The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

The New York Slimes ^ | 23 January 2005 | EDITORIAL

[shubi]

"Get used to the label, it fits materialists like a glove.
"

Did you know that I am a Christian minister that runs a homeless ministry in the inner city?

What do you do in your Christian walk to reflect Christ to others?

Your misunderstanding of the Bible and science does not make me an atheist.

[Reuben Hick]

Did you know that I am a Christian minister that runs a homeless ministry in the inner city?

Matt 7:22-23 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

[Right Wing Professor]

To say Hitler was a Christian implies he was advocating what Christ said. That is not true.

Now you're moving the goalposts. And you're indulging what's called the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy'.

'No true Scotsman doesn't like haggis'

'My brother in law's from Glasgow. He hates haggis.'

'He inna a true Scotsman then, because no true Scotsman doesn't like haggis.'

You've defined Christian in such a way that you can deny that anyone who embarrasses you is not a Christian. Thus, you can claim that no Christian is anything other than good.

Hitler was baptized Roman Catholic, brought up Catholic, made speeches invoking his Christianity and used Christian and biblical allusions and metaphors his whole life. In normal usage he would be counted as a Christian. He may have had plans to 'reform' Christianity, but then, so did Martin Luther, another notorious antisemite.

[shubi]

Yeah, you ought to take that verse to heart.

[Thatcherite]

Near as I can tell, your "politics" appears to amount to coming over here from DU once in a while to corrupt the board with evolutionism. That isn't much of an "association".

Just to make it clear I support (amongst other things):

Low and simple taxes

Minimum role of the state in people's lives

Welfare to be at levels that makes low-paid work seem very appealing

Personal responsibility and self-reliance

Small business

Free trade

US intervention in Iraq on both self-interest and moral grounds

Harsh penalties for repeat felons

Equality of all before the law (no preferential treatment for "minorities" or "historically disadvantaged")

The monomagous family unit

Free speech

Separation of Church and State

I don't discuss stuff like that on FR because it seems largely pointless to discuss a load of stuff that I agree with nearly everyone here about. (Some stuff like free trade there may be some debate about, but I don't get steamed up about it the way that I do over the crevo issue)

Now you know.

But I will never vote for a party that establishes fundamentalist religion as a core value, regardless of the rest of its program.

[Right Wing Professor]

Hitler was notorious for using Darwinian/Marxist philosophy -- see "master race'

Feel free to point to the use of this term in anything written by either Darwin or Marx.

According to your logic, the above video proves Clinton was a Christian because he was carrying a Bible and walking with the "Holy-man"

Let's forget Clinton, and talk about Martin Luther. I posted some of Martin Luther's more rabid antisemitic rants earlier; I can post them again if you like. There was very little done to the Jews by the Nazis that martin luther did not explicitly advocate to the German rulers of his time; He said they should be enslaved, and their rabbis executed. The major Christian denomination in Germany 1933-1945 was, in fact, the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Was Martin Luther not a Christian?

[gobucks]

That clinton clip is an excellent illustration; but I suspect that the 'other side' will find using Hitler to beat over the Christian's heads is something they will under no circumstances ever release, regardless of the data provided.

Basically using the worst boogeyman to attack someone else is very common choice regarding the way people think. It isn't just the right wing atheists here either; it's also a top choice among leftists. But why?

Because Hitler evokes astoundingly negative emotions. And when your arguments (esp re evolution) are not positively compelling, it's time to call up the boogeyman in order to impugn the arguments that do, indeed, 'make sense'.

I guess we should look at this as a kind of 'good' sign; but using this degree of total illogic to defend the rightness of evolution ... it is a big mystery.,,,

Until one studies the profoundly deviant sexual history of the original members of the leadership of the nazi party. When you review that, and review what 'socialist' w/i the n.a.z.i label meant, it really starts to gel. Nazis were every bit as anti-christian as were the communists - they were just less overt in their approach to neutalizing it.

But these kinds of discussions, like the evo threads here week after week have shown, has proven to be verboten.

[judywillow]

It is your misunderstanding of evolution that keeps you from realizing the significance that when speciation occurs, it is evolution. You won't see jumps from one Genus (or above). That's just not how it works.

You can't win this argument by defining success downwards. If there's no such thing as evolving into a new KIND of animal, then you lose.

[gobucks]

"There was very little done to the Jews by the Nazis that martin luther did not explicitly advocate to the German rulers of his time; He said they should be enslaved, and their rabbis executed."

Why are you avoiding how Luther and the RC also advocated how christians would goading into burning the Talmud at the stake? I mean heck, don't give the gentle part of the story. Let's christian-bait as much as possible. Lord knows, ToE needs all the help it can get!

[shubi]

"If there's no such thing as evolving into a new KIND of animal, then you lose."

Sorry, no one can even define "kind". (Unless you think a bat and a bird are the same kind. LOL)

Kind is not a scientific concept. Your refusal to admit the fact of evolution with no substantial counter argument makes your view simply a stubborn religious objection to factual science.

Science has shown through the fossil record, geological dating, DNA relationships, comparative anatomy and a number of other corroborating mountains of evidence that common descent is a truth of life on Earth. All the emotionalism, nastiness and quoting of Biblical misinterpretations will not change that truth.

But keep posting stuff like this, so the viewers will know how empty the attack on evolution by the religious fundamentalists is.

[shubi]

Hitler and Luther have nothing to do with the fact that evolution is true. It is interesting that throughout thousands of posts, not one piece of scientific evidence has been presented by the religious fundamentalists against evolution. Not one!

They are very good at talking about side issues. None of the philosphy, political complaints, or specious claims divert anyone with an once of sense from realizing the creationist movement is a complete fraud.

[shubi]

"Was Martin Luther not a Christian?"

Uh OH! Now you have done it. I will be looking for a deep foxhole expecting a bunch of poo to be flying.

[gobucks]

"Christianity is the worst thing that ever happened to mankind," he declared during an after-dinner rant in July of 1941. "Bolshevism is the illegitimate child of Christianity. Both are an outgrowth of the Jew."

I see this quote has no bearing on your thinking about Christians.

It was at post 520 you said Hitler was a Christian. And now this gem: Let's forget Clinton, and talk about Martin Luther.

So, you'd elevate 'forgetting' Clinton, so that Luther, the founder of the principles that protect Jews today in this country, can be attacked as ..... an antisemite.

The reality that Karl Marx was baptized a Christian doesn't have a bearing on this interesting conversation from your point of view I am sure...

I mean, Clinton's sexual habits, Clinton's impact, .... hmmmmm. Clinton's EXAMPLE has nothing to do w/ ToE. That is why we should forget 'Clinton'.

You are a self-deceived troll - antisemitism (as the term is commonly understood) is fundamentally fueled by socialist(nazi)/communistic(marxist ) attitudes today on this planet. Judy Willow is correct - you, clearly threatened by the success of arguments against ToE, now resort to christian-baiting and obfuscation using the 'scotsman fallacy'.

Again: it is a reality that emotionalism fuels your commitment to ToE, the entire investment of your life in 'hard science', and now these attacks on christians. You are emotionally involved to an extreme. Why?

I think you were betrayed. You are totally ticked off to the extent it forms the grain of your soul. Who did it to you? It must flat out have been creepy, really creepy.

Because your willingness to deliberately lie about the motives of Hitler is creepy. Your attacks against Luther, without also discussing the environment w/i the RC church duing that general period ... creepy.

the common thread? you have structured a life designed to do anything to attack the credibility of christians. Including the 'benign' teaching of ToE to young people.

[nasamn777]

Right Wing Professor,

On this one you are wrong. Hitler used religion but the basis of his ideas came from Evolutionary thinking. Below is a book that shows this.

I don't agree with all of Luther's statements about Jews, but the point that all other religions lead to something else besides God is true -- from a Christian perspective. I am sure Luther would be an advocate of evangelism of the Jews and showing Christian love to them. It is unfair to take a few quotes and label that as only what he believed -- especially considering the extent of his writings. It is also true that all races have some personality characteristics that are in some light negative. This may not be politically correct, but it is true. Of course, this is a generalization, which may not hold for all cases, but I think statistically it could be established. Possibly, bad experiences could have biased his perspective of the Jews.

From Darwin to Hitler
Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany

Richard Weikart
2004 (Hardback), Palgrave MacMillan, 312 pp.

Item# B089Suggested Donation:
$50 (includes USPS Media Mail shipping to addresses in US/Canada/Mexico)
$55 (includes surface shipping to all other foreign addresses)

In this compelling and painstakingly researched work of intellectual history, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially those pertaining to the sacredness of human life. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially in terms of intelligence and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Weikart concludes that Darwinism played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all ultimately embraced by the Nazis. He convincingly makes the disturbing argument that Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles rather than nihilistic ones. From Darwin to Hitler is a provocative yet balanced work that should encourage a rethinking of the historical impact that Darwinism had on the course of events in the twentieth century.

Endorsements:
Richard Weikart's outstanding book shows in sober and convincing detail how Darwinist thinkers in Germany had developed an amoral attitude to human society by the time of the First World War, in which the supposed good of the race was applied as the sole criterion of public policy and 'racial hygiene'. Without over-simplifying the lines that connected this body of thought to Hitler, he 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

This is one of the finest examples of intellectual history I have seen in a long while. It is insightful, thoughtful, informative, and highly readable. Rather than simply connecting the dots, so to speak, the author provides a sophisticated and nuanced examination of numerous German thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who were influenced to one degree or another by Darwinist naturalism and their ideas, subtly drawing both distinctions and similarities and in the process telling a rich and colorful story.
-- Ian Dowbiggin, Professor of History at the University of Prince Edward Island and author of A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America

This is an impressive piece of intellectual and cultural history--a well-researched, clearly presented argument with good, balanced, fair judgments. Weikart has a thorough knowledge of the relevant historiography in both German and English."
-- Alfred Kelly, Edgar B. Graves Professor of History, Hamilton College, and author of The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860-1914

This is truly a well-crafted work of intellectual history, and one directly relevant to some of the most consequential ethical discussions of our present time. Christians and all people of good will would do well to ponder these arguments, recognizing how easily the best and brightest can commit the worst and darkest under the progressive banner of biological "health and fitness." The book should provoke much debate and discussion, not only among historians but among ethicists and scientists too.
--Thomas Albert Howard, Associate Professor of History, Gordon College, author of Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (forthcoming)

The philosophy that fueled German militarism and Hitlerism is taught as fact in every American public school, with no disagreement allowed. Every parent ought to know this story, which Weikart persuasively explains.
--Phillip Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance

If you think moral issues like infanticide, assisted suicide, and tampering with human genes are new, read this book. It draws a clear and chilling picture of the way Darwinian naturalism led German thinkers to treat human life as raw materials to be manipulated in order to advance the course of evolution. The ethics of Hitler's Germany were not reactionary; they were very much "cutting edge" and in line with the scientific understanding of the day. Weikart's implicit warning is that as long as the same assumption of Darwinian naturalism reigns in educated circles in our own day, it may well lead to similar practices.
--Nancy Pearcey, co-author of The Soul of Science and How Now Shall We Live

Richard Weikart's masterful work offers a compelling case that the eugenics movement, and all the political and social consequences that have flowed from it, would have been unlikely if not for the cultural elite's enthusiastic embracing of the Darwinian account of life, morality, and social institutions. Professor Weikart reminds us, with careful scholarship and circumspect argument, that the truth uttered by Richard Weaver decades ago is indeed a fixed axiom of human institutions: "ideas have consequences."
--Francis J. Beckwith, Associate Director, J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, and Associate Professor of Church-State Studies, Baylor University

About the Author
Richard Weikart is an associate professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus. He has lived in Germany over five years, including one year on a Fulbright Fellowship. He has published two previous books, including Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein (1999), as well as articles in German Studies Review, Journal of the History of Ideas, Isis, European Legacy, and History of European Ideas.

Table of Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Introduction

1. Laying New Foundations for Ethics
1 The Origin of Ethics and the Rise of Moral Relativism
2 Evolutionary Progress as the Highest Good
3 Organizing Evolutionary Ethics

2. Devaluing Human Life
4 The Vlaue of Life and the Value of Death
5 The Specter of Inferiority: Devaluing the Disabled and "Unproductive"
6 The Science of Racial Inequality

3. Eliminating the "Inferior Ones"
7 Controlling Reproduction: Overturning Traditional Sexual Morality
8 Killing the "Unfit"
9 War and Peace
10 Racial Struggle and Extermination

4. Impacts
11 Hitler's Ethics

Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

[Thatcherite]

Er, gobucks, it wasn't the science crowd who introduced Hitler into the debate, it was the creationists, with the accusation that Nazism was generated by adherence to Darwin.

So in fact I completely agree with the following sentence that you almost typed, "Because Hitler evokes astoundingly negative emotions. And when your arguments (esp re creation) are not positively compelling, it's time to call up the boogeyman in order to impugn the arguments that do, indeed, 'make sense'."

[gobucks]

None of the philosphy, political complaints, or specious claims divert anyone with an once of sense from realizing the creationist movement is a complete fraud.

You were obviously never spanked as a child.

[judywillow]

New kind means new organs, and a new basic plan for staying alive. It isn't complicated.

You could turn me into an evolutionist easily enough by explaining how baleen could evolve. It seems obvious enough to me that it can't. There is no example of anything like baleen amongst land animals, and the first whales were carnivores. How is anything going to change, particularly in a gradualistic fashion, from having a carnivore's teeth and killing large fish and sea mammals for food to having baleen and straining for plankton?

If it happened gradually, you'd never get there since the necessary intermediate steps would be non-viable. If the change was sudden via mutation, then the creature with the baleen would have no idea what to do with them and starve within a few days. All of his nature and instincts would still be to kill large fish and mammals with carnivore teeth, which he would simply not have.

The idea of having large animals survive in open water by straining for plankton obviously made sense to somebody somewhere along the line and God or whoever else that somebody was either created the baleen whales to do it or retrofitted pre-existing whales with baleen and explained the new deal to them. THAT at least makes sense; evolution does not.

[shubi]

Creationist movement is still a complete fraud, despite your snide remark.

[Thatcherite]

gobucks loves ad hominems that are based on his implied superiority of wisdom and intellect. If only he had either they'd be really effective.

[shubi]

Baleen might have intitially been feeding on fish, but started straining crill with its teeth. As more and more began doing this, the ones with the best strainers lived and the others didn't. Thus, the population changed allele frequency until it got to the most efficient straining mechanism. (Perhaps this started when a species of whale ran into a fish shortage in their particular range.)

"retrofitted pre-existing whales with baleen"
That is exactly what evolution would do.

Anyway, I am not a whale expert. Why don't you look this stuff up on the net or in a library (the big building with a lot of books in it)?

I get the sense that you are focused on the individual animal instead of a population. Whenever someone asks to see a mouse turn into a reindeer or something like that, it makes the eyes go up into my head. That is just not how it works.

Populations change over long periods of time. Our life spans are so short that we can only observe large scale changes by looking back at history in the fossil record. This includes changes over millions of years. If you believe in young Earth, this will not compute for you.

Also, the concept of eras of millions of years is difficult for many people, especially those untrained in science, to fully grasp.