'Expelled' goes easy on Darwin-Nazi link

WorldNetDaily ^ | April 24, 2008 | Jack Cashill

[RussP]

Darwin critics know Ernst Haeckel as the German philosopher whose faked embryo drawings helped generations of clueless students accept Darwinism – "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" and all that.

But there is still another problem with Haeckel, a darker one than mere fraud. Critics of the Ben Stein film, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," apparently do not know this.

If they had, they would not have savaged Stein for daring to connect Adolf Hitler to Charles Darwin. In Scientific American, for instance, editor John Rennie describes this connection as "heavy-handed." In Reuters, Frank Scheck calls it "truly offensive."

In reality, it is neither. If anything, Stein and the makers of "Expelled" understate this historically irrefutable link, and the key to understanding it is Haeckel.

[Ken H]

To be more accurate, the claim would be that inherently simple things cannot become more complex without some outside influence and information.

I'm not a cosmologist, but my understanding is that hydrogen and helium were the first atomic elements in the universe. As time went on, these eventually formed stars, which in turn formed the rest of the elements, as well as planets.

Would that series of events qualify as inherently simple things (hydrogen and helium gas) becoming more complex? If so, did it require outside influence and information; or do you think it has a valid natural expanation?

[Soliton]

Please see “The evolution of Complexity by Means of Natural Selection” By Professor John Tyler Bonner.

This short, 250 page, book elegantly demonstrates how complexity evolves. Coincidentally, it was written about the time that The Discovery Institute was inventing ID.

[D-fendr]

I believe Hitler used other arguments against the Jews, they were the cause of Germany’s misery, etc., though the regime’s racist views were pretty blatant, the speeches were mostly “Jews caused this and that, the foul little rats.. “

His evolutionary theory is most evident starting with the Eugenics Laws - Eugenics of course was popular also in the US, and Hitler praised US writers and organizations profusely.

And of course, as has been pointed out, the whole “Master Race” racial purity, aryan breed farms, etc., etc. are foundational to Nazism. But it was likely more commonly known as Eugenics.

Here’s a wiki article outlining some of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics

[visually_augmented]

KenH:”Would that series of events qualify as inherently simple things (hydrogen and helium gas) becoming more complex? If so, did it require outside influence and information; or do you think it has a valid natural expanation?”

This question is a perfect example of how “science” has created “theories” that are more dogma than science. The only way creation could have possibly come to exist is that “simple elements ganged up with one another with lots of heat/energy to create more complex elements”.

There is a reason that we call them elements - they are elemental! As soon as you team up with the alchemists and turn lead to gold, then I might actually begin to believe the “theory” that is the assumption of your question.

Just think of all the brilliant minds and research dollars that could be put toward good, solid research that is now spent trying to spin straw into gold....

[allmendream]

Neither racism or Eugenics is synonymous with evolution. Spartans practiced eugenics long before anyone came up with an evolutionary theory and racism has been around from the beginning. Either eugenics or racism can seek refuge under the umbrella of the theory of evolution; just as they can seek religious or conspiratorial confirmation, but neither is substantiated by an understanding of the theory.

Yes, Hitler was big on the ‘international bankers’ and ‘conspiring to start world wars’ angle of antisemitism. Also all about the “Master Race” and against the ‘mongrelization’ of the ‘pure Aryan race’. He also spoke of avenging the “blood upon the cross”. All these are the very PUBLIC reasons given for Nazi's as to why they should hate Jews, never once did they say “we are all the descendants of apes, but WE are the SUPERIOR descendants of apes.” It just isn't what the audience was prepared to get behind, it isn't a good rallying cry, and it isn't what was used as a justification for the Holocaust.

[D-fendr]

I think the modern Eugenics was heavily influence by Darwin, however wrongly. It's founder was Francis Galton, (incidently Darwin's cousin):

An event that changed his [Galton] life was the publication by his cousin Charles Darwin of The Origin of Species in 1859. Galton was that came togripped by the work, especially the first chapter on "Variation under Domestication" concerning the breeding of domestic animals. He devoted much of the rest of his life to exploring its implications for human populations, which Darwin had only hinted at.
Source

Eugenics can be seen as applying Darwin to humans - again however wrongly.

Thanks for your reply.

[allmendream]

Eugenics is applying Selective breeding to humans, sort of an un-Natural Selection. No doubt it would work, but what traits would we select for and at what price? Before we breed humans to be “race horses” maybe we should talk to a race horse breeder about all the sacrifices made in a single minded pursuit of speed. Race horses are fast, no doubt about that, but to be fast they have thin legs prone to breaking, and thin skin prone to cracking.

Also what traits would humans be selected for? No doubt the powers that be would like a more docile and obedient populace. Add to this the fact that most Eugenicists were also Socialists and the notion that they wanted to expand State power over reproduction is completely in line with their philosophy.

[D-fendr]

Yes, it's turning natural selection into human selection.

As for "what traits..":

The Nazi Eugenics laws took a tack more toward eliminating undesirable traits, listed as criminal, degenerate, dissident, feeble-minded, homosexual, idle, insane, religious and weak.

Here's a Hitler quote, that references Sparta which you spoke of earlier:

"Sparta must be regarded as the first Völkisch State. The exposure of the sick, weak, deformed children, in short, their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject, and indeed at any price, and yet takes the life of a hundred thousand healthy children in consequence of birth control or through abortions, in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates burdened with illnesses."

As you know Hitler was quite influenced by Eugenics in the US, which enjoyed widespread support here. It became an academic discipline with funding from such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Harriman family.

There were three International Conferences, the second, 1921, of which declared: "Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution". Here's the conference's logo:

From this, you can also see the social and governmental part of the mix. A misguided, misinformed altruism - which is a good descriptive of an honest modern liberal.

It's ironic that Hitler's embrace of Eugenics did the most to kill it - and it had quite a lot of establishment support going for it until then.

Which brings me to my point about it. It's not the science that's at fault. It is science unguided by higher truth, in this case that all life is sacred. This truth comes from outside science.

What should be opposed is not evolution, but evolution elevated to a higher truth and values - which are impossible to determine by science alone.

Evolution defenders accuse their adversaries of bringing religion into science; howevever, the converse is also true.

The first step to a healthy debate is to realize this, recognize it where it occurs, and respect the knowledge of both science and religion - in their proper spheres.

My apologies for the length of this. And thank you for your reply.

[DeLaVerdad]

Hi Ken!

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?"

Benjamin Franklin, To Colleagues at the Constitutional Convention

[Ken H]

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Benjamin Franklin, To Colleagues at the party after the Constitutional Convention.

[RightFighter]

How many of you have actually seen the movie? For those who haven’t, you might be interested to know that:

(1) Richard Dawkins himself believes that life on earth may be the result of Intelligent Design (he said so in the movie - the words came out of his own mouth)

(2) Ben Stein made Richard Dawkins look like a blathering idiot.

[DeLaVerdad]

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin, To Colleagues at the party after the Constitutional Convention.

"Amen!" to THAT. Though I much prefer wine, a margarita, or a nice green apple martini. I very much appreciate that Jesus' first miracle was turning water to wine - and according to scripture it was a very fine wine.

And here you thought I was gonna go on a tangent about alcohol! ;) I'm thankful that scripture affords me the liberty of drinking in moderation - and, of course, that God created grapes! :)

Cheers! ... or shall I say, "Carpe Vino!"

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

It’s not heavy-handed at all - much more could have been said about it. Look at my FR homepage.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Neither racism or Eugenics is synonymous with evolution.

So you say. Julian Huxley, the Darwin Medalist and co-founder of the Modern Synthesis said that 'evolutionary biology' is merely another word for eugenics.

[attiladhun2]

Amen to that. Alfred Rosenberg, the Baltic German creator of the Nazi Party, was an atheist. SS members were required to renounce their Christian faith, if they wanted to advance in the organization. As the Blitzkrieg rolled through Belgium and France, it was common for Waffen SS members to desecrate churches. They particularly enjoyed smashimg crucifixes.

[Guenevere]

Quite the opposite...
Expelled does not go easy on the Darwin-Nazi connection.....not at all!
Did this person actually see the movie?

[BillyBoy]

>> But many speeches of Hitler obviously talked about the “racial superiority” of the Germans and how it must be maintained and actively promoted. If that’s not as close to “evolutionary rhetoric” as a political leader could ever be expected to get, I don’t know what is. <<

Apparently alot of creationists on this board don't understand the difference between the study of evolution and the study of genetics. Darwin's writings take no position on traits of a race within a species, but merely how species as a whole come to be. The study of individuals traits of a race is called genetics, and it was invented by Gregore Mendel, a devout Catholic monk (from seeing these threads on FR, it seems creationists want to pretend Mendel never existed because his very legacy goes against their talking points that scientists are all atheists who hate the bible)

But if someone were to argue for "racial superiority" within a species, they'd have to study Mendal, NOT Darwin. That's why Eugenics is called Eugenics and not Euevoluionism. It comes from the science of Genetics.