Posted on 03/15/2009 6:23:02 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Some Darwinists will say anything to try to draw attention away from the obvious. The point of my “Scientific Certitude” post was to show that evolutionary theory has been used to support racist views. Darwin was a firmly committed racist, and he was not shy about expressing his racist views:
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” Charles R. Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd ed. (1871; reprint, London: John Murray, 1922), 241-42.
While Darwin was still alive his contemporaries took his racism/evolution link and ran with it. For example, Ernst Haeckl, the great popularizer of Darwin’s theories on the continent wrote:
“The Caucasian, or Mediterranean man (Homo Mediterraneus), has from time immemorial been placed at the head of all races of men, as the most highly developed and perfect . . . In bodily as well as in mental qualities, no other human species can equal the Mediterranean. This species alone (with the exception of the Mongolian) has had an actual history; it alone has attained to that degree of civilization which seems to raise man above the rest of nature.” Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation: Or The Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes. A Popular Exposition of the Doctrine of Evolution in General, and of that of Darwin, Goethe, and Lamarck in Particular, translated by E. Ray Lankester, 6th English ed., First German Publication 1868, (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1914), 2:321
and
“If one must draw a sharp boundary between them [i.e., higher mammals and man], it has to be drawn between the most highly developed and civilized man on the one hand, and the rudest savages on the other, and the latter have to be classed with the animals.” Haeckel, Ibid., Vol. II, 365.
Or how about this from Darwin’s friend Huxley:
“No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried out by thoughts and not by bites.” T.H. Huxley, Lectures and Lay Sermons (1871; reprint, London: Everyman’s Library, J.M. Dent, 1926), 115.
The point of my earlier post was that by the turn of the 20th century the link between racism and evolution was so entrenched in orthodox thought that it made it into the Encyclopedia Britannica, which some would say is the very epitome of current conventional learning.
The link continued to be made well into the 20th Century:
“The new creed [i.e., Christianity] was thus thrown open to all mankind. Christianity makes no distinction of race or of color; it seeks to break down all racial barriers. In this respect the hand of Christianity is against that of Nature, for are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce? May we not say, then, that Christianity is anti evolutionary in its aim?” Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: Van Rees Press, 1947), 72
Evolutionists, when they are being honest, admit this link:
“We cannot understand much of the history of late 19th and early 20th century anthropology, with its plethora of taxonomic names proposed for nearly every scrap of fossil bone, unless we appreciate its obsession with the identification and ranking of races. For many schemes of classification sought to tag the various fossils as ancestors of modern races and to use their relative age and apishness as a criterion for racial superiority.” Stephen Jay Gould, “Human Equality as a Contingent Factor of History,” Natural History (November 1984): 28, 26-32.
“Since Darwin’s death, all has not been rosy in the evolutionary garden. The theories of the Great Bearded One have been hijacked by cranks, politicians, social reformers – and scientists – to support racist and bigoted views.” M. Brookes, “Ripe Old Age,” review of Of Flies, Mice and Men, by Francois Jacob, New Scientist, January 1999, 41.
The Darwinists who responded to my previous post were not honest. Instead of facing the facts, they tried to deny the undeniable connection between Darwin and racism, or they tried to change the subject by saying, “hey, some people who say they are Christians are racists too.”
This would be amusing if it were not so tragic. Someone said, “There is none so blind as he who refuses to see.”
This is the bottom line:
(1) It takes only the tiniest step to go from Darwin’s theory to the conclusion that some races are “lower” than others. Darwin took that step himself; his contemporaries took it with him, and by the turn of the 20th Century it was “conventional wisdom.” Note to Darwinists: Them’s the facts; you don’t advance your cause by denying them.
(2) Nothing Jesus said gives the slightest credence to racist views. Therefore, racists who call themselves Christians hold their views in the very teeth of the teachings of the Christ they purport to follow. So Darwinists. What is your point? That some people – even some people who call themselves “Christian” – are stupid or evil or both? No one denies that. Sadly for your position, this does notthing to blunt the force of (1) above.
The most vocal proponents of rational thought have left or have been culled - there is an unpublished fatwa against those who dare to take issue with any inaccuracies or errors posted by those attacking Darwin or his theory.
Ultimately, it's irrelevant. If the only way a viewpoint can survive is through the use of force to quash dissent, it's days are numbered.
==Then how come it is still going strong and getting stronger?
Is that why there are all these articles being published by evolutionists with titles like “Darwin must die so evolution can live” or “Darwin was wrong” etc, etc, etc?
Ah, then 150 years later, it's been totally discredited. Good to know. I thought they still taught in school along with crop circles.
Pray for America
“Well done. This is exactly where Hitler and the Nazis began their cult of breeding a Super Aryan Race.”
So finish the analogy....I’ll get you started:
If you believe in evolution you are just like _______
Fine, no argument, what about the ideology of "racism", meaning the national obsession with a wacky Russian Communist invented idea which did not exist 100 years ago? To this observer it appears to be stronger than Darwinism.
No Fester, the theory of evolution is not sound. Not one shred of support for it exists in the evidence.
Not as extreme, as say the "bug-zapper" thread in which many Guiliani supporters were removed.
At the same time, I agree that there seem to be many...scientifically untutored posters on many of the evo threads. And they do seem to get away with more rudeness than some of the others.
Cheers!
Then evolution is a dead idea, since it can only be upheld by force.
==Source?
I can’t find the exact quote at the moment, but you might want to start here.
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html
Of course he goes on to say that to only refer to Darwin is to dismiss the extreme mass of evolutionary information we have collected over the decades. Similar to how you always refer to Darwin and totally dismiss all the modern achievements.
or “Darwin was wrong” etc, etc, etc?
A little excerpt to show again how you distort:
------------------------------------------------------
Evolutionary theory, though, is a bit different. It's such a dangerously wonderful and far-reaching view of life that some people find it unacceptable, despite the vast body of supporting evidence. As applied to our own species, Homo sapiens, it can seem more threatening still. Many fundamentalist Christians and ultra-orthodox Jews take alarm at the thought that human descent from earlier primates contradicts a strict reading of the Book of Genesis. Their discomfort is paralleled by Islamic creationists such as Harun Yahya, author of a recent volume titled The Evolution Deceit, who points to the six-day creation story in the Koran as literal truth and calls the theory of evolution "nothing but a deception imposed on us by the dominators of the world system."
“My name is Barry Arrington. I am an attorney in Denver, Colorado specializing in complex litigation and constitutional law. My passion is defending constitutional liberties, especially those guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
This fish is out of the water, and unless you tell me he’s grown legs, I’m not thinking he’s hardly capable of discrediting 150 years of peer-reviewed science. He’s a lawyer, for crying out loud!
He certainly is capable of arguing, as you are, with information that is not credible, just for the sake of argument.
Why don’t you ever post articles from actual scientists that publish actual peer-reviewed scientific papers? There are some out there, you know, but this isn’t one of them.
Not a single shred.
The whole thing is a cartoon in your mind.
It's hard to believe you are this strikingly ignorant, or more likely, deliberately blind.
There is no point in laying out to you why evolution is not only plausible, but overwhelmingly certain.
You won't entertain it. It would be wasted electrons. It certainly would be a waste of time.
If you had said that evolution is debateable, and some of the evidence evolutionists use is in question, then you'd be worthy of debate.
But for you to say that there isn't a shred of evidence for evolution takes you completely out of the argument.
This is good, too:
“Materialistic ideology has subverted the study of biological and cosmological origins so that the actual content of these sciences has become corrupted. The problem, therefore, is not merely that science is being used illegitimately to promote a materialistic worldview, but that this worldview is actively undermining scientific inquiry, leading to incorrect and unsupported conclusions about biological and cosmological origins. At the same time, intelligent design (ID) offers a promising scientific alternative to materialistic theories of biological and cosmological evolution — an alternative that is finding increasing theoretical and empirical support. Hence, ID needs to be vigorously developed as a scientific, intellectual, and cultural project.”
In other words......ID is being made up as it goes along.
I’m a creationist. You’re an evolutionist, I guess.
Without arguing that point - do you think there is a danger in someone who embraces evolutionary theory to, as a result, have racist tendencies?
For example, if you believed whites were inferior because they tended to have a higher percentage of body fat. Or that blacks were inferior because their average brain mass was smaller. Or that Asians were the preferred race because their average IQ is higher.
If that were the case, would it or would it not make sense to encourage the reproduction of races with preferred traits, and to discourage the reproduction of races with “bad traits?”
Additionally, what about people with “genetic defects?” I use quotes because there is a variety of opinion as to what genetic defects are. For example, if you are committed to an evolutionary world view, does it make sense to allow people with diabetes to reproduce? How about people with cerebral palsy?
Anyone of an evolutionary mindset is welcome to respond. I am not implying that you are racist or a eugenicist. I am asking, do you see a danger with the possible results of an evolutionary world view? How can we prevent racism or eugenic ideas from being implemented in a world where evolution is accepted as correct?
So you are simultaneously denying "might makes right" while supporting "survival of the fittest."
Interesting potential conflicts there :-)
And -- if you *do* subscribe to this view, when do you foresee the loss of the Marxist/Gramscian stranglehold on academia?
Cheers!
Please detail for us at least one detailed model by which rreducibly complex biochemical models have evolved via natural selection.
At the heart of evolution is the idea that populations are continually splitting into multiple sub-populations due to mutation and natural selection (as well as genetic drift, population isolation factors, etc.) These various sub-populations then compete directly and indirectly against one another. The fit survive, the less fit are exterminated.
The racism of virtually all evolutionists prior to WWII is well documented, as is their straightforward logic supporting their racism. As many of the posts above this show, modern evolutionists really hate this topic, but they can't deny the historical and logical facts.
This is where Stephen Gould found the problem. There is no evidence to support that idea. The real evidence shows a diminishing number of species, and diminishing diversity from one end to the other, and each species as an island unto itself, without the millions of transitional forms that would be expected for each, had they developed through evolution.
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