The Dark Side of Darwin's Legacy

[buffalo]

The Dark Side of Darwin’s Legacy

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and Nov. 24 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the landmark work in which Darwin laid forth his theory of natural selection. While celebrations have emphasized the British naturalist’s giant role in the advancement of human progress, British political journalist Dennis Sewell is not convinced. In a new book, The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics, he highlights how often — and how easily — Darwin’s big idea has been harnessed for sinister political ends. According to Sewell, evolution is scientifically undeniable, but its contribution to human well-being is unclear.
**Should we reassess Darwin’s legacy?

more…**

 

[James_S_Saint]

The “more”;

Bicentennial celebrations have portrayed Darwin as a kindly old gentleman pottering around an English house and garden. What that misses is the way his ideas were abused in the 20th century and the way in which Darwin was wrong about certain key issues. He asserted that different races of mankind had traveled different distances along the evolutionary path — white Caucasians were at the top of the racial hierarchy, while black and brown people ranked below. [Racism] was a widespread prejudice in British society at the time, but he presented racial hierarchy as a matter of science. He also held that the poor were genetically second-rate — which inspired eugenics. (See a photo-essay on Darwin.)

In your research, you found vestiges of this warped way of thinking in an unexpectedly modern setting: school shootings.
Pekka-Eric Auvinen, a Finnish schoolboy who murdered eight people at his high school in November 2007, wrote on his blog that “stupid, weak-minded people are reproducing … faster than the intelligent, strong-minded” ones. Auvinen thought through the philosophical implications of Darwin’s work and came to the conclusion that human life is like every other type of animal life: it has no extraordinary value. The Columbine killers made similar arguments. One of the shooters, Eric Harris, wore a “Natural Selection” shirt on the day of the massacre. These are examples of how easily Darwin’s writings can lead to very disturbed ways of thinking.

In ALL actions of either voice or deed, one MUST consider the effects, else why say or do anything at all.

But when considering those effects, consider the effect of disallowing anything “unapproved”.

This becomes the issue of proper governance. My view is that the “proper governance” is not currently represented on Earth. Reassess the methods of governance, and whether or how you reassess what anyone has promoted becomes evident.

 

[Sair]

I think it’s undoubtedly true that ideas adapted from Darwin’s theory have led to great suffering (like the oft-quoted application of ‘social Darwinism’ and eugenics by the Nazis) - but it’s also true that there have been - and still are - many people who don’t understand the extent of Darwin’s ‘dangerous idea’. It’s often said that a little learning is a dangerous thing (thanks, Alexander Pope) and that is certainly true in the case of the theory of evolution by natural selection. As people so often do with scripture, certain parties in society have cherry-picked aspects of Darwin’s thinking and used them to provide a superficially credible justification for pushing a particular agenda. The phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ is the obvious one. But this has absolutely nothing to do with our aesthetic, subjective notions of ‘fitness’ - it means, simply, those best suited to the environment are the ones that survive.

I wonder how many of the people who cite Darwin’s On the Origin of Species then go on to read The Descent of Man, which has much more to say about the evolution of humans (in a predictably racist Victorian fashion, admittedly). The thing is, no matter how often Darwinism is abused or misunderstood, his insight had profound implications for our understanding of life, and therein lies its value. Abuse of an idea by those who understand it but little is not really an argument against the overall quality of the idea itself. We could, for example, argue indefinitely about the relative merits of Darwinism and, say, Christianity - both can be shown to have benefited human life, and both have been used in ways that have harmed human life.

As an interesting aside to this discussion, Dawkins, in A Devil’s Chaplain, argues persuasively for the view that human beings, of all living things, are uniquely free of the wastefulness and savagery of natural selection, and that we ought to embrace and exult in this freedom. He quotes what I think is a beautiful and profound phrase from geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky - “In giving rise to man, the evolutionary process has, apparently for the first and only time in the history of the Cosmos, become conscious of itself.”

 

[edwest2]

I think it’s undoubtedly true that ideas adapted from Darwin’s theory have led to great suffering (like the oft-quoted application of ‘social Darwinism’ and eugenics by the Nazis) - but it’s also true that there have been - and still are - many people who don’t understand the extent of Darwin’s ‘dangerous idea’. It’s often said that a little learning is a dangerous thing (thanks, Alexander Pope) and that is certainly true in the case of the theory of evolution by natural selection. As people so often do with scripture, certain parties in society have cherry-picked aspects of Darwin’s thinking and used them to provide a superficially credible justification for pushing a particular agenda. The phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ is the obvious one. But this has absolutely nothing to do with our aesthetic, subjective notions of ‘fitness’ - it means, simply, those best suited to the environment are the ones that survive.

I wonder how many of the people who cite Darwin’s On the Origin of Species then go on to read The Descent of Man, which has much more to say about the evolution of humans (in a predictably racist Victorian fashion, admittedly). The thing is, no matter how often Darwinism is abused or misunderstood, his insight had profound implications for our understanding of life, and therein lies its value. Abuse of an idea by those who understand it but little is not really an argument against the overall quality of the idea itself. We could, for example, argue indefinitely about the relative merits of Darwinism and, say, Christianity - both can be shown to have benefited human life, and both have been used in ways that have harmed human life.

As an interesting aside to this discussion, Dawkins, in A Devil’s Chaplain, argues persuasively for the view that human beings, of all living things, are uniquely free of the wastefulness and savagery of natural selection, and that we ought to embrace and exult in this freedom. He quotes what I think is a beautiful and profound phrase from geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky - “In giving rise to man, the evolutionary process has, apparently for the first and only time in the history of the Cosmos, become conscious of itself.”

As I watch the media propaganda campaign in support of the New Atheism, it is very clear that the only reason some post about it here is to get universal acceptance for textbook evolution, a largely useless concept. The core of Christianity is Jesus Christ. He never told His followers to harm anyone.

Mr. Dobzhansky is just a man and the quote you provided cannot be proven. It simply says that mindless chemicals gave rise to men with minds.

Peace,
Ed

 

[tjm190]

As I watch the media propaganda campaign in support of the New Atheism, it is very clear that the only reason some post about it here is to get universal acceptance for textbook evolution, a largely useless concept.

Peace,
Ed

Useless how? I’d say certainly more useful than any literature or chemistry class.

 

[Sair]

As I watch the media propaganda campaign in support of the New Atheism, it is very clear that the only reason some post about it here is to get universal acceptance for textbook evolution, a largely useless concept.

Based on my experience, what I’ve generally found from reading over threads on this and other fora is that people who post about evolution do so in response to others who post ignorant and patently wrong things about evolution. A poster on another thread remarked that he had never known anyone to reject evolution once they understand it. Since evolution cuts right to the core of our understanding of the natural world and our place in it, I hardly think you can argue that it’s a ‘useless concept’.

The core of Christianity is Jesus Christ. He never told His followers to harm anyone.

Does that include the bit where he talked about coming to turn son against father and father against son, and bringing not peace but a sword?

Mr. Dobzhansky is just a man and the quote you provided cannot be proven. It simply says that mindless chemicals gave rise to men with minds.

I wasn’t requoting Dobzhansky as an authority, merely because I liked the phrase. Of course it can’t be ‘proven’ - it’s poetic, figurative language, not a scientifically precise statement. Sometimes the worth of such pronouncements is not what they actually tell us, but how they make us think about things, how they affect our perspective.

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

Darwinism was the philosophical underpinning for Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, Castro and other mass murderers.

Since darwinism began to be taught in American public schools, our marriages plunged into divorce (50%), our jails are bursting at the seams, 1 in 4 Americans has a permanent STD and 50 million innocent children have been mercilessly slaughtered in their own mothers’ wombs.

Not to mention we have lost nearly a million servicemen and women fighting darwin inspired revolutionaries in Europe, Korea, Viet Nam and other places.

Everywhere darwin is accepted there necessarily follows degeneracy, immorality, war, mass murder, social instability, and population decline.

Jesus said it this way: “Can a good tree bear bad fruit? Therefore you shall know them by their fruits.”

 

[rossum]

Darwinism was the philosophical underpinning for Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, Castro and other mass murderers.

So, you are saying that all those people correctly interpreted Darwin? Is it not possible that some of them misinterpreted Darwin - after all, they were wrong about a great many other things. To take the example of Hitler:“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922
Is that a correct interpretation of Christianity? Does the fact that Hitler used some abominably bad theology to try to justify his hatred of the Jews mean that Christianity is itself abominably bad? No, it means that Hitler was a very bad theologian. Hitler was an equally bad biologist, so anything he said about Darwin has the same relevance as what he said about Christianity - no relevance at all.

Since darwinism began to be taught in American public schools, our marriages plunged into divorce (50%), our jails are bursting at the seams, 1 in 4 Americans has a permanent STD and 50 million innocent children have been mercilessly slaughtered in their own mothers’ wombs.

This is the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Since Darwinism began to be taught in American public schools Communism has collapsed, man has walked on the moon and we have developed the Internet.

Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. Within six years of that publication slavery was finally abolished in the United States. See what I mean?

rossum

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

So, you are saying that all those people correctly interpreted Darwin? Is it not possible that some of them misinterpreted Darwin - after all, they were wrong about a great many other things. To take the example of Hitler:
“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922
Is that a correct interpretation of Christianity? Does the fact that Hitler used some abominably bad theology to try to justify his hatred of the Jews mean that Christianity is itself abominably bad? No, it means that Hitler was a very bad theologian. Hitler was an equally bad biologist, so anything he said about Darwin has the same relevance as what he said about Christianity - no relevance at all.

This is the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Since Darwinism began to be taught in American public schools Communism has collapsed, man has walked on the moon and we have developed the Internet.

Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. Within six years of that publication slavery was finally abolished in the United States. See what I mean?

rossum

Rossum: you do err in conflating Christianity and Darwinism in the hands of a madman. Hitler obviously invoked Christianity in rhetoric but manifestly not in action. His adoption of dialectical materialism and eugenics in policy and action are the evidence we see historically. Darwinism is the blank check utopianists cash in their murderous rampages to ‘remake’ civilization with the sanction of ‘nature.’

I am on safe footing in ascribing evolutionary cosmology as the rational and moral justification to these 20th century tyrants. You know this and I hope you have the integrity to admit as much.

These tyrants perpetrated their war crimes against Christian opposition in nearly every situation (not sure about Pol Pot, but the rest declared war on Christian positions). Evolutionism is the creed of the soulless, despirited materialists who dismiss history and utilize the instruments of death to implement their utopian vision upon unwilling populations that know better. They have all failed, most spectacularly, but in a most bizarre occurance, find a footing in theology (!) as the tool of satan.

I will never accept any attempt to conflate darwinsim with Christianity. Christianity is the display of God’s victory over coercive power through humility and charity while evolutionsim is the ancient and eternally condemned ethic that might makes right.

Hitler is a reproach today not because of his [gratuitous] associations with Christianity, but because of his lust for evolutionary goals through eugenics.

 

[buffalo]

Does that include the bit where he talked about coming to turn son against father and father against son, and bringing not peace but a sword?

.

Exactly. Jesus did not come to put a peace blanket over the land. His proposition is radical and is divisive in terms of selflessness and anti-materialistic.

 

[Sair]

Darwinism was the philosophical underpinning for Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, Castro and other mass murderers.

Whilst we’re trotting out the cliches, Christianity was the philosophical underpinning of the Crusades, the Inquisition, anti-Semitism, imperialism and persecution for supposed heresy and witchcraft.

Everywhere darwin is accepted there necessarily follows degeneracy, immorality, war, mass murder, social instability, and population decline.

There have always been, throughout the whole of human history, degeneracy, immorality, war, mass murder, social instability and population decline. How do you account for them before 1859?

 

[buffalo]

Whilst we’re trotting out the cliches, Christianity was the philosophical underpinning of the Crusades, the Inquisition, anti-Semitism, imperialism and persecution for supposed heresy and witchcraft.

There have always been, throughout the whole of human history, degeneracy, immorality, war, mass murder, social instability and population decline. How do you account for them before 1859?

Concupiscence.

 

[Fran65]

Since darwinism began to be taught in American public schools, our marriages plunged into divorce (50%), our jails are bursting at the seams, 1 in 4 Americans has a permanent STD and 50 million innocent children have been mercilessly slaughtered in their own mothers’ wombs.

Those things are also associated with the increasing sale and use of the automobile. perhaps they should be banned too?

There’s also a demonstrated association between sales of ice cream and shark attacks - stay away from ice cream if you want to keep your limbs!

 

[rossum]

Rossum: you do err in conflating Christianity and Darwinism in the hands of a madman. Hitler obviously invoked Christianity in rhetoric but manifestly not in action.

Hitler did not work in a Concentration Camp, other Germans did the work. The majority of those other Germans were Christians of one sort or another. The actions of Christians in Germany at that time were not the results of Darwin. I suggest that you read “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” by Daniel Goldhagen.

His adoption of dialectical materialism and eugenics in policy and action are the evidence we see historically.

Eugenics has many roots, all the way back to the Spartans exposing babies to die. People do not need Darwin to justify eugenics. If you read some modern racist websites, you will again see Christianity used to justify racism. For example, here is a quote from a Christian written in 1991:The descendants of Ham were marked especially for secular service to mankind. Indeed they were to be ‘servants of servants,’ that is ‘servants extraordinary!’ Although only Canaan is mentioned specifically (possibly because the branch of Ham’s family through Canaan would later come into most direct contact with Israel), the whole family of Ham is in view. The prophecy is worldwide in scope and, since Shem and Japheth are covered, all Ham’s descendants must be also. These include all nations which are neither Semitic nor Japhetic. Thus, all of the earth’s ‘colored’ races,–yellow, red, brown, and black–essentially the Afro-Asian group of peoples, including the American Indians–are possibly Hamitic in origin and included within the scope of the Canaanitic prophecy, as well as the Egyptians, Sumerians, Hittites, and Phoenicians of antiquity.

• Source: Henry Morris, “The Beginning Of the World”, Second Edition (1991)
  No Darwin there, it is all Bible based. Christianity can also be used to justify racism, eugenics etc. All your criticisms of misuses of Darwin also apply to misuses of Christianity.

You have decided in advance to ignore evidence that Christianity is used to justify appalling behaviours while at the same time accepting similar evidence against Darwin. Maniacs like Hitler can use anything and everything to try to justify their behaviour. Hitler even used Pasteur’s Germ Theory of disease - he compared Jews to a “plague bacillus”.

Just because a scientific theory can be used to try to justify evil, that does not mean that the theory is incorrect. The Argentine Junta killed dissidents by throwing them out of aircraft; does that mean that the Theory of Gravity and the Theory of Flight are both incorrect because they were capable of being misused? Hitler used Pasteur to justify racism, yet that does not affect the fact that bacteria and viruses do indeed cause diseases. Christianity was used to justify killing witches - “You shall not allow a witch to live” - yet that does not invalidate Christianity.

Your argument fails because it casts too wide a net. Hitler and the others used a great many things to try to justify evil. You cannot pick just one of those things without also implicating the others.

rossum

 

[edwest2]

So, you are saying that all those people correctly interpreted Darwin? Is it not possible that some of them misinterpreted Darwin - after all, they were wrong about a great many other things. To take the example of Hitler:“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922
Is that a correct interpretation of Christianity? Does the fact that Hitler used some abominably bad theology to try to justify his hatred of the Jews mean that Christianity is itself abominably bad? No, it means that Hitler was a very bad theologian. Hitler was an equally bad biologist, so anything he said about Darwin has the same relevance as what he said about Christianity - no relevance at all.

This is the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Since Darwinism began to be taught in American public schools Communism has collapsed, man has walked on the moon and we have developed the Internet.

Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. Within six years of that publication slavery was finally abolished in the United States. See what I mean?

rossum

Darwinism equals the fall of Communism?

Man walked on the moon because a group of ex-nazis put him there.

The internet created itself? Please. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency created ARPAnet.

Slavery abolished because… my head is starting to hurt. Now Charles Darwin is being given worship and credit for performing miracles?

“correctly interpreting Darwin” sounds much like correctly interpreting any quasi-religious source.

Evolution has become a form of modern nature worship.

Peace,
Ed

 

[AlbertBall]

Everywhere darwin is accepted there necessarily follows degeneracy, immorality, war, mass murder, social instability, and population decline.

oh dear.

youtube.com/watch?v=94f2h-5TvbM

 

[rossum]

Darwinism equals the fall of Communism?

Man walked on the moon because a group of ex-nazis put him there.

The internet created itself? Please. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency created ARPAnet.

Slavery abolished because… my head is starting to hurt. Now Charles Darwin is being given worship and credit for performing miracles?

My apologies Ed for not making my point clearer. All those were obvious examples of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Just because event A happened before event B does not mean that event A directly caused event B.

Catholic Johnny’s post #7 contained just such an error:

Since darwinism began to be taught in American public schools, our marriages plunged into divorce (50%), our jails are bursting at the seams, 1 in 4 Americans has a permanent STD and 50 million innocent children have been mercilessly slaughtered in their own mothers’ wombs.

I merely deliberately repeated the error with changed events B in order to make the nature of the error even clearer. No, teaching evolution did not cause the Internet - that was Al Gore, wasn’t it? - but neither did teaching evolution increase the divorce rate in America - that was due to American politicians changing the divorce laws.

Darwin did not cause the abolition of slavery in America, just as the election of Pope Pius IX in 1846 did not cause the abolition of slavery - either would serve as event A in my examples since both came before the abolition. Both Darwin and the Pope were against slavery, but neither directly caused its abolition in America - that was down to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

My apologies Ed for not making my point clearer. All those were obvious examples of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Just because event A happened before event B does not mean that event A directly caused event B.

Catholic Johnny’s post #7 contained just such an error:
I merely deliberately repeated the error with changed events B in order to make the nature of the error even clearer. No, teaching evolution did not cause the Internet - that was Al Gore, wasn’t it? - but neither did teaching evolution increase the divorce rate in America - that was due to American politicians changing the divorce laws.

Darwin did not cause the abolition of slavery in America, just as the election of Pope Pius IX in 1846 did not cause the abolition of slavery - either would serve as event A in my examples since both came before the abolition. Both Darwin and the Pope were against slavery, but neither directly caused its abolition in America - that was down to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

rossum

There are currently two competing worldviews, neo_darwinism and Christianity. The fruits of each and their goals are obvious. The more people embrace the neo-darwin worldview the darker the world will become. Of this there can be no doubt.

 

[edwest2]

My apologies Ed for not making my point clearer. All those were obvious examples of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Just because event A happened before event B does not mean that event A directly caused event B.

Catholic Johnny’s post #7 contained just such an error:
I merely deliberately repeated the error with changed events B in order to make the nature of the error even clearer. No, teaching evolution did not cause the Internet - that was Al Gore, wasn’t it? - but neither did teaching evolution increase the divorce rate in America - that was due to American politicians changing the divorce laws.

Darwin did not cause the abolition of slavery in America, just as the election of Pope Pius IX in 1846 did not cause the abolition of slavery - either would serve as event A in my examples since both came before the abolition. Both Darwin and the Pope were against slavery, but neither directly caused its abolition in America - that was down to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

rossum

Thank you for the clarification. I think Catholic Johnny has a point. Even the PNAS argues for an unprovable idea: unconcious creation.

pnas.org/content/104/suppl.1/8567.abstract

It reminds me of a phone conversation I had with a total stranger about a year ago: “We’re all just animals,” he said.

Darwin helped to devalue the role God played in the creation of life. And after reading numerous helpful bits of information, including PZ Myers’ web site, speciation still does not appear to occur as explained in the biology text.

The National Academies of Sciences states that Darwin’s book has had an effect on society. Right now, it is the primary ideological weapon of the anti-theist. This appears to be its most common use. As far as its value in present day science, there does not appear to be any demonstrable connection between the theory and what goes on in labs around the world. (A) The ‘minimal cell’ is turning out to be more complex than originally thought. (B) Attempting to find out what certain genes do by conducting ‘genetic knock out’ experiments and seeing what happens. (C) Synthetic biology is attempting to reverse engineer living cells in an attempt to duplicate/control/modify some/all function.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

Whilst we’re trotting out the cliches, Christianity was the philosophical underpinning of the Crusades, the Inquisition, anti-Semitism, imperialism and persecution for supposed heresy and witchcraft.

There have always been, throughout the whole of human history, degeneracy, immorality, war, mass murder, social instability and population decline. How do you account for them before 1859?

You make my point for me. Darwinism is animated by the same spirit as all other atrocities - satan. Your gratuitous conflation of the Church’s errors (miniscule compared to the scourge wrought by communists) gives great occasion to the Lord’s enemies to blaspheme His worthy name.

As for Darwin, go on, believe in him and defend him and his minions. As our Blessed Lord said to those that rejected Him, “they shall be your judges.”