Darwin, Hitler, and the Culture of Death

LifeSiteNews ^ | 5/6/08 | Michael Baggot

[wagglebee]

May 5, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ben Stein has suffered extensive media criticism for drawing the connection between Darwin, Hitler, and the modern eugenics movements in a powerful 10-minute section of his film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed".

In an MSNBC.com review, Arthur Caplan calls the connection Stein draws between Darwin's theory and the Holocaust "despicable".  Neo-Darwinians on the whole have unleashed a barrage of insults at Stein and his work. They have also, however, completely failed to address the intimidating body of evidence Stein presents to support his claims. 

While Stein has explicitly asserted that not every neo-Darwinist is a eugenicist, an examination of the historic record reveals that neo-Darwinism can and has provided the philosophic justification for numerous horrific eugenic projects. 

According to Darwin, the survival of the fittest is the engine for progress for men as well as the rest of the animal kingdom.  In his "Descent of Man," Darwin laments that the misguided care of the weaker members of society has come as a detriment to the whole.  He warns that measures must be taken to "prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men," which is essentially nothing less than the mission statement of eugenicists the world over. 

Less than a century after Darwin's death, in his chapter on "Nation and Race" in "Mein Kampf," Adolf Hitler described the struggle for existence in Darwinian terms: "The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness.  Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher evolution of organic living beings would be unthinkable."

The Nazi party framed its mission in terms of a Darwinian struggle to achieve a more evolved life form.   According to the Hitler-approved pamphlet "Why are We Fighting?", "Our racial idea is only the 'expression of a worldview' that recognizes in the higher evolution of humans a divine command." 

Another Hitler-approved booklet, "Racial Policy", outlined the Nazi vision of man as follows: "The preservation and propagation, the evolution and elevating of life occurs through the struggle for existence, to which every plant, every animal, every species and every genus is subjected.  Even humans and the human races are subject to this struggle; it decides their value and their right to exist."

There is a ruthless consistency to the Darwinian-phrased Nazi propaganda.  After all, if Darwin has rendered the "God hypothesis" superfluous and hence any notion of man as the intrinsically valuable creature made in God's image and likeness, what better criteria is there for human worth than power?

According to Darwin, man is different from the rest of the animals only by a matter of degrees.  There is nothing that essentially distinguishes man from the other beasts.  At best, man is a more complex machine than the rest of the animals.  It should not be surprising then that the prominent bioethicist Peter Singer appeals to Darwinian evolution when attacking the sanctity-of-life ethic and defending abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.  According to Singer, Darwin "undermined the foundations of the entire Western way of thinking on the place of our species in the universe." 

Likewise, Darwinian philosopher Daniel Dennett calls Darwin's views the "universal acid" that erodes traditional moral convictions rooted in the dignity of the human person.  His strictly biological assessment of human worth lets Dennett speaks of the "gradations of value in the ending of human lives," as he offers a case for euthanasia.

In a particularly powerful portion of "Expelled," Stein lets Cornell historian of science William Provine detail the implications of neo-Darwinism.  Without qualification, Provine adamantly affirms that neo-Darwinism demonstrates that there is no meaning to life.  Not surprisingly, he claims that he would put a bullet through his own head if his brain tumor reemerged.  Provine chides his brother for clinging to this life for so long. 

One is then led to wonder if Provine has a more sympathetic view of the large quantity of apparent drains on our society that fill our nations hospitals and nursing homes. The materialistic nihilism Provine honestly insists is entailed in neo-Darwinism seems to be completely incompatible with traditional humanitarian aspirations to defend the weak and vulnerable of society. Instead the weak and vulnerable are to be considered as obstacles to the progress of the human species in its evolutionary journey. They are to be eradicated. And, if not actively eradicated, then, at the very least, they should not be allowed to reproduce. 

If man is the accidental byproduct of blind natural forces and not the planned creation of an Intelligent Creator, then his worth is something to be earned rather than gratefully received.  The denial of man's intrinsic human dignity is at the heart of every eugenics movement from Hitler's Germany to early 20th century America to Planned Parenthood's continued mission to eliminate the "unwanted" children of the world. 

Is every neo-Darwinian a racist bent on genocide? No. But as Darwinian thinkers themselves admit, the neo-Darwinian outlook provides a handy foundation for the Culture of Death's rejection of human dignity and thus opens the way for the host of attacks on human life that continue to infect nations across the globe.  Thank you, Mr. Stein, for reminding us that ideas have major consequences.

(author's note: I am indebted to the Discovery Institute's Richard Weikart for compiling important passages from Hitler and Nazi propaganda in his recent article "Was It Immoral for 'Expelled' to Connect Darwinism and Nazi Racism?")

Learn more about Expelled:
http://www.expelledthemovie.com

Learn more about the Darwin-Hitler connection:
http://www.darwintohitler.com

Read more about Darwin's devaluation of the human person:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=vi...

[8mmMauser]

Pinged from Terri Dailies

8mm

[AdSimp]

If you are going to connect the TOE to Hitler's crimes, then would you not also have to connect Christianity to his crimes?

Sure, the connection goes right thru the Devil, who will use any means necessary. Hijacking Christianity is surely on the agenda.

[DoctorMichael]

I know that Stein tried to popularize his point, but I expect that most of the movie went over the heads of most of the audience.

I think its safe to say that 'Blazing Saddles' would be over the heads of the types of people that went to see it.

[MrB]

are responsible for life

careless wording?

They won't address the origin of life issue.

[MrB]

With the exclusion of a Creator, there is no objective reason for right and wrong, and if totally uncreated natural selection resulted in what we are today, an advanced species, and more to the point, the most advanced “race”, then there’s no reason not to “help” evolution along by selective breeding and, more to the point, selective “non-breeding” (extermination).

Vs

We’re all created in God’s image, and persecution, oppression, or murder of another human is doing the same to God in effigy.

[MrB]

Go into a house, and find evidence, within the framework of the house, that it had an architect.

The Grand Architect "lives" outside the "house".

Some atheist idiot yesterday asked for scientific proof of God.
Ridiculous.

[MrB]

You keep stating, repeatedly, as if it proves some point, that the movie is a “dud” and a boxoffice flop.

When compared to “Ironman”, perhaps.

But compared to other documentaries, it has done quite well.

What’s your point, anyway?

Some sort of “proof by non-consensus”?

[MrB]

You’re right about the point of the movie.

And, the problem that most folks have with the atheoevos is that they are teaching their anti-theology in schools, undermining the values of our culture.

And, they’re doing it with the protection of the government, and other bullying tactics.

I homeschool, so I won’t have to fight the indoctrination. And yes, I’m going to teach them about “change over time” and that the Creator set the microtuned rules in place that made such “change over time” result in His creation, a being in His own image, whom He granted consciousness, a common moral code, and a yearning for fellowship with Him.

[hepatoma]

“And yes, I’m going to teach them about “change over time” and that the Creator set the microtuned rules in place that made such “change over time” result in His creation”

So is that like guided theistic evolution?

[MrB]

I believe the term is “Theistic Evolution”.

I’m more into the cosmological evidence for the Creator, and the DNA/Genome is a similar observation.

The rules are far too precise, and have to be in order to result in life in the universe, for it to be anything other than a Creation.

multiverse my a$$.

[ahayes]

You have some examples of this? It would be passing strange since according to the book, “Landmarks in the Life of Stalin”, young Stalin thought highly of Darwin.

Things change. The communist government championed a horticulturist named Lysenko, who embraced a form of Lamarckianism. Before Darwin Lamarck supposed that creatures changed by the inheritance of acquired traits. If you spend a lot of time running and develop strong leg muscles and lungs, then Lamarck thought that your baby would inherit these traits developed during your lifetime. This idea was in direct opposition to Darwin's theory of evolution, which said that populations contain a lot of variation and this variation is passed on to the offspring without modification. The change over time comes from natural selection filtering the variants, resulting in higher reproductive success for some variants than others.

Of course in Darwin's time the details of inheritance were not known. Mendel published his work on inheritance then, but it was not well known until after his death. When Mendel's work was rediscovered geneticists realized that inherited traits were passed on in genes (although at the time they still didn't know what genes were!) Geneticists started working with plants, breeding them and studying their chromosomes.

It's hard to say why the communist government found Lysenko's ideas so appealing, perhaps because he was their representative of the "common man" who had arisen and thrown over the ideas of bourgeois foreigners. At any rate Mendelian genetics went far far out of favor, and geneticists who didn't abandon their evolutionary ideas and embrace Lysenkoism were imprisoned and even killed.

[hepatoma]

I, too, believe in TE.

But Christians think I’m a G-dless heathen, and people in the science field think I’m delusional.

It’s a lose-lose situation.

[MrB]

It’s a lose-lose situation.

Depends on Who you think you're accountable to...:)

[GourmetDan]

"I think its safe to say that 'Blazing Saddles' would be over the heads of the types of people that went to see it."

Yeah, they sure are stupid, ain't they? LOL!

Kinda like the people they talked to in the movie. PhD's in immunology and biology and stupid stuff like that. Where'd they get that piece of paper anyway? Wal-Mart? What a bunch of maroons! Yuk-yuk!

Not like really smart guys like you and me, huh?

/sarc

[DoctorMichael]

Not like really smart guys like you and me, huh?

What 'we'?

[ukie55]

You noticed that too?

[GourmetDan]

"What 'we'?"

Exactly.

You're the only smart guy, not me. No, no, no.

mea culpa

[Ken H]

The results have to be a great disappointment to the makers of 'Expelled'. From the LA Times:

'Expelled' could exceed box-office forecasts

April 18, 2008

-snip-

The "'Expelled' Challenge" urges schools and home-schooling groups to get students, parents and faculty to show up in force, promising donations of $5 to $10 per ticket stub for those who register.

-snip-

Ruloff [Walt Ruloff, the movie's executive producer] said the film could top the $23.9-million opening for Michael Moore's polemic against President Bush, "Fahrenheit 9/11," the best launch ever for a documentary.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-projector18apr18,1,4982009.story

______________________________

According to boxofficemojo.com, the film took in $66,912 on May 5 at 656 theaters (down from 1052), which works out to $102/theater. Gross receipt through May 5 is $6,680,168.

[wagglebee]

please explain why Hitler never mentioned Darwin, but often attributed his policies to “the creator”.

From Chapter 11 of "Mein Kampf":

"Every crossing between two breeds which are not quite equal results in a product which holds an intermediate place between the levels of the two parents. This means that the offspring will indeed be superior to the parent which stands in the biologically lower order of being, but not so high as the higher parent. For this reason it must eventually succumb in any struggle against the higher species. Such mating contradicts the will of Nature towards the selective improvements of life in general. The favourable preliminary to this improvement is not to mate individuals of higher and lower orders of being but rather to allow the complete triumph of the higher order. The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all."

[GunRunner]

Ben Stein has done more to set back science than Al Gore.

I doubt real science will be the least bit affected by Stein, but he has succeeded in setting back our party.

Even Rush is praising the movie, so Stein has been successful in making ID some kind of conservative rallying cry, which is really, really bad news.

Now on top of all the other epithets that liberals and the mainstream media use to label the GOP, we'll now be the party of creationism and a 6,000 year old Earth.