Darwin Contribute to Holocaust?
david ford
T. H. Huxley's?
Haeckel's?
Nietzsche's?
Therion Ware
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:33:31 +0000 (UTC) in alt.atheism, david ford
(dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford)) said, directing the reply to
alt.atheism
No more, and probably considerably less than, that of Luther, and the
RCC.
And as we see from the ongoing creationism debate, some theists are
not above taking mainstream thinkers out of context in order to
promote their agenda, presumably having learned the lesson of history.
--
"Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You."
- Attrib: Pauline Reage.
Inexpensive VHS & other video to CD/DVD conversion?
See: <http://www.Video2CD.com>. 35.00 gets your video on DVD.
all posts to this email address are automatically deleted without being read.
** atheist poster child #1 ** #442.
Colin Day
> What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
Less than Martin Lother's
>
> T. H. Huxley's?
> Haeckel's?
> Nietzsche's?
>
Colin Day aa #1500
Chris Thompson
news:b1c67abe.04063...@posting.google.com:
It is an immense contribution. After all, he started the whole thing
rolling. I truly believe that genetic algorithms are going to
revolutionize computer science, and this will lead to new designs in
alternate realities and virtual realities. Soon, we will be able to
step into a room and program it so we can seen almost anything we want
to---
Oh. I thought you said Holodeck.
--
Chris
aa#2186
Black helicopter mind-control-ray door-gunner
=====
"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so
as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry
on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that
sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually
on a battlefield." --George Orwell, 1946, "Under Your Nose"
Michael Howard
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006_1.html
It is widely known (just do a Google search on the subject) that
German solders had the following inscribed on their belt buckles:
Gott mit uns
"God with us."
The Nazi machine was fueled by misdirected nationalism and the strange
theory that the Aryan race was somehow the culmination of history.
-----------------------------------
mike
The Mud and Mayhem Society
Richard S. Crawford
> What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
None, but that won't stop you from claiming that he did.
> T. H. Huxley's?
None, but see the qualifier above.
> Haeckel's?
None, but see the qualifier above.
> Nietzsche's?
Probably very little, though I suppose you could, if you tried, make the
argument that Nietzsche's philosophy let to the sense of superiority
that the Nazis felt and helped rationalize the Holocaust. I think it's
extremely unlikely, given that many Nazis, especially Hitler, considered
themselves Christians, and Nietzsche had no use for Christianity.
Now here's my question to you:
What is the contribution of racism, unreasoning hatred, blind prejudice,
and simple human evil to the coming of the Holocaust? What will the
contributions of that factors be to any future Holocaust? And what will
you do to prevent one?
--
Richard Crawford (http://www.mossroot.com)
AIM: Buffalo2K / Y!: rscrawford
Ask me about my opposable thumb!
"When you lose the power to laugh at yourself, you lose the power to
think straight." --Clarence Darrow
EjP
> What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>
Nothing. The Nazi claim of racial superiority was never based
on the theory of evolution - not Darwin's version, anyway.
Rather it was based on a weird blend of Christianity, Norse
mythology, and the Theosophical ravings of Madame Blavatsky.
While the latter did claim a sort of "evolution", it
was in no way scientific and not related at all to
Darwin's theory.
> T. H. Huxley's?
Nothing.
> Haeckel's?
Nothing.
> Nietzsche's?
>
Nothing. Nietzsche was an atheist. Hitler and the Nazi's were
Christian.
If you're looking for a philosophical basis for the Holocaust,
look to the anti-Semitic rantings of Martin Luther.
-E
Michael R. James
> What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
What is the Wright Brothers' contribution to September 11th?
mike
--
mrj...@swcp.com http://www.swcp.com/~mrjames/
"When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it
in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot express
it in numbers your knowledge is a meagre and unsatisfactory kind"
- Lord Kelvin
Karl Johanson
news:b1c67abe.04063...@posting.google.com...
> What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
As much as your contribution to objective discussion of Darwin.
Kartl Johanson
MurphyInOhio
According to the Evolutionists, almost all of whom are Holocaust Deniers,
Darwin had no contribution. But, in fact, he started it all: Preservation of
Favored Races. His glib call for the "extermination of savage races". Look for
howls of denial, vacuous and phony "FAQs" from the evolutionists, but the truth
is undeniable. Evolution fueled the Holocaust.
Richard S. Crawford
for equating those of us who accept the fact of evolution with Holocaust
denial.
Fortunately, I realized that Murphy has absolutely no interest in the
facts, in debate, or discussion, and only wants to piss people off. He
gets a perverse pleasure in it, demonstrating some sort of sociopathic
behavior. I don't know what to make of it.
Murphy, I recommend at this point that you get some sort of counseling.
Regardless of who you really are -- a 14 year old kid who thinks he's
clever or a 43 year old unemployed grocery bagger -- your behavior
demonstrates some serious emotional dysfunction.
Regardless, Jesus Christ has commanded us to bless and pray for those
who persecute and revile us, and I assume that applies to all, no matter
how powerful or how weak they are. In accordance with our Lord's
wishes, I will pray for you and your healing.
r norman
Calling "almost all" believers in evolution Holocaust deniers is
pushing this far over the limits of acceptability.
The fact is that there was a social movement or philosophy called
"Social Darwinism" , usually associated with Herbert Spencer, which in
various manifestations did motivate a tremendous number of outrageous
excesses in eugenics, social and economic theory including the
justification of capitalism and imperialism, and motivated a wide
variety of racial and religious persecution. Its protagonists were
virtually all conservative, well-to-do- white Christians. This group
is quite distinct from the group that developed evolutionary biology.
In fact, a number of the most prominent leaders of the movement that
lead to the "Modern Synthesis" were politically rather left (to say
the least) and Social Darwinism was especially abhorrent to them.
Every rational person (i.e., everyone except MiO) understands clearly
that "Social Darwinism" was a total perversion of the science of
Evolution and that evolutionary biologists were not particularly
responsible for its development and spread. Naturally, biologists are
people, just like everyone else. There were biologists involved in
aspects of social darwinism, eugenics, and the Nazi party, just as
there were physicists and musicians and carpenters and clerk-typists.
LP
Darwin was not the only one who had theories about how species
evolved. If Darwin had not published his research, then another less
well researched version of the theory may have become popular. The
fact that Darwin was such a meticulous and careful researcher enabled
him to do a comprehensive job moving the theory forward. He did this
without a bunch of extraneous subjective mistakes that some
researchers make (e.g., S.Frued). It is not unreasonable to speculate
that if Darwin had not formulated and published his theories, Hitler
would have used an alternate, but much weaker formulation of the
theory. This would have likely enabled Hitler to more extensively
misrepresent the premise to suit his agenda.
AC
I dunno. What was Catholicism's contribution to the Holocaust? How about
Protestantism?
What a despicable fishing expedition, David. Shame on you.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Richard S. Crawford
Please. Darwin and the theory of natural selection had nothing to do
with the Holocaust. Get this bit of vile misrepresentation out of your
head before it does you more harm.
MurphyInOhio
>would have used an alternate, but much weaker formulation of the
>theory.
Good! Perhaps, a "weaker formulation" would not have spoken of "Favored Races"
and "extermination of savage races".
Mark Isaak
ford) wrote:
Insignificant compared with the contributions of the ICR leadership to
Islamic terrorism.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
Zachriel
"MurphyInOhio" <murphy...@wmconnect.com> wrote in message
news:murphy-20040630175...@mb-m03.wmconnect.com...
You put "extermination of savage races" in quotes. Please provide a
reference for this quote. I can't find it anywhere in Origin of Species, or
in Ascent of Man.
LP
<rscrawf...@mossREMOVEWATERFOWLroot.com> wrote:
>LP wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:33:31 +0000 (UTC), dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david
>> ford) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>>>
>>>T. H. Huxley's?
>>>Haeckel's?
>>>Nietzsche's?
>>
>>
>>
>> Darwin was not the only one who had theories about how species
>> evolved. If Darwin had not published his research, then another less
>> well researched version of the theory may have become popular. The
>> fact that Darwin was such a meticulous and careful researcher enabled
>> him to do a comprehensive job moving the theory forward. He did this
>> without a bunch of extraneous subjective mistakes that some
>> researchers make (e.g., S.Frued). It is not unreasonable to speculate
>> that if Darwin had not formulated and published his theories, Hitler
>> would have used an alternate, but much weaker formulation of the
>> theory. This would have likely enabled Hitler to more extensively
>> misrepresent the premise to suit his agenda.
>
>Please. Darwin and the theory of natural selection had nothing to do
>with the Holocaust. Get this bit of vile misrepresentation out of your
>head before it does you more harm.
My paragraph above was intended to say that Hitler used whatever he
could to justify his beliefs. I believe that, If anything, Darwins
theories presented a problem for Hitler's view of the world. If you
are claiming that Hitler had never heard of Darwin's theories, then I
am curious as to how you think this information was kept from him.
There are those who disagree.
Richard Weikart, Fellow - CSC
Articles by Richard Weikart
Richard Weikart is an Associate Professor of History at California
State University, Stanislaus. He completed his Ph.D. in modern
European history at the University of Iowa in 1994, receiving the
biennial prize of the Forum for History of Human Sciences for the best
dissertation in that field. His revised dissertation, Socialist
Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to
Bernstein, was published in 1999. With an extensive background in
modern German and modern European intellectual history, he has
published articles in journals such as Isis, Journal of the History of
Ideas, German Studies Review, History of European Ideas, European
Legacy, and Fides et Historia. One such article received the Selma V.
Forkosch Prize for the best article in 1993 in the Journal of the
History of Ideas. His book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary
Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, which documents the influence
of naturalistic evolution on ethical thought, euthanasia, militarism,
and racism—and ultimately Hitler's ideology—will appear with Palgrave
Macmillan in the spring of 2004. For more information on this book, go
to: From Darwin to Hitler.
FROM DARWIN TO HITLER:
EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS, EUGENICS, AND RACISM IN GERMANY
by Richard Weikart
From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in
Germany was recently released (2004) with Palgrave Macmillan in New
York, a major publisher of historical scholarship.
Dustjacket blurb:
In this compelling and painstakingly researched work of intellectual
history, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism
had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading
Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that
Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment
ethics, especially those pertaining to the sacredness of human life.
Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously
exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially in terms of intelligence
and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Weikart concludes that
Darwinism played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also
in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all
ultimately embraced by the Nazis. He convincingly makes the disturbing
argument that Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles
rather than nihilistic ones. From Darwin to Hitler is a provocative
yet balanced work that should encourage a rethinking of the historical
impact that Darwinism had on the course of events in the twentieth
century.
Richard S. Crawford
> On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 21:13:06 +0000 (UTC), "Richard S. Crawford"
> <rscrawf...@mossREMOVEWATERFOWLroot.com> wrote:
>=20
>=20
>>LP wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:33:31 +0000 (UTC), dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david
>>>ford) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust=
?
>>>>
>>>>T. H. Huxley's?
>>>>Haeckel's?
>>>>Nietzsche's?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Darwin was not the only one who had theories about how species
>>>evolved. If Darwin had not published his research, then another less
>>>well researched version of the theory may have become popular. The
>>>fact that Darwin was such a meticulous and careful researcher enabled
>>>him to do a comprehensive job moving the theory forward. He did this
>>>without a bunch of extraneous subjective mistakes that some
>>>researchers make (e.g., S.Frued). It is not unreasonable to speculate
>>>that if Darwin had not formulated and published his theories, Hitler
>>>would have used an alternate, but much weaker formulation of the
>>>theory. This would have likely enabled Hitler to more extensively
>>>misrepresent the premise to suit his agenda.
>>
>>Please. Darwin and the theory of natural selection had nothing to do=20
>>with the Holocaust. Get this bit of vile misrepresentation out of your=
=20
>>head before it does you more harm.
>=20
>=20
>=20
> My paragraph above was intended to say that Hitler used whatever he
> could to justify his beliefs. I believe that, If anything, Darwins
> theories presented a problem for Hitler's view of the world. If you
> are claiming that Hitler had never heard of Darwin's theories, then I
> am curious as to how you think this information was kept from him.
Perhaps I've just seen too many "Darwinism and evolutionism caused the=20
Holocaust and Hitler was an atheist evolutionist just like YOU!" morons=20
on this forum lately.
>=20
> There are those who disagree.
>=20
> Richard Weikart, Fellow - CSC
> Articles by Richard Weikart
>=20
> Richard Weikart is an Associate Professor of History at California
> State University, Stanislaus. He completed his Ph.D. in modern
> European history at the University of Iowa in 1994, receiving the
> biennial prize of the Forum for History of Human Sciences for the best
> dissertation in that field. His revised dissertation, Socialist
> Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to
> Bernstein, was published in 1999. With an extensive background in
> modern German and modern European intellectual history, he has
> published articles in journals such as Isis, Journal of the History of
> Ideas, German Studies Review, History of European Ideas, European
> Legacy, and Fides et Historia. One such article received the Selma V.
> Forkosch Prize for the best article in 1993 in the Journal of the
> History of Ideas. His book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary
> Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, which documents the influence
> of naturalistic evolution on ethical thought, euthanasia, militarism,
> and racism=97and ultimately Hitler's ideology=97will appear with Palgra=
ve
> Macmillan in the spring of 2004. For more information on this book, go
> to: From Darwin to Hitler.=20
>=20
> FROM DARWIN TO HITLER:
> EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS, EUGENICS, AND RACISM IN GERMANY
> by Richard Weikart
>=20
> From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in
> Germany was recently released (2004) with Palgrave Macmillan in New
> York, a major publisher of historical scholarship.
>=20
> Dustjacket blurb:=20
>=20
> In this compelling and painstakingly researched work of intellectual
> history, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism
> had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading
> Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that
> Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment
> ethics, especially those pertaining to the sacredness of human life.
> Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously
> exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially in terms of intelligence
> and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Weikart concludes that
> Darwinism played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also
> in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all
> ultimately embraced by the Nazis. He convincingly makes the disturbing
> argument that Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles
> rather than nihilistic ones. From Darwin to Hitler is a provocative
> yet balanced work that should encourage a rethinking of the historical
> impact that Darwinism had on the course of events in the twentieth
> century.
>=20
>=20
--=20
Richard Crawford (http://www.mossroot.com)
AIM: Buffalo2K / Y!: rscrawford
Ask me about my opposable thumb!
"When you lose the power to laugh at yourself, you lose the power to=20
think straight." --Clarence Darrow
Chris Krolczyk
Congratulations, David. You've just succeeded in posting something
that forces me to reclassify you from being merely irritating to
a all-out troll. Murph and the rest of the other idiots should
be proud.
-Chris Krolczyk
Orac
LP <whirl...@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote:
> Darwin was not the only one who had theories about how species
> evolved. If Darwin had not published his research, then another less
> well researched version of the theory may have become popular. The
> fact that Darwin was such a meticulous and careful researcher enabled
> him to do a comprehensive job moving the theory forward. He did this
> without a bunch of extraneous subjective mistakes that some
> researchers make (e.g., S.Frued). It is not unreasonable to speculate
> that if Darwin had not formulated and published his theories, Hitler
> would have used an alternate, but much weaker formulation of the
> theory. This would have likely enabled Hitler to more extensively
> misrepresent the premise to suit his agenda.
I don't know if it's reasonable, but certainly Darwin's ideas were used
by various political persuasions for different ends. Socialists tended
to stress the fact of evolution; whereas conservatives tended to stress
the mechanism of evolution (natural selection, the struggle to survive
and reproduce).
"Social Darwinism" and eugenics were popular in the early 1900's, and
not just in Germany, but in much of Europe and in the U.S. as well.
Indeed, in Germany Social Darwinism and eugenics coalesced into a
"science" that was considered respectable quite respectable many years
before WWII, with multiple scientific journals devoted to it and a major
scientific society devoted to its study. This "science" was called
racial hygiene. It developing mainly from the ideas of Alfred Ploetz
published in 1895. As an extension to the work of Charles Darwin Ploetz
proposed the technocratical selection of intelligent and solidary people
to reach a better and more just world. He suggested what he considered
to be a more "humane" form of natural selection; i.e., that a panel of
doctors should decide if a new-born child would live or die (by a small
dose of morphine; healthy parents would have another child without
problems), believing that the emphasis on medical treatment of the
individual often allowed the "unfit" to survive and propagate. In other
words, what was healthy for the individual could be unhealthy for the
race, and it was the race he was concerned with. In 1904, Ploetz founded
the Journal of Racial and Social Biology, and in 1905 he founded a
society for racial hygiene in Berlin. It had 350 members (mostly
professors) until the First World War.
Ploetz's ideas were eagerly adopted by the Nazis and grafted onto their
anti-Semitism. Racial hygiene was used as one of the justifications for
the race laws, persecution of Jews, involuntary sterilization of Jews,
and later the extermination of Jews. If you believed, as the Nazis did,
that Jews were subhuman, then, logically, to protect the race their
reproduction had to be limited as much as possible and at all costs they
must not be allowed to interbreed with "true" Germans.
--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"
Orac
"Richard S. Crawford" <rscrawf...@mossREMOVEWATERFOWLroot.com>
wrote:
> Please. Darwin and the theory of natural selection had nothing to do
> with the Holocaust. Get this bit of vile misrepresentation out of your
> head before it does you more harm.
Darwin's THEORY itself had nothing to do with the Holocaust. However,
the IDEOLOGICAL MANIPULATION of his theory and its perversion had a lot
to do with the Holocaust.
--
Orac
wrote:
> david ford wrote:
> > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
> >
>
> Nothing.
Not exactly.
>The Nazi claim of racial superiority was never based
> on the theory of evolution - not Darwin's version, anyway.
True, but Darwin's name was used widely, and in Nazi Germany a
perversion of his theory was applied to society at large. But it didn't
start with the Nazis by any means. In 1895, Alfred Ploetz based his
concept of "racial hygeine" (in essence social Darwinism and eugenics)
on Darwin, a concept in which the "harshness" of evolution by natural
selection would be replaced by man taking over his own evolution by
deciding which babies should live and die shortly after their birth,
with babies thought not to be fit enough euthanized. The overall concept
is that evolution through natural selection would come to be replaced by
humans "rationally" guiding their own evolution.
> Rather it was based on a weird blend of Christianity, Norse
> mythology, and the Theosophical ravings of Madame Blavatsky.
> While the latter did claim a sort of "evolution", it
> was in no way scientific and not related at all to
> Darwin's theory.
Agreed, the Nazi concept of evolution was not scientific and it was a
perversion of Darwin's concepts. However, it was still very cunningly
wrapped in scientific and pseudoscientific justification. I suggest that
it is doubtful that, without the concepts Darwin produced (natural
selection), that the Nazis would have been able to come up with such
seemingly compelling justifications for the concept of "protecting" the
German race from being contaminated with "inferior genes" and the
concept that races, just like individuals, also go through a Darwinian
struggle to out-compete and out-reproduce their competitors.
Orac
AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:33:31 +0000 (UTC),
> david ford <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
> > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
> >
> > T. H. Huxley's?
> > Haeckel's?
> > Nietzsche's?
>
> I dunno. What was Catholicism's contribution to the Holocaust? How about
> Protestantism?
>
> What a despicable fishing expedition, David. Shame on you.
Perhaps I took him too seriously. However, if you interpret his question
a little differently, as I did, then it's hard not to admit that misuse
of Darwin's concepts did contribute to the philosophy of racial struggle
that ultimately led to the Holocaust. However, the way he phrased the
question does seem to imply that the Holocaust was a natural extension
of Darwin's ideas, which is clearly ridiculous. I don't know if he's a
troll or not, but, taken neutrally, asking whether Darwin's concepts
contributed to the Holocaust is not an unreasonable question. For a
thorough discussion of how Darwinism was distorted and perverted into
Racial Hygiene and then how Racial Hygiene was enthusiastically embraced
by the Nazis as part of their justification for their racial policies,
the T4 Euthanasia Program, and later the Holocaust, I highly recommend
"Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis" by Robert N. Proctor.
Orac
Orac <or...@mac.com> wrote:
And just to add one thing I forgot (having thought of it right after
hitting the "Post" button). The theory of evolution by natural selection
does NOT necessarily lead atrocities like those committed by the Nazis.
Any scientific theory can be misused, not just Darwin's, and boy did the
Nazis misuse Darwinism, mixing it in as a major ingredient of their
toxic brew of racial superiority, mysticism, and sense of entitlement to
Lebensraum ("breathing space") to the East. It is the use, misuse, and
perversion of Darwin's ideas by fanatics like the Nazis that led to
James Stein
> >What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>
> According to the Evolutionists, almost all of whom are Holocaust Deniers,
I lost quite a lot of my family tree to the holocaust and you, sir, are
quite fortunate not to be within an arm's length of me, or your family tree
would be undergoing some immediate pruning.
MurphyInOhio
>reference for this
Go back and reread Descent. Look for key phrase: at some future period
MurphyInOhio
>that forces me to reclassify you from being merely irritating to
>a all-out troll.
Translation: Chris is gnashing his teeth in rage that the incestuous link
between the Holocaust and Evolution is once again exposed. The reason I
categorize so many of the evolutionists as: Holocaust Deniers.
John Wilkins
> In article <cbupjl$qnj$1...@info4.fnal.gov>, EjP <nos...@hackers.are.bad>
> wrote:
>
> > david ford wrote:
> > > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
> > >
> >
> > Nothing.
>
> Not exactly.
>
>
> >The Nazi claim of racial superiority was never based
> > on the theory of evolution - not Darwin's version, anyway.
>
> True, but Darwin's name was used widely, and in Nazi Germany a
> perversion of his theory was applied to society at large. But it didn't
> start with the Nazis by any means. In 1895, Alfred Ploetz based his
> concept of "racial hygeine" (in essence social Darwinism and eugenics)
> on Darwin, a concept in which the "harshness" of evolution by natural
> selection would be replaced by man taking over his own evolution by
> deciding which babies should live and die shortly after their birth,
> with babies thought not to be fit enough euthanized. The overall concept
> is that evolution through natural selection would come to be replaced by
> humans "rationally" guiding their own evolution.
in effect, then, Orac, you just described Ploetz going exactly
*contrary* to Darwinian evolutionary theory. For if we overtake NS, then
we are saying it will not do the job. This is a common problem with
claims like this - merely *mentioning* evolution is not enough; you have
to show that evolutionary theory was the *foundation* for the racism.
Similar points apply to Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Hans Günther. What
they "relied" upon for their ideas was a racialist anthropology that had
almost nothing to do with evolution as Darwin proposed it, and which
went back to Blumenbach in 1800.
>
>
> > Rather it was based on a weird blend of Christianity, Norse
> > mythology, and the Theosophical ravings of Madame Blavatsky.
> > While the latter did claim a sort of "evolution", it
> > was in no way scientific and not related at all to
> > Darwin's theory.
>
> Agreed, the Nazi concept of evolution was not scientific and it was a
> perversion of Darwin's concepts. However, it was still very cunningly
> wrapped in scientific and pseudoscientific justification. I suggest that
> it is doubtful that, without the concepts Darwin produced (natural
> selection), that the Nazis would have been able to come up with such
> seemingly compelling justifications for the concept of "protecting" the
> German race from being contaminated with "inferior genes" and the
> concept that races, just like individuals, also go through a Darwinian
> struggle to out-compete and out-reproduce their competitors.
I disagree. All they needed was the basic xenophobia of Christian
Teutonic Europe, the hereditarian ideas of the aristocracy and even
classical eugenics as far back as you care to look, the rise of
*genetics* not evolution, and the implicit scala naturae in
pre-Darwinian evolution. And both genetics and the scala were optional
extras, pulled in to give it cachet.
Nazis used anything to support their ideas - Christianity, anthropology,
astrology, mythology, opera, and of course Nietzsche (who felt that
evolution was too important to leave to nature as Darwin suggested it
had been). None of them are the *basis* of Nazism, for it lies in social
and psychological exigencies and history. And none of them are entirely
to blame for it, either. If you want my opinion, the Vienna School of
Art probably has more to do with it.
--
Dr John Wilkins
john...@wilkins.id.au http://wilkins.id.au
"Men mark it when they hit, but do not mark it when they miss"
- Francis Bacon
Steven J.
"Zachriel"
<"http://www.zachriel.com/mutagenation/"@serv3.gc.dca.giganews.com> wrote in
message news:OtKdnVwPkvK...@adelphia.com...
Affinities and Geneology of Man," in the section "On the Birthplace and
Antiquity of Man."
"The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies,
which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or extant species, has often
been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from
some lower form; but ... breaks depend upon the number of related forms
which have become extinct. 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 ... 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 civilised state, as we may hope, even now
than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now
between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
The passage contains a number of casual assumptions which are embarrassing
today, not merely the assumption that, e.g. white Europeans are more evolved
than Australian aborigines, but also (and closely connected) the confusion
of cultural and genetic traits. But then, Darwin had no clear concept of
how heredity worked, no concept of "genes" to distinguish from "culture."
Note, though, that Darwin is describing, not advocating. Note, for that
matter, that quite a few modern creationists tend to associate literacy
inextricably with humanity, as though no literature before 6000 years ago
was evidence for no humanity before then. Hank Hanegraaf, between
complaints about Darwin's racism, asserts that the difference between an ape
and a human who can read and write is "the distance of infinity," leaving
one to wonder about the status of illiterate tribes and their people. That
Darwin should be guilty of the same confusion is not, I would think, utterly
unforgivable.
Note also the actual point he is arguing. His theory implied that there had
been, at least at one time, intermediates between humans and other African
apes like chimps and gorillas, but he could point to no examples of such
intermediates. Without the examples of _Australopithecus_ and early _Homo_
to point to as filling in the "great break in the organic chain," Darwin
could only hazard an explanation for why such intermediates did not exist in
his own day. It is not quite true that humans with higher technology always
wipe out and displace those with lower. The tribes with lower technology
may learn to copy the technology, and either become civilized themselves, or
be assimilated by the former group. But this is not a very plausible option
where one group is a separate species, with much lower average intelligence.
In that case, competition for the same niche is sadly likely to result in
the displacement and extinction of the lower-tech species.
To reiterate: Darwin's point is not that we *ought* to "exterminate savage
races" -- or nonhuman primates, for that matter. It is not even that we
*will* do so, even though we ought not. It is that humans have been
repeatedly noted to behave in this way, were still behaving in this way in
Darwin's day, and therefore it should not shock us to suppose that our
ancestors behaved the same way to the intermediates between humans and other
primates.
Note, one more time, that evolutionary theory has no inerrant scripture
except nature itself. Darwin is a commentator on that text, not its author
or its prophet. His assumptions about heredity, civilized and savage races,
and so forth (which reflect, generally in mitigated form, the common thought
of his day, including the thought of creationists) are *not* intrinsic parts
of evolutionary theory.
>
>
-- Steven J.
Steven J.
>
phrases that are far too similar to those in Darwin or his popularizers to
be dismissed as coincidence (although those who reject common descent as an
explanation for shared pseudogenes really ought, consistently, to dismiss
*any* influence of Darwin's writings on the Nazis). The Nazis were
apparently trying to justify their racial policies using Darwinian jargon,
but they didn't seem to get the whole point of Darwin's theory.
Central to Darwin's theory is the idea of variation within breeding groups,
and the lack of "essential" traits separating one group from another. The
rigid distinctions which Nazi "racial science" made between races is
thoroughly antiDarwinian -- Darwin noted, explicitly, that there was no
trait possessed by all members of one "race" and no members of another.
And, of course, the entire notion of eugenics -- *artificial,*
*centrally-planned* selection, is a very different matter (ask any skeptic
of natural selection) from the natural selection championed by Darwin. As
John Wilkins notes, a eugenicist is someone who doesn't think natural
selection is doing its job.
>
> T. H. Huxley's?
>
Nil, as far as I can tell.
>
> Haeckel's?
>
Ditto. I don't think it was any part of Nazi dogma that, e.g. Jews were
modern instances of an earlier stage of "Aryan" evolution. Haeckel seems to
have had common German gentile attitudes towards Jews, but Nazi "racial
science" seems to owe more to dog breeding than to anyone's ideas about
common descent.
>
> Nietzsche's?
>
Again, catch phrases rather than actual policies or theories.
>
-- Steven J.
Ronald Dean
"EjP" <nos...@hackers.are.bad> wrote in message
news:cbupjl$qnj$1...@info4.fnal.gov...
> david ford wrote:
> > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
> >
>
> on the theory of evolution - not Darwin's version, anyway.
> mythology, and the Theosophical ravings of Madame Blavatsky.
> While the latter did claim a sort of "evolution", it
> was in no way scientific and not related at all to
> Darwin's theory.
>
>
>
> Nothing.
>
> > Haeckel's?
>
> Nothing.
>
> > Nietzsche's?
> >
>
> Nothing. Nietzsche was an atheist. Hitler and the Nazi's were
> Christian.
>
> If you're looking for a philosophical basis for the Holocaust,
> look to the anti-Semitic rantings of Martin Luther.
>
The Holocaust was based upon genetics, _not_ racism. Not only
were Jews victims of this madness, but also Slavic, Gypsies, Black
as well as people with heritable genetic diseases and defects both
mental and physical maladies. So again it was genetics, not racism.
>
> -E
>
Hiero5ant
"Ronald Dean" <ro...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:WLLEc.2690$PZ2....@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
> The Holocaust was based upon genetics, _not_ racism.
I would nominate this for a chez watt, if it weren't so goddamned sad.
Smeg, I'm depressed. Can someone else do it for me?
I mean, I once believed that humanity was a shining beacon of.... oh,
mercy, I just want to be alone now.
Steven J.
"Ronald Dean" <ro...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:WLLEc.2690$PZ2....@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
>
> news:cbupjl$qnj$1...@info4.fnal.gov...
>
>
> > If you're looking for a philosophical basis for the Holocaust,
> > look to the anti-Semitic rantings of Martin Luther.
> >
> The Holocaust was based upon genetics, _not_ racism. Not only
> were Jews victims of this madness, but also Slavic, Gypsies, Black
> as well as people with heritable genetic diseases and defects both
> mental and physical maladies. So again it was genetics, not racism.
>
is not a genetic trait, but (like any language or language group) a cultural
one. Jews and gypsies were cultural groups; given the tendency to seek
spouses within the group, certain genes were presumably commoner within
these groups than outside them, but neither "Jew" nor "Gypsy" is a
genetically identifiable trait like, say, "sickle-cell trait" or "Tay-Sachs
disease." A common feature of racism, in fact, is the treatment of "fuzzy"
cultural identities as though they were straightforward, single identifiable
alleles.
>
> > -E
> >
>
-- Steven J.
Ronald Dean
"John" <ju...@junk.com> wrote in message
news:cbvhds$1hme$1...@otis.netspace.net.au...
> >
> > Haeckel's?
> > Nietzsche's?
> >
>
dogma.
> Remind you of anything?
>
This hateful dogma was carrying the science of genetics to it's logical
but inhumane extreme. The Nazis wished to rid the human gene pool
of all heritable genetic diseases and defects. The Nazis wrongly
murdered Jews, Gypses, Slavics and others based upon a
misintrepetation of the science of genetics. They also killed people
with mental and physical defects in order to rid the human gene
pool of perceived heritable diseases.
Ron
>
>
Ronald Dean
"Orac" <or...@mac.com> wrote in message
news:orac-90E2CC.2...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...I once read that Hitler's book entitled *Mine Kamph* is translated
to mean *My Struggle*. Is this true: and what is the significance of
the title? How did Hitler derive this title?
Ron
Gary Bohn
news:y0MEc.25173$Xn.2...@nwrdny03.gnilink.net:
I'm sorry to hear of your pain. Sure I'll help out. So nominated.
--
apatriot #23, aa #1779, Grand Pubba, EAC Department of Oxygen
Deprivation Gary Bohn
Conservatism is not about tradition and morality, hasn't been for many
decades...It is about the putative biological and spiritual superiority
of the wealthy. Greg Bear
Gary Bohn
news:murphy-20040630163...@mb-m03.wmconnect.com:
>>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>
> According to the Evolutionists, almost all of whom are Holocaust
> Deniers, Darwin had no contribution. But, in fact, he started it all:
> Preservation of Favored Races. His glib call for the "extermination of
> savage races". Look for howls of denial, vacuous and phony "FAQs" from
> the evolutionists, but the truth is undeniable. Evolution fueled the
> Holocaust.
>
>
What kind of moronic, braindead, bullshit infested, inbred dipshit are
you? I had some respect for your intellegence before this crap, but
now.. you're just not worth it.
PLONK!
Ronald Dean
"James Stein" <NoSpamFo...@si.rr.com> wrote in message
news:arKEc.10105$oW6.1...@twister.nyc.rr.com...
in the 2nd World War, but I don't blame anyone, but the Nazis.
Ron
>
>
Ronald Dean
of the Holocaust. If the Nazis misused Darwin's work to justify their crimes
against mankind it is no fault of Darwin's.
Ron
Mitchell Coffey
ford) wrote:
>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
If anything he reduced it's likelihood, by writing that, based on the
science of his day, the human races were a single species and were
more similar than commonly thought at the time. He furthermore called
the whole concept of human races into question, concluding that there
were no satisfactory and consistent way to define and demark the
races, that they overlap considerably, were widely intermixed and were
more similar physically and mentally than was then generally imagined.
Regarding Jews specifically, he lent his name to efforts to combat
their persecution, and argued that "Europeans differ but little from
Jews," which sounds quaint now, but was radical when he wrote it in
1871, and would have gotten him a swift ride to a one-way camp in Nazi
Germany.
More generally, Darwin argued that to take measures against people, or
to deny them help, because of undesirable traits they might supposedly
pass down, was immoral.
>T. H. Huxley's?
None that I know of. How could there possibly be any?
>Haeckel's?
If you know of any reference to him by any leading Nazi, I'd be
interested to know. Otherwise, all I've seen is circuitous,
connect-the-dots-type reasoning. Whatever influence he had on the
Nazis and the Holocaust was distant and many steps removed. He was
the only one of the three to sponsor a movement, but one which had
petered out well before the Nazis. His religious views limited his
ability to inspire or impress German antisemites, who were
overwhelmingly Christian.
>Nietzsche's?
By opposing antisemitism his effect, if any, was positive. As with
Haeckel, since the Nazis were for the most part theists, and almost
all German antisemites were Christians, his views on religion in
general, and Christianity in particular, limited his influence them.
Regarding all four men, the bottom line is that none of them were
mentioned much by any prominent Nazis, if at all. None, for instance,
gets a nod in Mein Kampf, a 700 page book wherein Hitler took time to
praise more than a few of his favorite things. Martin Luther, Henry
Ford, numerous princes and polemicists, are all applauded, but there
is not a whisper about your Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, or Nietzsche.
In fact, Hitler doesn't appear to have referred to Darwin anywhere,
ever. Hitler and the Nazis seldom evoked Darwinist theories or
Darwinist metaphors. By far the Nazis' favorite metaphors when
talking race evoked germ theory and contagion; yet Creationists fancy
Pasteur as their own, so this truth lives beneath the rug.
When Nazis did deal with Darwinism it usually was to oppose; common
descent has always been discomforting to racists. Going by Hitler's
words, on evolution in general he propounded Intelligent Design; on
human evolution he was a Creationist.
Hitler and the Nazis also spoke little about Haeckel and Nietzsche.
This is particularly interesting in the case of Nietzche, who sits as
Second Devil after Darwin among Christian Fundamentalists panicked to
explain how exterminationist antisemitism could possibly have sprung
up in a nation overwhelmingly Christian, whose two great Christian
churches - Catholic and Lutheran - had for most of many centuries
preached Jew-hatred, even from the pulpit, as official policy or near.
Of course, Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel and Nietzsche could logically have
had some deleterious moral influence on the German people, independent
of Hitler and Nazis. Whatever this hypothetical effect was, it could,
hypothetically, have made the Holocaust more likely. One could
explore that road, and I shall if you wish, but it is so obviously a
detour. There is an elephant in this room, for sure, but it's not an
inquisitive country Englishman with a microscope and a pen and bad
digestion.
Mitchell Coffey
_________________________________________________________
"Although the existing races of man differ in many respects, as in
colour, hair, shape of skull, proportions of the body, &c., yet if
their whole structure be taken into consideration they are found to
resemble each other closely in a multitude of points. Many of these
are of so unimportant or of so singular a nature, that it is extremely
improbable that they should have been independently acquired by
aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark holds good
with equal or greater force with respect to the numerous points of
mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. The
American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans are as different from
each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was
incessantly struck, whilst living with the Feugians on board the
Beagle, with the many little traits of character, shewing how similar
their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with
whom I happened once to be intimate."
- C. Darwin, Descent of Man, chpt 1, 1871.
Glenn
"Steven J." <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote in message
news:10e738l...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> "Ronald Dean" <ro...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:WLLEc.2690$PZ2....@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
> >
> > "EjP" <nos...@hackers.are.bad> wrote in message
> > news:cbupjl$qnj$1...@info4.fnal.gov...
> >
> -- [snip]
> >
> > > If you're looking for a philosophical basis for the Holocaust,
> > > look to the anti-Semitic rantings of Martin Luther.
> > >
> > The Holocaust was based upon genetics, _not_ racism. Not only
> > were Jews victims of this madness, but also Slavic, Gypsies, Black
> > as well as people with heritable genetic diseases and defects both
> > mental and physical maladies. So again it was genetics, not racism.
> >
> It was based, then, on a very strange understanding of genetics.
You got it.
http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/index.php
Ronald Dean
"Steven J." <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote in message
>
> "david ford" <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message
> news:b1c67abe.04063...@posting.google.com...
> > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
> >
> Catch phrases. Certainly, reading various Nazi writings, one comes across
> phrases that are far too similar to those in Darwin or his popularizers to
> be dismissed as coincidence (although those who reject common descent as
an
> explanation for shared pseudogenes really ought, consistently, to dismiss
> *any* influence of Darwin's writings on the Nazis). The Nazis were
> apparently trying to justify their racial policies using Darwinian jargon,
> but they didn't seem to get the whole point of Darwin's theory.
>
>
> Central to Darwin's theory is the idea of variation within breeding
groups,
> and the lack of "essential" traits separating one group from another. The
> rigid distinctions which Nazi "racial science" made between races is
> thoroughly antiDarwinian -- Darwin noted, explicitly, that there was no
> trait possessed by all members of one "race" and no members of another.
> And, of course, the entire notion of eugenics -- *artificial,*
> *centrally-planned* selection, is a very different matter (ask any skeptic
> of natural selection) from the natural selection championed by Darwin. As
> John Wilkins notes, a eugenicist is someone who doesn't think natural
> selection is doing its job.
>
artificial selection because natural selection was too slow too rambling
and inefficient. Artificial selection was controlled and goal oriented.
Ron
Mitchell Coffey
>In article <cbupjl$qnj$1...@info4.fnal.gov>, EjP <nos...@hackers.are.bad>
>wrote:
>
>> david ford wrote:
>> > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>> >
>>
>> Nothing.
>
>Not exactly.
>
>
>>The Nazi claim of racial superiority was never based
>> on the theory of evolution - not Darwin's version, anyway.
>
>True, but Darwin's name was used widely, and in Nazi Germany a
>perversion of his theory was applied to society at large.
Could you tell me where Darwin's name was used widely by the Nazis?
> But it didn't
>start with the Nazis by any means. In 1895, Alfred Ploetz based his
>concept of "racial hygeine" (in essence social Darwinism and eugenics)
>on Darwin, a concept in which the "harshness" of evolution by natural
>selection would be replaced by man taking over his own evolution by
>deciding which babies should live and die shortly after their birth,
>with babies thought not to be fit enough euthanized. The overall concept
>is that evolution through natural selection would come to be replaced by
>humans "rationally" guiding their own evolution.
>
>
>> Rather it was based on a weird blend of Christianity, Norse
>> mythology, and the Theosophical ravings of Madame Blavatsky.
>> While the latter did claim a sort of "evolution", it
>> was in no way scientific and not related at all to
>> Darwin's theory.
>
>Agreed, the Nazi concept of evolution was not scientific and it was a
>perversion of Darwin's concepts.
What was the Nazi concept of evolution? I mean, in their words.
> However, it was still very cunningly
>wrapped in scientific and pseudoscientific justification. I suggest that
>it is doubtful that, without the concepts Darwin produced (natural
>selection), that the Nazis would have been able to come up with such
>seemingly compelling justifications for the concept of "protecting" the
>German race from being contaminated with "inferior genes" and the
>concept that races, just like individuals, also go through a Darwinian
>struggle to out-compete and out-reproduce their competitors.
Except you seldom read of Nazis actually using this sort of rhetoric
to defend their racial policies. I have my doubts whether you've
found Nazis using the term "inferior genes." More likely than not,
Nazis evoked medical metaphors, comparing Jews and inferior races to
germs and contagion. The policies for dealing with germ and contagion
are straight forward: quarantine and extermination.
Like everyone else making this sort of argument you have first
discussed people putatively influenced by Darwin - but people active
in the late 19th century and the first ten of the 20th. From there
the facts stop and a leap is made: whatever influence Darwin was
suppose to have had on certain people active at the
turn-of-the-century is without explanation is transfers to Nazi active
30 or 40 years later. I see no reason to buy this.
Mitchell Coffey
John Wilkins
> "Steven J." <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote in message
> news:10e71r0...@corp.supernews.com...
> >
> > "david ford" <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message
> > news:b1c67abe.04063...@posting.google.com...
> > > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
> > >
> > Catch phrases. Certainly, reading various Nazi writings, one comes across
> > phrases that are far too similar to those in Darwin or his popularizers to
> > be dismissed as coincidence (although those who reject common descent as
> an
> > explanation for shared pseudogenes really ought, consistently, to dismiss
> > *any* influence of Darwin's writings on the Nazis). The Nazis were
> > apparently trying to justify their racial policies using Darwinian jargon,
> > but they didn't seem to get the whole point of Darwin's theory.
> >
> When was Evolution introduced into German Universes?
They have special German-only universes? I though only the French lived
in their own little worlds...
German universities (he continued, not even shrugging) would have been
aware of transmutational ideas from Goethe and Oken, although the
temporal element was downplayed by them, early in the 19thC. They would
have understood that the idea of species transmutation derived from
older ideas, such as Bonnet's and Buffon's, and that Erasmus Darwin and
Lamarck both published these ideas.
In the period prior to the Origin, Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte,
Napoleon's nephew, and a regarded ornithologist, argued in favour of
transmutation in 1851. Franz Unger (no relation to Felix), an Austrian
botanist, argued for it in 1852. A year later, Hermann Schaffenhausen
allowed in rebuttal that "[t]he immutability of species ... is not
proven".
> >
> > Central to Darwin's theory is the idea of variation within breeding
> groups,
> > and the lack of "essential" traits separating one group from another. The
> > rigid distinctions which Nazi "racial science" made between races is
> > thoroughly antiDarwinian -- Darwin noted, explicitly, that there was no
> > trait possessed by all members of one "race" and no members of another.
> > And, of course, the entire notion of eugenics -- *artificial,*
> > *centrally-planned* selection, is a very different matter (ask any skeptic
> > of natural selection) from the natural selection championed by Darwin. As
> > John Wilkins notes, a eugenicist is someone who doesn't think natural
> > selection is doing its job.
> >
> This is true. Eugenicist attempted to replace *natural selection* with
> artificial selection because natural selection was too slow too rambling
> and inefficient.
And went in the "wrong" directions...
> Artificial selection was controlled and goal oriented.
>
>
> Ron
> > >
> > > T. H. Huxley's?
> > >
> > Nil, as far as I can tell.
> > >
> > > Haeckel's?
> > >
> > Ditto. I don't think it was any part of Nazi dogma that, e.g. Jews were
> > modern instances of an earlier stage of "Aryan" evolution. Haeckel seems
> to
> > have had common German gentile attitudes towards Jews, but Nazi "racial
> > science" seems to owe more to dog breeding than to anyone's ideas about
> > common descent.
> > >
> > > Nietzsche's?
> > >
> > Again, catch phrases rather than actual policies or theories.
> > >
> > -- Steven J.
> >
> >
Mitchell Coffey
Ok, where does he blame Murphy for killing his family?
Mitchell Coffey
_________________________________________
Ray Charles was *my* Commander-in-Chief
Steven J.
>
> "Orac" <or...@mac.com> wrote in message
> news:orac-90E2CC.2...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> > In article <0596e016b5ps0o79k...@4ax.com>,
> > LP <whirl...@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> I once read that Hitler's book entitled *Mine Kamph* is translated
> to mean *My Struggle*. Is this true: and what is the significance of
> the title? How did Hitler derive this title?
>
Stupidity, and Cowardice." His publisher shortened it, thereby vastly
simplifying the task of mentioning it in Usenet posts. His struggle, of
course, from the end of World War I to his brief imprisonment for treason in
1923, was to build up a party that would remake Germany in the image Hitler
wanted it to hold, against various rivals for power in the party and various
other proponents of combinations of nationalism, militarism, socialism, and
racism -- in short, it was a political struggle rather than a national,
biological, racial, or class struggle. Part of that struggle was to unify
the party and Germany behind Hitler's particular racial views, but the
"Kampf" in the title does not refer to the Darwinian "struggle for
existence."
>
> Ron
>
-- Steven J.
Mitchell Coffey
<whirl...@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 21:13:06 +0000 (UTC), "Richard S. Crawford"
><rscrawf...@mossREMOVEWATERFOWLroot.com> wrote:
>
>>LP wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:33:31 +0000 (UTC), dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david
>>> ford) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>>>>
>>>>T. H. Huxley's?
>>>>Haeckel's?
>>>>Nietzsche's?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Darwin was not the only one who had theories about how species
>>> evolved. If Darwin had not published his research, then another less
>>> well researched version of the theory may have become popular. The
>>> fact that Darwin was such a meticulous and careful researcher enabled
>>> him to do a comprehensive job moving the theory forward. He did this
>>> without a bunch of extraneous subjective mistakes that some
>>> researchers make (e.g., S.Frued). It is not unreasonable to speculate
>>> that if Darwin had not formulated and published his theories, Hitler
>>> would have used an alternate, but much weaker formulation of the
>>> theory. This would have likely enabled Hitler to more extensively
>>> misrepresent the premise to suit his agenda.
>>
>>Please. Darwin and the theory of natural selection had nothing to do
>>with the Holocaust. Get this bit of vile misrepresentation out of your
>>head before it does you more harm.
>
>
>My paragraph above was intended to say that Hitler used whatever he
>could to justify his beliefs. I believe that, If anything, Darwins
>theories presented a problem for Hitler's view of the world. If you
>are claiming that Hitler had never heard of Darwin's theories, then I
>am curious as to how you think this information was kept from him.
The issue is not whether he had heard of those theories, it's if and
in what why he was influenced by them. If you have any facts at your
command, please command them forth.
>There are those who disagree.
>
>Richard Weikart, Fellow - CSC
>Articles by Richard Weikart
>
>Richard Weikart is an Associate Professor of History at California
>State University, Stanislaus. He completed his Ph.D. in modern
>European history at the University of Iowa in 1994, receiving the
>biennial prize of the Forum for History of Human Sciences for the best
>dissertation in that field. His revised dissertation, Socialist
>Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to
>Bernstein, was published in 1999. With an extensive background in
>modern German and modern European intellectual history, he has
>published articles in journals such as Isis, Journal of the History of
>Ideas, German Studies Review, History of European Ideas, European
>Legacy, and Fides et Historia. One such article received the Selma V.
>Forkosch Prize for the best article in 1993 in the Journal of the
>History of Ideas. His book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary
>Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, which documents the influence
>of naturalistic evolution on ethical thought, euthanasia, militarism,
>and racism—and ultimately Hitler's ideology—will appear with Palgrave
>Macmillan in the spring of 2004. For more information on this book, go
>to: From Darwin to Hitler.
>
>FROM DARWIN TO HITLER:
>EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS, EUGENICS, AND RACISM IN GERMANY
>by Richard Weikart
>
> From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in
>Germany was recently released (2004) with Palgrave Macmillan in New
>York, a major publisher of historical scholarship.
>
>Dustjacket blurb:
>
>In this compelling and painstakingly researched work of intellectual
>history, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism
>had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading
>Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that
>Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment
>ethics, especially those pertaining to the sacredness of human life.
>Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously
>exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially in terms of intelligence
>and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Weikart concludes that
>Darwinism played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also
>in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all
>ultimately embraced by the Nazis. He convincingly makes the disturbing
>argument that Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles
>rather than nihilistic ones. From Darwin to Hitler is a provocative
>yet balanced work that should encourage a rethinking of the historical
>impact that Darwinism had on the course of events in the twentieth
>century.
>
In previous writings Weikart made obvious errors and demonstrated that
he didn't understand some basic issues in evolutionary theory and
interpreted economic liberalism as social darwinism. Now he's been
paid by the Discovery Institute to write a slash attack on Darwin.
Meanwhile, you're responsible for your own statements of fact. If all
you can cite in your defense is the dust jacket blurb of an
unpublished polemic, you really don't have anything.
Mitchell Coffey
>In article <cbvaj0$gg0$1...@woodrow.ucdavis.edu>,
> "Richard S. Crawford" <rscrawf...@mossREMOVEWATERFOWLroot.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> Please. Darwin and the theory of natural selection had nothing to do
>> with the Holocaust. Get this bit of vile misrepresentation out of your
>> head before it does you more harm.
>
>Darwin's THEORY itself had nothing to do with the Holocaust. However,
>the IDEOLOGICAL MANIPULATION of his theory and its perversion had a lot
>to do with the Holocaust.
If it did then you should be able to cite some of this ideological
manipulation.
Mitchell Coffey
Note to everyonel: he's lying about this quote, as well as the
"Favored Races" bit. Context is all.
Mitchell Coffey
The important point here is that a day or two ago Murphy and Ford were
praising a Creationist cite that they knew also advocated Holocaust
denial. Neither Murphy nor Ford have morals, and the former makes
statements he knows to be untrue because he gets off on people's
reaction.
Ronald Dean
"Mitchell Coffey" <mdotcoffeyats...@hunter.news.rcn.net> wrote in
message news:vm97e0500r9p5bq53...@4ax.com...
arm's length and the immediate trimming of his family tree struck
me wrong.
Ron
Ronald Dean
"John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
news:1gg9575.2jj4p81m01v4kN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> Ronald Dean <ro...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > "Steven J." <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote in message
> > news:10e71r0...@corp.supernews.com...
> > >
> > > "david ford" <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message
> > > news:b1c67abe.04063...@posting.google.com...
> > > > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the
Holocaust?
> > > >
> > > Catch phrases. Certainly, reading various Nazi writings, one comes
across
> > > phrases that are far too similar to those in Darwin or his
popularizers to
> > > be dismissed as coincidence (although those who reject common descent
as
> > an
> > > explanation for shared pseudogenes really ought, consistently, to
dismiss
> > > *any* influence of Darwin's writings on the Nazis). The Nazis were
> > > apparently trying to justify their racial policies using Darwinian
jargon,
> > > but they didn't seem to get the whole point of Darwin's theory.
> > >
> > When was Evolution introduced into German Universes?
>
> They have special German-only universes? I though only the French lived
> in their own little worlds...
>
Ron
John Wilkins
> "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> news:1gg9575.2jj4p81m01v4kN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > Ronald Dean <ro...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >
...
> > > When was Evolution introduced into German Universes?
^^^^^^^^^
> >
> > They have special German-only universes? I though only the French lived
> > in their own little worlds...
> >
> I meant Universities located within the borders of the German State.
I know. I was playing on your typo...
> >
...
Steven J.
>
> "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> news:1gg9575.2jj4p81m01v4kN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > Ronald Dean <ro...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >
> > > "Steven J." <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote in message
> > > news:10e71r0...@corp.supernews.com...
>
natural
> > > > selection is doing its job.
> > > >
> > > This is true. Eugenicist attempted to replace *natural selection* with
> > > artificial selection because natural selection was too slow too
rambling
> > > and inefficient.
> >
> > And went in the "wrong" directions...
> >
> Well yes, after WWII it became politically untenable.
>
view of eugenicists, in the wrong direction. U.S. geneticists had a slogan:
"more children from the fit, fewer from the unfit." Of course, a strict
Darwinist would look at that statement and say, "well, yes, on average
that's how natural selection works," but the people saying it were
complaining that the wrong traits -- ones they didn't like -- were proving
more reproductively successful. They wanted to intervene to forcibly reduce
the fitness of various traits they thought they could identify, and didn't
like.
>
> Ron
>
-- Steven J.
AC
Orac <or...@mac.com> wrote:
> In article <cbvaj0$gg0$1...@woodrow.ucdavis.edu>,
> "Richard S. Crawford" <rscrawf...@mossREMOVEWATERFOWLroot.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> Please. Darwin and the theory of natural selection had nothing to do
>> with the Holocaust. Get this bit of vile misrepresentation out of your
>> head before it does you more harm.
>
> Darwin's THEORY itself had nothing to do with the Holocaust. However,
> the IDEOLOGICAL MANIPULATION of his theory and its perversion had a lot
> to do with the Holocaust.
Can you show where evolutionary theory was so perverted? Hitler, at least,
appears to have been far closer to a Creationist.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
AC
The idea of the Nordic race being above all others hardly began with
genetics. German anti-Semitism dates back centuries. It is very very
important to understand that those cultural traits that lead to the
extermination of six million Jews by Nazi Germany were not invented by the
Nazis, by twisted notions of genetics, by nasty interpretations of Darwinian
theory or anything of the kind. The root was centuries of hatred, bigotry
and ignorance which had permeated Christendom. Racists like the Nazis, and
like more modern groups, may attempt to use pseudo-science to justify
various noxious claims of the inferiority of certain groups, but underlying
it is a long cultural heritage. Hitler capitalized on what had been there
since the Christianization of the Germans. He certainly wasn't the first to
attack Jews, Gypsies or Slavs (Slavs were considered lesser beings by the
Teutonic princes in the Dark Ages, just look at how the Carolingians treated
them).
The Spanish and the English booted out their Jews, and they were feared and
abused all over Europe hundreds of years before Mendellian genetics even
existed.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Robin Levett
It could be that that comment had something to do with the fact that
MindlessinOhio had accused him (as well as the majority of t.o's posters)
of Holocaust-denial? You don't think that might have evoked a reaction of
anger in someone who had lost "a lot of" his family tree in the Holocaust?
--
Robin Levett
rle...@rlevett.ibmuklunix.net (unmunge by removing big blue - don't yahoo)
Honest, informed, YEC - pick 2.
Robin Levett
Vicious anti-semitism had a long and dishonourable Christian tradition in
Germany from well before the Nazi era. Genetics and Pasteur's germ theory
of disease (generalised to genetics) may have served as a justification for
the Holocaust in their twisted minds - but the root was simple
anti-semitism.
Glenn
"Robin Levett" <rnle...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:56scr1-...@grendel.hayesway...
John Drayton
> >What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>
> According to the Evolutionists, almost all of whom are Holocaust Deniers,
Up until now I've thought you may be simply misguided.
But this is an outright lie - with evidence right here
on this group. The most vocal opponents and critics of
holocaust deniers here are evolutionists.
You're a real nasty piece of work Murphy.
<snip> more lies
--
John Drayton
Severian
Murphy the Loki-Troll amalgam has apparently decreed this: because
people who accept evolution deny a connection between evolution and
the Holocaust, they are therefore Holocaust deniers.
I don't think I've ever seen a more troll-worthy (and simultaneously
Loki-worthy) point of view.
He has balls, but by God, they're big, puffy, useless balls. Methinks
he has testicular elephantiasis.
--
Sev
Richard Forrest
He claimed to be a Christian.
He didn't claim to be an evolutionary biologist.
RF
LP
So, is it your belief that Hitler was not influenced in any way by the
emerging theories of evolution?
Steven Carr
<whirl...@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote:
<skip>
>There are those who disagree.
>Richard Weikart, Fellow - CSC
>Articles by Richard Weikart
>Richard Weikart is an Associate Professor of History at California
>State University, Stanislaus. He completed his Ph.D. in modern
>European history at the University of Iowa in 1994, receiving the
>biennial prize of the Forum for History of Human Sciences for the best
>dissertation in that field. His revised dissertation, Socialist
>Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to
>Bernstein, was published in 1999. With an extensive background in
>modern German and modern European intellectual history, he has
>published articles in journals such as Isis, Journal of the History of
>Ideas, German Studies Review, History of European Ideas, European
>Legacy, and Fides et Historia. One such article received the Selma V.
>Forkosch Prize for the best article in 1993 in the Journal of the
>History of Ideas. His book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary
>Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, which documents the influence
>of naturalistic evolution on ethical thought, euthanasia, militarism,
>and racism—and ultimately Hitler's ideology—will appear with Palgrave
>Macmillan in the spring of 2004. For more information on this book, go
>to: From Darwin to Hitler.
>
>FROM DARWIN TO HITLER:
>EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS, EUGENICS, AND RACISM IN GERMANY
>by Richard Weikart
Advance praise for this book
"The philosophy that fueled German militarism and Hitlerism is taught
as fact in every American public school, with no disagreement allowed.
Every parent ought to know this story, which Weikart persuasively
explains." --Phillip Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of
California, Berkeley, and author of Darwin on Trial and Reason in the
Balance
"If you think moral issues like infanticide, assisted suicide, and
tampering with human genes are new, read this book. It draws a clear
and chilling picture of the way Darwinian naturalism led German
thinkers to treat human life as raw materials to be manipulated in
order to advance the course of evolution. The ethics of Hitler's
Germany were not reactionary; they were very much 'cutting edge' and
in line with the scientific understanding of the day. Weikart's
implicit warning is that as long as the same assumption of Darwinian
naturalism reigns in educated circles in our own day, it may well lead
to similar practices." --Nancy Pearcey, co-author of The Soul of
Science and How Now Shall We Live
"Richard Weikart's masterful work offers a compelling case that the
eugenics movement, and all the political and social consequences that
have flowed from it, would have been unlikely if not for the cultural
elite's enthusiastic embracing of the Darwinian account of life,
morality, and social institutions. Professor Weikart reminds us, with
careful scholarship and circumspect argument, that the truth uttered
by Richard Weaver decades ago is indeed a fixed axiom of human
institutions: 'ideas have consequences.'" --Francis J. Beckwith,
Associate Director, J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, and
Associate Professor of Church-State Studies, Baylor University
http://www.csustan.edu/History/Faculty/Weikart/FromDarwintoHitler.htm
'"Richard Weikart's outstanding book shows in sober and convincing
detail how Darwinist thinkers in Germany had developed an amoral
attitude to human society by the time of the First World War, in which
the supposed good of the race was applied as the sole criterion of
public policy and 'racial hygiene'.'
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Hitler have more to do with the
Second World War?
Weikart has also published two articles
"Progress through Racial Extermination: Social Darwinism, Eugenics,
and Pacifism in Germany, 1860-1918," German Studies Review 26 (2003):
273-94.
"Darwinism and Death: Devaluing Human Life in Germany, 1860-1920,"
Journal of the History of Ideas 63 (2002): 323-344.
The immediate connection to events of 1933-1945 is not evident....
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=4475985369635
has an interesting quote on Weikart's work :- 'He shatters two
dominant myths: that Marxists applied Darwinism directly to social
theory and that "the introduction of evolutionary biological ideas
into socialist theory in the late nineteenth century stripped Marxism
of its revolutionary edge by replacing dialectical materialism and
praxis with mechanical materialism, and by fostering gradualism"
Hitler, himself, was, of course, a creationist, at least when it came
to human beings, and doubted that humans could have evolved from
ape-like animals.
Another interesting quote is :-
'Eugenicists wanted a purely Germanic and Nordic super race, enjoying
biological dominion over all others.'
That quote comes from
http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/chapter1.php
Is that true? Did eugenicists want a purely Germanic and Nordic super
race?
Out of curiosity, who is the DeJarnette Center in Virginia named
after? One of the leading German eugenicists? Or a leading American
eugenicist?
http://home.rica.net/airedale/Forced.htm is also an interesting
article
Steven Carr
ste...@bowness.demon.co.uk
http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/
Fester
>
> T. H. Huxley's?
> Haeckel's?
> Nietzsche's?
What holocaust? Is there a holocaust coming? Gee, I better take in my
laundry before it hits.
Zachriel
> >You put "extermination of savage races" in quotes. Please provide a
> >reference for this
> >Zachiel
>
> Go back and reread Descent. Look for key phrase: at some future period
>
In other words, what you put in quotes is not a quote. What Darwin said was
that less civilized people and other ape creatures have been historically
wiped out by the advance of civilization. This is true. He did not advocate
such an activity, just noted it. However, he was certainly wrong to consider
human races to be distinct sub-species. All humans are very closely related;
and our differences are primarily cultural, not genetic.
Next time, do your homework and try to understand the material. And please
provide accurate quotes.
Descent of Man
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_06.html
david ford
> > > David. You've just succeeded in posting something
> > >that forces me to reclassify you from being merely irritating to
> > >a all-out troll.
> > >chris
> >
> > Translation: Chris is gnashing his teeth in rage that the incestuous link
> > between the Holocaust and Evolution is once again exposed. The reason I
> > categorize so many of the evolutionists as: Holocaust Deniers.
>
> I am an evolutionist AND dedicated Christian. I do NOT deny the reality
> of the Holocaust. If the Nazis misused Darwin's work to justify their crimes
> against mankind it is no fault of Darwin's.
I'm reminded of Hsu.
about Hsu
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96.980422000741.15045A-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
abstract of Hsu's "Darwin's three mistakes"; Hsu quoting Ernst Chain
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96.980426214908.24131A-100000%40umbc10.umbc.edu
R.Schenck
> What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
He provided a scientific theory that people were easily able to
contrort into a moral/social idea. Natural Selection obviously can be
easily misunderstood and dovetail into a eugenetics program. However
it must be noted that there was a little bit more to the holocaust
than mere eugenetics.
>
> T. H. Huxley's?
I can't think of anything he did to aid it, other than being a
scientist who supported natural selection.
> Haeckel's?
If ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny then one could easily say that
'primitive' humans actually were primitive and represented less
developed ontogenetic forms of some sort of human excellence. I am
unaware of haeckle promoting this idiotic application of his ideas
tho.
> Nietzsche's?
N felt that, amoung other things and at least as far as my pitiful
understanding allows, that normal morality were worthless and that a
'superman' would do whatever had to be done, moral cosequences be
damned. If one has decided that a partiucular culture or ethnicity is
a hinderance to the nationality, or even an alien parasite attached to
it, one would then say moral consequences be damned, get rid of them.
Again i don't recall N ever suggesting that entire groups of people
be kicked out of the nation, let alone murdered, and from what i
gather he was actually in opposition to anti-semitism.
Besides the Thule society and the general german culture at the time
had more to do with it than anything else, and neither were especially
endebted to any of the people listed above. Moreover, the nazi party
was an anti-reason anti-science and anti-evolution movement. Sort of
like, oh, i dunno, creationism.
TomS
<kt97e09pts17spdpj...@4ax.com>, Mitchell Coffey stated..."
What this is an indication of is that the anti-evolutionists
are becoming desperate, that there is no limit to their fear of
evolutionary biology, and that they are going to disgusting lengths
to attack it.
There is no question that the Nazis would use anything that
they could -- whether it was "the family", or "patriotism", or
"christianity", or ... well, or music, cinematography, architecture
..
But stop and think for a moment.
Remember that the anti-evolutionists have given up on
"micro-evolution" and are concentrating on "macro-evolution".
*If* there is anything in evolutionary biology that could be
used by racists, eugenicists, or fascists ... what would it be?
Would it be "macro"evolution?
Can anybody, by any sick stretch of the imagination, think of
any justification in *macro*evolution for any of these practices?
How would any of these ideas contribute, in the least degree:
* The idea that any of the allegedly "irreducilby complex" structures
of life came about by purely natural means. The vertebrate eye, the
vertebrate immune system, the vertebrate blood-clotting system,
bacterial flagella.
* The idea that birds are descended from dinosaurs, that mammals
are descended from "mammal-like reptiles", that whales are descended
from land mammals.
* The idea that new "kinds" (where by "kind" is meant something
more inclusive than a Species, more than a Genus, perhaps something
like a biological Family) arise by natural means.
And, among principles that are "micro"evolutionary:
* The idea that variations in populations are natural.
* The idea that all humans share a common ancestry.
The anti-evolutionists have tried, in vain, everything else,
so I suppose that it's coming to this should not have been
unexpected.
---Tom S.
"It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical
errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to
Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable
of leading in a heretical direction." George Orwell, 1984, Pt. 2 ch. 9
Eric Root
> What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>
> T. H. Huxley's?
> Haeckel's?
> Nietzsche's?
>
Darwin - none. He was long dead, and anyway, he was British. He would have
fought the Nazis.
T. H. Huxley's? I don't know when he died, but he was also British. He would
have fought the Nazis, unless he was another Ezra Pound.
Haeckel's? Beats me. Was he German? Was he alive in WWII? Would he have
supported the Nazis, or would he have gotten in trouble telling them they were full
of it?
Nietzsche's? He was long dead, but he was a nonconformist and a philosophical
individualist who would have spurned the simpleminded group think of the Nazis. His
complaint against Jews was not genetic or "racial," but he felt they let people
pick on them. He probably would have admired the modern, kick-butt Israelis.
Eric Root
>>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>>
>
> According to the Evolutionists, almost all of whom are Holocaust Deniers,
> Darwin had no contribution. But, in fact, he started it all: Preservation of
> Favored Races. His glib call for the "extermination of savage races". Look for
> howls of denial, vacuous and phony "FAQs" from the evolutionists, but the truth
> is undeniable. Evolution fueled the Holocaust.
>
Murphy, have you no shame? Would it kill you to quit lying for a day or two, just
to see if you could? If you are Christian, stop and consider who is known as
the Prince of Lies, and then think how closely you are following Jesus.
Courageous
>He claimed to be a Christian.
>He didn't claim to be an evolutionary biologist.
He was fond of Nitzche. That's about as close as
we can get.
C//
R.Schenck
> >if Darwin had not formulated and published his theories, Hitler
> >would have used an alternate, but much weaker formulation of the
> >theory.
>
> Good! Perhaps, a "weaker formulation" would not have spoken of "Favored Races"
> and "extermination of savage races".
More likely a weaker forumlation would've kept somethign like the
/scala naturae/ and the idea of progressive evolution/movement
torwards an ideal type. Darwin's 'strong' natural selection
eliminates the idea of types and boundaries and makes 'progression'
merely an appearance as a result of adaptation, rather than an
unfolding ('evolution') of a perfect type (something like 'revealed
phylogenetic predeterminism'. Hmm, i don't quite like that neologism)
EjP
> In article <cbupjl$qnj$1...@info4.fnal.gov>, EjP <nos...@hackers.are.bad>
> wrote:
>
>
>>david ford wrote:
>>
>>>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>>>
>>
>>Nothing.
>
>
> Not exactly.
>
>
>
>>The Nazi claim of racial superiority was never based
>>on the theory of evolution - not Darwin's version, anyway.
>
>
> True, but Darwin's name was used widely, and in Nazi Germany a
> perversion of his theory was applied to society at large. But it didn't
> start with the Nazis by any means. In 1895, Alfred Ploetz based his
> concept of "racial hygeine" (in essence social Darwinism and eugenics)
> on Darwin, a concept in which the "harshness" of evolution by natural
> selection would be replaced by man taking over his own evolution by
> deciding which babies should live and die shortly after their birth,
> with babies thought not to be fit enough euthanized. The overall concept
> is that evolution through natural selection would come to be replaced by
> humans "rationally" guiding their own evolution.
>
I guess you could say that Darwin had something to do with
stimulating discussion about "evolution", but that's where
his relationship to Eugenics ends.
Blaming him for Nazi Eugenics would be like blaming him
because someone got beaten to death with a copy of "On the
Origin of Species".
Eugenics was not about natural selection, it was about "breeding",
a concept which has existed for both animals and humans since
the dawn of recorded history.
The Nazis believed that humans *started out* as separate
races; namely the "root races" of Theosophy,
http://www.kheper.net/topics/Theosophy/root_races.html
and while there was some concept of "evolution" in that
philosophy, it had absolutely nothing to do with Darwin.
The Nazis believed that the Germans were decended primarily
form the Aryans - the most recent and highest root race,
and all other peoples were from lesser races. The goal
of their eugenics program was to undo the "mixing" that
had occured over the years.
>
>
>>Rather it was based on a weird blend of Christianity, Norse
>>mythology, and the Theosophical ravings of Madame Blavatsky.
>>While the latter did claim a sort of "evolution", it
>>was in no way scientific and not related at all to
>>Darwin's theory.
>
>
> Agreed, the Nazi concept of evolution was not scientific and it was a
> perversion of Darwin's concepts. However, it was still very cunningly
> wrapped in scientific and pseudoscientific justification. I suggest that
> it is doubtful that, without the concepts Darwin produced (natural
> selection), that the Nazis would have been able to come up with such
> seemingly compelling justifications for the concept of "protecting" the
> German race from being contaminated with "inferior genes" and the
> concept that races, just like individuals, also go through a Darwinian
> struggle to out-compete and out-reproduce their competitors.
>
Brutal regimes seldom rely on the strength of their scientific
arguments to make a point.
Look, like many totalitarian regimes, the Nazis liked to pretend there
was some scientific basis for their beliefs, but it was just window
dressing. Remember, Darwin didn't invent the concept of evolution,
and in fact Lamarckian evolution is much closer to what the
Nazis believed they could achieve.
Remember, the Soviets threw out Darwinian natural selection entirely
and replaced it with Lysenkoism
http://skepdic.com/lysenko.html
all the while claiming to be scientific.
I highly recommend Donna Kossy's
"Strange Creations" for a very interesting summary of fringe
views on the origins of human beings, including those which fed
into Naziism and Bolschevism.
For some of the pseudoscience that went into Eugenics, another
excellent book is Stephen Jay Gould's "Mismeasure of Man".
-E
Richard S. Crawford
Hell, it pissed me off, and I lost no family members in the Holocaust.
However, Murphy has no interest in discussion, facts, knowledge, or
truth. All he's interested in is pissing people off. It seems he's
succeeded.
--
Richard Crawford (http://www.mossroot.com)
AIM: Buffalo2K / Y!: rscrawford
Ask me about my opposable thumb!
"When you lose the power to laugh at yourself, you lose the power to
think straight." --Clarence Darrow
EjP
> "EjP" <nos...@hackers.are.bad> wrote in message
> news:cbupjl$qnj$1...@info4.fnal.gov...
>
>>david ford wrote:
>>
>>>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>>>
>>
>>Nothing. The Nazi claim of racial superiority was never based
>>on the theory of evolution - not Darwin's version, anyway.
>>Rather it was based on a weird blend of Christianity, Norse
>>mythology, and the Theosophical ravings of Madame Blavatsky.
>>While the latter did claim a sort of "evolution", it
>>was in no way scientific and not related at all to
>>Darwin's theory.
>>
>>
>>
>>>T. H. Huxley's?
>>
>>Nothing.
>>
>>
>>>Haeckel's?
>>
>>Nothing.
>>
>>
>>>Nietzsche's?
>>>
>>
>>Nothing. Nietzsche was an atheist. Hitler and the Nazi's were
>>Christian.
>>
>>If you're looking for a philosophical basis for the Holocaust,
>>look to the anti-Semitic rantings of Martin Luther.
>>
>
> The Holocaust was based upon genetics, _not_ racism. Not only
> were Jews victims of this madness, but also Slavic, Gypsies, Black
> as well as people with heritable genetic diseases and defects both
> mental and physical maladies. So again it was genetics, not racism.
>
No, it was based on racism disguised as science. Beyond those
with obvious physical or mental maladies, their "genetic"
discrimination was based entirely on appearance and ethnicity.
We know today that genetic variation between what we refer
to as "races" is miniscule compared to genetic variation
within a race. Had the Nazis knows this, do you honestly believe
they would have changed their policies?
-E
>>-E
>>
>
>
Richard S. Crawford
Please do not encourage Murphy to do any research or to learn facts.
They will only make his head explode.
Hm, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing after all...
Wakboth
Thank you for showing just what kind of a creature you are, Glenn.
Are there any creationists who don't stoop to lies and insults at any
cost just in order to get a shot in at the "evilutionists"?
-- Wakboth (Rarer than the fangs of a roc, I'd guess offhand.)
RobinGoodfellow
Hmmmm ... let's see. Murphy makes the claim that a majority of
evolutionists are Holocaust deniers. People who have lost much of their
family to the Holocaust express their outrage. And Sheldon inevitably
concludes what - that Murphy is scum? that people will react strongly to
being blatantly libeled as complicit in an atrocity, especially one that
cost them their loved ones? No, he deduces that evolutionists are
irrational.
Just for us mere mortals, would you care to explain how you've arrived
at that conclusion, oh paragon of reason that art thou? Or will you
simply call me a moron for questioning you, in that usual impeccably
rational manner of yours?
Ronald Dean
spewed from the pulpit or the materials I read. So I have seen no evidence
of Christanity being guilty of condoning or spreading hatred.
So I can only conclude that this is a misconception of Christian teachings
by non christians who place their own misintrepretation upon Christian
Faith.
Hatred most often is based upon lack of understanding, fear, envy, and
resentment of perceived wrongs comitteed by the group which are then hated.
The summation of Christian ideals is in these statements, *do unto others as
you would have them do unto you*. *forgive us of our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against us* and *love thy neighbor as thyself*.
I do not pretend that everyone who claims to be christian conforms to
these ideals, but if they are sincere christian they will try.
>
> Racists like the Nazis, and
> like more modern groups, may attempt to use pseudo-science to justify
> various noxious claims of the inferiority of certain groups, but
underlying
> it is a long cultural heritage. Hitler capitalized on what had been there
> since the Christianization of the Germans.
>
misrepresent
Darwin's great work in oirder to condemn it. By the same token I also
dislike
people distorting, misrepresenting and presented flawed views of christanity
as real. Those who misrepresent Darwin's work and the people who unjustly
attack Christanity are cut from the same cloth.
He certainly wasn't the first to
> attack Jews, Gypsies or Slavs (Slavs were considered lesser beings by the
> Teutonic princes in the Dark Ages, just look at how the Carolingians
treated
> them).
>
I don't doubt that, but the fact is that the Jews were hated throughout
their
history. They were driven from their own country before the appearance
of Christanity, yet wherever they went they soon were met with hatred.
One characteristic that they seem to have is their penchant to stick
together
at the exclusion of others. This breeds suspicion, resentment and fear.
Fear brings on hatred. You can see this pattern over and over again. One
classic example is the Mormans.
>
> The Spanish and the English booted out their Jews, and they were feared
and
> abused all over Europe hundreds of years before Mendellian genetics even
> existed.
>
There is no question that the Nazis used Genetics to justify the *removal*
of carriers of the mental and physical deformities and disorders.
This was not racism, since it was not limited to a single race or ethnic
group.
But it was a Christian Monk, Gregor Mendel who is ultimately responsible
for the holocaust, since he discovered the way genes, including heritable
diseases, genetic disorders, both mental and physicials deformities, are
transmitted to later generations. The Nazis's objectives was to build the
Nortic superman by remoiving heritable genetic defects and disorders from
the gene pool and by breeding farms to breed genetically *superior* men
and women.
Ron
> Aaron Clausen
> mightym...@hotmail.com
>
TomS
<cc1826$g0h$1...@info4.fnal.gov>, EjP stated..."
One problem about this discussion is that the anti-evolutionists
have next-to-no comprehension of what evolution is about. All they
know, and all they need to know, is that it is about something
disgusting.
For their part, the Nazis didn't care anything about the real
sense behind whatever they drew.
It is perfectly understandable that the anti-evolutionists
would think that the Nazis were talking about evolution. Given
the incomprehension -- deliberate or not -- of both groups,
about evolution, it is understandable that the anti-evolutionists
could confuse themselves about this.
Is there anybody so ignorant of the emotions of people as
to think that they could be moved by appeals to macro-evolution?
It is only as the anti-evolutionists have become more and
more desperate, as every tactic that they've tried has come to
nothing, that they are driven to this.
---Tom S.
jwk
None. That's not to say that Nazi's didn't misuse his work, just as
white-supremists do today, to justify their dirty deeds. We know they
did. You would expect such a world-changing theory to have all sorts
of nuts twisting it. There always are.
(The Nazis also used the ramblings of a famous "psychic" of the time
to justify their beliefs. That's where they decided that the Aryans
were their forebearers. Silly buggers.)
jwk
Jon Hall
> The Holocaust was based upon genetics, _not_ racism. Not only
> were Jews victims of this madness, but also Slavic, Gypsies, Black
> as well as people with heritable genetic diseases and defects both
> mental and physical maladies. So again it was genetics, not racism.
I don't know. When people declare a race (whatever "race" means) to be
genetically inferior, I feel pretty comfortable with calling that racism.
--
Jon Hall
"My contention is that trusting credulity may be normal and healthy in a
child but it can become an unhealthy and reprehensible gullibility in an
adult."
--Richard Dawkins, "Unweaving the Rainbow"
LP
ford) wrote:
>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>
>T. H. Huxley's?
>Haeckel's?
>Nietzsche's?
Perhaps you could say it was Gutenberg that contributed most to the
Holocaust.
It was the easy reproduction of text which allowed the spread of
anti-semitism form publicists such as Lanz von Liebenfels, whose
pamphlets Hitler read.
RobinGoodfellow
There are, even on this forum. I thought that Glenn might have actually
been one of them. Apparently, I was wrong.
r norman
<ro...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
<snip long discussion of Darwin and the Holocaust>
>
>I go to church on a regular basis, I have yet, to read or hear hatred being
>spewed from the pulpit or the materials I read. So I have seen no evidence
>of Christanity being guilty of condoning or spreading hatred.
>So I can only conclude that this is a misconception of Christian teachings
>by non christians who place their own misintrepretation upon Christian
>Faith.
>Hatred most often is based upon lack of understanding, fear, envy, and
>resentment of perceived wrongs comitteed by the group which are then hated.
>The summation of Christian ideals is in these statements, *do unto others as
>you would have them do unto you*. *forgive us of our trespasses as we
>forgive those who trespass against us* and *love thy neighbor as thyself*.
>I do not pretend that everyone who claims to be christian conforms to
>these ideals, but if they are sincere christian they will try.
<snip some more about origins of anti-semitism>
>I don't doubt that, but the fact is that the Jews were hated throughout
>their
>history. They were driven from their own country before the appearance
>of Christanity, yet wherever they went they soon were met with hatred.
>One characteristic that they seem to have is their penchant to stick
>together
>at the exclusion of others. This breeds suspicion, resentment and fear.
>Fear brings on hatred. You can see this pattern over and over again. One
>classic example is the Mormans.
Ronald, you apparently mean well but you are really angering a lot of
people with some of your comments. I won't go into here your
insistence that genetics, not racism, was a dominant force in
contributing to the Holocaust. I will only focus on your comments
about the origins of antisemitism. On this point, your "blaming the
victim" in that last paragraph is particularly galling and hurtful.
I don't really know whether you can call earlier persecution of the
Jews as "hatred". There were constant battles and wars between
competing groups for a very long time. It was the Romans who finally
destroyed Jerusalem with the Temple and the Jewish way of life. They
also destroyed an awful lot of other societies, especially those who
uprose against their occupation as did the Jews. Earlier, the
Babylonians and the Assyrians did a pretty good job, but they too
conquered everyone else they could find. So Jews weren't picked on
specifically as Jews. Similarly, Jews had alternating good and bad
periods with Islamic societies, but so did all non-Muslims living in
those societies. It really was the rise of Christianity that turned
persecution of Jews into a fine art and a true mission. Christian
anti-semitism was active and open in the Catholic church for
centuries. It is still practiced by a number of Protestant sects.
Others are willing to make temporary compromises with Judaism only in
order to hasten the "end days" when all non-converting Jews will
surely be destroyed (so they say). Many of these same self-professed
"Christians" also don't have much love or understanding of Islam.
At the same time, there are many Christian denominations which do
teach love and brotherhood and have true interfaith dialogs and
practice understanding. If that is your only knowledge of
Christianity, then you are indeed very fortunate. However you should
not blind yourself to the terrible history of your own church.
AC
And likely that is because, in most Christian communities, anti-Semitism has
all but been eliminated. There are certainly still Christian groups who
practice overt or covert forms of anti-Semitism. In the past, the general
hatred of Jews was something quite common among Christians, crossing even
the Protestant-Catholic divide.
>So I have seen no evidence
> of Christanity being guilty of condoning or spreading hatred.
Then I suggest you pick up any reasonably comprehensive book of European
history, Ronald.
> So I can only conclude that this is a misconception of Christian teachings
> by non christians who place their own misintrepretation upon Christian
> Faith.
Why don't you go look up Martin Luther's views on Jews, or what happened to
the Jews in England and Spain. If you think that anti-semitism was bourne
out of Nazi doctrine, then I truly pity you, and I would recommend you lodge
a legal suit against the school you attended.
> Hatred most often is based upon lack of understanding, fear, envy, and
> resentment of perceived wrongs comitteed by the group which are then hated.
> The summation of Christian ideals is in these statements, *do unto others as
> you would have them do unto you*. *forgive us of our trespasses as we
> forgive those who trespass against us* and *love thy neighbor as thyself*.
> I do not pretend that everyone who claims to be christian conforms to
> these ideals, but if they are sincere christian they will try.
Whatever the high ideals of Christianity may be, the fact remains that
Christendom has historically shown a great deal of venom and hatred against
Jews. I am not trying to cast dispursions on Christianity, but rather upon
Christendom's historical hatred and persecution of the Jewish people.
>>
>> Racists like the Nazis, and
>> like more modern groups, may attempt to use pseudo-science to justify
>> various noxious claims of the inferiority of certain groups, but
> underlying
>> it is a long cultural heritage. Hitler capitalized on what had been there
>> since the Christianization of the Germans.
>>
> I'm an evolutionist and I strongly object to those who twist and
> misrepresent
> Darwin's great work in oirder to condemn it. By the same token I also
> dislike
> people distorting, misrepresenting and presented flawed views of christanity
> as real. Those who misrepresent Darwin's work and the people who unjustly
> attack Christanity are cut from the same cloth.
I am not attacking Christianity, Ronald. I feel so very sorry that you have
not before been introduced to the historical fact that the Jews of Europe
suffered many indignities under the Christian majorities. I did not equate
that with Christ's teachings, nor do I think the fellow described in the
Gospel would have approved of his disciples throughout the centuries actions
against the Jews.
Anti-semitism is almost as old as Christianity, Ronald. I did not call you,
or most modern Christians anti-Semites. I'd be willing to concede that
Christianity is turning away from the foul hatred of Jews. I am merely
informing you of a historical reality, that the German people for centuries
despised Jews, and that Christians all over Europe often shared that view.
>
> He certainly wasn't the first to
>> attack Jews, Gypsies or Slavs (Slavs were considered lesser beings by the
>> Teutonic princes in the Dark Ages, just look at how the Carolingians
> treated
>> them).
>>
> I don't doubt that, but the fact is that the Jews were hated throughout
> their
> history. They were driven from their own country before the appearance
> of Christanity, yet wherever they went they soon were met with hatred.
> One characteristic that they seem to have is their penchant to stick
> together
> at the exclusion of others. This breeds suspicion, resentment and fear.
> Fear brings on hatred. You can see this pattern over and over again. One
> classic example is the Mormans.
So you are aware that Christendom did indeed have a long history of
persecution. So what precisely is your objection to my statement?
>>
>> The Spanish and the English booted out their Jews, and they were feared
> and
>> abused all over Europe hundreds of years before Mendellian genetics even
>> existed.
>>
> There is no question that the Nazis used Genetics to justify the *removal*
> of carriers of the mental and physical deformities and disorders.
> This was not racism, since it was not limited to a single race or ethnic
> group.
> But it was a Christian Monk, Gregor Mendel who is ultimately responsible
> for the holocaust,
That, my friend, is a lie. I'm beginning to suspect you are up to your old
sockpuppet ways again. The roots of the Holocaust are in centuries of
hatred of Jews in Europe, and particularly in northern and Central Europe.
>since he discovered the way genes, including heritable
> diseases, genetic disorders, both mental and physicials deformities, are
> transmitted to later generations. The Nazis's objectives was to build the
> Nortic superman by remoiving heritable genetic defects and disorders from
> the gene pool and by breeding farms to breed genetically *superior* men
> and women.
You have a very simplistic view of Nazis, and a naive view of anti-semitism.
If Mendel can be held responsible, then, by the same reasoning, one could
say Jesus Christ is responsible. The reality is that neither man is
responsible. It was a long-standing hatred of Jews by the German people
that Hitler tapped in to. They were already predisposed to believe any
horrible thing about the Jews, and had been for centuries. I would
recommend, Ronald, that you properly research anti-Semitism, rather than
talking out of your hat. You are make a fool of yourself.
Unless, of course, you're up to your old game of coming here with multiple
sockpuppets. Are we going to see Penny soon? How about Robert?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Karl Johanson
> > > This hateful dogma was carrying the science of genetics to it's
logical
> > > but inhumane extreme. The Nazis wished to rid the human gene pool
> > > of all heritable genetic diseases and defects. The Nazis wrongly
> > > murdered Jews, Gypses, Slavics and others based upon a
> > > misintrepetation of the science of genetics. They also killed people
> > > with mental and physical defects in order to rid the human gene
> > > pool of perceived heritable diseases.
> >
> > The idea of the Nordic race being above all others hardly began with
> > genetics. German anti-Semitism dates back centuries. It is very very
> > important to understand that those cultural traits that lead to the
> > extermination of six million Jews by Nazi Germany were not invented by
the
> > Nazis, by twisted notions of genetics, by nasty interpretations of
> Darwinian
> > theory or anything of the kind. The root was centuries of hatred,
bigotry
> > and ignorance which had permeated Christendom.
> >
> I go to church on a regular basis, I have yet, to read or hear hatred
being
> spewed from the pulpit or the materials I read.
I have, many times. The Bible directly refers to people like me as vile,
corrupt, and incapable of doing good (you remember that passage don't you?).
I've heard (Catholic) preachers say that non-members of their church are
evil & that they will burn for eternity for it (why shouldn't he say that?
The Bible makes that point rather directly.). I've been at a wedding
(Catholic again) & the preacher said that people not married in his sect's
churches have 'sham marriages' (his pedophilia charges hit the news soon
after). I saw a preacher tell his congregation (Anglican) that any time
non-Christians try to do good (they example he used was 'supporting food
banks') it's an example of evil. Indigenous people in my area had much of
their historical artefacts destroyed by Christian missionaries, preachers &
school staff. Some of them were beaten by teachers for speaking in their
native language. I've seen preachers of all sorts declare homosexuals evil
(including the pedophile mentioned above), and I expect you have as well.
This is just a few examples.
(*I even had a preacher recently refer to the company I worked for (making
educational computer games) as 'the worst cultural imperialists in the
world'. When I introduced myself as a cultural imperialist, he back tracked
rapidly, and then admitted he'd bought several of the games we'd made for
his children. I told him, 'don't worry, I think you have every right to
judge', but I don't think he followed my ironic context.)
>So I have seen no evidence
> of Christanity being guilty of condoning or spreading hatred.
Have you actually read the Bible?
1 Peter 2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not
only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
Exodus 21:20-21 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the
slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be
punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his
property.
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are
entering to possess and drives out before you many nations ... then you must
destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
Deuteronomy 20:10-15 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an
offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it
shall be subject to forced labour and shall work for you. If they refuse to
make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the
Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in
it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the
city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. ... This is how you are
to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to
the nations nearby.
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an
inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy
them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and
Jebusites--as the Lord your God has commanded you.
> So I can only conclude that this is a misconception of Christian teachings
> by non christians who place their own misintrepretation upon Christian
> Faith.
Rather, I think you're projecting your version of Christianity on other
Christians. Many clearly have a very different slant on Christianity than
you do.
> Hatred most often is based upon lack of understanding, fear, envy, and
> resentment of perceived wrongs comitteed by the group which are then
hated.
> The summation of Christian ideals is in these statements, *do unto others
as
> you would have them do unto you*.
What if you a person enjoys fighting, as many people do?
>*forgive us of our trespasses as we
> forgive those who trespass against us* and *love thy neighbor as thyself*.
You've just taken a couple snippets from the Bible and paraphrased them out
of context. The New Testament is clear that the nasty laws from the prequel
are still in force.
Matt. 5:17-19. "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.
I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. "For assuredly, I say to you, till
heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from
the law till all is fulfilled."
These 'laws' include killing women who're raped in a city. Stoning your
neighbours who work on Saturday. Bashing in Amelekite babies heads. Killing
prisoners from land you've invaded and taking the virgin women survivors as
slaves. Killing people with graven images (maybe a crucifix, for example),
even if they haven't heard the commandment yet.
There are an infinite number of possible interpretations of Christianity.
You have one, (sounds like a fairly non-nasty one, but if you aren't nasty,
why use a book like the Bible for inspiration?). The @#$% wad who threatened
to torture Galileo had another. The pedophile who told me my marriage is a
sham had another. Hitler had another. The people who burned totem polls had
another. The Christians who hauled slaves to North America had another. The
Conquistadors had another. And on and on.
> I do not pretend that everyone who claims to be christian conforms to
> these ideals, but if they are sincere christian they will try.
Some Christians conform to other 'ideals' presented in the Bible.
> > Racists like the Nazis, and
> > like more modern groups, may attempt to use pseudo-science to justify
> > various noxious claims of the inferiority of certain groups, but
> underlying
> > it is a long cultural heritage. Hitler capitalized on what had been
there
> > since the Christianization of the Germans.
> >
> I'm an evolutionist and I strongly object to those who twist and
> misrepresent
> Darwin's great work in oirder to condemn it.
I salute you sir.
> By the same token I also dislike
> people distorting, misrepresenting and presented flawed views of
christanity
> as real.
You've taken a huge book & claim that only three small snippets are
relevant. Who is distorting and misrepresenting Christianity? Who's taking
isolated phrases out of context? I've read the entire Bible 7 times (4
different translations) and I find it to be a collection of nasty violence,
bigotry, sexism and blindingly obvious errors, interspersed with a few nice
bits about getting along (which are still presented with the threat of
infinite torture to back them up).
>Those who misrepresent Darwin's work and the people who unjustly
> attack Christanity are cut from the same cloth.
Most who attack Darwin, and later, more refined version of evolution, don't
understand them. Those who claim that Christianity is about the three
snippets you quoted out of context, don't seem to understand Christianity.
One should recognize that there are lots of versions of Christianity, some
nice, some vile, some in between. Some people read the whole Bible & act on
orders to slaughter unbelievers and take slaves and to stone rape victims.
Some are nice Christians like you, who ignore all but the few calls for
people to strive to get along.
Karl Johanson
Numbers 15:32 (NKJV) Now while the children of Israel were in the
wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And
those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to
all the congregation. 34 They put him under guard, because it had not been
explained what should be done to him. 35 Then the Lord said to Moses, "The
man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with
stones outside the camp." 36 So, as the Lord commanded Moses, all the
congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he
died.
Exod 35:1 (NKJV) Then Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of
Israel together, and
said to them, "These [are] the words which the Lord has commanded [you] to
do: 2 "Work shall be
done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a
Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to
death.
Rich Mathers
Ronald Dean wrote:
> "EjP" <nos...@hackers.are.bad> wrote in message
> news:cbupjl$qnj$1...@info4.fnal.gov...
>
>>david ford wrote:
>>
>>>What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>>>
>>
>>Nothing. The Nazi claim of racial superiority was never based
>>on the theory of evolution - not Darwin's version, anyway.
>>Rather it was based on a weird blend of Christianity, Norse
>>mythology, and the Theosophical ravings of Madame Blavatsky.
>>While the latter did claim a sort of "evolution", it
>>was in no way scientific and not related at all to
>>Darwin's theory.
>>
>>
>>
>>>T. H. Huxley's?
>>
>>Nothing.
>>
>>
>>>Haeckel's?
>>
>>Nothing.
>>
>>
>>>Nietzsche's?
>>>
>>
>>Nothing. Nietzsche was an atheist. Hitler and the Nazi's were
>>Christian.
>>
>>If you're looking for a philosophical basis for the Holocaust,
>>look to the anti-Semitic rantings of Martin Luther.
>>
>
> The Holocaust was based upon genetics, _not_ racism. Not only
> were Jews victims of this madness, but also Slavic, Gypsies, Black
> as well as people with heritable genetic diseases and defects both
> mental and physical maladies. So again it was genetics, not racism.
Please document this. I've good evidence otherwise. See e.g. John R.
Commons, Races and Immigrants of America. 1907.
>
>>-E
>>
>
>
Chris Krolczyk
> > David. You've just succeeded in posting something
> >that forces me to reclassify you from being merely irritating to
> >a all-out troll.
> >chris
>
> Translation: Chris is gnashing his teeth in rage
I don't accept interpretations of my posts by submoronic
trolls, Murph. And your reply is so reminiscent of the
dross that the AOL pukes from late last year posted to
t.o. _ad nauseum_ that I'm fairly sure that you're the
same guy.
Now do us all a huge favor and migrate to a newsgroup
more in sync with your intellect. alt.retarded seems to fit.
-Chris Krolczyk
Bob Casanova
appeared in talk.origins, posted by
murphy...@wmconnect.com (MurphyInOhio):
>> David. You've just succeeded in posting something
>>that forces me to reclassify you from being merely irritating to
>>a all-out troll.
>>chris
>
>Translation: Chris is gnashing his teeth in rage that the incestuous link
>between the Holocaust and Evolution is once again exposed.
How could that be, given that AH repeatedly invoked the
Christian God to justify his policies? Don't you claim that
"real Christians" (such as AH) deny Darwin's work?
>The reason I
>categorize so many of the evolutionists as: Holocaust Deniers.
No, that's because you're a lying idiot. HTH.
--
Bob C.
Reply to Bob-Casanova @ worldnet.att.net
(without the spaces, of course)
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"
- Isaac Asimov
John Wilkins
> david ford wrote:
>
> > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
> >
> > T. H. Huxley's?
...
> T. H. Huxley's? I don't know when he died, but he was also British. He would
> have fought the Nazis, unless he was another Ezra Pound.
Huxley is the author of _Evolution and Ethics_ (1893) in which he
clearly stated that we should *not* develop our social policy and
programmes of improvement on the basis of evolution - he called it "this
pigeon fancier's polity" in the Prolegomena.
Paradis, James, and George C. Williams. 1989. Evolution and ethics: T.H.
Huxley's "Evolution and ethics" with new essays on its Victorian and
sociobiological context. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Read Paradis' introductory essay.
In simple words even MorphlessinOhio can understand: Huxley would have
and did oppose social Darwinism, and eugenics, and thus also the
Holocaust by implication.
--
Dr John Wilkins
john...@wilkins.id.au http://wilkins.id.au
"Men mark it when they hit, but do not mark it when they miss"
- Francis Bacon
Orac
Mitchell Coffey <mdotcoffeyats...@hunter.news.rcn.net>
wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 01:46:59 +0000 (UTC), Orac <or...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> >In article <cbvaj0$gg0$1...@woodrow.ucdavis.edu>,
> > "Richard S. Crawford" <rscrawf...@mossREMOVEWATERFOWLroot.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Please. Darwin and the theory of natural selection had nothing to do
> >> with the Holocaust. Get this bit of vile misrepresentation out of your
> >> head before it does you more harm.
> >
> >Darwin's THEORY itself had nothing to do with the Holocaust. However,
> >the IDEOLOGICAL MANIPULATION of his theory and its perversion had a lot
> >to do with the Holocaust.
>
> If it did then you should be able to cite some of this ideological
> manipulation.
I already did, at length, in my other posts about racial hygiene.
--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"
Orac
AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 01:46:59 +0000 (UTC),
> Orac <or...@mac.com> wrote:
> > In article <cbvaj0$gg0$1...@woodrow.ucdavis.edu>,
> > "Richard S. Crawford" <rscrawf...@mossREMOVEWATERFOWLroot.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Please. Darwin and the theory of natural selection had nothing to do
> >> with the Holocaust. Get this bit of vile misrepresentation out of your
> >> head before it does you more harm.
> >
> > Darwin's THEORY itself had nothing to do with the Holocaust. However,
> > the IDEOLOGICAL MANIPULATION of his theory and its perversion had a lot
> > to do with the Holocaust.
>
> Can you show where evolutionary theory was so perverted?
I discussed this at length, in my other posts about racial hygiene, how
it was derived from a misapplication of the concept of natural selection
to society, and how the Nazis eagerly embraced the concept of racial
hygiene as part of their justification for destroying the Jews. I see no
need to repeat myself, since I just made that post last night. Read
about Alfred Ploetz, for starters.
> Hitler, at least,
> appears to have been far closer to a Creationist.
Can you show where Hitler demonstrated himself to be a creationist?
Orac
Mitchell Coffey <mdotcoffeyats...@hunter.news.rcn.net>
wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 01:56:02 +0000 (UTC), Orac <or...@mac.com> wrote:
[Snip]
> > However, it was still very cunningly
> >wrapped in scientific and pseudoscientific justification. I suggest that
> >it is doubtful that, without the concepts Darwin produced (natural
> >selection), that the Nazis would have been able to come up with such
> >seemingly compelling justifications for the concept of "protecting" the
> >German race from being contaminated with "inferior genes" and the
> >concept that races, just like individuals, also go through a Darwinian
> >struggle to out-compete and out-reproduce their competitors.
>
> Except you seldom read of Nazis actually using this sort of rhetoric
> to defend their racial policies. I have my doubts whether you've
> found Nazis using the term "inferior genes."
But they did frequently defend their racial policies in terms of
preventing "contamination" of the German "Volk" with the blood of
inferior races.
>More likely than not,
> Nazis evoked medical metaphors, comparing Jews and inferior races to
> germs and contagion.
Yes, they also did this as well, but just because they used this
metaphor does not exclude the use of other rationalizations for their
racial policies.
>The policies for dealing with germ and contagion
> are straight forward: quarantine and extermination.
Correct. But there was an evolution in this thinking. Nazi racial
policies started at first with preventing Jews from marrying Aryans,
then progressed to more radical measures, beginning with sterilization
of "defectives," which was justified on a purely "biological" basis as a
means of preventing "degeneration" of the race that comes with allowing
those who normally would be selected against in nature to reproduce.
> Like everyone else making this sort of argument you have first
> discussed people putatively influenced by Darwin
Not putatively.
>but people active
> in the late 19th century and the first ten of the 20th.
Nope. People who went on to hold high positions in Nazi medicine.
>From there
> the facts stop and a leap is made: whatever influence Darwin was
> suppose to have had on certain people active at the
> turn-of-the-century is without explanation is transfers to Nazi active
> 30 or 40 years later. I see no reason to buy this.
You see wrong, then. Racial hygiene remained a main plank in the Nazi
biomedical vision, and many of its proponents were high-ranking
officials in Nazi medicine. Alfred Ploetz may have come up with his
ideas in 1895, but he was active through the early part of the Nazi
regime and lived until 1940. He was frequently called the "father of
racial hygiene," and the was honored by the Nazis in 1930 in the
National Socialist Monthly, in an article, "National Socialism is the
Political Expression of Our Biologic Knowledge." One of Ploetz's
students, Fritz Lenz, helped write "Menschliche Erblichkeitslehre and
Rassenhygiene" Hitler used some of the ideas in this book in Mein Kampf.
In the 1920's, Alfred Hoch's book, "Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy
of Life," demanded euthanasia be conducted on "mental defectives," part
of the rationale being that allowing such people to reproduce would
thwart natural selection and the other part of the rationale being that
allowing them to live was a waste of resources. This, and another
psychiatric text, "Human Genetics and Racial Hygiene," helped form the
"scientific" basis for the Nazi racial purity program. The truly scary
thing that the Nazis did was to fuse this perversion of Darwinism with a
mystical vision of Nordic supremacy, to produce a toxic brew that
justified any number of atrocities.
In 1933, Lenz noted:
"Whatever resistance the idea of racial hygiene may have encountered in
previous times among German doctors, this resistance exists no longer.
The German core within the medical community has recognized the demands
of German racial hygiene as its own; the medical profession has become
the leading force in making these demands." (Source: Robert N. Proctor,
"Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis.)
Around the same time, Gerhard Wagner, a prominent Nazi physician and
early Nazi Party member, who later was placed in charge of medicine
under the Nazis, said:
"Knowledge of racial hygiene and genetics has become, by a purely
scientific path, the knowledge of an extraordinary number of German
doctors. It has influenced to a substantial degree the basic world view
of the State, and indeed may even be said to embody the very foundations
of the present state."
Want more evidence of how important the Nazis viewed the perversion of
Darwinism known as racial hygiene? The very *first* recipient of the
Nazi Golden Medal of Honor in 1934 was Julius Friedrich Lehman,
Germany's most important publisher of works in the field of racial
hygiene. He got this award before prominent Nazis such as Johannes
Popitz, Franz Gurtner, and many others. He was a diehard Nazi, having
joined the party in 1920 and having been invovled in the Kapp Putsch. He
published the official commentaries on the 1933 Sterilization Law and
the 1935 Nuremberg Racial Laws). He used the journals he founded to
preach racial hygiene and used his influence to get his ideas adopted by
the new Nazi regime.
I could go on and on with more examples, but you wouldn't listen. Racial
hygiene was without a doubt a perversion of Darwinism, and racial
hygiene was adopted by the Nazis as the core of their biological vision,
fused to their mystical myths of Nordic supremacy, to form a truly toxic
philosophy.
Orac
john...@wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
> Orac <or...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <cbupjl$qnj$1...@info4.fnal.gov>, EjP <nos...@hackers.are.bad>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > david ford wrote:
> > > > What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
> > > >
> > >
> > > Nothing.
> >
> > Not exactly.
> >
> >
> > >The Nazi claim of racial superiority was never based
> > > on the theory of evolution - not Darwin's version, anyway.
> >
> > True, but Darwin's name was used widely, and in Nazi Germany a
> > perversion of his theory was applied to society at large. But it didn't
> > start with the Nazis by any means. In 1895, Alfred Ploetz based his
> > concept of "racial hygeine" (in essence social Darwinism and eugenics)
> > on Darwin, a concept in which the "harshness" of evolution by natural
> > selection would be replaced by man taking over his own evolution by
> > deciding which babies should live and die shortly after their birth,
> > with babies thought not to be fit enough euthanized. The overall concept
> > is that evolution through natural selection would come to be replaced by
> > humans "rationally" guiding their own evolution.
>
> in effect, then, Orac, you just described Ploetz going exactly
> *contrary* to Darwinian evolutionary theory.
That's why I characterized it as a perversion of Darwin. However,
another way that this sort of "selection" was justified by other racial
hygienists was that, by allowing "defectives" to live and possibly
reproduce, society was thwarting natural selection, which would
inevitably lead to the "degeneration" of the race.
>For if we overtake NS, then
> we are saying it will not do the job. This is a common problem with
> claims like this - merely *mentioning* evolution is not enough; you have
> to show that evolutionary theory was the *foundation* for the racism.
Some racial hygienists, including Ploetz, also did just that, justifying
killing "defectives" as a way to let natural selection reassert itself
against the tendency of society to save such people. Ploetz warned
against medical care for the "weak," for this would allow the weak to
survive and reproduce who otherwise, without the intervention of
doctors, would never have survived. Indeed, Ploetz saw racial hygiene as
a way of alleviating the brute force of natural selection, if only the
"negative" qualities of the race could be located and eliminated before
reproduction occurred. In this way, racial hygiene used Darwin as a
justification, while at the same time trying to replace Darwinian
natural selection with a more "humane" and "rational" selection. (The
hubris of these people, who assumed they could recognized which traits
were desirable and which were not in children, never ceases to amaze me.)
> Similar points apply to Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Hans Gunther. What
> they "relied" upon for their ideas was a racialist anthropology that had
> almost nothing to do with evolution as Darwin proposed it, and which
> went back to Blumenbach in 1800.
Again, as I said, these were perversions of Darwin's ideas.
> > > Rather it was based on a weird blend of Christianity, Norse
> > > mythology, and the Theosophical ravings of Madame Blavatsky.
> > > While the latter did claim a sort of "evolution", it
> > > was in no way scientific and not related at all to
> > > Darwin's theory.
> >
> > Agreed, the Nazi concept of evolution was not scientific and it was a
> > perversion of Darwin's concepts. However, it was still very cunningly
> > wrapped in scientific and pseudoscientific justification. I suggest that
> > it is doubtful that, without the concepts Darwin produced (natural
> > selection), that the Nazis would have been able to come up with such
> > seemingly compelling justifications for the concept of "protecting" the
> > German race from being contaminated with "inferior genes" and the
> > concept that races, just like individuals, also go through a Darwinian
> > struggle to out-compete and out-reproduce their competitors.
>
> I disagree. All they needed was the basic xenophobia of Christian
> Teutonic Europe, the hereditarian ideas of the aristocracy and even
> classical eugenics as far back as you care to look, the rise of
> *genetics* not evolution, and the implicit scala naturae in
> pre-Darwinian evolution.
Darwinian evolutionary theory did not depend upon an understanding of
genetics
>And both genetics and the scala were optional
> extras, pulled in to give it cachet. Nazis used anything to support their ideas - Christianity, anthropology,
> astrology, mythology, opera, and of course Nietzsche (who felt that
> evolution was too important to leave to nature as Darwin suggested it
> had been).
True.
>None of them are the *basis* of Nazism, for it lies in social
> and psychological exigencies and history. And none of them are entirely
> to blame for it, either.
Straw man. I never went so far as to claim racial hygiene was the
*basis* of Naziism. (Certainly a sort of Nordic mysticism, concept of
the "volk," and paganism were more important.) I merely pointed out how
important it was to overall Nazi philosophy and how important it was in
the evolution of Nazi racial policies.
>If you want my opinion, the Vienna School of
> Art probably has more to do with it.
You mean the school itself, or its good taste in rejecting Hitler as a
student? ;-)
Eric Root
> What is Darwin's contribution, if any, to the coming of the Holocaust?
>
> T. H. Huxley's?
> Haeckel's?
> Nietzsche's?
>
To know that, we would have to look at the receipts. <8^)
Orac
"Steven J." <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote:
> Central to Darwin's theory is the idea of variation within breeding groups,
> and the lack of "essential" traits separating one group from another. The
> rigid distinctions which Nazi "racial science" made between races is
> thoroughly antiDarwinian -- Darwin noted, explicitly, that there was no
> trait possessed by all members of one "race" and no members of another.
> And, of course, the entire notion of eugenics -- *artificial,*
> *centrally-planned* selection, is a very different matter (ask any skeptic
> of natural selection) from the natural selection championed by Darwin. As
> John Wilkins notes, a eugenicist is someone who doesn't think natural
> selection is doing its job.
And that is yet another reason why racial hygiene as practiced by the
Nazis was a perversion of Darwinism. However, for a philosophy to be a
perversion of a prior theory, it has to first recognize that theory and
consider it important enough to distort.
[Snip]