The Gentle Darwinians - What Darwin’s Champions Won’t Mention

Commonweal ^ | March 9, 2007 | Peter Quinn

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The enthusiasm Nietzsche expresses in this passage is for eugenics, a theory of biological determinism invented by Francis Galton, Charles Darwin’s first cousin. However extreme Nietzsche’s recommendation might sound today, by the first part of the twentieth century eugenics came to be widely practiced. In 1933, little more than thirty years after Nietzsche’s death, the Hereditary Health Courts set up in Nazi Germany were enforcing a rigorous policy of enforced sterilization; to a lesser degree, similar policies were carried out in societies from the United States to Scandinavia.

In 1912, in his presidential address to the First International Congress of Eugenics, a landmark gathering in London of racial biologists from Germany, the United States, and other parts of the world, Major Leonard Darwin, Charles Darwin’s son, trumpeted the spread of eugenics and evolution. As described by Nicholas Wright Gillham in his A Life of Francis Galton, Major Darwin foresaw the day when “eugenics would become not only a grail, a substitute for religion, as Galton had hoped, but a ‘paramount duty’ whose tenets would presumably become enforceable.” The major repeated his father’s admonition that, though the crudest workings of natural selection must be mitigated by “the spirit of civilization,” society must encourage breeding among the best stock and prevent it among the worst “without further delay.”

Leonard Darwin’s recognition of his father’s role in the formation and promotion of eugenics was more than filial piety.

The full text of the article is here: The Gentle Darwinians - What Darwin’s Champions Won’t Mention

[wireman]

I think you should contact your physician and have him increase the dosage.

[King Prout]

You're welcome to disagree, but if you find it "funny," then you don't understand what he contributed to science.

no, it is that you don't know why I'm laughing.
I'll give you a hint: it was the juxtaposition of your logical error of appeal to authority ("read the words of the greatest scientist of all time and weep, you moron") with Newton's sad logical error of argumentum ad incredulum in those very words you cited.

That's COMEDY.

[Gumlegs]

I wrote:

That may be, but maybe you can help me out here. Are you claiming that the eugenics practiced by Christians compared to the eugenics practiced by the Nazis?

You replied:

Not the old Darwin = Hitler nonsense again! It's an utterly ridiculous logical fallacy.

I reply:

You're the one who tried to associate various Christian groups with eugenics. Then, when I asked you a direct and simple question, you dodged it and launched into a non-sequiter and a red herring all rolled into one.

Nice job selecting only part of my reply. Here’s all of it:

Not the old Darwin = Hitler nonsense again! It's an utterly ridiculous logical fallacy. Besides, the Theory of Evolution is a scientific observation of how species come about in nature. Anyone attempting to employ it as a prescription for running a society is misusing the theory. As in, guns don't kill people ...

Let’s review the bidding, shall we? In post 64 of this thread, you wrote:

It is not the people who believe we are created in the image of God who have promoted eugenics!

I replied, showing that Christian groups were, in fact, part and parcel of the eugenics movement, particularly in the country in the early 20th century. I supplied two different links. That was the point I was trying to make, and in response, you tried to tell us that “Christian Eugenics” isn’t as bad as other kinds. Swell.

But notice above, you were the one who played the Nazi card, which is (to quote a poster here), “a non-sequitur and a red herring.”

I’ll accept this new attempt at distraction as a tacit admission that you either didn’t know what you were talking about, or you were lying.

I guess your brain froze and you just reverted to parroting your standard talking points, even though they had no relevance to the question you were asked.

Funny … that’s what it seems to me that you did. But maybe I haven’t grasped the subtlety of your point. I say Hitler abused Christianity, too, just like he abused the Theory of Evolution, everything else he used. Ever seen this one?

[SteveMcKing]

This is approximately how deep that absurd little monologue actually goes--

“It's like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how — what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So, what's the end, you know, is my question to you.”

[RussP]

All that crap, and you still didn't answer my simple, direct question. Quit wasting my time.

[Gumlegs]

I didn't answer your question because it itself is a red herring.

[doc30]

Man, you are one dense SOB. Whether ID was "designed" to support anything is irrelevant. What is relevant is the evidence to support it, and that is overwhelming.

There is not a single bit of testible evidence that supports ID. None. Never has been and never will be. ID is a philosophical arguement that has no material test. Moreover, the record clearly establishes ID as a disguised creationism. It's 'lying for the Lord.'

But don't take my word for it. Read what the greatest scientist of all time had to say about it -- before science had even an inkling about the amazing complexity of the simplest living cell:

I'm quite familiar with Newton's expression. I also know that his statement is entirely philosophical and is not scientific. If it is, show me where in all of Newton's works, God enters his equations. The simple fact is that Newton expressed his opinion based on his own religious belief. That hardly qualifies his expression as an endorsement of ID from a scientific perspective. Science is not in the business of thinking that if so-and-so said it, it must be true.

Only a creationist desperate for some form of validation would go back several centuries to find a personal opinon of a renowned scientist to base an arguement. The plain fact of the matter is that science doesn't care who said something, but rather if what was said was actually scientific. Quote mining does not get you far in science the way it does in social science, psychology, theology or politics. Science is a 'show me' endeavor. So far, ID has not shown anything nor produced anything. At best, it is an attempt to retrograde science back to the Dark Ages, where a simple 'godidit' was a sufficent answer to any question and if you disagreed, you suffered horribly by the powers that be.

[Coyoteman]

ID is a philosophical arguement that has no material test. Moreover, the record clearly establishes ID as a disguised creationism. It's 'lying for the Lord.'

What is intelligent design?

It's the missing link between creationism and religious instruction masquerading as biology.

Bruce Bower, Science News, vol. 168 (Nos 26 & 27), 2006, p. 414.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[RussP]

Please tell me that they also published a sensible counterpoint to balance that kind of nonsense!

[RadioAstronomer]

moron.

Your ignorance is showing again RussP.

(On second thought - it never stopped, so why should I be surprised?)

[RussP]

"Your ignorance is showing again RussP."

You are absolutely right. I thought I could talk some sense into people who are blind to the obvious reality of intelligent design. I never learn.

Well, maybe this time I will.

I'll just end by repeating my favorite quote from the greatest scientist of all time:

"This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." --Sir Isaac Newton, The Principia

What part of this statement do you not understand?

Some ding-ding replied on an earlier post that this statement is not "scientific" but is "philosophical." That's the kind of baloney that passes for wisdom with you guys. In Newton's day, science was called "natural philosophy." To suggest that, because we now have a slightly different name for science, Newton's statement is not "scientific," is the epitome of ignorance.

The important point is that it is a TRUE statement.

Please read it one hundred times. Maybe a light will go off in your little brain. Then again, maybe not.

[js1138]

What part of this statement do you not understand?

The part that implies Newton is infallible.

I take it you think Einstein is wrong, so perhaps mortals can be wrong about things.

[alstewartfan]

Awww... CS, it's a beautiful thing when hate and intolerance come in cartoon form. What a revelation (that's a Biblical term, FYI) that folks such as you must resort to mischaracterization of one's opponents in lieu of trying to explain the indecipherable and absurd theory of evolution. Keep on truckin' your tons of fertilizer, Pal, Bob

[longshadow]

****moron.****

Your ignorance is showing again RussP.

(On second thought - it never stopped, so why should I be surprised?)

Yeah, but I bet he plays a mean banjo..... [cue soundtrack to "Deliverance"]

[js1138]

In two hundred years, intelligent design has contributed exactly nothing to our understanding of the physical world. It is exactly where William Paley left it in 1803. No additional ideas, no research, no suggestions for research, nothing.

To the extent it has proposed specific structures that could not occur by incremental change, it has been refuted.

To the extent that it has invoked information theory, it has been shot down by people like Yockey.

[longshadow]

"ID Field Researchers Conduct Intensive 10-Minute Search for Elusive '747-in-Junkyard' & find none -- Declare Evolution Disproven!"

[Central Scrutiniser]

Its satire.

And its good satire.

ID and creationism are dogmatic beliefs, not science.

[RussP]

OK, then what about this:

"Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us ... the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words." --Lord Kelvin

Like Newton, Kelvin had a physical unit named after him. That puts him in the elite of the elite of scientists.

I guess he was fallible too, eh.

By the way, has it occurred to you that the bozos who deny the obvious reality of intelligent design might be fallible too?