[dayglored]

Yep, no doubt about it, until Darwin appeared in the 1800's, the entire span of human history had not one instance of genocide, race war, mass killings, or selective breeding, based on alleged superiority of one group over another.

Prior to Darwin, everything was sweetness and light. It was the theory of natural selection that caused people to act in an evil manner. Yup, yup, yup....

/sarc

On the serious side, while natural selection is indeed a "lengthy" process, it is NOT "random" as the Rabbi stated. Individual variations are often generated by unpredictable circumstances such as mutation, but natural selection itself is based on the statistically-greater survival of more fit individuals. That's all. It's not random, it's reasonable.

Sheesh.

[AmishDude]

but natural selection itself is based on the statistically-greater survival of more fit individuals

Great. Prediction by hindsight. "Why did that species survive?" "Well, it was better designed to." "How do you know?" "Well, it survived, didn't it?"

I really don't know why this is so controversial. Eugenicists have always cited Darwin to buttress the scientific nature of their theories. It's not the only citation. They also compare humans to plants and canines and eugenics to age old breeding techniques.

It was really a burgeoning movement and it was only thanks to Hitler that it's considered an abhorrent philosophy.

[EveningStar]

while natural selection is indeed a "lengthy" process, it is NOT "random" as the Rabbi stated

Tell me about it. The Rabbi uses the same straw man argument that his friend Michael Medved uses.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Most transitional animals (which still have to be found btw) would have been weeded out by natural selection (a real thing, as opposed to macroevolution). And although racism existed long before Darwinism, it has grown far larger, and far more extreme since. And then there's the fact that some form of evolution has been believed almost as long as Creationism. Macroevolution is not some new, scientific ideology any more than is Creationism.