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See below from Hunter’s Civic Biology (the textbook at the center of the Scopes Trial):

Improvement of Man. - If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved, it is not unfair to ask if the health and vigor of future generations of men and women on the earth might not be improved by applying to them the laws of selection.

Eugenics. - When people marry there are certain things that the individual as well as the race should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring. Tuberculosis, that dread white plague which is still responsible for almost one seventh of all deaths, epilepsy, and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science is of being well born is called eugenics.

Parasitism and its Cost to Society. - Hundreds of families such as those described above exist to-day, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.

The Remedy. - If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with success in this country.


1 posted on 06/25/2025 7:36:29 AM PDT by Heartlander
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In his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, Darwin put forth the idea that all life came from a single common ancestor and changed without design, goal, or purpose - our brain and morality developed as such - and humans are merely another animal - as he put forth in Descent of Man::
…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.”
- Charles Darwin, Descent of Man
If Darwin allowed Dawkins to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist then he also allowed scientists to be an intellectually fulfilled racist.

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.

At the core of the current theory of evolution is materialism/naturalism and this is a worldview with consequences. For example, as Stephen Meyer points out -the constitution assumes:

In contrast, under the materialistic picture of reality pervasive in our culture, you get this:

These are not Conservative principles and is partially to blame for our current state of affairs.

2 posted on 06/25/2025 7:38:04 AM PDT by Heartlander
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To: Heartlander

BTTT


3 posted on 06/25/2025 7:49:37 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: Heartlander

A very interesting article. Thx.


4 posted on 06/25/2025 7:53:21 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: Heartlander

IMHO it’s a bit too charitable to give Darwin some leeway in his intent or meanings within Origin of Species. He cleared things up perfectly a dozen or so years later when he wrote Descent of Man. In it he said that his natural selection beliefs should be applied to keeping non-whites in their place (scientific racism).


5 posted on 06/25/2025 7:55:23 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Heartlander

Scopes biography on Wikipedia indicates after his stint in “education” he ran for Congress as a member of the Socialist Party

There’s a consistent thread on some things all the way through history.......


6 posted on 06/25/2025 7:58:55 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: Heartlander

Bookmark.


7 posted on 06/25/2025 8:25:22 AM PDT by Inyo-Mono
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