is just adaption over a longer term.
bkmk