Posted on 12/05/2010 7:57:20 AM PST by Titus-Maximus
Via NLT, here’s an excerpt from a textbook at the center of the Scopes trial.
Evolution of Man. – Undoubtedly there once lived upon the earth races of men who were much lower in their mental organization than the present inhabitants. If we follow the early history of man upon the earth, we find that at first he must have been little better than one of the lower animals. He was a nomad, wandering from place to place, feeding upon whatever living things he could kill with his hands. Gradually he must have learned to use weapons, and thus kill his prey, first using rough stone implements for this purpose. As man became more civilized, implements of bronze and of iron were used. About this time the subjugation and domestication of animals began to take place. Man then began to cultivate the fields, and to have a fixed place of abode other than a cave. The beginnings of civilization were long ago, but even to-day the earth is not entirely civilized.
The Races of Man. – At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest race type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.
Charles Darwin and Natural Selection. – The great Englishman Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to realize how this great force of heredity applied to the development or evolution of plants and animals. He knew that although animals and plants were like their ancestors, they also tended to vary. In nature, the variations which best fitted a plant or animal for life in its own environment were the ones which were handed down because those having variations which were not fitted for life in that particular environment would die. Thus nature seized upon favorable variations and after a time, as the descendants of each of these individuals also tended to vary, a new species of plant or animal, fitted for the place it had to live in, would be gradually evolved.
Artificial Selection. – Darwin reasoned that if nature seized upon favorable variants, then man by selecting the variants he wanted could form new varieties of plants or animals much more quickly than nature. And so to-day plant or animal breeders select the forms having the characters they wish to perpetuate and breed them together. This method used by plant and animal breeders is known as selection.
Improvement of Man. – If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved, it is not unfair to ask if the health and vigor of the future generations of men and women on the earth might be improved by applying to them the laws of selection. This improvement of the future race has a number of factors in which as individuals may play a part. These are personal hygiene, selection of healthy mates, and the betterment of the environment.
Eugenics. – When people marry there are certain things that the individual as well as the race should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring. Tuberculosis, syphilis, that dread disease which cripples and kills hundreds of thousands of innocent children, epilepsy, and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science of being well born is called eugenics.
The Jukes. – Studies have been made on a number of different families in this country, in which mental and moral defects were present in one or both of the original parents. The “Jukes” family is a notorious example. The first mother is known as “Margaret, the mother of criminals.” In seventy-five years the progeny of the original generation has cost the state of New York over a million and a quarter dollars, besides giving over to the care of prisons and asylums considerably over a hundred feeble-minded, alcoholic, immoral, or criminal persons. Another case recently studied is the “Kallikak” family. This family has been traced back to the War of the Revolution, when a young soldier named Martin Kallikak seduced a feeble-minded girl. She had a feeble-minded son from whom there have been to the present time 480 descendants. Of these 33 were sexually immoral, 24 confirmed drunkards, 3 epileptics, and 143 feeble-minded. The man who started this terrible line of immorality and feeble-mindedness later married a normal Quaker girl. From this couple a line of 496 descendants have come, with no cases of feeble-mindedness. The evidence and the moral speak for themselves!
Parasitism and its Cost to Society. – Hundreds of families such as those described above exist to-day, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.
The Remedy. – If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with success in this country.
The Theory of Evolution necessarily lays the foundation for Racism. This is absolutely unavoidable.
I believe I can assert, without fear of contradiction, that the Theory of Creation by a loving Creator, a loving Creator who is a person with intention, can lay the foundation to support the proposition that all men are created equal in dignity!
How is belief that we are a very young and very genetically similar species with adaptations to local climate conditions( balancing between vitamin D synthesis and protection from the Sun, in the case of skin color), predispose one to racism?
Many arguments were made to justify the exploitation of Africa and slavery, and theology was also at the forefront of those justifications. “the Children of Ham” defense was used by both Muslims and Christians to justify slavery of Africans.
Not true.
In the early days this was thought and even today individuals such as yourself believe this.
The reality is that genetic purity is undesirable and genetic impurity produces robustness.
The term for this, as it is taught in genetics class, is Hybrid Vigor.
Some geneticists will tell you that American Exceptionalism exists because America has a highly hybridized gene pool.
Adding fresh genes to the gene pool always improves the gene pool.
Belief in Creationism supports equality.
Islam promotes the belief in Creationism
Hence, Islam supports equality
Somehow, this logic is flawed. Me thinks creationism relates to benevolence is flawed.
Another take on your bashing of evolution argument is the linking of evolution to racism. Nuclear science has given us the ability to produce clean energy and make monster bombs. Because of the latter, in the late 1900's die-hard socialists all but removed America from using the former while keeping up the arsenal of the latter. Creationists are striving to do the same with the science of Evolution. They would eliminate the science which would have no effect on racist beliefs.
Darwinism was the AGW of it’s time, but immensely more successful!
“How is belief that we are a very young and very genetically similar species with adaptations to local climate conditions( balancing between vitamin D synthesis and protection from the Sun, in the case of skin color), predispose one to racism?
Many arguments were made to justify the exploitation of Africa and slavery, and theology was also at the forefront of those justifications. “the Children of Ham” defense was used by both Muslims and Christians to justify slavery of Africans.”
The second point is that I did not assert that Creationist adherents would necessarily reject Racism, but only that it is a necessary, even though not sufficient, precondition to assert that “all men are created equal in dignity”.
Evolution and survival of the fittest outlook provides little room to make the equality in dignity assertion. IMHO
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
Evolutionary adaptability is the accepted mechanism of any differences between human populations, among ANY people who accept the common descent (and therefore brotherhood) of all mankind. Unless you are willing to presuppose a miraculous cause of human differences, evolutionary adaptation to local climactic conditions IS the explanation for “racial” differences.
Acceptance of evolutionary theory is no barrier to most for belief in God’s special plan for mankind and his endowment of man with an eternal soul. Atheism may well be incompatible with a view of the true dignity of man. But evolution certainly is not..... to most.
Any useful scientific theory has the potential to be abused. By "useful" I mean having explanatory power.
This does not apply only to abstractions like theories. All sorts of useful things can be abused; matches, knives, computers, etc.
Not a geneticist but would believe separate races had a high degree of purity as they developed. What is amazing is that progressive-leftists who embrace evolution and then utterly demand allegiance to the idea that all these races are spot on equal in all attributes and in every respect. Other than a Creator doing that - it is a laughable hypothesis with a probability of one in a million trillion! But that is what they say.
We seem to have different understandings of what the term “Evolutionary Theory” denotes.
As I use the term, it means All Life owes its existence to an Evolutionary Imperative, and is equivalent to a “First Cause”, thus precluding a “Creator” as such.
I have no quarrel with “Evolutionary Adaptability”.
Is it responsible for what we classify as “race”? I don’t know, but I also don’t care, since I believe in a “Creator” who has bestowed equal dignity amongst all members of mankind.
It is the American ideal that all people are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, that we were all created equal, and that we should all be equal under the law.
In science it is hard to make judgment calls like that.
Is a person with a copy of the sickle cell anemia gene equal, less than, or superior to - someone without it. Depends on your chances of contracting malaria I suppose.
White skin is superior in a more polar climate, and black skin is superior in an equatorial climate. But with sunscreen and good hats on the white guy, and vitamin D supplemented in the diet of the black guy - and the conditions that led to these adaptations are no longer in force.
Being stocky is superior in a cold climate, being lanky is superior in a hot climate.
Narrow nostrils for cold, wide nostrils for hot.
Now who is to say what is “better”? They are all equal in that they are all equivalent in that they are all adaptations to local conditions.
What is your explanation for human differences if not natural selection of genetic variation? Did God have to MAKE Black people black by other means, or are people in Africa going to naturally turn blacker as a defense against the Sun and with no need to accentuate vitamin D synthesis?
Evolutionary theory is that there will be natural selection of genetic variation that will act to change species over time.
Common descent of all species is the theory that evolutionary change acted upon a common ancestor to derive the variations of life we see upon the Earth.
Abiogenesis is the hypothesis that life formed spontaneously utilizing natural law in a scientifically understandable process.
Nothing in evolution, common descent, or abiogenesis for that matter - precludes a Creator. It merely suggests, as all science must, that the physical processes of such should be understandable by utilization of physical forces.
If your beef is with Atheism, call it Atheism.
If your beef is with Abiogenesis, call it Abiogenesis.
If your beef is with the Common descent of species, call it common descent.
But when you call it ALL evolution, I am forced to conclude you don't really have a clue WHAT it is you are against.
What about those knee jerk conservatives who embrace evolution and laugh at fundamentalists?
I have a quarrel with: “Darwin’s general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) “descent with modification”
Your proposition “I am forced to conclude you don’t really have a clue WHAT it is you are against.” is nothing more than deliberate ignorance on your part.
I think I have been explicit in describing what I am talking about and asserting.
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