Posted on 03/08/2007 7:46:04 PM PST by ofwaihhbtn
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.The full text of the article is here: The Gentle Darwinians - What Darwin’s Champions Won’t MentionIn 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at commonwealmagazine.org ...
So, you're saying there was no racism before 1859.
"You people who try so hard to make the 'evolution = eugenics' connection are just creating your own circle-jerk of mutually accepted nonsense, thereby making more and more posts on FR look like they are from kooks."
I don't think anyone is saying "evolution - eugenics," but if you are denying that there is any connection then you are the one who is blind. It is not the people who believe we are created in the image of God who have promoted eugenics! Read the darn article for Pete's sake.
The people like you who want to deny any connection between evolution and eugenics are typically the same people who claim without batting an eye that "ID = creationism." That is just as bogus a claim as "evolution = eugenics." And, frankly, I've had enough of that crap.
Good for you, Russ! (Now, I'm sure you'll be happy to tell us in some detail what ID is, and how its different from creationism.)
From: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3103
Or ...
"When I began my research on evangelicals and the American eugenics movement, I thought I would find a large literature of anti-eugenic arguments. I hoped that evangelicals in the period 1900-1940 could prove helpful in current debates in bioethics. For the most part I was disappointed. To be sure, within evangelical circles were occasional voices of critique for one or another of the eugenicists’ more extravagant claims about marriage or proposals for social betterment. Historian Edward J. Larson has found scattered opposition to eugenics by Protestants in state legislative records, predominantly in the fundamentalist South.1 But on the whole the evangelical mainstream in the decades following the turn of the century appeared apathetic, acquiescent, or at times downright supportive of the eugenics movement. In this article, I argue that the evangelicals often accepted eugenics as a part of a progressive, reformist vision that uncritically fused the Kingdom of God with modern civilization. From this analysis I suggest a few strategies we can discern by reflecting on past failures to adequately assess and critique the eugenics movement."
From: http://www.ethicsandmedicine.com/18/2/18-2-durst.htm
Looks like there was plenty of credit all 'round.
There are plenty of people who are both Christian and accept the science evolution. I am one.
The people like you who want to deny any connection between evolution and eugenics are typically the same people who claim without batting an eye that "ID = creationism." That is just as bogus a claim as "evolution = eugenics." And, frankly, I've had enough of that crap.
Now you are in full reality-denial mode. It has been established, via the Wedge document, that ID is creationism. Moreover, ID cannot be taught in science class because the courts have found ID = creationism. That's exactly what it is.
ID recognizes the fact of design by mathematical and other types of analysis, but it does not identify the designer.
That is perfectly legitimate, just as a signal from outer space could be recognized as coming from an intelligent source even if the source is unknown. In fact, that is precisely what SETI is attempting to do.
There's a clue for you. But I'll bet dollars to dimes you will soon forget it and parrot the standard talking points next time around.
I heard Mao believed in ID.
I think you are missing something here. Discouraging people from reproducing if they are incapable of raising their children is reasonable. Forcibly preventing them from reproducing, or actually killing their offspring, is not. By reducing humans essentially to animals, evolution was used as a justification for the latter. Anyone who denies that is just in denial of reality.
"I heard Mao believed in ID."
Then he was smarter than some here on FR, wasn't he. They should be embarrassed.
"Now you are in full reality-denial mode. It has been established, via the Wedge document, that ID is creationism. Moreover, ID cannot be taught in science class because the courts have found ID = creationism. That's exactly what it is."
Garbage like this is precisely why I am wasting my time here. Why do I do it, you ask? Maybe it's just the glimmer of hope that I will help to eradicate such pathetic ignorance from the world. Then again, maybe that isn't possible, and I should quit wasting my time.
You mistakenly assume that your list of miscreants derives their mayhem mandates from the Biblical texts. You would be wrong. In fact, the full revelation taken from Biblical texts seeks to preserve life and reveres it as a reflection of God.
Evolutionary theory, OTOH, eventually brings us to the final, stark and mechanistic idea that any value human life has above any other is solely through the cultural frame of reference reigning at any particular time or place. Nature, itself, doesn't care in the least for morals.
If we eat meat, there is no reason not to eat each other. If we kill pond scum to clear the water, genocide is certainly a tool on the bench. After all, if we breed cattle and swine from better cuts of meat, then it stands to reason that eugenics and euthanasia are suitable to improve the human herd as well.
Like it or not, you own it as an organic element of your philosophy.
Nicely stated. That's why the founding document of our nation says that men are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." It doesn't say they are endowed by "nature" with those rights, because the law of nature is the law of the jungle. Eat or be eaten.
People who are hostile to the idea of a Creator are dangerous because they do not understand the fundamental source of our rights. And that is why individuals have no rights under communism.
"You need to read more about the history and preferred methods of the eugenics movement."
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?
And while were at it, maybe you can answer another question. When conservatives try to discourage welfare moms from having more children that they cannot afford to raise, do you consider that a form of "eugenics"?
Just trying to figure out where you're coming from here.
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 ...
And while were at it, maybe you can answer another question. When conservatives try to discourage welfare moms from having more children that they cannot afford to raise, do you consider that a form of "eugenics"?
Conservatives are trying to get people off welfare and not reward the for having additional children. I don't see the connection.
Just trying to figure out where you're coming from here.
New Jersey.
"So, you're saying there was no racism before 1859."
Yes I am.
Just as there were no totalitarian governments prior to Marx.
Yes I am.
Arrant nonsense. It betrays a total ignorance of the entire history of humankind.
Weak!
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