More on Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
by BradfordComments about Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed abound. Expelled the Movie: Opening Night Box Office Exceeds Expectations at Darwinian Fundamentalism has this to say:
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed brought in an estimated $1.2 million on its opening night. Even though it was #14 in terms of number of screens, it was #8 in overall revenue, and #4 in per screen average (among those on the Friday estimate chart). Most box office sites I looked at predicted it would end up with 2.0-2.4 for the whole weekend (Friday to Sunday) with an average of 2.2. It is on track to get at least $3.5 million for the weekend, which would be 60% above expectations.
'Expelled' film draws applause at ISU tells of a standing O for guess who? Guillermo Gonzalez!
It features interviews with Guillermo Gonzalez, assistant professor in astronomy at Iowa State University, who claims he was denied tenure for his outspoken views on intelligent design, and Hector Avalos, professor of religious studies at ISU, who has been critical of the teaching of intelligent design in science classrooms.
Those who made it into the theater before it filled up generally responded positively to the film. They greeted the ending credits with applause and, after Gonzalez wrapped up a brief discussion following the film, treated him with a standing ovation.
Then there is this serious article, Darwin and the Nazis, by Richard Weikart who had this to say.
Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and some other Darwinists are horrified that the forthcoming documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, will promote Intelligent Design to a large audience when it opens at over a thousand theaters nationwide on April 18. Ironically, their campaign to discredit Ben Stein and the film confirms its main point, which is to expose the persecution meted out by Darwinists to those daring to criticize Darwinian theory.
One aspect of Expelled that troubles Dawkins and some of his colleagues is its treatment of the ethical implications of Darwinism, especially its discussion of the historical connections between Darwinism and Nazism. Isn't this a bit over-the-top, suggesting that Darwinism has something to do with Nazism? After all, Darwinists today are not Nazis, and Darwinism has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
April 20th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I saw the film last night. A sparse audience. I thought there were good and bad points to the movie.
The bad:
1) There seemed to be a concerted effort to polarize people into two groups: If you were a Darwinist, then you were a God-hating atheist, who didn't have moral absolutes, didn't believe in free-will, and didn't believe that life had any meaning. If you were an Intelligent Design advocate, then you admitted that some evolution had taken place, but were skeptical about how much.
Missing were the people in the middle: Theistic Evolutionists like Ken Miller (even though he doesn't think of himself as one). And even more surprising, Michael Behe was missing — that's right folks. No Michael Behe in the movie. Why? I can only speculate, but I think it's because in his last book, The Edge of Evolution, Behe argued vigorously for Common Descent, and admitted that Natural Selection acted as a filter on variations. This would mean that Behe admits that the majority of what Darwin proposed is correct. And the last thing this film would want is a leader of the Intelligent Design movement who admits that.
It was important in this film to paint Darwin supporters as people on the wrong side of an issue that could lead to Nazism. No middle ground allowed. Therefore no Miller. No Behe.
2) Even though there was no explicit political message, there was an implicit one: The intolerance of ID in academia was compared to the Berlin wall, that kept out freedom. Over and over again we were shown the image of Ronald Reagan demanding that the wall be brought down. The implication? If you want tolerance of ideas in academia, you better vote Republican.
Now if you think Republicans are more tolerant of ideas than Democrats, then you wouldn't mind this. I don't think they are, so I had a problem with it. And I think the fact that Theistic Evolutionists aren't in this film, and that Behe himself isn't in this film speaks volumes about the amount of tolerance we could expect from this crowd.
The good:
1) Regardless of how many people have or have not lost their positions because of their support of or even just tolerance of ID, it's clear that there is an atmosphere of fear among academics regarding ID. It is important — especially if you don't have tenure — not to look like you have any sympathy for ID. Perhaps this film will serve as a wake-up call to Academia, that if they don't lighten up, the backlash could be severe. And let's hope they get the message and lighten up.
2) I thought the implications (not logical implications, but causal implications) between Darwinism and Eugenics was explored rather convincingly. Let's hope it's something that remains a dark period in our past. But it served as a good reminder of how some theories can be taken to very evil extremes.
Comment by Bilbo — April 20, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Interesting display of comprehension by Weikhart. Looks like the guy is finally getting the point. This is quite a climb down for the DI gang. The Darwin=Nazi; the invention of the Darwinism and Darwinism=Nazism is a neoCreationist/ID gambit, clearly post Phil Johnson. The OldCreos – who continue to be the real game in pseudoscience town don't care for such nuances, and are pretty clear that it is the text or bust – which is why RTB isn't happy over the movie. But now after Weikhart's book is all but forgotten like one of those numerous tracts and pamphlets that are churned out every year, and organizations such as the Anti Defamation League who you would think actually know something about the Holocaust have condemned these farcical accounts passing off for history, the DI has begun to check itself, being at the point of diminishing returns. So now the hurried backpedalling and even the grudging concession that Darwin wasn't anti-Semite. Gonzalez is the new Dembski on hte block, determined to smash his credibility to a pulp. I was all along for over three years sure that Gonzalez was never going to win tenure. When I first heard of the guy (>3 years back) I took a look at his website at IaSU and was surprised to find an almost blank page with just his coordinates. No record of publications, no reports of research group (turns out he did not have any) and totally AWOL at some of the most important cosmology conferences – including the most important conference of this century – the KAVLI-CERCA that happened at Case hosted by Lawrence Krauss in 2003. Turns out (as is well explained on expelledexposed.com) that the guy jumped the shark a while ago.
Comment by agam — April 20, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Bradford cites Weikart:
The links from Darwin and his family to eugenics to Hitler's holocaust are strong. So are the links from American eugenicists – and the negative eugenics laws (i.e., forced sterilization) they were able to pass – to Swedish policies to Hitler's holocaust. All backed by 'sound' (and well funded) scientific and medical support.
I don't see why it should bother Dawkins that the links exist. They're documented history. Cold Spring Harbor – the original home of the Eugenics Records Office – offers a very good presentation to the public here. American Margaret Sanger was no slouch in the eugenics politicization movement.
The politics included propaganda, and that meant getting the churches involved too. And they were. Eugenics spread its diseased seed through whole populations of supposedly civilized nations and infected law and policy across the world. Hitler's aberration could easily have been predicted, given that genocide isn't exactly something new to humans. There have been more than a few attempted genocides since 1945, some of them counting more victims than Hitler's gas chambers did. They just don't call it eugenics and no longer try to justify it scientifically. It's just good ol' "Ethnic Cleansing."
Hitler himself was the aberration, as his National Socialism was a political aberration – there were plenty of authoritarian fascists around to help him out, but they didn't call themselves "Nazi." I think it's a mistake to neglect any of the actual history of Darwinism > Eugenics > Holocaust web of connections. The politicization of science has proven itself dangerous in more ways than one. The politicization of religion has always been dangerous.
Comment by Joy — April 20, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Interesting review Bilbo, thanks.
Comment by The Pixie — April 20, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Bilbo:
agam:
Agam, I can see the tactic clearly here, it's not very clever. The link explored (Bilbo says, I haven't seen the film) is Darwinism > Eugenics, not Darwinism=Nazism. Genocide was just policy in Germany and its occupied territories, sort of like the Department of Health. It was not National Socialism. The US had forced sterilization laws on the books in some states into the 1990s. Eugenics is no respecter of borders, it just gets its widest application in states that implement eugenics as law and policy. As Adolph Hitler did in Nazi Germany in 1934 with strong encouragement from American, British and European eugenicists (like the Darwin-Keynes families and like-minded elites) and scientists.
I doubt this sort of sleight-of-mind will be convincing to anyone who's seen the film and thus knows the actual connection trail. It's not convincing to me, since I knew the actual connection trail before this film was ever made. So… who are you trying to convince?
Comment by Joy — April 20, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
UD's DaveScot has seen the light:
Link: http://www.uncommondescent.com...
Comment by Raevmo — April 20, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Hey, Darwin's right – we're not mere animals. In fact, we're damn distinct from them, regardless of whatever biological history we may have. And justifying philosophical or (a)theological viewpoints on the basis of 'science tells us we're nothing special and the concept of special value for human life is a myth' is an abuse of science.
A shame the eugenics boosters of the time (including quite a lot of scientists) were so ignorant of such reasoning.
Comment by nullasalus — April 20, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
nullasalus
Yes, if only Hitler had paid closer attention to Darwin's work instead of the Bible.
Comment by Raevmo — April 20, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Indeed – humans are inherently special and noble creatures, and evil is an objective reality. Anyone who disagrees is an anti-darwinian crackpot.
Comment by nullasalus — April 20, 2008 @ 6:54 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
How poor of you. Have you read Mein Kampf?
Comment by todd — April 20, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I think it would help if we were to dispassionately analyze the relationship between Darwin's theory of evolution and eugenics. Eugenics is not a science, but rather a technology. That is, the application of scientific knowledge to the deliberate alteration of nature in the pursuit of a goal or goals desired by humans.
In this sense, therefore, all technologies (including eugenics) are a direct outgrowth of a system of social morals (i.e. ethics). From our perspective today, we almost universally decry that branch of technology known as eugenics, but we do this mostly as the result of our historical knowledge of what the technology of eugenics resulted in: at the very least, injustice, and at the very most (and most horrific) genocide.
It would do everyone thinking about this issue good to consider what the early supporters of eugenics thought about their new "technology" and why they supported it. We can look back now and condemn them all, but without the perspective gained from having the history of the 20th century behind us, I believe that such blanket condemnation does not give either the founders of eugenics (nor its more modern critics) enough credit.
"By their fruits shall ye know them" is just another way of saying that empirical knowledge of the effects of a particular system of thought is generally superior to a theoretical understanding of that same system, but devoid of the lessons of experience. Knowing what we know now about the political and social effects of eugenics, would anyone (including any evolutionary biologist I know) advocate it, especially in the ways in which it was advocated during the first two decades of the 20th century? I believe that the answer is no; that would certainly be my answer.
However, I also believe that one might come to a different conclusion were one to put oneself in the position of, say, Ronald Aylmer Fisher, one of the founders of the "modern evolutionary synthesis". Fisher was an extraordinarily creative evolutionary biologist, a brilliant mathematician, and a dedicated eugenicist. He was also a life-long and very devout member of the Church of England who often penned essays on christian faith that were published and widely read by his fellow Anglicans.
How would a partisan for either side of the EB-ID debate reconcile Fisher's devotion to evolution, eugenics, and Christianity? Only be taking a much less simplistic and more nuanced view of all three of these very human endeavors.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 20, 2008 @ 8:21 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Okay, I'll bite:
Here's how eugenics played out. Many of the intellectual elite were concerned about the future of humanity. In a state of nature, natural selection would weed out those who were physically and mentally impaired. But because of hospitals, medicine, and charities, it was not only possible for the physically and mentally impaired to exist, but they could have children is spread their "bad" genes through the population. In fact, researchers would find evidence that the mentally defectives seemed to reproduce at faster rates that those who were not. A sense of alarm set in and the elites had to come up with a solution. We clearly could not return to the state of nature, so the solution was to find ways to better mimic natural selection "“ targeted birth control and sterilization.
Comment by MikeGene — April 20, 2008 @ 8:25 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
MikeGene said:
Sounds like a public policy issue to me. How is this Darwin's fault? If anyone here thinks ignorance would have helped prevent eugenics, they should remember that Spartans practiced it long before Darwin.
Comment by olegt — April 20, 2008 @ 8:32 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Did I say it was Darwin's fault? No. So why did you ask me that question?
Comment by MikeGene — April 20, 2008 @ 8:40 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
And why blame marxism for any deaths? People were going to war and killing their enemies long before ideological zealots arrived on the scene – ho hum, nothing to talk about.
… What's being pointed out is the flawed justification of philosophy and policy that was once touted as "scientific" and practically identical with scientific truth itself. I think the (ab)use of scientific theory/discovery to pass particular political policies and philosophies as truth itself is something worth pointing out. Today's abuse of science was the past's 'use of reason and enlightenment values for the betterment of society'.
Comment by nullasalus — April 20, 2008 @ 8:43 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
nullasalus wrote:
Precisely my point. Both Will Provine and I devote an entire lecture to the subject of eugenics in our evolution courses at Cornell. However, I should point out that there are really two forms of eugenics, both conceptually and historically: "positive" eugenics (in which people with supposed "good" qualities are encouraged to have children) and "negative" eugenics (in which people with supposed "bad" qualities are discouraged from having children). Both of these are obviously technologies (by my previous definition) as both involve value judgments (i.e. "good" versus "bad").
In virtually all discussions of eugenics, it is the "negative" version that is emphasized, usually for obvious historical reasons. However, as my friend Will Provine is careful to point out, "positive" eugenics is alive and well and living…well, just about everywhere. Only now we call it "genetic counseling". Despite its new name, it differs not very much from what R. A.Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and even such "monsters" as Francis Galton were promoting around the turn of the 20th century.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 20, 2008 @ 9:20 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Allen:
Excellent comments to frame the discussion. And yes one person's positive eugenics is another's negative eugenics.
Comment by David — April 20, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Here's an interesting question: would germ-line genetic modification qualify as "positive" or "negative" eugenics? For example, I am very, very myopic (virtually legally blind). The form of myopia that gallops in my family is the result of an autosomal recessive allele. Both my wife and I are myopic; hence, by simple Mendelian genetics, all of our children probably will be as well. If the technology to accomplish it were available, would altering myself (or my children) to reverse or eliminate the effects of this allele be considered to be "positive" or "negative" eugenics?
Here's another one: My wife and I have four children. When she was pregnant for the fourth, she was tested for the presence of the cyctic fibrosis allele, and (like approximately one in twenty of all people of northern European descent) was discovered to be heterozygous. None of our three children have cystic fibrosis, but when my wife's genotype was discovered, a flurry of activity commenced, in which I was tested as well (it turns out I'm homozygous "normal", not heterozygous), and we underwent some genetic counseling.
Here's the question: if I were discovered to be heterozygous, which of our various options (up to and including aborting our son, if he were discovered to be homozygous for cystic fibrosis) would be considered to be "positive" or "negative" eugenics, and why?
BTW, our son, Draco, just had his first birthday…and he doesn't have cystic fibrosis.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 20, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Allen Macneill,
While it's admittedly a crappy site, Wikipedia has this to say about 'genetic counseling':
Genetic counseling is the process by which patients or relatives, at risk of an inherited disorder, are advised of the consequences and nature of the disorder, the probability of developing or transmitting it, and the options open to them in management and family planning in order to prevent, avoid or ameliorate it.
Sounds a lot closer to to negative eugenics to me, unless you're arguing that by discouraging people with 'bad' genetic qualities from having children counselers thereby encourages people with 'good' genetic qualities to reproduce. But then the distinction loses its meaning. I have certain problems with some of the practices and philosophies involved with "genetic counseling" – but I think neither of us wants to engage that particular argument at the moment.
Maybe you can make the case that those countries where citizens having children is being directly encouraged by the government (Japan, Russia, Germany, etc) is 'positive eugenics'. Then again, those cases have almost everything to do with increasing the young workforce, and much less to do with concern for improving the gene pool.
For my money, the justifications for eugenics suffered most with the very introduction of gene therapy. We have a very far way to go with that and related technology, but the simple existence of a way to cope with gene-related illnesses without recourse to selection through reproduction (or sterilization) makes the entire history all the more ridiculous, positive or negative. Along the lines of sterilizing people with blurry vision in the hopes of a world where everyone has 20/20 vision – and then along comes LASIK.
Comment by nullasalus — April 20, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Considering the sorry human record of genocide, discrimination, slavery, war, and artificial famine as oppression any thinking animal would be insulted to be grouped with humans. And Allan thanks for the clarification about science vs. technology
Comment by agam — April 20, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Mike,
I quoted your comment. My question, however, was addressed to you as well as others on this thread, as should be obvious from the next sentence.
Comment by olegt — April 20, 2008 @ 9:55 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Inadequate. Since I never claimed it was Darwin's fault, why are you asking me this question?
Comment by MikeGene — April 20, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Allen MacNeill:
No, eugenics was a sociopolitical policy of population control devised by elites, aimed at 'lesser humans', and heavily propagandized to the public in the name of patriotism, rationalism, science, humanitarianism, ethnic purity and prejudice against minorities, immigrants, Jews, the physically and mentally handicapped, even thousands of orphans (but only when they didn't have trust funds). A war against the poor and weak. Those who got to decide who were thoroughbreds and who were curs are the same ones who had the political and socioeconomic power to impose their policies under color of law.
There was nothing noble about it when Francis Galton invented it, there was nothing noble about its grotesque abuse of science, there was most certainly nothing noble about its corruption of medicine, and there was nothing noble in Adolph Hitler's strongly cheered "Final Solution." He was directly supported by US, British and Continental eugenicists (as well as financiers bankrolling eugenics everywhere in the white world). Eugenics as a means to "improve the species" must involve coercion. It won't work any other way.
If science can give me the means to find out if my unborn child will have CF or Downs, I can avail myself of it if I can afford health care. Then I can make my own decision for my own reasons. There is your technology. It can be used for good or evil – that is a sociopolitical question of power. Who does it serve?
If it serves me and mine, it's not eugenics. It's personal choice. If it serves some governmental, elitist sociopolitical and/or economic power, my choice is forfeit. THEN it's eugenics.
Comment by Joy — April 20, 2008 @ 10:06 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
It would seem to me that genetic counseling is more akin to negative eugenics than positive eugenics:
BTW, proponents of the new eugenics like to frame their agenda as being about "choice." But doesn't Provine deny the existence of free will?
Comment by MikeGene — April 20, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Allen_MacNeill:
A good, workable definition.
They certainly reflect our values. The same technology can be viewed differently with the passage of time due to a shift in morals or a gain in knowledge as you are about to point out.
Having the advantage of historical perspective it is easy to see that eugenics supporters had an unduly optimistic view of the character of those who would be in a position to practice eugenics. The Nazis are the outstanding example. Who would have forseen such a perverted view of altering Nature? Who could have forseen the racial assumptions that would determine views of fitness? Were eugenics supporters told of the possibility in advance they would have surely dismissed the informant as half-mad. Perhaps humans are not very good at anticipating the moral fiber of their fellow humans. That seems to have been the case.
Comment by Bradford — April 20, 2008 @ 10:24 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Joy:
It was a sociopolitical policy. I suppose Allen might say the isms you mentioned were the values that determined why and how we applied the tools at our disposal to attain the goals.
Comment by Bradford — April 20, 2008 @ 10:35 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
What's wrong with you, Mike? If you don't think you should answer my question, don't answer it!
Comment by olegt — April 20, 2008 @ 10:39 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Here is something I would like to throw out to provoke thoughts.
Should a scientific observation that has bad political side effects be denied, discouraged, etc?
Apparently, Darwin warned against applying his scientific observations for political purposes. Separating philosophy and science is for more than just the reasons Gould forwarded with his NOMA concept.
Another thought provoking point that is more on topic…
The Spartans practiced human eugenics long ago.
Mass killing for racial purity was so prevalent long before Darwin was born, that there is a term for it, Pogrom.
The Nazi's banned Darwin's writings and undoubtedly burned his books.
Hitler never mentioned Darwin or Darwinism.
Once you get past the recent attempt to popularize a Group Think meme, how can an independently thinking individual rationalize that Darwinism is to blame for the pogrom that occured under Hitler?
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 20, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
What's wrong with you, olegt? Since I don't believe this is Darwin's fault, nor claimed it wasDarwin's fault, why did you ask me, "How is this Darwin's fault?" Given what I wrote (and you quoted), I found your question to be incoherent. Yet now you can't even explain why you asked me that question. Why is that?
Comment by MikeGene — April 20, 2008 @ 10:56 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
TP,
If you're arguing that eugenics was practiced in disconnect from, or even in opposition to, darwinism – by all means, let's see the evidence. From Francis Galton to Ernst Rudin, the links are certainly strong. The simple fact that social darwinism was called social darwinism (Not as some ID plot, but way back in 1944, if the wikipedia is accurate) provides quite a big clue.
I don't think you have to engage in group think to deny the links between darwinism and eugenics policies. You just have to be devoted to creating a nice fantasy-world for yourself.
Science should be kept distinct from philosophy, whether one agrees with it or not. So says I, at least. One problem is that some people are so devoted to darwinism for how it can be abused in the service of philosophical or (a)theological abuse, that they feel compelled to deny what else it can be (and has been) used to support. After all, if it can justify a disliked philosophy/policy as well as a favored one, what's the point, eh?
Comment by nullasalus — April 20, 2008 @ 11:20 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Mike:
They've been at it all day with this bait-and-switch routine. Almost like it's a Talking Point they've been fed.
Comment by Joy — April 20, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
April 20th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Calm down, professor.
What are you talking about?
Mike already responded but that doesn't mean I'm not going to say something.
Go bark at someone else, or at least know what you're talking about.
What's wrong with Mike? What the hell is wrong with you?
But let me get this straight… "if you don't think you should answer my question, don't answer it!". Does that make any sense to you? If it did warrant a response (which it doesn't), and if he wasn't going to respond do you think he would need further prodding from you to not answer it?
Comment by Doug — April 20, 2008 @ 11:41 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:07 am
Bradford:
"We?" It wasn't me, Bradford. And it probably wasn't you (unless you're a lot older than I thought!). All the sociopolitical eugenics of the 20th century didn't eliminate poverty. It didn't eradicate brown people or black people, it didn't conquer mental or physical illness, it didn't cure genetic diseases. It can never cure disability or illness or age.
You'd think these self-important intellectual elites could easily have figured this out before it started, as well as foreseen its inevitable ugly conclusion. I get the strong feeling that they're just not all that bright.
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 12:07 am
April 21st, 2008 at 12:28 am
It's true that _some_ American Christians jumped on the eugenics bandwagon – and those were the "social gospel" [i.e., liberal / progressive] Christians. IOW, the American Christians who enthusiastically championed eugenics are the same Christians who sneered at orthodox Christian tenets. Orthodox Christians – Catholics and evangelical Protestants – vigorously opposed eugenics, and were derided as ignorant, superstitious, and unscientific by their "enlightened" Christian "brethren."
The term "pogrom" is a Yiddish Russian word coined between the years 1881 and 1885, during the anti-Jewish riots that swept Ukraine and southern Russia following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. The Russian pogroms were the handiwork of anarchists, whose anti-Semitism reflected social, economic, and political – not religious or racial – resentments.
The new eugenics of this century may just achieve what 20th-century eugenics didn't….
Comment by turandot — April 21, 2008 @ 12:28 am
April 21st, 2008 at 12:28 am
Allen MacNeill wrote,
Does Peter Singer count? As a more sophisticated exploration of the abolition of man? In Singer's case we are not superior to other mammals, so there is no apparent breeding plan vis a vis eugenics, but culling defective children up to a certain point after birth plays a part is his overall ethic.
Comment by todd — April 21, 2008 @ 12:28 am
April 21st, 2008 at 6:43 am
Mike, let's try one more time.
My question wasn't directed to you specifically. It was addressed to everyone commenting on this thread. Your comment contained a nice summary of the situation and was used as a jumping-off point. Since you don't put the blame on Darwin, you are not disagreeing with me and there's no reason to make a federal case out of it.
Comment by olegt — April 21, 2008 @ 6:43 am
April 21st, 2008 at 7:25 am
I have an honest question please don't laugh. Since Zack and others often argue that ID is indistinguishable from Darwinism biologically i.e. it does not make any distinguishing predictions and since ID apparently has none of the bad political side affects of Darwinism what would be the harm in allowing folks to hear about it when discussing origins?
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — April 21, 2008 @ 7:25 am
April 21st, 2008 at 8:12 am
That's not quite my position. ID is very poorly defined. Some definitions, e.g. Last Thursdayism, are vacuous, vague and unfalsifiable. Other definitions, such as the Explanatory Filter, are merely fallacious. In most discussions of ID, the definitions become confused and equivocal.
As long as it's not in the context of science, but in the context of philosophy or religion, I would certainly have no objection. Or even as speculation, but only rarely do those discussions have scientific merit.
Comment by Zachriel — April 21, 2008 @ 8:12 am
April 21st, 2008 at 8:20 am
Thought Provoker wrote:
Here's some thought-provoking stuff for you: read this and see if you can find for yourself anything that sounds like Darwinism.
I predict you will still twist yourself into logical pretzels in the attempt to disassociate Darwinism and the Nazi philosophies.
How could they possibly do that? They never once mentioned the word eugenics!
At any rate, so what? Why aren't the Spartans doing that now? For that matter, why did the ancient Romans stop abandoning their unfit infants around 300 A.D.? Why was there approximately 1500 years of no institutionalized eugenics? Why all of a sudden did the German people think it was fine to start it up again?
Try provoking your own thought before you start on others' thoughts.
No. They burned Haeckel's version of Darwinism because his denial of spirit was in conflict with their neo-paganism.
That's hilarious, TP. I came to my conclusions about the links between Nazism and Darwinism long before I registered for this blog. Your unquestioning repetition of Nick Matzke's dribblings shows who is actually engaged in groupthink here.
Comment by angryoldfatman — April 21, 2008 @ 8:20 am
April 21st, 2008 at 9:00 am
olegt,
If thats really what you intended why did you lose your cool and bark at Mike for not answering.
You should work on your consistency.
Comment by Doug — April 21, 2008 @ 9:00 am
April 21st, 2008 at 10:02 am
I think Allen is spot on in saying the issues are more nuanced. It is not a well acknowledged fact Darwin's theory succeeded in part because of the strong support of the Christian clergy. Even today, look at where Darwin's theory is being promoted, "Christian" schools like Baylor, SMU, Wheaton, etc. etc….
Stein had an axe to grind for his fellow jews. He sincerely believe Darwin was responsible.
For myself, I think one must be cognizant that the Jews of the Old Testament were the most notorious practitioners of genocide, and this makes genocide part of the Judeo-Christian history, whether Christian like it or not, and whether Christians can come to the terms that God may have commanded genocidal acts….
So now that I've come clean for my side, I think it is only fair to say, Darwin helped make it fashionable to practice Eugenics. After all, he came with the authority of science. His writings helped make it a "scientific" issue not a moral one…
As far as who's at fault for the holocaust, it was the Nazi's not Darwin. Darwin's ideas however reinforced their beliefs that it was a scientifically sound practice, that they were doing humanity good.
Stein was concerned that if Darwin's theory is not scientifically correct, why should it be used to influence medical practice in the form of Eugenics? As Berlinski stated in the movie, if Darwinian theory is widely accepted as "scientific" there would be a chance to repeat Nazi Germany Eugenics. That is the concern the movie is raising.
If indeed Darwin is right, then Eugenics is the right route. If he is wrong, then the issue becomes moot. Perhaps given the life or death issues, it might be worthwhile to be a bit more circumspect in elevating Darwin's theory to the status of other well accepted truths like universal gravitation…
As far as the erosion of the human genome, I think selection and eugenics can only slow it down, I don't think genetic entropy is reversible, much less can we build superior races without genetic engineering (intelligent design).
Cornell professor John Sanford, who was once upon a time a Eugenecist at heart, and vigorously practiced Eugenics in his plant breeding lab, now believes that eugenics cannot reverse the inevitable effects of genetic entropy. Other geneticists believe the human race will go extinct shortly (shortly in terms of geological time). So Sanford is not the only scientist with a grim outlook for humanity. Sanford argues that humanity's last hope would have to be in the form of a miracle given the immutability of genetic entropy. Eugenics cannot possibly rescue humanity…Sanford echoes my views.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — April 21, 2008 @ 10:02 am
April 21st, 2008 at 10:14 am
Finally, we'll have to come to terms with Eugenic issues eventually. Modern medicine is helping accelerate the persistence of genetic diseases like diabetes. The relaxation of selection pressures through application of medicine could arguably be responsbile for accelerated deterioration of the genome. John J. McFadden author of Quantum Evolution (which is really a bad intro to QM and biology), I think makes a good case for the negative effect of non-Eugenics on the genome. However, instead of Eugenics, he advocates re-engineering. I'm skeptical of our technology to achieve this at this time…..
The question comes however, re-engineering means engineering toward the original design. What then is the original design? Hmmm…..
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — April 21, 2008 @ 10:14 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:08 am
Darwin argued quite the opposite, that refusing to help the weak could lead to "deterioration in the noblest part" of human nature.
You're confusing a scientific theory with the use of a technology to advance a particular goal.
"Superior" is in the eye of the beholder.
"Genetic Entropy" is refuted by the plain evidence of historical evolution.
In the long run, we're all dead. "” John Maynard Keynes
That's a common misunderstanding of evolution. Different traits have different advantages in different environments. Even though Einstein may have made a very poor hunter or warrior doesn't mean he was genetically inferior.
Comment by Zachriel — April 21, 2008 @ 11:08 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:15 am
The two are in no way equivalent. Nothing that Darwin wrote actually actually called for genocide. Science does not create 'oughts'. Whereas God, as you nicely pointed out, did exactly that: call for genocides.
People are always confusing the two: Using a theory to justify an action versus a theory actually calling for an action. Science can only be found in the former category, while religion can clearly be found in both.
Comment by hrun — April 21, 2008 @ 11:15 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:25 am
todd asked:
Yes, Indeed, Peter Singer does count; in fact, he is ideal evidence for precisely my point. Singer (whom I have debated in print on several occasions) is not an evolutionary biologist. On the contrary, he is a philosopher; in fact, he's an academic ethicist. Ergo, he is talking about academic ethics, not evolutionary biology.
Find an evolutionary biologist (and preferably one whose work is either field or laboratory based) who currently supports anything like the eugenics of the early 20th century, and I'll show you a person whose understanding of the connection between science and ethical philosophy is seriously misguided.
BTW, I completely disagree with Peter Singer's version of "naturalistic" ethics, not the least because he, like many before him, commit what G. E. Moore called the "naturalistic fallacy". That is, he believes that one can derive an "ought" statement (i.e. an ethic) from an "is" statement (i.e. a science). In this, I believe he is seriously misguided, and as such provides a nearly perfect example of the kind of perversion that comes of conflating "is" and "ought" statements.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 21, 2008 @ 11:25 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:33 am
mikegene asked:
Yes, he does. And he also points out that, just because someone has a choice and makes a decision as a result of that choice, it does not logically follow that such a choice is "free". On the contrary, what Will argues is that there is no logical connection between making a choice and the necessity that such a choice is "free". He argues (and I agree with him) that every choice made by humans is constrained by a combination of our biological heritage and our experiences (i.e. our "nature" and our "nurture"), and is therefore not "free" by any meaningful definition of that term.
I would go further and argue (on purely logical terms) that the term "free will" is itself an oxymoron. Where does one's "will" come from, if not from one's biological heritage and life experiences? And, if this is the case, how can one's "will" be "free"
Furthermore, Will does not argue that, having made a choice that is not "free", one cannot therefore be held responsible for the consequences of such a choice. On the contrary, what determines if one is responsible for having made a choice is the mere fact that one has done so, not whether in some abstract sense such a choice was "free".
What, precisely, does the "free" aspect of "free will" mean, anyway? "Free" from what, exactly?
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 21, 2008 @ 11:33 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:37 am
Sal:
I don't know how much the human genome is deteriorating due to "genetic entropy" (?), but it has also been known for thousands of years' worth of eugenics applied to crops, livestock and human aristocracy that artificial management and inbreeding causes deterioration of the stock and concentration of genetic weakness/disease. This is why really successful breeders out-crossed to a stronger 'mutt' every few generations. Variation is natural and healthy, offers generations the ability to present different adaptive capabilities to an ever-fickle environment.
Human elites (aristocracy, ruling and capital classes) are highly selective and strongly inbred over the generations of their rein. Some royal houses only recognized brother-sister offspring as hereditary successors (Egypt). That couldn't last, and didn't. The so-superior white guys then expanded to close cousin inbreeding. Spread idiocy, general weakness and hemophilia through the castles of Europe and Russia. Even in the 19th and early 20th centuries the aristocracy habitually intermarried cousin to cousin. Their general fertility has long been notoriously bad, and THAT is the "problem" human eugenics was invented and promoted to address.
See, the healthily diverse breed like… er, rabbits. This scares the elites, who suckle on inequality from the moment they're born and don't much like to share (with siblings any more than with the rabble). It's not difficult – for someone to have more, several or many others must have less. Basic economic theory (and Keynes didn't invent it). So long as the small ruling classes can convince their vassals and serfs that they're just property and don't deserve more than toil and struggle, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Only the rich don't get more numerous in the process. The poor do.
Eventually, as history demonstrates in repeating cycles, the source of wealth (the people who work) rebels against imposed poverty and inequality and a new ruling class takes over for another cycle of the same old same old same. Eugenics may have been propagandized as encouragement for the upper classes to have more children, but that was never likely to work. They're too selfish and greedy. So the actual situation was – and still is – one of preventing the working class and below from breeding as much as possible, the 'defective' from breeding at all. Figuring that if the social structure didn't tolerate compassion, altruism and do-gooding among the population toward the sick, handicapped and aging, the population could have a better quality of life by not spending meager resources on each other. All without the rich having to give up any of their wealth or privileges (or have to share what they have with more offspring)! Watta scam.
The folly of human eugenics was obvious to anyone who claimed the title of "intellectual," since it's well-documented in human history and socioeconomics. Thus something 'New and Improved!' had to be added in order to sell the same old deception to the masses. Darwin supplied the 'New and Improved!' label to something old and stale (and many times demonstrated terminally dumb).
Curing diseases – genetic or acquired – is just medicine. It's not eugenics unless it is misused to harm people. Genetic engineering is never going to replace humanity with Barbie/Ken (or GI Joe). People are way too fond of begetting their offspring the old fashioned way. But genetic engineering could definitely be used to halt the breeding ability of humanity en masse. At which point medicine could sell the antidote to those deemed 'fit' to reproduce. All very carefully medically managed start to finish, for every child born.
Before writing this off, something like that has already been developed – the patent is jointly held by Monsanto and the USDA – it's called "Terminator Technology." It wasn't deployed because it makes plants sterile and transgenes are highly promiscuous. Just a little tweaking could have such a gene-packet targeted to human sterility, and it could be put into the whole world's staple food crops. Humanity could be sterile in less than 5 years. THAT is eugenics in action! Everything else is just an excuse for bigotry, cruelty and perpetuation of gross inequalities while trying to socially eradicate human qualities like compassion, altruism, pity and empathy. Oh… and love.
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 11:37 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:39 am
Religion or politics or philosophies like humanism can all both justify and lead some to call for action. Why? Because they are all wedded to value systems which all humans have. There are no moral vacuums. The best we can do is ensure that our moral values are solid.
The point about Einstein is correct however you are glossing over a phenomenon alluded to by Salvador namely, the persistence of genetics based diseases which confer no selective value. An increasing genetic load can occur naturally or be abetted through modern medicine.
Glad you included some facts, related to historical occurences, mentioned without explanatory details. The new eugenics may indeed succeed. More follows.
Yes and therein lies the rub. In a politicized world of competing value systems the value system in vogue, within any particular society, will determine which of many possible policies holds sway. That's a problem for eugenics in particular and social engineering in general. Who gets to determine what is good and socially desireable? The answer of course is the people in charge at any particular moment. What assurance do we have that those individuals will behave in a manner that is morally acceptable? None. That leads this writer to conclude that the less power made available to those who govern the better off we are. That and a systems of checks and balances were mechanisms deemed essential by America's founding fathers. They had a great deal of wisdom in this respect.
Comment by Bradford — April 21, 2008 @ 11:39 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:40 am
fifthmonarcyman asks:
And here's a related question; given that there is not much difference between the outcome of directed versus undirected evolution, does anyone here think that ID necessarily could not be perverted into the same kinds of sociopolitical abuses into which evolutionary biology was perverted by the eugenicists and/or the Nazi's? And please refrain from making religious arguments, since we are talking about the sciences of evolutionary biology and ID, right?
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 21, 2008 @ 11:40 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:45 am
Allen MacNeill,
Singer justifies a lot of his philosophy with reference to evolutionary biology and natural history – he's relied on it to add support to his views on everything from the value of human life to whether or not given particular acts (political, sexual, and otherwise) are acceptable. He's received praise for his philosophical developments from a lot of sources, including some biologists. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but are you saying that because Singer is a philosopher, not an evolutionary biologist, he (and the people who praise him) 'don't count' as an example of warping science to serve philosophy a la eugenics?
Comment by nullasalus — April 21, 2008 @ 11:45 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:47 am
But it may not even be the long run.
Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes says 100,000 years based on empirically measured mutation rates. He, like McFadden have raised the alarm, and unfortunately, I think the numbers are on their side. That's the irony, even the one-time-Darwinist-turned-Creationist Sanford agrees with them in general. No one knows the exact figure, but the time is short. The alternatives:
1. Vigorous Eugenics
2. Re-Engineering (McFadden)
3. Hope for a miracle
I'll probably be dead before I see how humanity deals with the problem.
God called for genocide in the Old Testament. Thus, I don't exactly encourage Christians to be arguing the Darwin/Genocide link lest they have the Old-Testament/Genocide link thrown right back at them….
I do think there is some link between the Nazis and Darwin even though Heinrich Himmler himself thought it odious that humans might be descended from apes. I could not blame Darwin for the actions of the Nazis. I could argue that Nazis were Darwinists in the selectionist sense, even though some thought man was not descended from apes.
For myself, some of this is a moot point in relation to the fundamental question of the truthfulness of Darwin's theory.
Berlinski argued the Darwin/Hitler link in the movie. He articulates the general view of many ID proponents. See: Connecting Hitler and Darwin.
Berlinski himself is a Jew by birth and considers himself an agnostic and son of englightenment values. I feel he gave a balanced treatment of the subject. He echoes my personal sentiments on this historical question.
Uta George, the director of the Hadamar Memorial — the one time extermination center for the "biologically unfit" — said that the Nazis drew their inspiration from Darwin, not Malthus. It might be worth investigating why George would say that. She seemed like she was not an ID crusader in any sense….just giving her view of history.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — April 21, 2008 @ 11:47 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:49 am
I don't. Christian blood is being spilt in large numbers in countries where creationism is espoused (like Somalia). Formally speaking, not all creationists are Christians.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — April 21, 2008 @ 11:49 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:55 am
If a trait is no longer a significant disability due to medical advances, then it may no longer be a significant evolutionary factor. If an otherwise deleterious trait is curable, then it no longer matters. Meanwhile, sexual selection continues to help maintain an overall healthy population.
Comment by Zachriel — April 21, 2008 @ 11:55 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:56 am
nullasalus asked:
No, I'm saying precisely that: since Singer is using scientific concepts to support an ethical position, he is indeed "warping science to serve philosophy a la eugenics?"
BTW, the connections between evolutionary biology and ethics will be the focus of my summer seminar in evolution at Cornell. For more information, see:
http://evolutionlist.blogspot....
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 21, 2008 @ 11:56 am
April 21st, 2008 at 11:58 am
Allen_MacNeill:
Good question Allen. I'll venture an answer. Free with respect to biochemical reactions constantly occurring within our brains and nervous systems. It would not and could not mean independence from them in the sense of being free of influence and feedback. However, a mind's capacity to choose between options would have to be free of a deterministic outcome resulting from underlying biochemistry. A test (inherently difficult) would entail sequencing an order of events that included thought and reactions. If free will exists there must be occasions when thought preceeds associated biochemical events.
Comment by Bradford — April 21, 2008 @ 11:58 am
April 21st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Bradford wrote:
Amen, brother "“ ubi libertas, ibi patria!
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 21, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Zachriel:
I'm all for that, but do you think it still has a significant effect in modern humans? (It certainly did: >50% of all selection in past humans; Wade & Shuster 2004).
Comment by Raevmo — April 21, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Hi Nullasalus,
You wrote…
The actions of the Spartans in 500 BC were clearly disconnected from Darwinism. The Nazis opposed Darwinism to the point of banning and/or burning Darwin's writings. I will get into how Hilter and Nazism were disconnected (in opposition to) Darwinism in my response to angryoldfatman.
You also wrote…
I tend to be uncomfortable using Wikipedia as an authoritative source, but since you brought it up…
"Social Darwinism is a hypothesis that competition among all individuals, groups, nations or ideas drives social evolution in human societies. The term is an extension of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, where competition between individual organisms drives biological evolutionary change (speciation) through the survival of the fittest.
The term was popularized in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter, and has generally been used by critics rather than advocates of what the term is supposed to represent." link
The original scientific hypothesis of "Social Darwinism" was simply an extension of Darwin's theories. The term has been subsequently used and abused by both proponents and critics.
Darwin's theories were about understanding NATURAL processes using scientific methodologies. Your only connection is that some people, including some of Darwin's relatives, used the term for something totally unrelated to a scientific theory about natural processes.
Shall we discuss the use and abuse of Christianity by the KKK and skinheads?
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Allen MacNeill wrote:
Aren't all of the options in this case "negative eugenics"
Comment by chunkdz — April 21, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Bradford:
If I might be so bold to make a suggestion. Let's make an exact copy, atom by atom, of Joy (unbeknownst to her), and let both Joys independently write posts on this blog (under different names). I predict the resulting rants will be nearly indistinguishable in style and content.
Comment by Raevmo — April 21, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Raevmo:
We can get something close to genetic equivalance in identical twins. Twins have different personalities. BTW, I think many of Joy's eugenics comments are spot on.
Comment by Bradford — April 21, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Bradford:
I know, but I'm not just talking about genetic identity, I'm talking about phenotypic identity, all the way down to the atomic level. They would have identical personalities then, don't you think?
Comment by Raevmo — April 21, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
"Genetic Entropy" is refuted by the plain evidence of historical evolution. Species come and go, but often leave descendents. As to Sykes, he has somewhat modified his original view of the y-chromosome. Maleness will continue to exist as long as it is an evolutionary benefit.
Absolutely. Social skills (including the respect of one's peers), ability to provide, physical grace and beauty, sexual appetite, perceived commitment, are all important in mating.
Comment by Zachriel — April 21, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I think it has already been observed, and correctly, and maybe bears repeating, but eugenics is pre-Darwinian.
And it also bears repeating that Darwin's theory of evolution is a theory of eugenics.
However, eugenicists since Darwin may have been rather selective in their reading of Darwin:
Darwin repeatedly reflects upon our ignorance of the laws of variation.
He observes generally that stock bred by humans benefit only indirectly and only under artificial (humanly controlled) conditions and are less fit under natural conditions.
He observes distinct limitations to the power of selection, natural and artificial.
And he repeatedly observes how inferior are the products of man's ingenuity compared to the works of nature.
Darwin's corpse has been drug around since before it was even cold by every pseudo-scientific crackpot and madman. He's been made the spokesmodel for every failed experiment in social engineering, and every crime against humanity.
I can hardly bring myself to blame Darwin.
Maybe more science less mudslinging? The issues involved are too important for the usual shit-fest.
Comment by Rock — April 21, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Yes, you are right. Religion, politics and philosophies can both justify an action and lead to a call for action. However, science and scientific theories can and do not. That was my point. And I'm glad that you agree.
I just wonder why so many other people get confused on this point. For example see Sal's ridiculous comment:
Darwin being correct in his theories about the origin of species has no bearing whatsoever on whether eugenics is 'right' or 'wrong'. Sal apparently thinks that the scientific theory somehow has a bearing on the moral value (right or wrong) of a specific action (eugenics). Go figure.
Comment by hrun — April 21, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Bradford,
But even the underlying biochemistry may or may not be purely deterministic. And subjective thought always precedes some activity in the brain. Even in the experiments typically rallied to argue against as much.
Allen,
Just making sure, I wasn't clear on that before. Though Singer tends to get a fair amount of praise from a number of scientists (among others).
TP,
And even if you, against all the evidence, managed to establish such – you'd have to contend with eugenics as a whole (as Joy and others have repeatedly and properly pointed out, eugenics took root in America and elsewhere). Do as you will, TP, but it's not going to get you anywhere – darwinism was a concept widely abused in the service of philosophical and political goals as seen with eugenics. And with atheism, in my opinion.
TP, have you read a single word I've written on this subject – and I mean honestly read and comprehended? I've said outright that darwinism was abused in the service of eugenics. Not that 'it naturally leads to eugenics' (I personally do not believe that), not that Darwin himself advocated eugenics (I do not believe that, and it's besides the point). In other words, the fact that eugenics and social darwinism grew out of a manipulation of, an abuse of, science – is my entire argument. That scientists and politicians arguing that eugenics was a route science demanded of us, and the viewing of certain people as inferior was the stuff of scientific truth, was an abuse.
Why bother? Judging by the phantom arguments you tend to have with me, you'd argue against an illusion you've created to support your worldview.
Honestly, TP, do you think I – anyone in this thread – don't believe religion in general, and Christianity in particular, has been abused to support horrible things? The difference is that when someone tells me 'The KKK leaned on Christianity to support their ideas', my response is "they absolutely did, and it's important to understand where they went wrong, and combat it". Meanwhile, the mere suggestion that darwinism was abused to support horrible things means you have to throw up a wall of defense, deny everything, obscure the issue – anything to minimize what you (wrongly) perceive as damage to your political hopes.
Comment by nullasalus — April 21, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Combine the two: Darwin's theory of evolution is a theory of the study of the hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.
Rock, which version of 'On the Origin of Species' did you read?
Comment by hrun — April 21, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Zachriel:
Agreed, but there's also lots of assortative mating ("op elk potje past een deksel" we say over here. Roughly: "every jar has a fitting lid"). Do we have any current estimates on relative variance in reproductive success in modern human societies?
Comment by Raevmo — April 21, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Hi Angryoldfatman,
You wrote…
And in response to me saying "The Spartans practiced human eugenics long ago", you responded with…
You also went on to claim the practice of artificially trying to create/maintain racial purity disappeared for the intervening 1500 years. That just flies in the face of a historical prevalence of ethnic cleansings and royal blood lines.
Sorry, but the pogram that occured under Hitler wasn't fundamentally new, any more than fighting a war was new. Both were just modernized versions of something that happened many, many, many times before.
You asked me to read the link you provided. I read it. I am curious if you did. There is no mention of "Darwin", "eugenics" or even "genetics". Here is what it did contain…
"Even the most superficial observation shows that Nature's restricted form of propagation and increase is an almost rigid basic law of all the innumerable forms of expression of her vital urge. Every animal mates only with a member of the same species. The titmouse seeks the titmouse, the finch the finch, the stork the stork, the field mouse the field mouse, the dormouse the dormouse, the wolf the she-wolf, etc.
…
The result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following:
Lowering of the level of the higher race;
Physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of a slowly but surely progressing sickness.
To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the will of the eternal creator."link
Hitler sounds more like a creationist than someone who believes in evolution. All that is missing is an appeal to the second law of thermodynamics.
And since you brought this evidence into the discussion, here is another interesting part…
"The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-and this against their own nation." link
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Humans have created a myriad of niches, so there is room for all sorts of types within society.
Anecdotal. But if anything, sexual selection should have a higher contribution to reproductive success with any easing of environmental selection.
Female beauty (physical and otherwise) remains highly desirable, which allows the female to choose from among a wider circle of potential mates. A socially adept male with the admiration of his peers is also much more likely to have his choice of mates. And material success can enhance the reproductive success of the entire lineage. At the extreme, those that are socially maladjusted, have asymmetrical features, or are sickly, are less likely to attract healthy mates and have successful couplings. (We're assuming these are heritable traits, at least in part.)
Some persevere despite the odds, and we admire them for doing so. That's because it tends to enhance the group's overall success.
Comment by Zachriel — April 21, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Zach and Raevmo, possibly the most insipid OT digression ever.
Comment by chunkdz — April 21, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Tracking back, Salvador T. Cordova and Bradford introduced "genetic entropy", especially as aggravated by medical technologies. I suggested that sexual selection helps to maintain a healthy population. Raevmo then asked for estimates of relative variance in reproductive success in modern human societies.
The original topic, box office receipts, doesn't seem to require additional comment. But in that vein, I think the box office will diminish sharply.
Comment by Zachriel — April 21, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Raevmo, nobody wants to play your stupid Poof-Joy game again.
TP, get over yourself. Pointing to ancient eugenics does not excuse the corruption of science to promote modern eugenics. If Galton & Co. wanted to justify their plans historically, they would have used historical justifications. They chose science instead, Darwinism in particular. Pol Pot didn't need Darwin to justify his genocide, nor did the Hutus in Rwanda. The Serbs didn't need Darwin to justify their slaughter of Croats, and the militias of Darfur probably never heard of him.
The United States, Britain, Europe and various far-flung outposts of rich white-guy Empire chose to justify their 20th century eugenics/genocides with Darwinism.
Sal, any human can voice strong disapproval of eugenics and genocide. Including Christians. They just can't use the justifications of the ancient Hebrews as any sort of approbation. Since I never have, it's not any more a consideration in my disapproval than the practices of Spartans.
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Does anybody else think that the terms "Positive Eugenics" and "Negative Eugenics" are just political spin? There is no positive eugenics without negative eugenics. Provine and MacNeill seem to put forth "genetic counseling" as an example of positive eugenics, but the logical conclusion of it is still killing or preventing the birth of the "genetically inferior".
Can anybody show me a real example of positive eugenics that does not entail negative eugenics as well?
Comment by chunkdz — April 21, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Encouraging people with "good" genes to have large familes.
Comment by The Pixie — April 21, 2008 @ 2:06 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Raevmo:
Don't know how you'd quantify "reproductive success," but the list of top ten child-producing countries reads like this -
1. Democratic Republic of Congo [49.6 per 1,000]
2. Gunea-Bissau [49.6]
3. Liberia [49.6]
4. Niger [49.0]
5. Afghanistan [48.2]
6. Mali [48.1]
7. Angola [47.3]
8. Burundi [47.1]
9. Uganda [46.6]
10. Sierra Leone [46.2]
Top ten non-child producing countries are -
1. Macau (People's Republic of China) [7.6 per 1,000]
2. Hong Kong [7.6]
3. Singapore [8.2]
4. Germany [8.2]
5. Japan [8.3]
6. Bosnia and Herzegovina [8.8]
7. Bulgaria [8.9]
8. Slovenia [9.0]
9. Croatia [9.0]
10. Lithuania [9.1]
Standing of UK – #153 @ 12.0
Standing of US – #139 @ 14.0
[List of countries by birth rate]
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I wonder if some of the people commenting here saw the same movie that I saw. eXplelled was primarily a about academic freedom not about eugenics. It made the connection to eugenics and Nazism as an example of the way a legitimate scientific theory (legitimate in my view) could be twisted into a very destructive world view. Do you agree or disagree?
I am curious as to what a working academic like Allen McNeill think and believe about academic freedom. Specifically, I have a few questions in mind. First, does an astronomer like Guillermo Gonzales have the right (morally, ethically and constitutionally) to believe that there is evidence for intelligent design in the universe? Does he have the right to work for a public ally funded university while holding these views? Does he have the right to openly talk about his views out side the classroom? Does he have the right to pursue and publish research related to ID on his own time? Please notice I did not ask about whether he has the right to be tenured or teach intelligent design in the class room. The tenure question, as I am sure you know, can be a complicated one and the teaching is not relevant here because Gonzales himself has said he did not teach ID in the classroom.
Of course, others are free to respond.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — April 21, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Salvador Cordova wrote:
I cannot find the words to express my disagreement.
The assertion that the OT Jews were "the most notorious practitioners of genocide" is just plain false, as anyone who's acquainted with human / OT history knows.
Secondly, the OT is written by God's chosen people – intermediaries who were _inspired_ by God's revelation. The Old Law prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah. The new Kingdom of God which Christ founded was not confined to a single nation, it embraced all the nations of the earth
In its treatment of the poor, of strangers, of slaves, and of enemies, the Old Law was vastly superior to the civilly more advanced Code of Hammurabi and other celebrated codes of ancient law. The love of God and of one's neighbour was the great precept of the Old Law on which the whole Law and the Prophets depended and is undeniably superior to the other codes of antiquity.
_Christ_ is the maker of the _universal_ New Covenant and the author of the New Law. By Christ's death on the Cross the New Covenant was sealed, and the Old Covenant / Law was abrogated.
Allen MacNeill wrote:
So what?
Whether Singer's an evolutionary biologist or the neighborhood trash collector seems utterly irrelevant to me. Isn't the point that Singer's repugnant "ethics" is founded on Darwinian "science?"
Is J. D. Watson or Richard Dawkins an evolutionary biologist [to name two examples that come to mind]? Both have quite forthrightly advocated eugenics. Oh, wait – I remember – the Darwinist rationalization: Watson and Dawkins aren't speaking as "evolutionary biologists," they're merely voicing their personal opinions….
Comment by turandot — April 21, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:29 pm
chunkdz wrote:
Untrue. when my wife and I went for genetic counseling (before my genotype was known), we were told that one option was to have the baby anyway (even if it tested positive for cystic fibrosis), and deal with the medical consequences. That was my choice, which (as it turned out) wasn't necessary, as I turned out to be homozygous normal (and therefore our son had to be no more than heterozygous).
How does this information jibe with what you expected me to say?
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 21, 2008 @ 2:29 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:30 pm
http://embryology.med.unsw.edu...
Comment by Rock — April 21, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Hi Turandot,
To be fair, I don't think Dawkins advocated for eugenics. I think he said we're far enough removed from Nazism that we ought to remove the stigma and discuss it. If I recall, Dawkins thought he might advance reasons and argue against eugenics.
Comment by Pez — April 21, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
My answers to John A. Designer's questions are all "yes." What other answer would you expect from an evolutionary biologist who regularly invites creationists and ID supporters to make presentations in his class?
And, as John points out, tenure decisions (like marriages) are not usually decided on the basis of any of these things, but rather on the basis of economics (doe the faculty member bring in lots of grant money to the department?) and personal likes/dislikes (can I stand to be in the same department with this person for the next three decades?).
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 21, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Hi Nullasalus,
Excuse me while I jump to your bottom line…
You wrote…
Did the eugenic proponents use and abuse science to support their political agenda?
"They absolutely did, and it's important to understand where they went wrong, and combat it".
I suggest the problem comes from trying to mix science with a philosophical sense of right and wrong. This is why I embrace NOMA.
In case you missed the subtlety, I have been talking about a historical question brought up in the movie, Expelled, not eugenics in general.
I am under no obligation "…to contend with eugenics as a whole (as Joy and others have repeatedly and properly pointed out, eugenics took root in America and elsewhere)." As you know, I disagree with the mixing of science and philosophy.
It is a philosophical Truth that all life is precious. This is not something you can argue for or against using science.
You suggested knowledge of "all the evidence" I am ignoring that ties Hitler and Nazism to Darwinism.
What evidence would that be?
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Hi TP,
I bet you haven't seen the movie. I haven't either.
What historical point does Expelled bring up and that you are talking about?
Comment by Pez — April 21, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Allen MacNeill said:
I expected you to show me how this was positive eugenics. Having a baby with cystic fibrosis and dealing with the medical consequences doesn't sound like positive eugenics to me. It sounds like life as usual.
Comment by chunkdz — April 21, 2008 @ 2:58 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 3:02 pm
The Pixie wrote:
This entails screening for "bad" genes, doesn't it?
Comment by chunkdz — April 21, 2008 @ 3:02 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 3:08 pm
TP,
You embrace NOMA? Whenever someone of Stenger's or Dawkins' or likewise sentiment comes along and violates it, your condemnation of them is 'Well, they reject NOMA, so what they're saying fits with their views, and there's nothing wrong with that'. Not much of an embrace, frankly.
The link is clear.
Already cited in support of the abuse of darwinism to promote eugenics. Meanwhile your big ace in the hole is 'Gee, Hitler – who, in the passages you quote, is expressly condemning the Christian mainstream – sure sounds like a creationist to me personally'.
How about this, TP – recognize the patently obvious (that darwinism was abused to promote eugenics, among other things), point out the distinctions between an abuse of science and a consequence of science (as I, frankly, have been doing) and maybe, just maybe, swallow a historical lesson without feeling the political need to convince yourself that social darwinism was all the Christians' fault.
Comment by nullasalus — April 21, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Hi Pez,
Since I don't wish to financially reward this kind of activity, I probably won't see the entire movie until it is available for free.
Here is something the movie's author, Kevin Miller, wrote…
link
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Joy (or her copy – can't tell):
I wasn't clear. I meant to ask about data regarding the relative *variance* in reproductive success of males and females in modern human societies, in the context of sexual selection brought up by Zachriel. The relative variance used to be quite large (few males fathering many offspring, many fathering few or none), accounting for >50% of all selection in humans, but I think the variance-gap between males and females has narrowed quite a bit, so I am not so sure how potent sexual selection still is in weeding out "bad genes" in modern humans. Fisher (yes, the eugenicist) had some interesting stuff to say about that (in addition to his theoretical contributions to sexual selection theory, originally due to Darwin). He suggested that bad breath might be a sign of bad genes (e.g. bad resistance genes), and thus contribute to sexual selection. I'm guessing by our standards almost everybody had bad breath in Fisher's days.
Comment by Raevmo — April 21, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Ah, so. Well here is the list of countries and territories based on total fertility rate – the expected number of children born per woman during her child-bearing years using figures from 2000 and 2007 (CIA World Factbook and the UN World Population Prospects 2006). My guess is they don't count guys because they don't count. Women who give birth mated with somebody. It doesn't matter (to the fertility rate) who.
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Hi TP,
So the historical case you are talking about is the fact that Hitler was influenced by Darwinian science and philosophy.
And what were you saying (subtly) about that point?
Comment by Pez — April 21, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Hi Nullasalus,
After rearranging my quotes where I was agreeing with you, you suggest your evidence was…
Please don't put quotes around words that were not said.
I also do not think Social Darwinism was the Christians' fault since I feel the term was meant to be a scientific observation of a natural process.
I agree that some of Darwin's TERMS were used and abused to promote eugenics. Eugenics has very little, if anything, to do with Darwin's scientific observations of natural processes. Eugenics was not and is not a natural process.
As for my Ace in the hole; thank Angryoldfatman for providing the links to where Hitler makes it clear he believes in an "eternal creator" and "Nature's restricted form of propagation" (i.e. animal kinds).
I have noted before that Christians condemning the actions of other Christians is nothing new. In the passage Angryoldfatman provided it is clear that Hitler believes in Christ and that he is following Christ's example of when Jesus "…took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity."
Until recently, I hadn't put too much effort into understanding all of the ins and outs of Nazism. However, with the latest Group Think push, I thought I would check out more of the details for my own independent thinking.
I was surprised by what I have found and not found.
I am still waiting for someone to provide evidence that directly connects Hitler to eugenics, much less connecting Hitler to Darwinism.
Common sense sometimes has some foundation but often it is just the result of wishful Group Think. Common sense would have indicated the Spartans were influenced by Darwinism except for the minor issue of being separated by a couple thousand years.
Where is your evidence connecting Darwinism to Hitler?
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 4:01 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 4:11 pm
TP,
It was clear I was placing apostrophes to summarize my view of what you said, not direct quotes. Technicalities like that are the refuge of those lacking confidence in their arguments.
Provided, again and again – the link comes through the (ab)use of darwinism and evolutionary thought to promote eugenics. Your response now is A) Conflating Darwin with Darwinism, B) Arguing that the use of darwinism was through terms, not concepts, because "eugenics is not a natural process".
Really, TP? Is it supernatural then? Subnatural? Darwinism described how populations develop and change over time. Eugenicists/social darwinists argued that, by understanding these processes, we could (and should) directly intervene to cull the less desirable and promote the more desirable. Otherwise, those maniacs with their food shelters and charity hospitals and such could do quite a bit of harm down the road.
By all means, keep right on denying that eugenics proponents drew inspiration and justification from an abuse of darwinism. It says quite a lot – just not what you think.
Comment by nullasalus — April 21, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Hi Pez,
You asked…
Excuse the repetition…
The Spartans practiced human eugenics long ago.
Mass killing for racial purity was so prevalent long before Darwin was born, that there is a term for it, Pogrom.
The Nazi's banned Darwin's writings and undoubtedly burned his books.
Hitler never mentioned Darwin or Darwinism.
Darwin, himself, warned against applying his scientific observations for political purposes.
Once you get past this recent attempt to popularize a Group Think meme, how can an independently thinking individual rationalize that Darwinism is to blame for a pogrom that occured under Hitler?
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Hi Nullasalus,
Allow me to bold the part you need to notice…
"I am still waiting for someone to provide evidence that directly connects Hitler to eugenics, much less connecting Hitler to Darwinism."
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 4:26 pm
TP,
Allow me to spell it out for you one more time: The connection between the abuse of darwinism and eugenics is clear, in ways louder than use of bold-type can make clear. If you're honestly asking me what connection Hitler has to eugenics itself, goodness. Let's use pictures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
I gave you the name Ernst Rudin. Did you assume I made that name up? Go, educate yourself. Here's a good line to pursue:
"Whoever is not physically or mentally fit must not pass on his defects to his children. The state must take care that only the fit produce children. Conversely, it must be regarded as reprehensible to withhold healthy children from the state."
Who said that, TP? Who was the person quoting? Wiki has the answer.
Comment by nullasalus — April 21, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
TP:
No, that's the scarecrow you and your cohorts have been lobbing across three threads for as many days. The connection made in Expelled is Darwinism > Eugenics. The Hitler connection is with eugenics. He never pretended to be a scientist or a science groupie, and no doubt didn't care one bit about science or scientists except how far they could help him push his agenda. His desire was conquest, his goals political. Eugenics served his ideas of racial superiority and purity, and gave him a free pass from the not so civilized world when he started eliminating people by means of eugenics.
Nobody ever claimed Hitler was an evolutionary scientist or a biologist or even a member of the "intellectual elite" that invented and promoted 20th century eugenics by appeals to Darwinism. The claim is that Hitler used eugenics to accomplish the murder of millions of innocent people in what became known (when it couldn't be hidden or ignored anymore) as "The Holocaust."
Did Adolph Hitler embrace negative eugenics? Did he model his laws on eugenics laws in the US and Scandinavia? Was eugenics partially justified by appeals to Darwinism and "improving the species?" Was it invented by Charlie Darwin's cousin and strongly supported by Charlie's own children and grandchildren? The answers are all YES. The progression is Darwinism > Eugenics > Nazism. Why deny it?
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Burn baby, burn!
Comment by Stephen — April 21, 2008 @ 4:45 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 5:09 pm
There are many complicating factors, such as culture, and the fact that the current human population is in rapid flux. It also depends on what you mean by "modern society". Advanced reproductive technology has not yet had large-scale effects, even in Western societies. Ample resources is the primary modern development.
The historical pattern remains. Healthy mates with healthy. (Not just physical health, but social and other measures as well.) Monogamous organisms don't always have the extreme displays, but when there are ample resources, then attracting the sexiest mate can become an important activity.
Sure, assuming perfect monogamy, everyone can mate. But many don't. And the healthiest will still tend to have more, healthy children. (The rapid but temporary increase in population as a poor culture enters modern society affects all cultures.) Females with sexy bodies will still have their choice of the most desirable males. When discussing deleterious traits, sexual selection amplifies whatever negative effects the disability might have. Nor does perfect monogamy exist in human populations.
Plus, birth control enhances female mate selection, allowing her to delay reproduction until she finds a suitable partner. Nor has cuckoldry ended.
It modern society, it may indicate a different heritable trait. Sweetness of breath may be an outward sign of hygenic behavior. Bad breath could indicate someone with a predisposition not to take care of business, as it were.
Comment by Zachriel — April 21, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Hey All,
This is an amazing thread I for one would like to thank all for participating and for holding the usual shenanigans to a minimum. This topic is just two important to take make light of
If Stein wanted to make an emotional impact with the movie he succeeded with me at least. Any time someone tells me that there is no connection between Darwinism and the Holocaust the image of Provine saying that after learning about evolution he now believes that life is meaningless and talking about putting a bullet in his brain will make it hard to listen. I'm sorry but that is just the power of media.
Maybe I'm wrong but I can't see how it could. ID is all about design and designed artifacts are inherently meaningful at least to the designer and those who admire his handiwork
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — April 21, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Zachriel wrote:
Fascinating. I mean, who ever would have expected that science would reveal that sexy women want to date healthy guys who don't smell like a sewer?
The wonders of science never cease to amaze.
Comment by chunkdz — April 21, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Hi Nullasalus and Joy,
As I stated, I had not looked into Hitler and Nazism in this much detail until recently. I use debating as my motivation for researching and most people consider an appeal to Nazism in debates to be, for all practical purposes, a concession of defeat.
I think the makers of Expelled made a mistake. By this time they may even agree with me.
That being said, Nullasalus thank you for providing me the information I requested. I had seen the posters, but I was missing a Hitler/eugenics connection. Now I have it.
Joy, frankly I am surprised with how much you have pushed the relationship of Darwin's relatives to eugenics. A claim of Sins of the Father is groundless enough, but to try to make a connection based in the sins of the children approaches populous tripe.
So we are all agreed that the American eugenics program misused a scientific theory for philosophical/political purposes. We all agree that this was a bad idea and are personally philosophically opposed to it.
Hopefully, we can agree that this has nothing to do with the Darwinian science. Kind of like separating the ID MOVEMENT from ID SCIENCE.
I suggest bringing up the subject of eugenics to make a scientific argument is meaningless and counter-productive, it's worse when stretched to rationalize flashing emotionally charged pictures of the Nazi holocaust in a propaganda movie pretending to be a documentary.
The link is Darwin > Darwin's relatives > misused terms > American eugenics > Ernst Rudin > Dictator already in power
All of which has nothing to do with Darwinian scientific theories or tenure denial at ISU. It has everything to do with a religious movement with a political agenda.
Why deny it?
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
TP
This is just so wrong it's wierd.
Comment by chunkdz — April 21, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I don't really see the problem. The link between Nazi's and the Eugenics movements and Darwinism are just a historical reality.
The Nazi's were on about a whole lot more than antisemitism.
If Darwinists are uncomfortable about having the reality brought to light why don't they actually explain why this historical link is such a problem ? Could it be that they buy into the eugenics agenda perhaps ? It couldn't possibly be that.
Comment by thesciphishow — April 21, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 6:04 pm
chuckdz
Divide the population into "good genes" and "bad genes". Positive eugenics is encouraging the "good genes" to have children, say by a marketing campain targeted at that group, perhaps offering tax benefits to "good genes" with large families. The "bad genes" are not affected, and have families as normal.
Comment by The Pixie — April 21, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 6:19 pm
thesciphishow,
It's not all darwinists. I'd probably qualify as one, though I find the definition of that term to be highly squirrelly and a debate itself. I'll happily point out the abuses the concept has gone through – they're contemptible, of course. Allen MacNeill hasn't had much of a problem admitting this either.
My guess? Darwinism/evolution carries a whole lot of philosophical baggage for the more angry atheist types – and if darwinism can make someone an 'intellectually fulfilled eugenics proponent' as readily as an 'intellectually fulfilled atheist', a whole lot of its philosophical utility goes down the toilet. So it's very important for some that darwinism only inspired nice and desirable things, like tastier salads and sunshine and frolicking puppies. Even admitting that eugenics justification was an abuse of darwinism isn't good enough, because then the question becomes 'what other abuses do we know of regarding darwinism'? Why, questions like that could get you kicked out of the church. I mean, the secular freethinker organization.
Comment by nullasalus — April 21, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Pixie
People with good genes, like most folks, have been mating for a long time with no help from the government, and they never needed a marketing campaign.
Your idea of shifting finite resources from the weak to the strong, while making the weak pay for it, is really just a cleverly disguised way to take food out of the mouths of the weak and give it to the more deserving strong.
Doesn't sound very "positive" to me.
Comment by chunkdz — April 21, 2008 @ 6:36 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Exactly right. Eugenics is not, nor has it ever been, part of the science of evolutionary biology. I should think by now that this should be perfectly clear, as the majority of commentators on both sides of this issue have agreed with this statement.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 21, 2008 @ 7:01 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 7:03 pm
chunkdz wrote:
It's positive eugenics because my wife and I are obviously superior members of the species, and so every child we have is a positive contribution to the gene pool.:wink:
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 21, 2008 @ 7:03 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 7:04 pm
thesciphishow:
Well, as you can see, denial runs very deeply through this gorge. They'll say or do just about anything to pretend history isn't history. The reason? Why, the fact that what Hitler did – with the help of whole squadrons of scientists (many of whom we got for free when the war was over, and others who escaped to engineer the genocide of the native Paraguayan population) was so horrendous – so stupendously horrible and unspeakably inhuman – that it's just darned hard to admit the depths of depravity human beings are capable of visiting upon one another.
No one wants it. Holocaust denial is now illegal in some countries with a lot to feel guilty about. In others (like ours, after providing Hitler with his legislative models and encouraging and financing his regime) we just get to pretend it wasn't about us at all. Didn't we liberate the starving leftovers from the camps before Hitler killed them ALL?
There is enough real historical fact on the table about this notorious and shining example of human evil to keep historians and the humanist/religiously minded busy for centuries. Charles Darwin wasn't so dumb as not to have known full well where his theory would lead if anyone were to embrace it in that way. Just as Jesus once warned about false messiahs and the faithful being fooled so seriously "even the elect" would be turned if that were possible, Darwin warned that the very programs and policies his cousin and descendants created in his name would do immense harm to humanity. If people think denial is just a river in Egypt, warnings about denial go right in one ear and out the other. No one will care until it's over, and if you're king of the world when the dust settles, what does it matter?
Think about it. What if we'd captured Hitler before he killed himself, put him on trial for anywhere from 6 to 20 million deaths? How many times could we have hung him? How many lives of his could we ever have claimed? …Just the one, and he took it himself. Evil is so damned mundane. So ultimately banal!
If we could just agree that the history is the history, the progression is what it was, there's plenty of blame to go around. Scientists (who weren't involved directly and don't advocate eugenics now) are no more to blame than we who weren't even born when this atrocity happened. But obviously we haven't learned much, except not to blame science for the weapons we use to commit genocide. Well, maybe the Rwanda genocide can be exempt. They just used machetes.
Anyway, there's something very wrong in human nature, even though there's also something supernaturally right. I think it's well past time we got down to figuring out what it is, and how we can work with the good while isolating and weakening the evil. That was the reason we found ourselves here and not happily tending trees in the Garden, isn't it? The knowledge of good and evil. Do we know it yet? Or are we just "debating" because it's fun?
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 7:04 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 7:10 pm
chunkdz:
That sounds a lot like the prescription for laissez-faire capitalism complicated by rampant obesity!
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 7:21 pm
chunkdz
Positive eugenics is encouraging them to have more children.
Like that does not happen away!
Comment by The Pixie — April 21, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 7:23 pm
So what is the degree of differential reproductive success due to sexual selection of heritable variations in humans?
Comment by Zachriel — April 21, 2008 @ 7:23 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 7:40 pm
scifishow:
If Christians are uncomfortable about the fact that the Nazis were just following Christian tradition in killing millions of Jews, why don't they actually explain why this historical link is such a problem? Could it be that they buy into the antisemitic agenda perhaps?
Comment by Raevmo — April 21, 2008 @ 7:40 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Nice try Raevmo try to focus We are not talking anti-Semitism We are talking Eugenics
Has any one here denied a historical link between medieval European anti-Semitism and the Nazis? I've yet to hear it. Anti Semitism is par for the course in every civilation I know of: Islam, Pagan Rome Christendom and Persia. The only exception I know of are folks from the Anabaptist tradition and I suppose if you were to look hard enough you'd find anti-Semites there to.
The question is not whether folks hate folks that are different than them duh its human nature.
The question is why would a group decide to systematically eliminate people even their own children because they believed that they were genetically inferior. I don't think you will find a Christian tradition for that
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — April 21, 2008 @ 8:06 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 8:26 pm
TP:
I am demonstrating the lengths to which the elitists responsible for inventing and popularizing eugenics appealed specifically and strongly to Darwin's fame to provide that 'New and Improved!' label to their efforts to breed a better class of humans by preventing lesser classes of human from reproducing. They never had a lot of children and never intended to. I suppose you saw the movie "Titanic." That whole class thing was quite serious at the time, the aristocracy were by then so inbred as to be a positive danger to themselves. They didn't like the idea of losing power. Nobody in power ever does.
Only a few of the Darwin-Galton-Keynes descendants who served on the board or as officer of the British Eugenics Society/Galton Institute were scientists, fewer were biologists. Often a wife of a deceased Darwin was good enough. Just good PR, like putting your name on the Gates Foundation or the Ford Foundation. Galton traded on his cousin's fame and theory, enlisted the offspring.
Can't you see this for what it is? I don't think Leonard Darwin needed his dead father's permission to join a club trading Daddy's name and fame for whatever Leonard got in return. It was Daddy's name that mattered, Galton's appeal to authority. None of these people were Charles Darwin himself. Maybe he had some real understanding of his times by the time he published 'Origin' and that's why he sounded the warning. Almost like he knew what they'd do with it…
When Hitler passed his extreme eugenics laws under Rudin's authority as director of eugenics for the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Munich (appealing to legislation previously passed in more than 30 US states and Scandinavia), a lonely boat full of Jewish refugees was repeatedly refused entry. It's not like no one knew what was happening. It's just that we couldn't tolerate the expansionism or an alliance with Japan at the time. We didn't go to war because Hitler was killing Gypsies and Jews, you know. We didn't have much of a problem with that.
Stein & Co. cited scientific – specifically Darwinist – connections to eugenics, which we all know formed the basis of Hitler's domestic racial policies. Those are the facts of history, as it was. I don't understand why you deny them.
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Hi Joy,
You wrote…
"…which we all know…" is the big red flag to Group Think.
Let's say in an alternate history Darwin didn't exist…
Do you think that would have meant a certain paper hanger named Hitler wouldn't have written Mein Kampf and rose to power in Germany?
Did you read the the chapter Angryoldfatman linked to?
"The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross…
If we pass all the causes of the German collapse in review, the ultimate and most decisive remains the failure to recognize the racial problem and especially the Jewish menace." link
This is the basis of Hitler's domestic racial policies. It wasn't the big lie, it was the big truth about Hitler that was ignored.
Now, you might argue that without Darwin there wouldn't have been eugenics and without eugenics, Americans might have been less inclined to tolerate Hitler for as long as they did.
However, this is a lot of indirect whatifs in the face of a glaring BASIS for Hitler's actions.
"Those are the facts of history, as it was. I don't understand why you deny them."
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 9:08 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Hi Fifth Monarchy Man,
When Allen wrote…"And here's a related question; given that there is not much difference between the outcome of directed versus undirected evolution, does anyone here think that ID necessarily could not be perverted into the same kinds of sociopolitical abuses into which evolutionary biology was perverted by the eugenicists and/or the Nazi's?"
You responded with…
Do you have any idea how scary this kind of response is to people like me?
I am not surprised that you were moved by Ben Stein's message. Personally, I wanted to believe all the bad things about Bush in Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (I saw on DVD), but the first thing I did was to try to fact check everything said.
If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 9:31 pm
So, let's see here, TP. Going by the good ol' wikipedia entry on this.
A) The nazis saw orthodox christianity – whether protestant or catholic – as something that needed to be replaced. In other words, it just wasn't doing the job it needed to do, insofar as supporting their policies go.
B) The quotes you yourself provide has Hitler attacking 'modern' mainstream Christians as being – *gasp* – jew-lovers.
C) I love that convenient lopping off of the last part of the quote given. Let's complete it, eh?
In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-and this against their own nation."
And frankly, TP – since you walked in here as the guy implying that this 'The Nazis were strong advocates of eugenics' claim sounds dubious and could we please provide some evidence – I'm going to go out on a limb here and say your familiarity with the facts of Hitler's regime are limited at best, and twisted at worst. But let me guess; just because the nazi link to eugenics is common knowledge, it's actually 'group think' while your blaming of nazism on christianity is 'independent thought', precisely because it's largely regarded as a ridiculous charge.
You're scared by anything people who believe differently from you say or do. Get some meds.
Comment by nullasalus — April 21, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Post Script to TP (because this thread is getting too long):
I ended with -
I haven't seen the movie and neither have you. But I have seen a few clips, I've seen reviews pro and con, and I laughed heartily at the PZ meltdown when it dominated the web.
If the best thing to be taken away from this film about academic freedom it's that orthodoxies – in either religion or science – are dangerously easy to use as self-justification for any horror, any evil the human mind is capable of imagining and making real. Science can be misused, and if it continues in error it can itself become as bad or worse than the ignorance it exists to dispel.
Hitler is his own fault. A product of his times and the way power works, using whatever advantages he could muster to make his dreams come true – and corrupting everything he touched. He perverted science just as he perverted religion in quest of his aims. So we turned right around and made the weapons his scientists couldn't quite justify giving him, then used them against the Japanese. There's a hefty degree of responsibility and guilt to be parsed on that one too. It's enough here to simply acknowledge reality.
Great evil can be done only when good people do nothing to stop it. Who said that? If science has been corrupted by philosophical mines, we need a minesweeper that can diffuse them before they go off and collapse the entire superstructure. Religion *is* philosophy, the mines come with the territory (we're used to them, willing to sustain the losses). If science's corruption wants to engage religion in religion's arena, religion will win handily. It's had more experience, owns the turf, is on first-name terms with the lions.
Religion doesn't have clean eugenic hands, and can't claim higher ground on the amount of evil it's propagated in its existence, since its existence is concurrent with all of humanity. It has claim [edit; double negative] high ground so long as supposedly intelligent people in the other camp engage in holocaust denial per Darwinian/science influence on the machinery of it. That loses you the battle for hearts and minds before you even get to the arena floor. Pitiful.
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 9:42 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Christians don't usually try to excuse it away but instead say it is wrong.
And "millions of jews". Christians have always had a mixed relationship with Jews, but never anything like what the Nazi's attempted, and never for racial purity reasons like the Nazi's employed.
And it is actually the eugenics not the antisemitism that provides the Darwin/Nazi link.
Comment by thesciphishow — April 21, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Actually I don't think that is it at all. I think the problem is that the connection is undeniable and many are sympathetic to the eugenics movement in general. That is why they don't like the connection. Not because of what the Nazi's did in their eugenic crusade to get rid of all those they claimed were "defective" but because they are sympathetic to the goal of eugenics.
Comment by thesciphishow — April 21, 2008 @ 10:00 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 10:08 pm
TP, this brief exchange is evidence that the culture war is a two way street. Other than approaching problems from different vantage points how are you any different from the fellows of the DI?
Comment by Bradford — April 21, 2008 @ 10:08 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Hi Nullasus,
A few things to clear up. As I said, I was aware of the Nazi's eugenic posters, it was the link to Hitler I was interested in.
I suspect this Nazi tie is more important to you than to me. You are the one who brought it up in our previous conversation. The movie Expelled is the source this time. I'm in the habit of avoiding introducing the Nazi subject in debates (it is a losing argument).
So yes, I am learning a few things on the fly. For example, have you read the sequel to Hitler's Mein Kampf called Zweites Buch (Secret Book)? Here is something interesting about the Spartans…
If man wants to limit the number of births on his own, without producing the terrible consequences which arise from birth control, he must give the number of births free rein but cut down on the number of those remaining alive. At one time the Spartans were capable of such a wise measure, but not our present, mendaciously sentimental, bourgeois patriotic nonsense. The rule of six thousand Spartans over three hundred and fifty thousand Helots was only thinkable in consequence of the high racial value of the Spartans. But this was the result of a systematic race preservation; thus Sparta must be regarded as the first Folkish State. The exposure of sick, weak, deformed children, in short their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject, and indeed at any price, and yet takes the life of a hundred thousand healthy children in consequence of birth control or through abortions, in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates burdened with illnesses. link page 11.
In looks like Hitler didn't need Darwinian inspired eugenics since the Spartan version was good enough. Hitler made no mention of Darwin or even "eugenics" in this book either.
You see, thinking for myself forces me to defend myself with quotes and evidence, which I do with links. So far, the only quote you provided was from Ernst Rudin quoting Hitler then asking me to go find the link myself.
However, you are better than most, so I thank you.
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 10:41 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 10:48 pm
thescifishow:
Ah, dear scifi. There is no 'goal' in eugenics. It's just the exercise of evil against lesser people one class doesn't want to share the planet with.
Kill all the homeless and mentally ill you can find on the streets today, there will be more tomorrow. Kill all the sick and all the injured and all the deformed today, there will be more tomorrow. There is no end to it. That's why evil is a black hole.
"The poor will always be with you," He said. There's nothing new coming down the spiritual pike that's ever going to make it easier for us. Love One Another. We can't yet manage to do that much, we don't have much hope. Yet… yet… there's something here. Anything humans do, create or think can be turned to evil. It's enough to make one rue human abilities altogether, it always turns so quickly into sewage.
I am passionate about this subject, for reasons I have mentioned more than once. I made a promise – Never Again – and I'll keep it for as long as I can still speak, as long as I can still write, as long as I can still remember. And I will never forget.
This has been a hot-button for me long before I ever knew who Ben Stein was or anybody ever thought of Expelled. Heck, it's been with me longer than probably 99% of the people here have been alive! So you won't ever argue me underground on this, and you'll never win. All you can do is hope somebody with sensible eugenic understanding will get past Grandpa's shotgun and kill me (or I'll just die anyway). My Great-grandma lived to be 100 with all her wits, her brother to 104. On the other side, great-aunt Mae was 106 last I checked, and one of her brothers claimed to be 112. I'm not planning to check out any time soon, BECAUSE people – some of them right here – are still denying it. Shame!
Never Again.
Comment by Joy — April 21, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Lookie! Another babe bunnah!
Comment by MikeGene — April 21, 2008 @ 10:52 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I saw the movie today. Very powerful. It talks about freedom of speech and freedom of thought. It's good to shine the spotlight on what is happening in Big Science today. I will buy several copies when it's available on DVD.
P.S. I'd also like to say a warm "hello" to some old friends. Great to see you again.
Comment by nobody — April 21, 2008 @ 10:56 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Hi Bradford,
You asked…
Other than accusing me of being a culture warrior, I am not sure what you are getting at.
What is scary to me how someone like FMM doesn't see that any significant concept can be used and abused.
I suspect that was the point Allen was trying to make.
I don't know the Truth, but I get nervous around those who think they do.
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 10:56 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Is every post here moderated? I like that.
Comment by nobody — April 21, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I realize this Joy. I totally agree with you. I'm just noting that many of these Darwinists that don't like the Darwin/Nazi link are probably upset because they share many aspects of the eugenics mindset that the Nazi's had.
They might not care one way or the other about Jews, but the Nazi's killed a whole lot more "defectives" than that.
And you are right, it is an evil black hole they wish to go down, but down it they wish to go anyway, and they are just upset that anybody is pointing out the obvious. Didn't the Nazi's deny the death camps right up till the end ?
Comment by thesciphishow — April 21, 2008 @ 11:07 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Hi Mike,
Cute baby bunny.
I get the impression that you would like to distract this conversation.
Probably a good idea, arguing about Nazism is a no win situation.
I think I have made the points I am going to make here.
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 11:18 pm
TP, this brief exchange is evidence that the culture war is a two way street. Other than approaching problems from different vantage points how are you any different from the fellows of the DI?
What is scary to me how someone like FMM doesn't see that any significant concept can be used and abused.
Any concept can be abused but are you certain abuse is your only concern?
Comment by Bradford — April 21, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
April 21st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Hi Bradford,
You asked…
When my children and grandchildren may be the ones suffering the abuse, yes.
I suggest you quit being coy and make your accusation or state your question clearer.
I have no reason to hide my true feelings or agendas and I don't.
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 21, 2008 @ 11:24 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:16 am
Pixie,
Understood, but taking money from the weak and giving it to the strong as an incentive to make strong babies that will take more money from the weak,….well, you get the picture. It's negative eugenics and it's always been camouflaged as compassionate and reasonable.
Anytime you define two classes of people, then show preference to one group over another, there will be a winner and a loser. Positive eugenics does not exist without negative eugenics, therefore I think "positive eugenics" is a weasel term.
Comment by chunkdz — April 22, 2008 @ 12:16 am
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:19 am
Joy,
You just had to go there, didn't you?!:grin:
Comment by chunkdz — April 22, 2008 @ 12:19 am
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:23 am
[quote]Understood, but taking money from the weak and giving it to the strong as an incentive to make strong babies that will take more money from the weak,"¦.well, you get the picture. [/quote]
So if we divert the money from military spending? Or we tax the "good genes" at a higher rate unless they have large families?
Comment by The Pixie — April 22, 2008 @ 3:23 am
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:07 am
Hi TP,
That's what I thought. Your "talking about" the historical case (Darwin's influence on Hitler) included stories about Spartans (any ideas Darwin got about Sparta came from Haeckel). The two are not related. In fact, did you touch the historical case of Darwin's influence on Hitler at all? To demonstrate your interest in the history I see you even had to be convinced that Hitler promoted eugenics. Is this what you call honest debating?
You mention Sparta (which has nothing to do with the historical question you say you were addressing) again and mention Hitler's books. He started the first,Mein Kampf, while in prison. American eugenics leaders proudly sported letters written to them by this young corporal from the same prison.
Doesn't look like Sparta figured too strongly in Hitler's developing eugenics.
As for Hitler and Mein Kampf and eugenics:
Now you question Joy's reference to Darwin's family and eugenics and act as though this connection is spurious. Are you aware that his son, Leonard, (who would be a lot more knowledgeable than we) thought that by his involvement in the movement he was doing what he thought Charles would have wanted?
Here's the dedication to his pro-eugenics book:
http://bevets.com/equotesd2.ht...
http://www.catholic.org/nation...
Have you read Darwin's Descent of Man and the tribute he pays his cousin and eugenicist, Frances Galton? Or to social Darwinist Spencer?
Are you aware that Galton considered Darwin his biggest inspiration? Guess who else did? Ernst Haeckel. He even quit med school to become a biologist because of Darwin's influence on him. Haeckel, of course, was the greatest popularizer of Darwinism in Germany and shaped the thoughts of the intellectuals of that country, of course. And you've read how Hitler's statements are almost word for word quotes of Haeckel?
Speaking of Huxley, here's Julian, the younger, on his opinion of Darwin, Haeckel and eugenics:
As recently as 1936 Julian Huxley wrote:
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org...
So, even if Hitler had never heard of Darwin (but he did, preferring his theory in school to the theory of creation he was also taught) he is influenced directly by Haeckel who was influenced directly by Darwin.
And, by the way, Darwin embraced Haeckel's work, citing him copiously and thanking him for all his insights. Both he and Huxley credited Haeckel alone for putting evolution squarely in the minds of Germans and both praised his Morphology repeatedly. They both knew that Haeckel was taking the theory toward its logical implications.
Darwin merely thought that Haeckel should have sugar-coated the truth:
http://pages.britishlibrary.ne...
===
Even if you can't go Darwin>Hitler you can certainly go
Darwin>Haeckel>Hitler or
Darwin>Davenport (et al)>Hitler
Here's some Hitler, citing both Haeckel and Darwin:
You should have looked into the history of the subject if that's what you were actually supposedly talking about.
Comment by Pez — April 22, 2008 @ 4:07 am
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:12 am
In case you're wondering about Haeckel and eugenics.
http://members.aol.com/Panthei...
Comment by Pez — April 22, 2008 @ 4:12 am
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:18 am
Hey TP
I'm sure that ID can de abused in some ways but that is not what Allen was asking. he was asking.
You may get all kinds of abuse from religion and you may get all kinds of abuse from ID but I can't see how you get eugenics or the Nazis from ID "science" that all I'm saying.
Relax man scared folks do all kinds of Irrational things like expelling folks who disagree with them. That was the point of the movie.
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — April 22, 2008 @ 7:18 am
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:46 am
I have no idea what ID "science" is, but there is long history of believing that some races and classes are created better than others, and that institutions such as slavery and royalty are manifestations of the natural order.
Comment by Zachriel — April 22, 2008 @ 7:46 am
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
pixie,
Tax money is tax money. Diverting it from military spending and giving it to the strong, at the expense of the weak, is still negative eugenics.
Taxing the strong who don't have kids is not positive eugenics. Giving them a tax break when they do have kids entails that the weak will pay for this, therefore it entails negative eugenics.
Look, I'll make it easy for you and give you the correct answer. The ONLY possibly viable form of positive eugenics is cloning. But that's a whole other ball o' wax that comes with it's own set of moral issues. And even cloning most likely entails negative eugenics too.
Comment by chunkdz — April 22, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
fifthmonarchyman wrote:
Interesting. So a theory that says that biological entities are "intelligently designed", but does not specify that the Intelligent Designer is the Judeo-Christian deity couldn't possibly be used as a rationalization for eugenics or genocide.
Why not? After all, Darwin's theory and the soi dissant ID "theory" both conclude precisely the same things: descent with modification and the evolution of adaptations. The only difference is where the adaptations come from.
So it seems impossible to imagine that a powerful political elite, convinced that its deity was the Intelligent Designer that designed into them the particular attributes that brought them to power in the first place, and maintained them in it by constant intervention in the natural order couldn't possibly be used to justify a system of eugenics, if not genocide? This is political naivety at a level that rivals that of Darwin and his contemporaries, who did not envision anything like the rise of Naziism, nor would have supported it if they did.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." "“ George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — April 22, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
nobody:
Hiya, nobody! Good to see you here. When you first start posting, your posts automatically go to the moderation list, but once it recognizes you, it won't steal your posts unless you include a suspicious trigger word or too many links. That happens sometimes – just do a shout-out for releasing it and one of us will turn it loose.
Can you believe what's happening here? I admit to being completely shocked that there are well-educated people in this country who engage in such desperate denial! Don't they teach history anymore? I've been thinking for months that including the Nazi connection in Expelled was not a smart move. Now I see how inspired it truly is – talk about opening the curtain and letting some sunshine in!
Comment by Joy — April 22, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Joj wrote:
Excellent question Joy! It reminds me of what Dr. Malcolm said in the movie "Jurassic Park": "Just because we can doesn't mean we should." Did we have any one asking that question before the elites began their eugenics experiments in Europe and America in the 1920's and 30's? How about before we decided to develop the A-bomb? What is the basis for morality? Does it exist in nature or society, or is it transcendent? Is morality universal or is it relative? Who decides theses questions? How can one convince society of moral truth without being coercive? Is that even possible?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — April 22, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Hi Joy,
I guess that means you freed my ungainly comment from moderation. Thank you.
===
On that comment I see some of my edits were very sloppy.
I said "speaking of Huxley…" but cut out where I had actually been speaking of Huxley. The statements about Huxley and Darwin endorsing Haeckel had preceded that line before I tried to shorten it.
I also prefaced that Julian Huxley quote with reference to Darwin and Haeckel when it was obviously about Darwin and Galton.
Also, in reference to Hitler being in jail I wrote as though his letters to the American eugenicists were written at that time. Although he read them at that time he wrote his letters of gratitude years later.
My apologies for the sloppy presentation.
Comment by Pez — April 22, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
John_A:
Ah, humanity is such a fickle beast. Evolution could of course design our bodies to accommodate our intelligence, but why in the world would it design an intelligence like ours? We are evolutionary suicide and proud of it! Only a suicidal mind could invent the means to immediate extinction, then deploy it just because it can. Nature has (far as I know) produced no blatantly murderous, genocidal or suicidal species. None that torture and kill just for fun, will murder their own kin and offspring on a regular basis, who will wage war between brothers and scorch the earth in its wake, will hang his hand-mind wrought Sword of Damocles over the whole of the earth and the entirety of humanity for generations, with daily threats to unleash Armageddon. Just because he can. Weird.
Pez:
Naw, that wasn't me. I hardly ever get over there unless I happen to see a shout-out in a thread I'm reading. But I'm glad someone released it! I thought it was very good. Of course, I find myself stunned and amazed that TP could get to be a full-fledged adult engineer and not know this history. That's a rather scathing indictment of our educational system right there, and a big open question about WHY we aren't examining the whole affair for the necessary lessons we must learn in order not to repeat the horror. Wow.
Comment by Joy — April 22, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Aargh.
And in my second parenthetical I meant Hitler, not Darwin.
The hits just keep coming.
Comment by Pez — April 22, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Allen:
I agree with you.
Comment by Bilbo — April 22, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Hey Nobe! How ya' doin'?
Comment by Bilbo — April 22, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I'm curious about Raevmo's thought experiment about two physically identical people. Given the same set of preconditions, would they necessarily make them same choice? Or could choose differently?
Comment by Bilbo — April 22, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Zack:
This is philosophy or religion not ID. ID only says that life appears designed it says nothing about better creations what ever that means.
Allen:
Not exactly ID sees design. Design implies purpose. A designed object has inherent meaning a non designed object has none. This is of critical importance. A Darwinist might consider life to be intrinsically meaningful but this belief will not be the result of his theory which by definition sees the scope of life as having no meaning or purpose.
Now we are talking religion not the "science" of intelligent design which by definition says nothing about the identity of the designer. According to everyone on you side religion has nothing to do with science right?
The difference is ID has respect for life (design) built in. Darwin's theory does not. Darwin might have pleaded against eugenics because all life even unfit life is precious but his own theory undermined his every word.
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — April 22, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Hi Pez,
I appreciate you taking the time to put together your supporting evidence. This is the kind of earnest, independent thinking I wish more people would engage in.
One of the reasons I think it is a mistake to attempt to use Hitler and Nazism to make a debate argument (as Expelled did) is that it is such an emotionally charged subject that there are "authoritative sources" that claim just about anything and everything concerning the motivations of Hitler and Nazism. For this reason, I am focusing on original sources, Hitler's writings and public documents and speeches.
With that, let me respond to some of your proclamations..
The question is whether or not Darwinian-inspired eugenics was the basis of Hitler's domestic racial policies. Limiting the discussion to only a chosen possibility is assuming a predetermined conclusion (i.e. begging the question).
From a primary source, Hitler wrote…
"If man wants to limit the number of births on his own, without producing the terrible consequences which arise from birth control, he must give the number of births free rein but cut down on the number of those remaining alive. At one time the Spartans were capable of such a wise measure, but not our present, mendaciously sentimental, bourgeois patriotic nonsense. The rule of six thousand Spartans over three hundred and fifty thousand Helots was only thinkable in consequence of the high racial value of the Spartans. But this was the result of a systematic race preservation; thus Sparta must be regarded as the first Folkish State. The exposure of sick, weak, deformed children, in short their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject, and indeed at any price, and yet takes the life of a hundred thousand healthy children in consequence of birth control or through abortions, in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates burdened with illnesses." Hitler's Zweites Buch page 11
This is pretty strong evidence that Hitler considered the Spartan version of eugenics to be a good example to follow. Mein Kampf also included references to Sparta (e.g. Ephialtes' treachery at Thermopylae).
I suggest this establishes Sparta as a possible source of inspiration for Hitler's domestic racial policies. Of course, the argument can be made that somehow Hitler embraced Darwin and/or Haeckel before being inspired by Sparta.
There are two significant items that argue against that"¦
First, in all of Hitler's very numerous speeches and in both of his books, Hitler never mentioned Darwin or Haeckel. Not once.
Second, Darwin and Haeckel writings were banned and/or burned when Hitler was very much in control of the Nazis executing this policy…
From the list of banned books…
"6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel)."
Translation…
"6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)."link
However, you wrote…
But you didn't include any Hitler quotes that mentions Darwin, Haeckel or Davenport by name. The first quote you offer appears to be hear/say. Something someone claims to have heard Hilter say. You may have more support for it, but until that is forthcoming, let's go to the more publicly verifiable quotes you offered…
First, can you indicate which page Hitler was quoting from? Let me guess, it was just the "language" not an exact quote. Sorry, this language also applies to the principles laid down and practiced by the Spartans.
This isn't Darwinian, it implies an interventionist natural process with foresight!
This is closer to an ID hypothesis than not.
I suggest the best you have is that there was a resurgence of a very old concept with an new name "eugenics" that gained some artificial respectability because some of Darwin's relatives misused scientific terms to fool the masses.
The German masses were particularly susceptible because of the one two punch of losing World War I and the onset of the Great Depression.
Hitler could have renamed himself Leonidas claiming a revival of the old Spartan traditions and, chances are, the results would have been similar.
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 22, 2008 @ 5:49 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Joy wrote:
But we are also capable of demonstrating heroic if not self sacrificing levels of courage, compassion and kindness.
Of course Darwin would argue that that might be misguided. In fact, we might be better off if we just let nature take it course (weeding out the weak maimed and sick) and direct our intelligence towards some selective breeding. Breeding people the very same way we do domesticated animals.
Here's a quote from his book, Descent of Man:
"We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man itself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."
It sure sounds to me like Darwin would have supported a very robust and "progressive" kind of eugenics program. The Nazi eugenics program just took it to its logical conclusion.
Indeed, how is what Darwin said than what Hitler said. Here's the quote provided by TP:
Sounds to me like their thinking was virtually identical.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — April 22, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
That explains why you used scare quotes for ID "science".
The question concerned perversions and sociopolitical abuses. So, putting your ID "science" into neat boxes outside of "philosophy or religion" doesn't prevent such abuse. Indeed, we know from history that claims that one group or another are preferred by the creator have been used for oppression, subjugation and death.
Once, planets were thought to be made of quintessence, eternal and guiding the lives of humanity. Modern theories of planet formation assign no meaning or purpose to the coalescent of dust into planets or their movements.
Purpose doesn't imply respect. An evil Lord and a good Lord could be in a great conflict, people used as pawns by one or the other as the need arises, and for purposes far beyond human understanding. Or they could be toy soldiers of a cosmic child to be mangled and broken, then put away and forgotten.
Comment by Zachriel — April 22, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Not at all. Here is what Darwin wrote in the very next paragraph after what you quoted.
I assume you made this false equivalence because you have never read anything written by Darwin other than the snippets you find from time to time on creationist websites, or read anything about his life. Though somewhat dated, Darwin's scientific work is still considered some of the best in the history of science.
Comment by Zachriel — April 22, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Hi John,
One of the problems with not doing independent thinking and research is that a lot of poorly presented arguments are known beforehand. I understand your Descent of Man excerpt is one of the quotes presented in the movie Expelled. I notice you didn't provide a link like THIS so we could see the quote in context. Here is what Darwin said after the part you chose to quote…
"The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature."
I realize that you believe your actions are moral and just.
But are they ethical?
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 22, 2008 @ 8:16 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Hi Bilbo,
Doing good. Keeping busy. I didn't notice the thought experiment you mention, but even identical twins don't always make the same decision every time.
Comment by nobody — April 22, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Hi Joy,
You wrote…
Physician heal thyself.
It used to be that any appeal to Nazism as an argument meant an automatic loss for the battle of hearts and minds of all but dogmatic followers.
I have no problem agreeing that science has done great harm, especially when it put powerful machinery into the hands of the wrong people. There is no need to try to add Nazism to the list of charges, even though many German scientists acted horribly at the time.
I do not see how Charles Darwin shares any blame for either Nazism or Eugenics. You might as well blame Einstein for Japan's 200,000 civilian deaths due to A-bombs. Yet, Ben Stein solemnly glares at Darwin's statue in the movie Expelled.
I think that was a mistake.
I hope that was a mistake.
I hope it will force people to stop and think for themselves because this was just too much.
President Bush made great use of painting Saddam as another Hitler. The programmed masses followed (at least for a while). I think that was unhealthy for America.
It is obvious that Hitler idolized the Spartans.
What is so dangerous with pointing that out?
I suggest it is good to force people to defend their opinions, even when the subject is Hitler and Nazism.
If the evidence is so prevalent, defending the opinion should be trivial without being stunned and amazed that a full-fledged adult engineer would not know his history.
After all, my college discussion proctor on the subject couldn't understand how so many good Christians would follow a man like Hitler.
Joy, I trust you don't have a problem understanding this.
At least I hope you don't.
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 22, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:00 pm
TP:
Luckily, this thread is now so long I can't load it if anything else is open, and I keep a lot open. Thus I will no longer feel it necessary to respond to your incredibly insulting, totally asinine crock of a non-argument. In case you forgot to notice, this thread is about the movie Expelled, and an argument it makes connecting Darwinism to eugenics. I've never met an educated adult who didn't already know the connection between eugenics and Hitler.
Thus your position is simply not credible no matter how you try to play it. Not being credible, it is then highly insulting that you would even bother to try and start a juvenile bar fight about well-documented history pertaining to the murder of millions upon millions of innocent men, women and children in the twisted pursuit of "Aryan Supremacy." It makes me literally sick to my stomach.
Nobody said he did. He died before Adolph Hitler was born, never heard of Nazis or eugenics. That was cousin Francis' baby, and Leonard just lent the name so Francis could enlist the 'right people' and get actual programs and legislation going. Enlisting the 'right people' wasn't too difficult when he claimed his wonderful program was based upon the very best science. Even if it was a lie. Lots and lots of lies were told. People still tell lies today.
You have purposely ignored my posts to this subject, where I have repeatedly pointed out that the linkage is Darwinism > Eugenics > Hitler's eugenics policies & laws. Which we here in the states applauded roundly to the point of providing him with the actual statutory models. You have purposely ignored the fact that I have pointed out repeatedly that religious leaders were very much involved in the mass propaganda aspects, and that Christians were fooled into supporting eugenics.
So don't post any more bullshit with my name at the top. You aren't talking to me, but you are insulting me.
I do blame Einstein. I blame Teller and Oppenheimer too, along with some others who shall remain unnamed. At least Albert and Robert had the good graces to feel guilty for it themselves, Edward was always a hard case. I view the development of the weapons as possibly inevitable, but I view their use as a crime against humanity. One of the bigger ones in my lifetime, though there have been too many to count.
Ben Stein can solemnly glare at any statue he wants to glare at. It's his whole schtick. I know you aren't as insulted by a movie you haven't seen as I am of reading the crap you've been spewing here.
No it's not. What a whiney-baby you are, poor sheltered little lamb!
Of course he did. He was a militarist. Every militarist I've ever known idolized the Spartans. That's simply not an argument against history as it happened.
I do have a problem with it. I am disgusted by any and all forms of holocaust denial. Go back to the bar. I think it's last call over there.
Buh-bye.
Comment by Joy — April 22, 2008 @ 11:00 pm
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Joy said:
For special relativity? Or for black-body radiation? And don't forget that he worked on Brownian motion, too!
Comment by olegt — April 22, 2008 @ 11:22 pm
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:07 am
Hi TP,
Thanks, same to you.
Joy made a great point about why it is a worthy issue. The very group-think you so often disparage kicks in in indignation the moment the issue is raised and both ignores and tries to shout down the historical truth. Who said if we ignore history we are doomed to repeat it? Maybe we are repeating it already? As Dawkins has suggested, now that sufficient time has elapsed since Hitler stigmatized eugenics perhaps it is time we gave it another hearing (don't anybody rail about quote-mining – I know Dawkins said he would probably decide against eugenic measures (as far as he would recognize them)). But others certainly feel the stigma has sufficiently faded that they talk freely about such measures.
You can choose to limit yourself only to the public writings and statements of one of the most successful demagogues in history, but I suggest that to be unwise. Hitler sometimes lied.
Actually, my first quote came from here (sorry about losing the link – this isn't the original).
http://www.waragainsttheweak.c...
It's from the research of award-winning journalist, Edwin Black.
http://www.edwinblack.com/awar...
You quote Hitler in defence of your "Sparta" connection:
This is Darwinian language. Darwin told us point blank that man must give the number of births free reign that Natural Selection may do its work. He also provided many instances of ways that civilisation cuts down on those that remain alive and why this is good, due to the civilising restraints on Natural Selection. Don't type your response yet – I defend this later on.
But somehow he knew all their phrases. For example:
Funny how Hitler, like the widely-read and influential Haeckel, also thought that Jesus was an Aryan son of a Roman soldier (Darwin, too, denied His divinity and His miracles), referred to Sparta as the original Volkish state (Darwin too wrote about Sparta's eugenics), hated Jews and used science to justify this, and yet you suggest that Hitler was more influenced by the history of Sparta than by Haeckel (and Darwin).
Before continuing, I don't have to wait for Haeckel to provide Hitler with his Sparta reference. Here's Charles himself in Chapter 2 of DoM:
Comment by Pez — April 23, 2008 @ 4:07 am
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:09 am
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojal...
===
You say:
You question whether Hitler personally commended the eugenics of his Party's platform and then you decide that the Party's decision to ban Haeckel (for complex and contradictory reasons) reflects negatively on Hitler's influences and reading materials.
Not likely.
And you guys keep saying Darwin's writings were banned (and probably burned) but I don't see the evidence of that. Darwin influenced Haeckel greatly but wasn't the same person.
Which is more likely, that he reached back thousands of years for his influence or was influenced by the man he read in school, the men whose phrases he was rephrasing in Mein Kampf, the men who both wrote of this Spartan history, the men who shaped the scientific perspective of his country, the very scientific perspective he repeatedly claimed as the centre of Nazi doctrine?
On Sparta:
===
You say:
So? That's why people do and study history – to find these things out. You said you were addressing the historical issue, not Hitler's propaganda.
===
Is it? You'll show me then where he is quoting exactly some Spartan philospher. Or at least show where this language is more embedded in their philosophy than in DoM. I recall Spartans killed unwanted babies by exposing them to the elements. where did they talk about "procreative faculties" and "the "struggle for existence" Hitler's citation of Sparta certainly did not carry this language. Rather, it carried the language of Haeckel – as this quote does Haeckel and Darwin.
So where does this reference come from? LIkely the infamous 21st chapter of DoM.
Don't bother to allege quote-mining or to expand this quote – just read on.
===
Comment by Pez — April 23, 2008 @ 4:09 am
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:09 am
You quote Adolph:
Oh, is that so?
Darwin never personified Natural Selection or attributed foresight to it when writing, as Hitler did here, for the public?
http://www.cnn.com/books/begin...
===
For your rejoinder to JAD try this thread where I discussed DoM previously:
http://telicthoughts.com/cue-o...
===
Another conversation I had went along these lines as well. Here I quote myself in establishing Hitler's indebtedness to Darwin-inspired US eugenicists:
By the way, if you are not satisifed with the connection between Darwin and the Nazi eugenics movement through Huxley and Haeckel [argumentation will be provided if you like], you can trace it this way, through America.
The American eugenics movement
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=c...
===
I suggest you've ignored the question you were intended to answer. Did Darwin influence Hitler? Having admitted the scientific respectability "Darwin's relatives" gave eugenics, however, you admit the truth. especially as you have no defence for the fact that those relatives were influenced by Darwin, were lauded by Darwin, and thought they were doing what Darwin would have approved of.
That is very true. And because of decades of influence on the intellectual climate of Haeckel and his followers.
Coulda shoulda. You wanted to talk history. Hitler didn't name himself Leonidas but rather drew upon Haeckel's and Darwin's influence. As Weikart said, this is not necessarily a logical case but an historic one.
Joy has repeatedly pointed out that she is not imposing the position on the Nazis or on the scientists of the era. They did it themselves.
Comment by Pez — April 23, 2008 @ 4:09 am
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:09 am
Here is a letter Dawkin's has written to a Jew about the movie.
Comment by The Pixie — April 23, 2008 @ 7:09 am
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:28 am
from the letter:
quote:
end quote:
What would he be if he applied his Darwinism to politics? I wonder
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — April 23, 2008 @ 7:28 am
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:27 am
We might, by analogy, apply the term 'Social Darwinism'. The concept of 'Social Darwinism' dates from before Darwin's publication of Origin of Species (1859), to Social Statics (1850), where Spencer argued that social competition would produce increasing prosperity. The term was applied later. The equivalence is, as I said, by analogy only.
As to Hitler, there is no doubt as to the long strain of anti-semitism in Europe, e.g. Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies (1543). But there is also little doubt that the Nazis marshalled pseudo-scientific ideas about race to provide a veneer of modernity to their ancient grudge.
This has little to do with the scientific basis of the Theory of Evolution, or a valid comment on Darwin. Eugenics is primarily based in animal husbandry and Mendelian genetics, e.g. the Aryan super-race and race purification.
Comment by Zachriel — April 23, 2008 @ 8:27 am
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:31 am
Zachriel,
Out of respect for staying on topic, I've refrained from getting into a back and forth over your responses to my assertions about the topics of genetic entropy and visibility of redundancy to selection, etc….
However, I don't want to let such statements by you go unchallenged, lest the reader think I did not engage what you said because the facts were not on my side.
To that end, Telic Thoughts provides an outlet for off-topic discussions whenever a thread is posted under the topic of "Rabbit".
I will offer responses to your assertions in such threads until I feel the topic has been adequately covered.
My first response will be here.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — April 23, 2008 @ 8:31 am
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I was aware of the broader quote, indeed I own a copy of Descent of Man and have read it a couple of times. It appears to me that Darwin was employing a little rhetorical trick here: trying to take away with the left hand what he had offered with the right. Think about the era in which Darwin was living and writing; do you think he had a motive for "softening the blow" for his audience. He sort of gets to say what he is really thinking without getting blamed for it, right? Are you arguing what he said in the first paragraph had nothing to do with eugenics? That is the only point that I was trying to make. I think it is pretty obvious that it does.
You don't have clue who I am what I read or how I think. If you had a natural, or perhaps normal curiosity about what other people think and believe you could actually learn something new. You might be surprised. But, you have to be at least open minded enough to allow yourself to be challenged by new ideas. It appear to me that you have very different reasons for participating here at Telic Thoughts. What are they?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — April 23, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Perhaps not. I had assumed the best.
You made the inflammatory comment that Hitler and Darwin's "thinking was virtually identical". If it wasn't due to your ignorance, then I am at a loss as to why you left off the balance of Darwin's complete thought which clearly contradicted your claim.
In other words, Darwin didn't mean what he said.
These words just don't seem to fit your narrative.
Comment by Zachriel — April 23, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:23 pm
All this arguing about what Darwin did or did not say made me pick up a copy of The Descent of Man, while I was at the library. I found a few interesting passages, that will no doubt add fuel to this fire. First one:
(from Part I, chap. VII, On the Formation of the Races of Man, p.240)
The fact that Darwin referred to Aryans and Jews in the same sentence struck me as rather interesting. Absent is any value placed on the two different terms. And as far as I can tell, it's the only place where Darwin refers to Aryans. But it makes me wonder if Darwin is referring to something that was taken for granted in British society. Looking up Broca might help. Does anyone know more about this?
And then at the very end of his book, Darwin makes his opinion quite explicit:
(Part II, Chap. XXI, p.403)
That certainly sounds like a call for Eugenics, once we know more about the laws of biological inheritance.
Comment by Bilbo — April 23, 2008 @ 7:23 pm
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Bilbo,
I thought you already knew that libraries are dangerous places.
Comment by nobody — April 23, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Since I have no computer at home, it's usually where I have to hang out when I visit the internet. So far, I've only been mugged twice.
Comment by Bilbo — April 23, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Zachriel,
Since we're talking about context here, here is a little context to begin with. Near the beginning of this thread I said:
You wrote just above:
Their thinking on eugenics. We're talking about eugenics here. I do not think that Darwin was a Nazi or would have sympathized with the Nazi's. Ben Stein also made that clear in his film.
Well then, what did he mean? Did he mean the second paragraph and not the first? How did he want us to understand the first paragraph? Why did he write it in the first place? Surely he would have known that it would be controversial?
And, as long as we are talking about context ask this question to yourself: In Descent of Man did Darwin try sharpen the distinction between man and animal or did he try to blur it?
Here is the quote again in the context you prefer:
Finally, the last quote you provided above was when Darwin was a young man. As a young man he was a theist, a Christian and a creationist. Indeed, he served on board the Beagle as the ships chaplain. Most biographies that I have read of Darwin (I have read several, all by respected "secular" authors) argue that he became progressively more agnostic the older he became. He himself admits as much in his own autobiography. Therefore, the quote is not an appropriate context for evaluating a later work like Descent of Man. His views and beliefs had changed quite dramatically.
Hey Bilbo, I am at the library too. Are you at this one? Apparently not. You should try a safer neighborhood. I haven't been mugged yet.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — April 23, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Yes, their thinking on eugenics. Darwin thought that education was the only reasonable option. I believe Hitler had other thoughts on the matter.
He meant both paragraphs. They are not contradictory. Nowadays, people often want to learn about their genetic heritage in order to make family planning decisions.
(Regardless, evolution proceeds apace in humans, and what might be considered a disability in one environment may be of no consequence in another.)
That Darwin writes about humankind's sympathies and noble qualities is sufficient to make the point. His basic humanity is well-established by history.
Comment by Zachriel — April 23, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
April 24th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Hi Pez,
I didn't want to let your efforts go unappreciated. I have read through the comments you provided. I had even prepared a long response but I got distracted and then lost it.
I don't think you would have been surprised by anything I said.
However, I assure you they were brilliant come backs, each and every one.
Thanks again for providing reasoned and reasonable counter balance to my offerings.
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 24, 2008 @ 9:01 pm
April 24th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Hi TP,
Thanks again.
Whew!
I'm sure they were.
Comment by Pez — April 24, 2008 @ 9:42 pm
June 21st, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Darwin's claim to fame is natural selection leading to the origin of new species. The eugenics movement's goal wasn't the origin of any new species. The goal was to improve an existing species by selective breeding. Selective breeding of livestock, as a technology or practice, predates Darwin by thousands of years. Therefore picking Darwin out for special emphasis while millions upon millions of farmers, both comtemporaries and from ages past, who forget more than Darwin ever knew about artificial selection, is a lame tactic aimed solely at disparaging anyone who holds Darwin's theory on the origin of species in a positive light. It's another ridiculous self-defeating holdover from scientific creationism – one of many ridiculous and self-defeating holdovers. If it wasn't for young earth creationists poisoning the well in the past and continuing to poison it today ID would be in a lot better shape. I mean, c'mon, a person doesn't have to be a computer scientist to understand that nature doesn't invent abstract codes – abstract symbols such as morse code and the genetic code are the result of coders. I'm open to other theories of how codes can be created but absent a demonstration of some mechanism other than an intelligent agent capable of abstract thought there's only one known way for it to happen.
Comment by DaveScot — June 21, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
June 21st, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Joy
Your statement that artificial management leads to problems is a generalization that is not correct in all cases. You are thinking of selective breeding used to make rare desirable traits fixed within a population. Because the trait shows up only rarely it necessarily requires radical inbreeding to make it homozygous. Because selection operates on the whole genome, not individual bits of it, inbreeding also runs the risk of making undesirable traits homozygous as well. This is called inbreeding depression.
However, in management practice, there is also the case of rare undesirable traits where only a rare few animals are prevented from breeding to eliminate the trait. There's no risk risk of inbreeding depression in that case.
Undoubtedly for some of the worst genetic disorders it would be a good thing if they were consigned to the dustbin of history. Genetic counseling is eugenics where mental coercion (FUD – fear, uncertainty, and dread) is employed but where the line is drawn short of physical coercion. I can't say I'm opposed to it – it's just a sort of full disclosure – being given the facts but not compelled to act on them. Still eugenics in any form at all is a slippery slope where the utmost caution must be undertaken lest we, as Darwin wrote, suffer the deterioration of that which is most noble in our character – sympathy.
Comment by DaveScot — June 21, 2008 @ 4:57 pm