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.

[ofwaihhbtn]

In The Origins of Nazi Genocide - From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, Dr. Henry Friedlander ( Who is Friedlander? ) points out the link between Darwinian thought and the bloodbath perpetrated by the Nazis. Here are some excerpts:

The growing importance of the biological sciences in the nineteenth century, following the discoveries of Charles Darwin, led most scientists to advance theories of human inequality as matters of scientific fact.
...
Eugenics developed within the larger movement of Social Darwinism, which applied Darwin's "struggle for survival" to human affairs.
...
In 1923 the University of Munich appointed Lenz to the first German chair in race hygiene, and after Hitler assumed power, Lenz occupied the race hygiene chair in Berlin. In 1931, two years before Hitler's assumption of power, Lenz provided the Nazi leader with the following testimonial: "Hitler is the first politician with truly wide influence who has recognized that the central mission of all politics is race hygiene and will actively support this mission."

Read more here

[shineon]

It would be preposterous to pin either Christianity or Darwinism to Hitler's madness.

Many brave Christians in Germany withstood Hitler. (Deitrich Bonhoffer to name one - who was rewarded with a noose around his neck.) Name one Darwinist who gave a hoot about what was happening to the Jews and Gypsys. I'm sure there was one, I just don't know about him.

[dr_lew]

Excuse me, but “race hygiene” is not a Darwinian concept, and is in fact entirely alien to Darwinian thinking.

[ketsu]

Yawn... it’s pointless to rebut your cut and pasted drivel because A. You don’t understand it and B. It’s been rebutted a million times already. Social Darwinism came before Darwin.

[dr_lew]

Name one Darwinist who gave a hoot about what was happening to the Jews and Gypsys.

Dietrich Bonhoffer maybe? He was German right? Big intellectuals, those Germans.

[ketsu]

Many brave Christians in Germany withstood Hitler. (Deitrich Bonhoffer to name one - who was rewarded with a noose around his neck.) Name one Darwinist who gave a hoot about what was happening to the Jews and Gypsys. I'm sure there was one, I just don't know about him.

Given that many biologists and philosophers who believed in evolution were Jewish one can imagine they had very strong opinions on the matter. Do you actually think before you write?

[shineon]

Thanks Ethan.

You’ve done a lot of nice work there.

[ofwaihhbtn]

Excuse me, but “race hygiene” is not a Darwinian concept, and is in fact entirely alien to Darwinian thinking.
--dr_lew

The Nazis practiced eugenics in order to cleanse the gene pool of what were perceived to be unwanted or harmful elements. This race hygiene movement in Germany evolved from a theory of Social Darwinism, which had become popular throughout Europe and the United States during the 1930s. A German phrase that embodies the whole nature of this practice is Lebens unwertes Leben or "life unworthy of life."
--Philosophy of healthcare - Wikipedia

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Many brave Christians in Germany withstood Hitler... Name one Darwinist who gave a hoot about what was happening to the Jews and Gypsys. I'm sure there was one, I just don't know about him.

The Wikipedia page Aktion T4 says this:

The Catholic Church, which since 1933 had pursued a policy of avoiding confrontation with the Nazi regime in the hope of preserving its core institutions intact, became increasingly unable to keep silent in the face of mounting evidence about the killing of inmates of hospitals and asylums. Leading Catholic churchmen, led by Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber of Munich, wrote privately to the government protesting against the policy. In July 1941 the Church broke its silence when a pastoral letter from the bishops was read out in all churches, declaring that it was wrong to kill (except in self-defence or in a morally justified war).[56] This emboldened Catholics to make more outspoken protests. A few weeks after the pastoral letter was read out, the Catholic Bishop of Münster in Westphalia, Clemens August Graf von Galen, publicly denounced the T4 program in a sermon, and telegrammed his text to Hitler, calling on "the Führer to defend the people against the Gestapo." "It is a terrible, unjust and catastrophic thing when man opposes his will to the will of God," Galen said. "We are talking about men and women, our compatriots, our brothers and sisters. Poor unproductive people if you wish, but does this mean that they have lost their right to live?"[57] Robert Lifton says of this sermon: "This powerful, populist sermon was immediately reproduced and distributed throughout Germany — indeed, it was dropped among German troops by British Royal Air Force flyers. Galen's sermon probably had a greater impact than any other one statement in consolidating anti-‘euthanasia' sentiment."[58] Another Bishop, Franz Bornewasser of Trier, also sent protests to Hitler, though not in public. In August Galen was even more outspoken, broadening his attack to include the Nazi persecution of religious orders and the closing of Catholic institutions. He attributed the heavy allied bombing of Westphalian towns to the wrath of God against Germany for breaking His laws. Galen's sermons were of course not reported in the German press, but they were widely circulated in the form of illegally printed leaflets.[56] Local Nazis asked for Galen to be arrested, but Goebbels told Hitler that if this happened there would be an open revolt in Westphalia...

And where were the evolutionary biologists during all this? What were they doing?

[ketsu]

Now look up social darwinism on wikipedia. You’ll be surprised.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

“race hygiene” is not a Darwinian concept, and is in fact entirely alien to Darwinian thinking.

Race hygiene was the continental term for 'eugenics'.

[ofwaihhbtn]

Yawn... it’s pointless to rebut your cut and pasted drivel because A. You don’t understand it and B. It’s been rebutted a million times already. Social Darwinism came before Darwin.
--ketsu

Oh yeah? Well I think what YOU say is drivel that YOU don't understand! And what YOU say has been refuted a million times already! So there!

Hey. One idiotic remark deserves another. Why don't you try really saying somehting?

[dr_lew]

"... evolved from a theory of Social Darwinism ..."

Evolved? ... Evolved? ... what are you, some kind of Darwinist?

But I must note in addition, "life unworthy of life" is not a Darwinist concept, and is in fact completely alien to Darwinist thinking.

[shineon]

What Darwinist group today is against Hitler? It’s not even on the agenda to be for or against something like that.

It’s out of place. Evolution is about proving a scientific theory that we are an accident without hope or direction.

It’s almost as if evolution is proposing that we are a figment of our own imagination. How quaint.

[ketsu]

Oh yeah? Well I think what YOU say is drivel that YOU don't understand! And what YOU say has been refuted a million times already! So there!

Hey. One idiotic remark deserves another. Why don't you try really saying somehting?

How old are you? Five?

[backslacker]

BereanBrain - Unfortunately, people who don’t believe in 2000 year old books have no morals - they just make it up as they go.

Youngblood - I'll try and remember that the next time I feel the urge to help an old lady across the street.

Youngblood, you had an opportunity to give a good example of the morality of an atheist (evolutionist) and this is the best you can do?

[ketsu]

What Darwinist group today is against Hitler? It’s not even on the agenda to be for or against something like that.

It’s out of place. Evolution is about proving a scientific theory that we are an accident without hope or direction.

It’s almost as if evolution is proposing that we are a figment of our own imagination. How quaint.

And people used to think that if the earth wasn't the center of the universe the world would descend into anarchy. Get over it.

[dr_lew]

How old are you? Five?

Boy. Don't we wish. Hell I'd take 25.

[shineon]

And people used to think that if the earth wasn't the center of the universe the world would descend into anarchy. Get over it.

Believe me, I don't hold anything against you. I'm ok. I wish you the best really. I'm not obsessed. You go your way, I'll go mine. I have plenty of things to work on that have nothing to do with Darwinism. Again I wish you the best. Stay free.

[dr_lew]

I have plenty of things to work on that have nothing to do with Darwinism.

That's what you think! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!