Posted on 05/24/2008 9:04:49 PM PDT by 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.
Nontheless, Evolution apologists cling to their religion pretending that it does both. In fact, it does neither. For once, we agree.
;-/
Penicillium notatum is a kind of mold. Fleming was a good observer and not a designer. Now to Penicillin resistance...
“Actually It [bridge] was designed by an intelligent designer, not created at random.”
Several unintelligent designs caused collapse. There are also bridges designed by nature created at random.
“an ID proponent would say that Engineers designed it [my car], it didn't appear at random.”
Actually some Japanese Engineers designed my car. That isn't the answer for me. You asked a different question:
“Who designed the car?”
I asked:
“Why does my car drives?”
Actually I spend my car a new battery. This battery starts the engine. The engine drive the wheels...
The question who designed the car is not so important trying to understand how my car works. For my pleasure I would prefer some German or Italian engineers.
So even if a complex system is designed that doesn't answer you any question about how the system works.
Intelligent Design (ID) doesn't falsify the theory of evolution (TE) except ID always happens. Then TE is the best explanation how ID works.
Science is about “how”.
Philosophy is about “who” maybe and the rest.
marked 2 read later
The Wedge Strategy is tangential to the issue.
In science we judge these matters based on the evidence. So far there is no evidence for ID. There are just creationists pushing it in a dishonest effort to sneak religion into the schools.
And no, the Wedge Strategy is not tangential to the issue. It is central to the issue.
The Discovery Institute is the main force behind ID today. They are running a large PR campaign, and are staffed with lawyers and PR flacks, with an occasional journalist.
They are not doing scientific research, they are doing PR. They are not publishing in scientific journals, they are snaring opinion-makers in their nets. This is all laid out in the Wedge Strategy, which (whoops!) somehow leaked out and ended up on the web.
A very telling quote:
We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.So, what do you think they are pushing? Real science? Or religion poorly disguised as science?
I can't believe they actually think they are fooling anyone!
Where did I claim that? My claim was you can't predict stability of any kind of bridge with the ID conclusion “God did it!”.
“Actually my question is simple — was the car designed or did it come out as a result of random mutation ?”
I never denied that my car was designed. I have no problem, even less, with the case it is Japanese design. That won't explain why my car on one day didn't go.
I have never seen cars having sex on the street producing some fertile offspring. I saw many car bumps in winter ( US-Japanese, US-German, German-Japanese ... and even US-French). A car must be designed because it can't propagate itself.
“But that [design] does answer the question of how it came about and that's the point of the argument. The issue was never HOW the system works. The issue is WHAT BEST EXPLAINS ITS ORIGIN.”
That's it. We can remain dumb. The only thing that counts is the answer to everything - God / ID. From where did you get your idea science is not about "How"? And again for beginners: the theory of evolution is not about origin of life.
“Actually Intelligent Design can be falsified. Michael Behe is doing experiments to do just that. He states thusly :”
Actually you didn't get it right. My argument was ID can't falsify the theory of evolution even if ID is correct.
Michael Hehe is wrong about how to falsify ID. He first tries to put the work on others and doesn't work himself. Scientist have to show him “the bacterial flagellum could [not] be produced by natural selection”. They showed him and that didn't disprove ID in common. That's the point. It just falsify one of many possible of Hehe’s claims about ID.
Hehe can always claim "You didn't show that this is not ID." Scientist have to show that everything is not ID. Even then they showed everything is not ID. ID still isn't falsifiable because something in the future may be ID.
“[My statement] Then TE is the best explanation how ID works.[My statement-End] Not necessarily.”
Sure, until we have something better. ID is worst because it explains nothing except - God!
“However, no new species was created. Get back to us when you observe new species being created. “
The experiment was not intended to produce one. When scientists came back with a new spices the next objection is that no “biological complexity” is gained. Specification has been observed.
What is “biological complexity”? Can you provide any definition how to measure “complexity”. What is more complex a circle or a triangle? Start simple.
Except his actions lined up with atheism and Darwinism, as did the majority of his writings.
-Jesse
Except they don't.:
"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."and
"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. ...And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited."
Of course, one can search all of Mein Kampf and find just one mention of evolution, in a political context and not a biological one. And exactly zero mentions of Darwin.
That's zero; none, nil, zip.
But you will find hundreds of references to the Lord, God and Savior.
Rather odd, don't you think, that an atheistic Hitler would boast about stamping out atheism?
Also odd is that Hitler never mentioned Darwin.
And what about the mandatory prayers to Jesus that was required in all schools during the Nazi administration.
This was an atheistic Darwinist?
Oh, and BTW jesse, books by Darwin were banned by the Nazis. Just thought you should know ...
Yes, and Wernher von Braun's work lined up with Newton's, so Newton's theory of gravitation must also be wrong and/or evil, I suppose, along with his Laws.
I think you're insinuating something that if you actually said we could all see was absurd. Why not just come right out and say it - at least that way we'll know what you're talking about? Your idea would then look absurd, methinks :-)
-Jesse
In Murphy's translation, the word evolution appears 182 times. See my earlier post on the subject for some word counts and examples of the word evolution being used in a biological sense.
But you will find hundreds of references to the Lord, God and Savior.
Rather odd, don't you think, that an atheistic Hitler would boast about stamping out atheism?
Hitler may have talked the talk about God but he sure didn't walk the walk. Please see my earlier post where I addressed almost this exact same issue - whether the real Hitler believed and was acting on Biblical principles.(There's actually a typo in the link I mentioned immediately above. It's supposed to say "There is no sacred right except the right and duty to guard the favored..." or some such.)
-Jesse
As to your argument, it should be obvious to any rational person that the truth and validity of a point is not at all lessened by however a madman or saint later employs it.
Should we believe in the geocentric solar-system model just because some good men believed it? If Hitler employed LaMarckian beliefs, would that give strength to Darwinism's reality? Of course not.
Simply associating someone with something is a distraction. Even if Stalin studied tornados, it doesn't save your house when one hits. Even if Hitler did use Darwinistic ideas, it doesn't lessen their validity.
Morals do not define reality...they operate within it. Hitler's moral or immoral behaviors or rationales or arguments are not tied to the reality.
While Wernher von Braun was designing rockets to shoot at Britain, he used Newton's ideas. Just because he was taking actions to help the Nazi regime attack the UK doesn't mean Newton were wrong. Similarly, tying Darwin to Hitler is a red herring, even if Hitler had used Darwin's ideas.
Apparently not.
> But you will find hundreds of references to the Lord, God and Savior.
> Rather odd, don't you think, that an atheistic Hitler would boast about stamping out atheism?
Hitler may have talked the talk about God but he sure didn't walk the walk. Please see my earlier post where I addressed almost this exact same issue - whether the real Hitler believed and was acting on Biblical principles.
So where did Hitler get the bit about "drive [the Jews] out of the Temple" and the "brood of vipers" and "my Lord and Savior" and "his blood upon the Cross" from if not from Christianity?
IIRC, those are all distinctly Christian lore.
And more to the point, how did Hitler get 44 million Protestants and 22 million Catholics to support the Nazis? Do you think they were all apostates or do you believe, like Fichori, that Hitler brainwashed the entire Christian nation of Germany? Really?
In either case, it doesn't speak too well of Christians, does it?
Maybe you can try another key while you play 'No True Scotsman'. I'm sure there's several arrangements for bagpipes ...
Care to substantiate your numbers?
In 1932, about two-thirds of the German population was Protestant and the remainder Roman Catholic. Bavaria was a Roman Catholic stronghold. Roman Catholics were also well represented in the populations of Baden-Württemberg, the Saarland, and in much of the Rhineland. Elsewhere in Germany, especially in the north and northeast, Protestants were in the majority.
The 7th German federal election of July 1932, saw the Nazis (NSDAP) get 37.8% of the vote or 13.5 million. Since the new government lacked a majority in parliament, Hitler held a new election scheduled for March of 1933. This was the last election in which Germans had a choice.
In the meantime, on 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. This Reichstag fire was promptly blamed on a communist conspiracy, and used as an excuse by the Nazis to close the KPD's offices, ban its press and arrest its leaders.With the communists eliminated, the NSDAP recieved 43.9% or 17.3 million votes. Still a minority, the NSDAP joined with the German National People's Party (DNVP) and achieved a parliamentary majority (51.8%).
With the Catholic Centre Party's thirty-one votes, added to the votes of the Nationalists, and the votes of the NSDAP itself; the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act and gave Hitler the power to rule by decree and to suspend many civil liberties. This allowed Hitler to outlaw the #2 party, the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Shortly thereafter, DNVP members were coerced into joining the NSDAP or retiring from political life altogether. The Centre Party dissolved itself on 5 July 1933, just before the conclusion of a Concordat between the Vatican and the Nazi government.
On July 14, 1933, all parties other than the Nazis were banned, turning Germany into a one-party state.
On August 19, 1934, in the aftermath of President Hindenburg's death, a plebiscite approved the Nazi plan to combine the offices of the President and Chancellor in a single Leader, a Fuhrer, personified by Adolf Hitler.
The measure was approved by 89.9% or 38,279,000 votes who answered "Yes," and 4,287,000 who answered "No". (and 871,000 spoiled ballots).
The Jan 1935 plebiscite on the Saarland had 98% of the voters turn out, and 90.7% voted to rejoin Germany.
Another plebiscite was held on March 29, 1936, for the purpose of ratifying Hitler's military occupation of the Rhineland, which, according to the Treaty of Versailles, was to have remained demilitarized. Ninety-nine percent of registered voters went to the polls, and 98.7% voted "yes" to the re-occupation.
The plebiscite of April 10th 1938, the annexation of Austria, garnered 4.4 million votes (99.7%) on the Austria side and 44.3 million (98.8%) on the German side, for a total of 48.7 million votes approving the Anschluss.
In October 1938, the occupation of the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia) brought another 3.5 million Catholic Germans into the fold with Germany. Although a plebiscite was called for under the Munich Agreement, Hitler sent in his troops and invited Poland, Hungary, and Romania to annex the leftovers. No vote was held.
Now, after the partition of Czechoslovakia, the 1939 German census counted 79.7 million people.
The "Fuhrer referendum", Saar, Ruhr/Rhineland, and the Austria anschluss votes got 89.9%, 90.7% , 98.7%, and over 98.8% respectively.
Think about those numbers. Now think about the census: 79.7 million people.
The Jews had lost the franchise due to the "Nuremberg Laws" in 1935. So somebody was voting for Hitler & the Nazis.
Who do you think it was?
Apparently not
If you'll check the dates, you'll see that the link you're referring to came after I made the claim which 291 corrects. As soon as I became aware of my mistake (and it was an honest but dumb mistake) I immediately posted a correction and pinged the correction also to everybody that I could think of who I had given the misinformation to.
So where did Hitler get the bit about "drive [the Jews] out of the Temple" and the "brood of vipers" and "my Lord and Savior" and "his blood upon the Cross" from if not from Christianity? IIRC, those are all distinctly Christian lore.
To anyone with even a working familiarity with the Bible it should be obvious that Hitler was misusing vague references to Biblical phrases. As a matter of fact, he's quoting the Bible in a most dishonest manner: It was the merchants in the temple that Jesus drove out - which happened to be Jews. Had they been Germans Jesus would have drove them out just the same -- whether they were Jews wasn't the issue, but whether they were profaning the temple by doing business therein. So Hitler was just misusing some perversions of phrases in the Bible, and in no way whatsoever addressing the issue of what the Bible actually said. Furthermore, he was in no way behaving in a way consistent with the teachings of the Bible. You well know that anyone can claim to be doing something for just about any reason under the sun, but that in itself is not the final proof of the truth. Since his actions clearly violated the principles taught in the Bible, it is clear that he was not following the teachings of the Bible. Just like if he'd said "Oh I'm an atheist which requires me to do this" - in fact atheism has no such requirement. (Now atheism may logically PERMIT such actions as Hitler did, but it by no means requires what Hitler did. On the other hand, the Bible neither requires nor permits such as Hitler did. But what Hitler did - regardless of what he said - was logically permitted by Atheism.)
It is very important to judge a world-view by what it teaches, and what it's followers do while following it, rather then judging it by what people (who may claim to be following it) do in direct contradiction to said world-view.
Judging a world-view by the actions of a man who violated it with his actions just because he claimed to be following said world-view completely useless - anybody can say anything - so always ask "But what does the world view in question say.."
And more to the point, how did Hitler get 44 million Protestants and 22 million Catholics to support the Nazis? Do you think they were all apostates or do you believe, like Fichori, that Hitler brainwashed the entire Christian nation of Germany? Really?
Just as a point of fact, let us not forget that Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while in prison for - you guessed it - trying to overthrow the government by force. Only after that failed did he go for election. He was a clever and ruthless man who would do just about anything to gain power. I don't know what he said or what he did to gain power but I have no reason to believe that it was pure honest and above board.
Secondly, again, you're condemning (Re: "That doesn't speak too well of Christians, Does it?") Christianity, not on account of what it teaches, but what people did who were clearly in violation of what it teaches. That's a perfectly useless and dishonest tactic.
-Jesse
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.