Biology textbook hearings prompt science disputes [Texas]

Knight Ridder Newspapers ^ | 08 July 2003 | MATT FRAZIER

[Stultis]

Simply put, the textbook which John Scopes was using was offensively racist and blatantly eugenic, and the racism and eugenics were both part and parcel of Hunter's presentation of Darwin's theory of evolution.

Oh, this was from the National Review! But this, in contrast to Lesie Carr's yammerings from the Socialist, er, Progressive Sociology Network, is quite correct. Hunter's A Civic Biology (publ 1915 IIRC), the text used by John Scopes, was indeed both racist and taught negative eugenics.

I've pointed out in several threads that there was indeed a revival of "scientific racism" just around this time (the 10's and 20'). This revival was pretty clearly (in my mind at least) associated with unprecidented levels of immigration at the time from poor Eastern European and Mediterranean countries into Western Europe and America.

But why did scientific racism need to be revived? Because evolution had undermined the classical "scientific racism" of the 18th and 19th Centuries! Again, you're giving the racists way too much credit in implicitly justifying their rationales. (Even if you do so selectively, and ignore the scientific racism that existed under the creationist paradigm before Darwin.)

Clearly it was the racism that was primary, and the scientific justifications that were secondary, and contrived.

[ALS]

Your anger, frought from personal insecurites, seems to lie with National Review. Why don't you email the editor?

hmmm?

[scripter]

Now that you mention it I have seen others use that same line. For a brief time I was collecting similar statements by a evo - the list grew very quickly and after a couple of days I lost interest as I had made my point all too well.

[ALS]

losers in the arena of ideas

[AndrewC]

Yes, he did post that didn't he, but he was posting to #1, and to the article itself.

So where were you guys to try and convince him otherwise, you attacked back of course, and I always thought Jesus said to turn the other cheek, not turn the other cheek when it's convenient.

True, but he has a history that comes along with his posts.

He is inconvincible and would most likely be since this thread is an opinion topic purely. The "evidence" has been previously produced.

I did not respond to him. My first response on this thread was to tell all non-Texans to butt out of a Texas concern(jokingly of course). We have only two cheeks(not counting the nether regions).

[razorbak]

Darwin was racist, and that fact is historically indisputable, as is the connection of his theory with the rise of the eugenics movement. Of course, that does not mean that those who hold to Darwinism are necessarily racists just because he was:

On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

[Stultis]

Your anger, frought from personal insecurites, seems to lie with National Review. Why don't you email the editor?

You must be suffering from sleep deprivation. Although I haven't read the whole thing yet, I never disagreed with the National Review article (in fact I just cross posted with you, and expressed by agreement with the point about Hunter's textbook being racist it in the post immediately preceeding yours). I disagreed with that "Darwin was a racist" posting you quoted from the discussion forum at the Progressive Sociology Network.

Try to keep things straight. (How can you manage to confuse a conservative source like National Review and a far-left venue like the Progressive Sociology Network anyway?!)

[ALS]

Look, if you want to make wild claims like Victorians were the real racists and Darwin interrupted them, that's your grail. It doesn't change history and I highly doubt the great murderers of this last century who took up his concept of "struggle", really cared much about Victorians.

Again, you shouldn't be an apologist for such vermin. Surely you have something better to do.

[RadioAstronomer]

Placemarker

[ALS]

"Darwin was racist, and that fact is historically indisputable, as is the connection of his theory with the rise of the eugenics movement. Of course, that does not mean that those who hold to Darwinism are necessarily racists just because he was:

On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life"

I AGREE 100%. It's those who carry the guilt, long before we mentioned the facts, that label themselves as they do.

They wish to cry about guilt by association, but that's not my choice, it's theirs. If they don't like it, they should seek another icon or perhaps do something really wild and think for themselves.

[razorbak]

It often seems to me that many hard-core evolutionists act more like "religious fanatics" than do creationists.

[RadioAstronomer]

ROTFLMAO! That was great (and how true)!

[ALS]

Reminds me of atheists that don't believe in God, but spend every waking hour obsessed with HIm. Every move they make has to be in opposition to anything God. We see the same behavior here. It's common in those that don't deal well with their decisions. They want everyone to be as they so they can obtain some semblance of validation.

schoolyard stuff at best

[Aracelis]

Bravo! :^)

[Stultis]

Darwin was racist, and that fact is historically indisputable

Darwin held some views that would be considered racist by today's standards, but in the context of his own time his views on race where notably liberal. It only makes sense to denounce Darwin as "racist" if you hold to the ahistorical "all dead, white European males are racist almost by definition" standard of the radical left. Do you hold to that standard? Because if you do, you must also denounce Abraham Lincoln as racist. Indeed Lincoln was much more explicit and definite on the inferiority of blacks than Darwin ever was.

Here are some of Darwin's comments on race. You can see the stereotypes he embraces here -- e.g. "cheerful" negroes, "diminutive" Portuguese with "murderous countenances" (although he was referring to slave holders) -- but note the dates and consider the virulent and negative racism that was a commonplace at the time:

"I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England, if she is the first European nation which utterly abolish is it. I was told before leaving England, that after living in slave countries: all my options would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the Negros character. It is impossible to see a negro & not feel kindly toward him; such cheerful, open honest expressions & such fine muscular bodies; I never saw any of the diminutive Portuguese with their murderous countenances, without almost wishing for Brazil to follow the example of Haiti [where the slaves successfully revolted and gained their freedom]; & considering the enormous healthy looking black population, it will be wonderful if at some future day it does not take place." -- Charles Darwin to Catherine Darwin (May 22 - July 14 1833) The Correspondence of Charles Darwin Vol. 1 1821-1836 (1985), pp. 312-313

"A few days afterwards I saw another troop of these banditti-like soldiers start on an expedition against a tribe of Indians at the small Salinas, who had been betrayed by a prisoner cacique...Two hundred soldiers were sent; and they first discovered the Indians by a cloud of dust from their horses' feet, as they chanced to be travelling...The Indians, men, women, and children, were about one hundred and ten in number, and they were nearly all taken or killed, for the soldiers sabre every man. The Indians are now so terrified that they offer no resistance in a body, but each flies, neglecting even his wife and children; but when overtaken, like wild animals, they fight against any number to the last moment. One dying Indian seized with his teeth the thumb of his adversary, and allowed his own eye to be forced out sooner than relinquish his hold. Another, who was wounded, feigned death, keeping a knife ready to strike one more fatal blow. My informer said, when he was pursuing an Indian, the man cried out for mercy, at the same time that he was covertly loosing the bolas from his waist, meaning to whirl it round his head and so strike his pursuer. "I however struck him with my sabre to the ground, and then got off my horse, and cut his throat with my knife." This is a dark picture; but how much more shocking is the unquestionable fact, that all the women who appear above twenty years old are massacred in cold blood! When I exclaimed that this appeared rather inhuman. he answered, "Why, what can be done? they breed so!"

Every one here is fully convinced that this is the most just war, because it is against barbarians. Who would believe in this age that such atrocities could be committed in a Christian civilized country?" -- Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle (1839), Chapter V

Source:
http://home.att.net/~troybritain/articles/darwin_on_race.htm

[ALS]

"I was, for most of my life, very fundamentalist Christian and believed in Creationism...that is, until I went to college."

"Any God powerful enough to will the Universe into being would not need to be tinkering about with His creation. He would have thought it all out ahead of time and known what would happen, where it would happen, and when it would happen...and herein lies the irony of the entire Christian-Creationist dogma. Christians are very big on claiming omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience as characteristics of God...but in reality, they do not believe it...for in their world, God must act directly from time-to-time to "fix" His creation, insert a species here, or take one out there.

To paraphrase Darth Vader, I find their lack of faith disturbing."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/943130/posts?page=2117#2117 Lovely viewpoint you have there. If you really were ever a fundamentalist, you would know the entire thrust of your statements are intended insults, and false.

[RadioAstronomer]

If you really were ever a fundamentalist, you would know the entire thrust of your statements are intended insults, and false.

Nope.

I remember arguing with a creationist here on FR who claimed God had to spin the earth back up periodically with his hand to keep it going.

ROFL!

[Aracelis]

I wish what you say was true, if it were I would probably know if eating eggs will kill me at 40, or if drinking coffee is risky behavior, or if the planet is suffering from global warming, or if the geologic record displays massive catastrophes associated with the flood or if the massive amounts of fossil beds can be attributed to minor local catastrophes unassociated with one another.

Science is a continual process, thus the initial studies which indicated eggs were bad for you have been modified somewhat by additional ongoing research. The biggest problem we face today regarding environmental issues is simply that we haven't enough data. Again, initial studies which indicate global warming may simply be part of a natural cycle...we won't know for sure until we've studied the phenomena over many more years. As far as your geologic questions relating to catastrophism, personally through my studies I believe catastrophies have impacted the earth on both local and global levels at various times in the past, but one must be careful with the pronouncement that a certain formation was caused catastrophically - sometimes an extensive sequence really is just that...something laid down over the course of many years without being triggered by something catastrophic.

[Aracelis]

I remember arguing with a creationist here on FR who claimed God had to spin the earth back up periodically with his hand to keep it going.

I remember that post...interesting perspective to say the least...

[razorbak]

And I remember reading that Karl Marx wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin, but Darwin was afraid of the controversy it would cause. I'll take the ignorant believer whom you are describing to Marx any day. You can find everything from ignoramuses to villians as firm adherents of both views.