Darwin's Dystopia : Darwinism and Hitler's Eugenics Program

tothesource.org ^ | May 8, 2008 | Dr. Benjamin Wiker

[SeekAndFind]

The folks at Scientific American are steamed at Ben Stein: (see links):

Ben Stein's Expelled: No Integrity Displayed (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=ben-steins-expelled-review-john-rennie)

Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know...(http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-you-to-know)

Stein's controversial movie Expelled links Charles Darwin to Adolf Hitler, the ultimate scientific hero to the ultimate manifestation of human evil. "A shameful antievolution film tries to blame Darwin for the Holocaust," shouts John Rennie's headline. Rennie then declares that its "heavy-handed linkage of modern biology to the Holocaust demands a response for the sake of simple human decency."

The problem is, that the link is quite real. In fact, undeniable. One doesn't need to see the film to make that link. Simply read Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Darwin's Descent of Man applies the evolutionary arguments of his more famous Origin of Species to human beings. In it, Darwin argues that those characteristics we might think to be specifically human—physical strength and health, morality, and intelligence—were actually achieved by natural selection. From this, he infers two related eugenic conclusions.

First, if the desirable results of strength, health, morality, and intelligence are caused by natural selection, then we can improve them by artificial selection. We can breed better human beings, even rise above the human to the superhuman. Since human beings have been raised above the other animals by the struggle to survive, they may be raised even higher, transcending human nature to something—who knows?—as much above men as men are now above the apes. This strange hope rests in Darwin's very rejection of the belief that man is defined by God, for "the fact of his having thus risen" by evolution to where he is, "instead of having been aboriginally placed there" by God, "may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future."

Second, if good breeding gives us better results, pushing us up the evolutionary slope, then bad or indiscriminate breeding drags us back down. "If…various checks…do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men," Darwin groaned, "the nation will retrograde, as has occurred too often in the history of the world. We must remember that progress is no invariable rule."

Now to Hitler. The first, most important thing to understand is that the link between Darwin and Hitler was not immediate. That is, nobody is making the case that Hitler had Darwin's eugenic masterpiece The Descent of Man in one hand while he penned Mein Kampf in the other. Darwin's eugenic ideas were spread all over Europe and America, until they were common intellectual coin by Hitler's time. That makes the linkage all the stronger, because we are not talking about one crazed man misreading Darwin but at least two generations of leading scientists and intellectuals drawing the same eugenic conclusions from evolutionary theory as Darwin himself drew.

A second point. We misunderstand Hitler's evil if we reduce it to anti-Semitism. Hitler's anti-Semitism had, of course, multiple causes, including his own warped character. That having been said, Nazism was at heart a racial, that is, a biological political program based up evolutionary theory. It was "applied biology," in the words of deputy party leader of the Nazis, Rudolph Hess, and done for the sake of a perceived greater good, racial purity, that is, for the sake of a race purified of physical and mental defects, imperfections, and racial inferiority.

The greater good. We need to remember that, even though we rightly consider it the apogee of wickedness, the Nazi regime did not purport to do evil. In a monstrous illustration of the adage about good intentions leading to hell, it claimed to be scientific and progressive, to do what hard reason demanded for the ultimate benefit of the human race. Its superhuman acts of inhumanity were carried out for the sake of humanity.

Hitler had enormous sympathy for the downtrodden he witnessed as a young man in Vienna. "The Vienna manual labourers lived in surroundings of appalling misery. I shudder even to-day when I think of the woeful dens in which people dwelt, the night shelters and the slums, and all the tenebrous spectacles of ordure, loathsome filth and wickedness."

He believed that the social problems he witnessed in Vienna needed a radical, even ruthless solution if true change were to be effected. As he says with breathtaking concision, "the sentimental attitude would be the wrong one to adopt."

"Even in those days I already saw that there was a two-fold method by which alone it would be possible to bring about an amelioration of these conditions. This method is: first, to create better fundamental conditions of social development by establishing a profound feeling for social responsibilities among the public; second, to combine this feeling for social responsibilities with a ruthless determination to prune away all excrescences which are incapable of being improved."

The proposed ruthlessness of his solution was in direct imitation of nature conceived according to Darwinism. "Just as Nature concentrates its greatest attention, not to the maintenance of what already exists but on the selective breeding of offspring in order to carry on the species, so in human life also it is less a matter of artificially improving the existing generation—which, owing to human characteristics, is impossible in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred—and more a matter of securing from the very start a better road for future development."

How do we secure a better road for future development? By ensuring that only the best of the best race, the Aryan race, breed, and pruning away all the unfit and racially inferior. That isn't just a theory; it's eugenic Darwinism as a political program. As Hitler made clear, "the State is looked upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind." Jews have to be pruned away, but also Gypsies, Slavs, the retarded, handicapped, and any one else that is biologically unfit.

That's Darwinism in action. Does that mean that Darwin would have approved? No. Does that mean that Darwin's theory provided the framework for Hitler's eugenic program? Yes.

[ketsu]

Please do a thorough study of the concepts of extrapolation, interpolation and observation.

You have been doing one claiming you're doing another and it's not science.

Hate to break it to you snoogums, but evolution can be observed(drosophila), interpolated(the fossil record) and extrapolated(DNA variation).

Let's think about gravity for a second. We can observe it(mass attracts) but we still have to extrapolate what in the blazes causes it(a gravitational particle?). Does that mean that gravity is "just a theory"?

[ketsu]

The existence of a bona fide skeletal remain does not prove its ‘evolutionary’ heritage or age. It provides a platform on which, however, tests can be made although DNA may be similar in very dissimilar creatures.

In the bigger picture, let the Theory be put to the test, if it proves true, many bona fide skeletal remains will be found, including transitionals, so no fear, right? Truth will out. Meanwhile teach both origin theories side-by-side, as theories. Be scientifically and intellectually rigorous, precise and honest.

Put the whole theory and your premises to the test. Don’t be, as you say, easy.

Okay, let's put the shoe on the other foot. What "evidence" is there for the "other" origin theory. Remember for a hypothesis to be true it has to be falsifiable.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Gravity is invisible, it’s a force yet verifiable and the theory is falsifiable. Religions are belief systems and not falsifiable, both Creationism and Evolution.

Want to earn your way out of being an atheist religion? Show me proof of macro, major verifiable evolution. Show me where it all came from...and where what it came from, came from.

You’re just parroting me and grasping at tiny anomalies as evidence. Those are arguments, not proof.

I have no time for you if you’re not sincere and honest and respectful.

I will be offline most of the day.

[ofwaihhbtn]

I have no time for you [ketsu] if you’re not sincere and honest and respectful.
--Spirit of Allegiance

ketsu has a Richard Dawkins shrine in his basement. He is a devout atheist -- and a real religious fanatic. Yes, his atheism is a religious belief; it is a belief about God (that He isn't there) that he must take on faith (because he can't prove a negative -- that God isn't there). He is just another militant atheist attempting to pervert science with his silly religious beliefs.

Did you notice in "Expelled" that Richard Dawkins admitted that life on earth could have been the result of an intelligent agent? Of course, he meant only if the intelligent agent was an alien race and not God. I am sure ketsu sees no problems with that. Bird-brains of a feather flock together.

[RobbyS]

And you have observed this? More likely the result of your having been trained in a certain social environment —your education—than any “cry” from your genes. But you are free to offer some proof of your assertion

[RobbyS]

What about those who treat Evolution as a kind of demiurge? Sometimes we see the term “Mother Nature,” used the same way. It is a kind of neopaganism for many people. Men seem to be naturally religious.

[wendy1946]

With the single exception of the 30-years war, European wars prior to 1900 were basically gang-fights between royal houses and in 1913, Europe had just gone for an entire century without a meaningful war. Conversely, to find anything comparable to the wars of the last century, you need to go straight back to Chengis Khan.

[Hoplite]

Has it ever occurred to you that meat byproducts might look upon their fellow meat bypoducts with great affection?

Let us turn to the book of Python, Season 2, Episode 12, Sketch 11.

"Sshh, dear, don't cause a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it.
I'm having spam spam spam spam spam spam spam beaked beans spam spam spam and spam!"

Meat byproduct affection confirmed.
Thread Python quota met.

[ketsu]

With the single exception of the 30-years war, European wars prior to 1900 were basically gang-fights between royal houses and in 1913, Europe had just gone for an entire century without a meaningful war. Conversely, to find anything comparable to the wars of the last century, you need to go straight back to Chengis Khan.

I won't disagree. What I'm arguing is that the scale and destruction of modern wars is due to *industrialization*, the mass production of horribly deadly weapons with much greater ability to kill than in the past. The rationalization of warfare also played a huge part.

It's not like people woke up and said "Now I believe in evolution, let's genocide!" as much as fundies would like to say so.

[ketsu]

Gravity is invisible, it’s a force yet verifiable and the theory is falsifiable. Religions are belief systems and not falsifiable, both Creationism and Evolution.

Want to earn your way out of being an atheist religion? Show me proof of macro, major verifiable evolution. Show me where it all came from...and where what it came from, came from.

You’re just parroting me and grasping at tiny anomalies as evidence. Those are arguments, not proof.

I have no time for you if you’re not sincere and honest and respectful.

I will be offline most of the day.

Show me a gravitational particle.

Evolution *is* falsifiable, here's an easy way to falsify it, put a species(say a bacterium) in a solution with antibiotics. See which survives more, resistant or non-resistant strains(before you start screaming about macro evolution, remember that macro evolution just requires reproductive isolation). If the non-resistant strains survive more then you know that evolution is false(you won't, but anybody with half a brain should get my point).

Can you falsify creationism?

[ketsu]

ketsu has a Richard Dawkins shrine in his basement. He is a devout atheist -- and a real religious fanatic. Yes, his atheism is a religious belief; it is a belief about God (that He isn't there) that he must take on faith (because he can't prove a negative -- that God isn't there). He is just another militant atheist attempting to pervert science with his silly religious beliefs.

Did you notice in "Expelled" that Richard Dawkins admitted that life on earth could have been the result of an intelligent agent? Of course, he meant only if the intelligent agent was an alien race and not God. I am sure ketsu sees no problems with that. Bird-brains of a feather flock together.

Holy moly, seleon was the most ignorant poster I've seen on FR. You have to be the most insane. Are you off your meds?

[Oztrich Boy]

And you have observed this? More likely the result of your having been trained in a certain social environment —your education—than any “cry” from your genes.

Yeah. The idea that human behaviour is purely cultural and therefore infinitely malleable is strongly held by progressives.

However conservatives generally consider that humans tend to behave the way they largely for inherent reasons and social conditioning only goes so far.

On this matter Creationists align themselves with the socialists. You know that "if people learn they are animals they'll behave like animals" nonsense

[wagglebee]

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[wendy1946]

Chengis Khan and his immediate successors killed tens of millions of people. The major technologies involved were the horse, and the composite bow...

[wendy1946]

Evolution has been totally falsified numerous times, beginning with the decades-long fruit fly experiments. When an idea is totally falsified and its adherants go on as if nothing had happened for decades afterwards, then you have a belief system and an unfalsifiable (at least in the minds of the gullable) doctrine and, per Popper, a pseudoscience.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Gravity and the rest of Newtonian mechanics are theories too.

There are good theories and there are lousy theories.

When evolutionary theory becomes as mathamaticaly precise and predictable as Gravity and Newtonian Mechanics then you can make the comparison.

In the mean time evolution is a lousy theory and deeply flawed.

[RobbyS]

If you read Scientific America, you may recall that we know that the genes are not as determinative as first thought. The genome is very responsive to its environment. For instance, we know that the DMA of identiical twins is not identical, although close. That would explain the twining process itself. A small change in the cells as they divide will produce different cells, which then form two individuals. Further, the growing child is indubitably affected by its womb environment, which itself changes in response to the way the mother lives her life. Life flows down a certain channel, but more as a river flows--never down a certain path. Mark Twain wrote a book about his days as a captain on the Mississippi. Change is the law of life, but what seems to be chance is usually not. There is a constancy in things that often makes us complacent, but also always movement under the surface, so that we have clear sailings or end up on a shoal.

[count-your-change]

Here is what followed your quote from Darwin.
“Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage.” The Descent of Man (1871) p.168-169

[Gondring]

Exactly! Darwin did not advocate forcing the process.

[Gondring]

beginning with the decades-long fruit fly experiments.

Get back to me after your fruit-fly experiments have for millions of years. :-)