I know. It’s WorldNutDaily, so it’s guaranteed to be abysmally ignorant, but I had to comment on the opening bits of this dreadfully bad review of Wiker’s book that blames Darwin for the Nazis.
As a prologue to this book review, I propose the question: Can an idea, a theory, even a delusion kill? A cursory review just of 20th century dictators who overtly or covertly embraced and applied Darwin’s ideas about evolution, survival of the fittest and natural selection to humanity, resulting in tens of millions of corpses they left in their wake, lamentably beckons a resounding, Yes!
I agree that ideas can be powerful things that can lead to lamentable outcomes. That’s why I insist that all ideas must be regarded with skepticism, tested thoroughly, and only those that meet some standards for rigor be accepted…and even that, only provisionally. Evolution has met those standards to a degree that you have to be a fool to reject it, especially when your alternative is the empty promises of Intelligent Design, and the bogus dogmatism of creationism.
Those millions of deaths are a consequence of fanatical adherence to poorly supported ideas: the ideologies of communism and fascism. Evolution is not at fault, and can’t be legitimately blamed, especially if your reasoning is as bad as Wiker’s.
In the opening chapter on Darwin, Wiker wrote: “Reading Charles Darwin’s ‘The Descent of Man’ forces one to face an unpleasant truth: that if everything he said in his more famous ‘Origin of Species’ is true, then it quite logically follows that human beings ought to ensure that the fit breed with abandon and that the unfit are weeded out.”
Wiker actually said that? He’s a bigger idiot than I thought. Does he also read books about epidemiology and assume that the science is all about killing the most people possible with microorganisms? Is oncology all about inflicting slow painful deaths on people? Are the police out to foment crime, and firemen have the job of starting fires?
What logically follows from Darwin’s theory is that fit individuals are those that survive and have offspring. There is no presumption that there is only one possible strategy to accomplish that survival: if we maintain a state that helps the weak and sick live and have children, then we have increased their fitness.
Maybe it’s just me, but I read the truth of evolution as saying that we can work to oppose brute nature and make life better for our fellow human beings, or we can surrender and refuse to resist nature’s course. We have a choice. You can be an enabler of greater rates of selection (using arbitrary criteria that may not generate enhanced survival for anything but the select occupants of a totalitarian state!) or you can work for a better life for more.
It’s somehow predictable that right-wing hacks always project their hateful vision of increasing mortality on a theory that allows for the possibility of change by reducing it.
It’s Ben Stein’s message–knowledge and truth kill, and lies are our best hope.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Mr. Washington’s interpretation, like that of a Rorschach test, says more about how he thinks of the “weak”, than the evolutionary model says of them.
It should be no surprise, that those who seek or worship the ideas of “perfection of being” such as a Jesus or “perfection of spirit” in a deity, would stretch and perverse evolution in such a way.
Any reasonable human being, and those familiar with evolution, knows perfection is an unachievable feat, a goal asymptotically approached only in a perfectly static ecosystem.
Next they’ll be saying that seismology is evil because it posits that it is ok if people dies during earthquakes.
Yes indeed, with three underscores.
If there is something unique about us humans, it is not that we are the “endpoint and goal of evolution”, but merely that we can, at least to some extent, step off the hamster-wheel and relax the pressure of selection. Would you die soon were it not for insulin (or fill-in-the-blank)? If you are a slim-hipped woman, did a section turn certain death for you and your child into an occasion for joy? Do you rely on specs to read at the age of 70? (For that matter, are you still alive at the age of 70?)
All these things are luxuries that our big brains have won for us. We can’t defeat natural selection, but we can at least pick up a stick and poke at it, and make it retreat into the corner for a while. Yet these are all exceptions that prove the rule (in the correct sense of that often misunderstood old term). The rule withstands the test, but we can force the test to be graded on the curve. The very fact that we can slightly reduce its pressure in some ways shows very clearly how real the pressure is.
Unless, that is, you listen to witch doctors and think that (e.g.) the penicillin that saves your life is the miraculous gift of a loving God (whose love for you will bafflingly turn cold when, five years later, you get an inoperable cancer).
The greatest proponent of Lemarckism was Lysenko and his greatest supporter was Stalin. So it would appear that Darwinism had little effect on the Soviet Union during the rule of Stalin. Thus Stalin’s atrocities cannot be linked to Darwin.
What these morons don’t realize is that all of our morals come from Evolution!
1. First, diversity is needed by Evolution. Diversity is a good thing, it allows a species to change quicker in times of need. Therefore, Evolutionarily, we should respect diversity.
2. Second, killing, especially genocide of our species makes no sense what-so-ever Evolutionarily!
3. In fact, doing anything to harm others in our species is an evolutionary disadvantage.
4. Society and morals are an Evolutionary advantage. That’s why we have them, of course!
5. Saving and protecting the Earth and other species is protecting our own species. If we mess too much with the ecosystem, it could destroy our own species.
So, the Holocaust and “Social Darwinism” make absolutely no sense with Evolution, and morals and strong societies do!(So does environmentalism)
The best part about this whole Holocaust is, of course, that it was done in the name and for Christianity.
Hitler quote:
“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
Ha!
Mrs Tilton
What she said.
Nice new Gumby backdrop! We can see Gumby more clearly and the text is easier to read, too. My brain no longer hurts! (Well, actually, it does sometimes hurt after I read the text.)
Hitler did not believe in evolution, hitler believed in “breeding” a perfect race and eliminating those that were unfit.
Hitler despised evolution as it ran counter to his idea of the will that shapes a “volk” towards a perfect entity worthy of his leadership accumen. Hitler got his ideas more liekly from some germean shepherd kennel club, the same as the structure of the bolshevists state in russia was supposedly based on the organization of the german post office under Kaiser Wilhelm’s rule.
The only ones that I have encountered who strive for unattainable perfection in spirit and the belief – despite evidence very much to the contrary – of a perfect body made thus by skyfairy are the wingnut of all religions.
Yes, “social darwinism” was a concept that came quite handy in an age when capitalism – especially in america – found its stride, and was a justification of not to support those suffering from the consequences of an unregulated free for all until the consequences hit everybody on black friday – and will hit again hard at present after all common sense and regulation of the capitalist playground had been abandoned by the federal reserve, congress and the president.
That social darwinism has nothing to do with darwinism should be apparent to those who only have read the origin of species without having read any other book about evolution.
Only an utter idiot can and will mix up natural selection with organizational structures of a society and their desire to remain “pure” – another quite religious concept.
This pure can mean the elimination of the “class enemy”, the ethnic seperate group, the scapegoat for all ills in society.
But it seems – from reading the “flea bites” on Dawkins site, that the supply of idiots is abundant in the attempt to justify the “goodness” of religion and the evil of “atheism”.
Idiots all, actually not worth taking seriously.
When I blogged about this yesterday, I focused entirely on the mined quote at the start of the article. I really dislike that kind of thing, and I probably got carried away saying so. No need to click here unless you care about quote-mining: WorldNetDaily — Worthless Creationist Rag!
Can an idea, a theory, even a delusion kill?
The obvious response here is so obvious I don’t need to stop snickering helplesly to point it out, right?
These arguments are all absurd primarily because they mistake description for prescription. It would be as if one were to argue that the reality of gravitation is a moral admonishment against building aircraft.
It always amazes me that these fools talk about Darwin and evolution by natural selection, then immediately use it as a rationale for artificial selection – breeding and eugenics. Indeed, evolutionary biologists would happily tell you that the total expulsion of any given gene from a population is surprisingly hard, it takes many generations of selection, even then you are probably only reducing its frequency.
Claims that 20th century dictators rooted their policies in evolution deny reality, the historical record, and logic. Both Stalin (as pointed out by JoJo) and Hitler, the dictators most often cited, adopted policies that contradicted Darwin and evolution. Each also banned Darwin’s writings and those who had further developed his ideas. Both fictions are taught as history at far too many colleges in this country, mostly “Christian” schools, so a significant minority of the American population, who think they are “educated,” not only does not accept evolution but believes it to be inherently evil. Such is the state of a large part of American education. Wiker and Washington are fine examples.
It’s supremely ironic that those nutbars who condemn evolution on the grounds that it justifies social darwinism are themselves the strongest advocates for social darwinism in domestic policy.
I’m still completely at a loss as to how even disproving evolution (which they have never come close to doing) proves ID true. Can someone shed light on that for me?
When they have finished blaming darwin for stalinism, nazis and the death of their pet hamster they can move onto Newton and his pesky apple dropping nonsense. without that damn gravity we could fly i tells ya, like a birdy.
Apart from anything else the use of Social Darwinism is automatically flawed because it relies on the assumption that the qualities the selectors are favouring (which, unsurprisingly, tend to be those they happen themselves to possess) are inherently beneficial to fitness.
Just because someone likes tall, blonde people doesn’t mean they’re going to survive better than short dark people.
Christianity, not Darwinism, was a major factor in fascist actions in 20th century Europe, and played some role in the USSR and its imitators.
Hitler and most of the tens of millions of Europeans who supported him or other rightwing leaders were Christians. Their hatred of Jews came solely from Christianity. Their racism came solely from Christianity.
The adoption of the ideas of race and racism originated as an attempt to “explain” why dark-skinned pagans were so inferior to light-complexioned European Christians that the pagans refused to convert to the “superior” religion of Christianity. Later, the idea of race was extended to Jews to “explain” why they also refused to convert and why they were so “naturally immoral” as many Christians believed. It was that combination of racial antisemitism and the belief that Jews were a moral threat, a kind of moral and racial contamination, that led Christians either to actively or passively support the mass murder of their Jewish neighbors.
Other aspects of Nazism and fascism, especially their anti-intellectualism and authoritarianism, can be tracked to specifically Christian ideas and attitudes. There’s a lot of material that historians have collected that show the deep and wide connections between fascism, especially Nazism (Christianity was part of the party platform) and Christianity.
As for communism, most of the early Bolsheviks, including Lenin and Stalin, had been brought up as Christians. Christianity is a very obvious role model for the Soviet Union’s authoritarianism and state “religion.” Indeed, communists simply substituted worship of the state for worship of a god and created a state cult around it, with “theologians” and “priests” (commissars).
Although Lenin apparently abandoned Christianity and theism in his teens, Stalin spent time at a seminary in his late teens learning to be a priest, was writing religious poetry in his 20s. According to Winston Churchill, when Churchill told Stalin about Operation Torch in 1942, Stalin said he hoped God would bless the invasion, and later made another remark that suggests Stalin believed in a god.
If my memory serves, Hitler got his ideas from American eugenics textbooks. And the authors of those books were following in the eugenics movement started by Francis Galton. And Galton was inspired to coin the term eugenics after reading the work of his half-cousin, Charles Darwin.
In that game of ‘chinese whispers’, it’s hard lay blame on Darwin.
By the same mechanism that destroying the One Ring overthrows Sauron and everything he has wrought. Which is to say, by wishful thinking.
wikerphobia:
the irrational and hysterical fear that coerced teaching of evolutionary theory causes fatal rejection of immortal exceptionalism resutling in amoral killers of international proportion.
What no one has mentioned so far, perhaps because it is probably obvious, is that PZ points out that making the environment more supportive of diversity is alien to misinterpretations of evolution. Should the environment change in positive ways for more individuals, diversity increases. Stein et al. interpret improvement only as “nature red in tooth and claw,” rather than preserving diverse individuals as strengthening ultimate survivability of all the species. Whether through preservation of environmental diversity or through increasing the adaptability of individuals, the result is species survivability.
Sorry to interrupt but will some pharyngulites rebut the DMN appearing today in the Points section (page4E) by Rob Dreher [email protected]? Unfortunately, I work for “Uncle Belo” (The Orwellian name given to the family corp. that owns DNMN) and we are going through a major layoff/buyout right now, so I cannot do it myself.
You should be able to access the hatchet job online.
Webster Cook isn’t mentioned. Chronology of death threats toward PZ is misrepresented. And here’s a delicious little quote that will give you the general tone of the rant:
“The hateful Dr. Myers and his spittle-flecked supporters…”
What a gutter-sniping asshole
kraut, #9, you make an excellent point, which is worth repeating.
Hitler was all for the “purity of race”, which has nothing at all to do with the theory of evolution, which doesn’t care about distinct races – on the contrary. One can fairly argue that this purity of being is indeed a religious concept.
I’ll bring that up the next time someone makes this tired old straw man argument about evolution.
It’s “‘Fahrenheit 451’ Darwinism!”
#24 Here is the link:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-dreher_03edi.ART.State.Edition1.4d7bede.html
There does not appear to be comment section related to this revisionist slop.
Of course the real villain of science is that Lord Kelvin bastard. Thanks to him we can’t have any perpetual motion machines. Now there’s an asshole. :)
I’m still completely at a loss as to how even disproving evolution (which they have never come close to doing) proves ID true. Can someone shed light on that for me?
To creationists it’s an either/or situation. A dilema. Either evolution or creation. The middle is excluded. They lack imagination.
To creationists it’s an either/or situation.
Well, yeah, if today isn’t Christmas, then it must be the Fourth of July! it’s only logical…
Even IF Hitler and Stalin used Darwin to justify their genocides, so what? If that makes evolution inherently evil, then the KKK and Fred Phelps make Christianity inherently evil. Both take the original ideas and twist them ’til they’re damn near unrecognizable.
No, I’m not a Christian. I don’t believe religion, in any form, is inherently *evil*. Harmful and stupid? Yes. But evil, no.
All Darwin did was observe and identify a process. That other people have claimed that the existence of said process justifies killing people (or preventing them from breeding) says nothing about Darwin – or the process.
It’s like blaming the study of ballistics for gun violence.
Tribal warfare is as old as humanity itself. What is also fascinating is that christians (whose bible is chock-full of violence and ethnic cleansing based on racial hatred – all cheered on by their bloodthirsty imaginary friend) have the temerity to criticise Darwin and evolution; it’s astonishing hypocrisy even by their standards.
I’ve been noticing that your posts have been containing more and more of these concise and excellently clear statements about the nature of evolution. This is a great example of that. Keep it up!
E.V.,
I can’t find that one yet, but I thought it would be fun to remind everyone of what Dreher was saying back on 12 July:
Yeah, right.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/07/pz-myers-coward.html
Here is my email to the Dallas Morning News:
In response to: Rod Dreher: The hate-filled P.Z. Myers
I am forever mystified why those who support or adhere to religious beliefs that espouse the hateful pronouncements of eternal damnation and/or death to non-believers can seriously claim that those who demonstrate the absurdity and bigotry of those beliefs are somehow “spittle-flecked” and “profoundly inhuman”. The fact that Mr. Dreher resorts to these terms shows the blind hypocrisy in his misleading and reactionary revisionism of the events leading up to Dr. Myer’s satirical response.
Sincerely,
Hmm.. just another theocratic jerkoff who believes objects of worship are more important then the Constitution.
In other words, he is a man of little credibility.
It’s like blaming the study of ballistics for gun violence.
Or suggesting that Galileo opened a Pandora’s box:
http://ncrcafe.org/node/1541
Incidentally, whenever I hear the word “spittle” (which isn’t often, unsurprisingly) I think of E. P. Thompson’s critique of Louis Althusser, The Poverty of Theory. There’s a line that’s something like “And there I saw myself, drooling with bourgeois spittle…”
/obscure radical-history-geek reference
To enlarge on kraut’s excellent point:
In order to blame Charles Darwin for eugenics, one would have to believe that Darwin invented a time machine and went back several thousand years to also invent selective breeding.
Unfortunately, the idea is unlikely to die an easy death, at least where I teach. A history teacher at my school used my room during my planning period last year. She was talking about social Darwinism, and said it was based on Darwin’s theory. I corrected her after class, but I’m sure that’s what’s in the curriculum.
She also projected several pictures of hunters with buffalo when she was talking about Westward Expansion and the killing of so many bison. Unfortunately, the hunters she showed were in Africa, and the animals they had killed were cape buffalo.
And they tell me taxonomy isn’t important to teach.
The greatest way to disprove that Hitler didn’t use evolution as a means of deciding how he killed, is that he didn’t kill the least fit, or the least intelligent. There wasn’t a system in place to push humanity to become faster, stronger, smarter, he just indiscriminately killed Jews, blacks and gays. If someone were going to use natural selection to choose who lives and dies, then they would have to have some sort of physical and mental test, and then kill the people who performed poorly on one or both tests. Hitler was racist, and killed because of his prejudices, not because he read a book on evolution.
Realistically no matter how terrible of a person Hitler was,and whether or not he was really an atheist, the German people (of that time, not now, and of course not all of them) are just as guilty as Hitler for helping and allowing him to lead.
Of course the real villain of science is that Lord Kelvin bastard. Thanks to him we can’t have any perpetual motion machines. Now there’s an asshole. :)
Posted by: tresmal | August 3, 2008 8:33 PM
And now we are forced to accept the rational heresy of “Kelvinism”.
#24 E.V.
I sent a response to him this morning. His newspaper e-mail is at the bottom of that trash talk.
[email protected]
I think it is useful to think of Fundies as debaters. In other words, they will grab on to anything that they think will score debate points. Doesn’t matter to them whether it’s true or not.
Во всем мне хочется дойти…
Во всем мне хочется дойти
До самой сути.
В работе, в поисках пути,
В сердечной смуте.
До сущности протекших дней,
До их причины,
До оснований, до корней,
До сердцевины.
Всё время схватывая нить
Судеб, событий,
Жить, думать, чувствовать, любить,
Свершать открытья.
О, если бы я только мог
Хотя отчасти,
Я написал бы восемь строк
О свойствах страсти.
О беззаконьях, о грехах,
Бегах, погонях,
Нечаянностях впопыхах,
Локтях, ладонях.
Я вывел бы ее закон,
Ее начало,
И повторял ее имен
Инициалы.
Я б разбивал стихи, как сад.
Всей дрожью жилок
Цвели бы липы в них подряд,
Гуськом, в затылок.
В стихи б я внес дыханье роз,
Дыханье мяты,
Луга, осоку, сенокос,
Грозы раскаты.
Так некогда Шопен вложил
Живое чудо
Фольварков, парков, рощ, могил
В свои этюды.
Достигнутого торжества
Игра и мука –
Натянутая тетива
Тугого лука.
Rebuttals sent to: [email protected]
(200 word max) Name, address, zip, daytime phone #
or a Viewpoint (guest op ed)not to exceed 600 words: [email protected]
DSM Fax 972-263-0456
Mail: Dallas Morning News
box655237
Dallas,TX 75265
I would love Dreher’s comment from July to be sent to James Maloney III, publisher and CEO
John C. McKeon -President and GM
Robert W. Mong -Editor
Keven Ann Willey- VP, Editorial page Editor.
OM’s,and nominated OM’s Blake, Truth Machine, Sastra, Owl Mirror, Etha, Moses, Glenn D. Patricia and the loads of brilliant people I can’t think of off the top of my head. (please don’t feel slighted if I left you out)your challenge is to set the record straight.
Sorry, Anna, but like most Americans I neither speak nor read Russian or any other language using the Cyrillic alphabet. If you want to write something, please do it in English.
uhoh. Has PZ offended the Russian Orthoducks too?
Yeah… I’m not sure how you can denigrate “survival of the fittest” and then in the next breath claim that only laissez-faire capitalism can save America. It happens, though.
Eric #40 wrote:
No, if someone were going to use natural selection to choose who lives and dies, then they would not kill anyone. They would simply allow nature to take its course. What you are proposing is called “artificial selection.”
I’m still laughing at the use of the term “millitant atheist” in the Dallas News article. If I had to determine the meaning of that term by it’s usage it comes down to a description of any atheist who dares to open his mouth and contradict a believer.
I hope they keep using it, it’s a nice idiot identifier.
Heh. According to Wikipedia, Dreher is a converted Russian Orthodox.
It’s all part of Project for a New Yesteryear, perhaps one of the less well known rightwing projects. If you look at how to create the conditions of yesteryear, which as we all know was far better than today, one of the most striking is that there were a lot fewer people back then. So the obvious solution, according to Project insiders who wish to remain anonymous, is to have a whole lot more mortality. Creating wars, anti-science and pro-tobacco and pro-global warming, banning safe legal abortion, working against condom use — these are all methods already put in place by PNY adherents.
He is deriving an ought from an is here. In other words, his argument is using the naturalistic fallacy, which is one of the most well known logical fallacies. It does not follow that just because nature is a certain way, human society ought to be that way too. I also find quite ironic when the modern conservatives attack a theory that they themselves, to some extent – and in differing degrees, adhere to: Social Darwinism This would include the realms of politics, economics and foreign policy Might makes right!
Damnit! I knew I was doing something wrong!
Oooh… I just had a T-shirt design idea.
Either olive drab, or camo, with lettering to look like stenciled labels such as are on ammo crates, saying “Militant Atheist.”
I’d wear me one of them.
It is always nice, though, to see the mentally challenged find careers that they can excel in, such as baskert weaving and Christian publishing.
People who blame Darwin for eugenics and such like are simply showing an abysmal lack of education. The earliest eugenic program of which I am aware was proposed by Plato in his dialog “The Republic” written somewhere around the third century BC. In this book, Plato describes an ideal society in which defective infants are destroyed and the best and brightest are bred to one another to become the absolute rulers of the society. I’m not very good at math, but I believe “The Republic” predates Darwin by about 2200 years.
Yeah, like “government schools” …
Anna Ivanova has quoted Pasternak. If I can come up with a translation, I’ll post it.
Typo Alert:
That’s James MORONEY III, with an R @DMN
sorry.
Remember: 200 words or less
Name Address, email, zip and daytime phone
Guest Column -Viewpoints; 600 words or less same info.
I sometimes wonder if wingnuts like this either interpret or intend to fool others into interpreting “Descent” in “Descent of Man” as “fall” as opposed to “ancestry.” That would make the attempts to cast the book as a eugenicist bible somewhat more explicable.
In everything, I seek to grasp
For the very essence.
In work, in searching for the path,
In the heart’s turmoil.
For the essence of days gone by,
For their causes,
For foundations, for roots,
For the core.
I want to live, to think, to feel, to love,
To make discoveries
Always grasping the thread
Of fates and events.
Oh, if only I could
At least in part,
I would write eight lines
About the properties of passion.
About the transgressions, the sins,
The running, the pursuit,
The hasty inadvertencies,
The elbows, the palms.
I would uncover its law,
Its source,
And I would repeat the initials
Of its names.
I would lay out poems like a garden.
In them, with every vein aquiver,
Lindens would bloom all in a line
Single file, one after another.
I would bring into poems a breath of roses,
A breath of mint,
Meadows, sedge, haymaking,
Bursts of thunder.
Thus Chopin once infused
With the living wonder
Of estates, parks, groves, graves
His etudes.
The play and pain
of triumph reached –
Is the drawn string
Of a taut bow.
~ Boris Pasternak, 1956
Is knocked up a pro-choice movie?
Also, check three posts down for some interesting discussion in the comments about this Hitler business…..
Yay, babel fish poetry. If you take the above Russian(?) from Anna #44 and run it through babel fish you get.
And Sastra #49 wrote…
You are right, it would be artificial selection. What I meant was natural selection as inspiration. The artificial part would be the killing, and whatever criteria they were selecting for.
Oh great, a 10,000 word OT comment. O_o
Pasternak indeed.
Abdul, what are your thoughts on beef vs. pork BBQ?
No, that would have been Forrest Mims and William Dembski and the unholy campaign of calumny against Eric Pianka.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mims-Pianka_controversy
What is up with post #62? Lost?
“People who blame Darwin for eugenics and such like are simply showing an abysmal lack of education. The earliest eugenic program of which I am aware was proposed by Plato in his dialog “The Republic” written somewhere around the third century BC. In this book, Plato describes an ideal society in which defective infants are destroyed and the best and brightest are bred to one another to become the absolute rulers of the society. I’m not very good at math, but I believe “The Republic” predates Darwin by about 2200 years.”
Post hoc ergo propter hoc?
Ah. Found it. I must have been looking under “Rob Dreher” earlier. What a dishonest little slam. And he’s a terrible writer. A couple of gems:
Yes, Anna, a fine source, but what is your intended message in quoting him?
Abdul(#62):
I think you made a typo on line 342. That ‘e’ should have been an ‘a’.
Now it all makes sense.
You have managed to turn a beautiful Russian poem into gibberish.
Alex said
1. First, diversity is needed by Evolution. Diversity is a good thing, it allows a species to change quicker in times of need. Therefore, Evolutionarily, we should respect diversity.
2. Second, killing, especially genocide of our species makes no sense what-so-ever Evolutionarily!
3. In fact, doing anything to harm others in our species is an evolutionary disadvantage.
Um, natural selection only operates at the level of the individual. Just sayin’. Anyway, I think these sentiments are admirable, but individual organisms have no interest in the survival of their species. Natural selection works by killing off less “fit” individuals and affecting said organism’s overall fertility.
The evolution of morality is a really interesting topic that probably has to do with the effects of inclusive fitness, rather than some abstract like species level selection.
In a situation with limited resources, those individuals who happen to have genes better suited to obtaining those resources will have higher fertility levels. That’s it. No complicated “for the survival of the species” heroic sacrifices.
Before anyone jumps my case, I am not a proponent of Social Darwinism nor do I feel that genocide is ever an appropriate course of action. I think it’s best to never assume we know who are the “fittest” members of any species, especially now that the world climate is in flux. I’m just saying that I, as an organism, have no interest in the survival of Homo sapiens in general, only in the survival of my offspring and close relatives.
One other thing, culture is our best bet for survival. Culture is what has enabled our species to abandon our tropical home and inhabit nearly every place on Earth.
The best thing about culture: it’s not genetic. You can adopt the culture with the best chances at keeping you alive in a new climate. Culture is fantastic!
Rancid preening?
I knew I should have stopped using that lard as mousse.
Abdul(#62):
I think you made a typo on line 342. That ‘e’ should have been an ‘a’.
Now it all makes sense.
Posted by: Larry
Ahh, I see that you’re right. Now I understand it all. Onward with the Revolution!
Abdul at #62 will not last long, I fear.
He will be EXpelled!!
(For those who will come later and wonder what Abdul did, he apparently posted an entire study on kidney disease from a Nephrology Forum. Bizarre.)
Eric, #64:
Ok. There are things babelfish is good for … but in this case I think a blender would have been more accurate.
So the guy is a walking heart attack waiting to happen. He needs to lose a lot of weight quickly and ditch the smoking habit. Plus control his cholesterol, bp, and diabetes (which losing weight should help a lot with). But what is the relevance of this to the topic?
“I propose the question: Can an idea, a theory, even a delusion kill?”
Wow. I just cannot believe how much irony bleeds out of the bold statements these people always make. How do they not see that these statements really apply directly to themselves and their own beliefs?? Unreal.
Why PZ? Why?
No offense or anything man, but WND is so not worth your time. (Or anyone else’s for that matter.) Writing about how they’re wrong is like taking a first grade math test.
Delusions can kill… my brother-in-law is dying of cancer because his delusions told him that faith healing was better than traditional medicine (a.k.a. “medicine”).
Delusions don’t reliably kill the deluded though, or else there’d be no religion. Generally I think people’s delusions kill other people.
Ask the Peoples Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana. You’ll have to find a medium and channel them since they all drank poisoned koolaide one day and died.
Or the Amelakites and Canaanites of the OT. They are all dead too due to genocide along with the Cathars, assorted protestants, Moslem crusader fodder, uncounted witches, and most the the Amerindians.
For real kicks, go to Iraq and ask the Sunnis and Shiites how they feel about each other along with the Kurds and Arabs. But don’t expect to come back alive, they have been decimating their Xian population too in their spare time.
Finally, in the unlikely event that no one offed you in Iraq, wind down with some pints of stout in N. Ireland pubs, talking about Catholic-Protestant friendship.
Anyone notice he also gives an epigraph of Woodrow Wilson — the founder of the League of Nations (precursor to the UN), winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and a guy who sought world peace (without killing a lot of his enemies!) — as someone supportive of “Social Darwinism”?
Also, not only is “social Darwinism” in scare quotes, so are “economics” (guess they don’t like Adam Smith anymore), “sociobiology,” “sociology” (well ok, they’re all Marxists anyway, OT: Pinochet eliminated sociology from the universities in Chile), and “cultural anthropology.”
The wingnuts keep making this false, idiotic argument. How many times do they think their emotionally captive audience will be wowed by it?
Too true. WorldNut Daily is an ideological tract posing as journalism. It’s typical of them to play on the Darwin-led-to-Nazis thesis.
A perverted distortion of Darwinian thought doubtless went into the ideological brew of National Socialism in order to justify certain excesses, but you can hardly blame Darwin.
The creationist nutbar with the dinosaur-and-humans theme park also goes on about the nefarious influence on Darwin on the Nazis.
Debating with them just lends credence to their nonsense.
It is my belief that the creationists are using “slight of hand” with their claim that Darwin = Eugenics.
In the “Descent of Man”, Darwin makes clear that the differences between the “savage” and the white man are merely cultural and not physical.
Darwin wasn’t racist enough according to the fundies.
The WASPS organized in the 2nd movement of the KKK (#31 – I believe you brought this up) They didn’t/don’t like the fact that evolution teaches that all races are equal to “whites”.
As a matter of fact … the Southern Baptists waited until 1995 to tell their congregations to treat blacks fairly. The SBC has never denounced the KKK like the other major religions.
From – http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:033oRTyn65oJ:acube.org/volume_28/v28-3p25-29.pdf+The+Ohio+State+Lantern+on+January+21,+1966:&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
Damn, I thought Abdul was translating the Cyrillic stuff…
PZ says: “Those millions of deaths are a consequence of fanatical adherence to poorly supported ideas: the ideologies of communism and fascism.”
Exactly. It’s the key thing to keep in mind about Stalin, Hitler, and the ilk: whether or not they were ‘religious’ per se, they had faith in ideologies. ‘Faith’ as in unshaken beliefs not based on evidence. Hitler and Stalin were as far removed from rationalists (and thus most “Darwinian” scientists) as possible; they, like all the murdering dictators of the 20th century, were men of faith.
http://www.defaithed.com/blog/defaithed/2008/05/stalin_and_hitler_were_men_of_faith
Of course, pointing that out to idiots like the book reviewer in question here does little good. I suspect that many of them know damn well that they’re lying and distorting to score “points” for their irrational side, and are perfectly happy with that sort of deceit. : /
Yes, Johnson is an Orthodox Presbytarian. This is a very small splinter group from the main group in the USA.
They are schisming again over various issues regarding how literally to interpret the bible. Including evolution. A tempest in a teapot for anyone not in the direct line of fire but ugly infighting for anyone that is.
Johnson has been keeping a low profile lately. He had several strokes and might be realizing that taking over the US and destroying it might not be such a great strategy.
This reminds me, isn’t the holy grail of evo-devo research regenerating severed limbs or organs?
There is one of those near me. They claim to be “non denominational” and call themselves a “community” church. I looked into some info they sent me and noticed that they have some sort of connection to the Baptist church.
They seem to be struggling for members. This is common on the WC. The average age of church goers in many churches seems to be about 60.
Everyone knows the only worthwhile denomination is The Western Branch of American Reform Presbylutheranism.
I know it’s entirely tangential but I’m so disappointed to learn that Forrest Mims is in the league of kooks.
Tyler writes at #12:
But that is exactly what was argued for centuries. “If man was meant to fly, God would have given him wings.” Thus, by seeking to fly, man was being tempted by the Devil to subvert God’s perfect plan. It was morally corrupt to build aircraft. Such arguments aren’t new. Their target simply shifts as science advances. And Evolution is a much easier target. The benefits of the ToE aren’t as blindingly obvious as taking an airplane home to Mom’s on Thanksgiving.
In 1837, H. William Harper (a U.S. senator from South Carolina son of a Presbyterian minister) gave a speech (partially to defend slavery, partially to attack the idea of women’s rights) that was pure Social Darwinism. I’ll give some quotes below. But this was 22 years before Darwin’s book appeared, and yet it is exactly the same kind of argument the later self-proclaimed Social Darwinists would make. The idea of Social Darwinism has nothing to do with Darwin but everything to do with some people (invariably Christians when defending slavery) who seek a convenient excuse to proclaim their natural superiority to other people:
“Man is born to subjection. Not only during infancy is he dependent and under the control of others; at all ages, it is the very bias of his nature, that the strong and the wise should control the weak and the ignorant. So it has been since the days of Nimrod. The existence of some form of Slavery in all ages and countries, is proof enough of this. … The proclivity of the natural man is to domineer or to be subservient. A noble result indeed, but in the attaining of which, as in the instances of knowledge and virtue, the Creator, for his own purposes, has set a limit beyond which we cannot go.”
And: “… I say that on the very same foundation, with the difference only of circumstance and degree, rests the right of the civilized and cultivated man, over the savage and ignorant. It is the order of nature and of God, that the being of superior faculties and knowledge, and therefore of superior power, should control and dispose of those who are inferior. It is as much in the order of nature, that men should enslave each other, as that other animals should prey upon each other.”
And: “Servitude is the condition of civilization. It was decreed, when the command was given, ‘be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it,’ and when it was added, ‘in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.’ [Gen. 1:28, 3:17] And what human being shall arrogate to himself the authority to pronounce that our form of it is worse in itself, or more displeasing to God than that which exists elsewhere?”
No further comments are needed.
I am a Evangelical Canadian creationist.
The impact of evolution was important in the elite establishments of Europe and did establish that better people were from the results of evolution and so a control was legitamate by society of who was desirable. The the opinion of the people but yes the opinion of the elite. Just like today homosexuality is rejected by the people and as evidenced by the words of contempt for it but its highly acceptable to the establishment.
Evolution undercut opposition to movements to subdue undesirables. There was not a good answer from people in high places anymore to insist on the innate equality of all men. They were dismissed as uneducated in their conclusions.
Evolution holds great blame for a culture of though on issues of race/sex.
This has been hidden by the pro-evolution establishment and only comes out in high places because of Jews seeking underlying causes of the holocaust which trumps protection of evolution.
Hitler did not kill because of evolution however or communism.
He simply was targeting hated peoples as he saw it. ordinary in human history and in Africa recent history.
Opponents of evolution must not say it brought the big killing agendas as a exact reason or in any way assistant to murder.
It did work in the world of ideas at the top and so justified the first introduction to select away people to a virgin populace.
Check it out:
I got an honorable mention by a homeState rag. DMN is really going downhill if they are wasting a sentence on a dipshit like me.
Thanks for the heads up, I am going to cancel my subscription, even though I don’t have one, and demand a confirmation, which is always a fun way of wasting their time.
Robert Byers wrote:
It’s rejected by some people but that’s because they’re ignorant, bigoted, moronic homophobes.
Are you one of them?
Maybe it’s the lateness of the hour, but I’m having a really hard time understanding what Robert Byers is saying.
I get that he’s a creationist from Canada, but beyond that, not much.
Social Darwinist reading distorts the impersonal process by which natural selection operates.
Castletonsnob, #101:
You’re better off not reading anything below his first line; what little of the rest that is coherent isn’t worth bothering with.
Let’s put it this way: he has a large collection of tinfoil hats to ward off, amongst other things, the Evil Evolutionist Conspiracy to Hide the Truth about Creationism™ and the equally evil Conspiracy to Promote Homosexuality Despite Practically Everyone in the Real World Being Against It™.
What many of these wing-nuts fail to realize is that our current understanding of anthropology, history, and evolution disolves racism by showing us how connected we all are. Anyone that has taking Sociology 101 knows better than this author or reviewer.
Dear Robert Beyers,
dude.
shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
if there was a conspiracy to make everyone gay will and grace would replace fox news and instead of the IRS auditing taxes we’d have the QEFTSG auditing your terrible curtain choice.
…actually that doesn’t sound too bad. Now I’m upset there ISN’T a huge make-everyone-gay conspiracy.
:[
#101
On the topic of Mr Bryer’s brain, thinking is not it’s first language, by the time it get’s to writing, it’s not a pretty sight
Thanks, Wowbagger (named after one of my favorite characters from The Hitcherhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, I hope.)
Two questions for you:
1) Mr. Byers describes himself as an evangelist; but how in the world is he going to save souls if he can’t communicate clearly? I’m wondering if he is fluent enough in English to really be effective.
2) What is the html code for making the “TM” sit halfway up the line?
Thanks!
Castletonsnob,
Yep, I’m a huge HHGG and DNA fan. And I always liked the original Wowbagger’s style – insult everyone in the universe, one at a time.
No doubt in Byers’ own head he communicates and thinks quite clearly. He probably blames the devil for making him 98% incomprehensible.
To make the TM you put & trade ; (just omit the spaces between the three) after the word you want it to appear after it it’ll create the ™ for you.
Thanks, Wowbagger. I thought there used to be someone who commented under the name of Majikthise, too, but I haven’t seen anything from him or her recently.
Ah well, sorry for the tangent, back to the original thread, everyone!
The fact that Nature applies “the Law of the Jungle” does not imply that we, humans, must apply it also. We are not Nature, we are just a subset of Nature, having our specificities and, in particular, cooperation.
Nature is blind and has no intelligence. We have. And intelligence tells us that it is more important for us to allow everybody, weak persons included, to have one’s chance.
Because somebody can be weak for something and strong for something else. Example: Stephen Hawking.
I agree that any form of eugenics is probably dangerous. I also agree that Social Darwinism is cruel at best and abhorrent at worst.
But sometimes I feel the sneaking suspicion that the reason we are having so much trouble fighting ignorance at present is that society protects the stupid from themselves a little too much.
Daniel R (#110) has a point that people like Hawking are a shining example of why Natural Selection is NOT the best model to apply to our social development.
Yet every time I switch on the TV and see “Big Brother” or “Idol” or “Funniest Home Videos” or a tabloid style current affairs “news” program or the latest evangelical “Power Hour”, I wonder how so many of these people survive as long as they do. The stupid breed faster than the rational too.
I’d feel better about the future if the proportion of Hawkings to Hiltons were higher…
“if we maintain a state that helps the weak and sick live and have children, then we have increased their fitness.” Ah – see, that is what the protestant work ethic and it soulmate, capitalism, can’t stand. States which increase the fitness of all, not the success of the few ruthless enough to capitalise on their advantages are, in that view, socialist or communist nightmares. They hobble the fittest few in order to benefit the many whose laziness and stupidity and general weaknesses fit them only for wage slavery or prison. It’s against the will of god to aid those who cannot help themselves – that’s the bedrock of the American mindset and explains its fanatical rejection of any kind of regulation, its espousal of gun totin’ individualism, and its utter loathing of social democracy. God blesses the fittest with wealth and punishes the unfit with poverty – that is the way of the lord.
Gary @#43 sez:
“I think it is useful to think of Fundies as debaters.”
So if there’s a lot of them, they’re indulging in a group mass debate?
In the opening chapter on Darwin, Wiker wrote: “Reading Charles Darwin’s ‘The Descent of Man’ forces one to face an unpleasant truth: that if everything he said in his more famous ‘Origin of Species’ is true, then it quite logically follows that human beings ought to ensure that the fit breed with abandon and that the unfit are weeded out.”
This exposes the dirty secret, the Theists are the ones mentally equipped to do the “inevitable” wiping out. Its clear from the ghastly ease of this loons “logic”, and our uniform gasp of horror. Could this guy have articulated the the path from genesis to genocide more clearly?
My recent take on the mystery of the hold that social darwinisim has in the US.
It’s that old chestnut again. The inability to distinguish between evolutionary fitness and physical fitness, a problem 14 year old GCSE Biology students have…and quite a few grown adults!
It’s a fact that things fall down due to gravity. Therefore, it is our moral responsibility not to fly, and to only build bungalows.
It’s a fact that entropy tends, overall, to increase with time. Therefore tidying is clearly evil.
WAY OT but looks like someone may have set fire to the Westboro Baptist Church.
Not that I condone that sort of thing but..
couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch of fuckheads.
I find it peculiar that Washington calls the book ‘venerable’, and yet it came out in 2008.
Hm.
Deliberately set by whom? Phelps looking for publicity, after his more than 15 minutes?
Or maybe it’s cheeses’s way of saying “I hate fag-haters”?
test ™
S. Scott, read this book which is free on-line.
“The Authoritarians” by Bob Altemeyer
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
University of Manitoba
It is the results of a study the illuminate the workings of an authoritarian mindset which, as it turns out, is exactly the mindset of an evangelical or a fundamentalist.
It is a troubling thought and leaves me feeling hopeless about how to turn this ignorance around but he does find that education and exposure to new ideas do indeed have a positive influence on an *authoritarian mind.
*Note that authoritarian includes those who like to follow those in authority as well as those who prefer to lead.
Origin of Species doesn’t deal with the origin and/or evolution of human beings at all.
Besides, what do these Pollyanna global warming deniers think is going to happen when an increasing world population is forced to compete for diminishing world resources? Do they think that little angels are going to rescue the starving kids of the world? No, they’ve got theirs, and to hell with the rest (as we saw in the evangelical’s contempt for the 2004 Tsunami victims).
Scratch a creationist and you’ll find a racist secretly longing for God to practice eugenics on everyone else.
@ 121 – Thanks Rick .. I’ll check it out.
@ 122 – Kristine said:
I believe this is true of many but not all. We need to expose them!
Phelps … Baptist … hmmm …who would’a thunk it?!
Don’t worry about it. Byers is flat out crazy and whatever he is saying would only make sense to a psychotic stoned on LSD.
Canadian eh!!! Don’t ever ride on a bus with a crazy Canadian.
Here’s the link to the book that Rick mentioned – if anyone else is interested.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
and here’s a taste …
Kristine 122,
I think many if not most of these global warming deniers (of which there seems to be a particularly high concentration in the USA) are fundamentalist Christians for whom the doctrine of the Rapture ™ continues to be an important part of Christian eschatology today. They continue to feel that world conditions point to the rapture, tribulation and Christ second comming occuring soon, and actually hope for it. That’s how they can rationalize their evident carelessness for future generations, including their own, adding that as long as they are good Christians, future generations will be “saved”.
This doctrine of the rapture became particularly popular in the USA in the 70s with such books as the “The Late, Great Planet Earth” by Hal Lindsey wihch sold more than 20 million copies, and more recently Tim Lahaye’s series of books “Left behind” which also sold tens of millions of copies, and on which movies were made.
It is probably the most irresponsable belief of all dogmatic Christian fundie lunacies, but it’s quite formidable how people can be so fond of such inepsies just in order to escape from their most basic responsablities. It just makes everything so much easier, doesn’t it ?
castletonsnob @ # 109: I thought there used to be someone who commented under the name of Majikthise, too…
Dunno about any such commenter here, but a talented freelance journalist/photographer aka Lindsay Bernstein blogs under that name – she did some especially fine work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Scratch a creationist and you’ll find a racist secretly longing for God to practice eugenics on everyone else.
Thanks, Kristine, for an awesome new sigfile!
Sweet post PZ!
It’s about time someone said something intelligent about this. I’m sick and tired of the connections between Nazism and Social Darwinism.
Great post!
In large complex human societies there is no standard best fit because of the diversity of societal niches. The immense genetic variation in human populations can play out like the navy assigning positions on an aircraft carrier based on individual personalities and capabilities. So it would seem Wiker falsely assumes we could even determine who is best or least fit (in the context of complex and dynamic environments) if we actually decided to “weed out” unfit individuals in the first place. One may be “unfit” to assume the commander niche, but highly “fit” to be a mechanic, medic, computer expert, chaplin or whatever. Human societies that keep these “niches” filled would be at an advantage. Even if the Nazi’s tried to steer their ship through the eyes of Darwin it’s obvious they didn’t understand Darwin in the first palce.
Robert Byers,
When you post insane drivel, you should alert the rest of us with the indiscriminate use of ALL CAPS, bold typeface
Forgot to preview.
That should have been “ALL CAPS, bold typeface multiple !!!!!!! exclamation !!!!!!! marks!!!!! along with the poor spelling and grammar errors.”
Thanks for the new excuse to avoid housework at home and cleaning off my desk here at work.
it was taking that damned dog on the trip that screwed it up for Charles. If his trip had lasted more than a few months, what would have happened? Dogs and cats living together in harmony? Beagles. After all.
Another genius post PZ. Evolution is true, fascists and communists were fanatics, you disagree with the contention of the review, evolution can only be interpreted positively (because you say so), therefore the Nazis didn’t adopt the ideas of the survival of the fittest by means of natural selection. Logic for the drones!!
You are seeming ever more irrational and less capable of thinking critically with each post.
Shades of Philip Johnson, another lawyer, Ellis Washington, pretending he knows all about evolution or aka Darwinism as anti-evos like to tar it.
This guy is just another ditto head repeating the same arguments used against Darwin in Expelled and elsewhere on the internet.
The review is only about Darwin’s contribution to
“Dr. Benjamin Wiker’s venerable opus, ’10 Books that Screwed up he World and 5 others that didn’t Help.'”
I’d bet the bank that Wiker’s list doesn’t include the BIBLE!
What’s the matter baba? Did your synapses go on strike?
Yeah Baba doesn’t really understand the ToE.
Neither did the Germans.
I’ve never figured out why this basic thread of illogic is seen so frequently. What I get hear goes something like this:
What could the ??? be? What kind of completely guided, voodoo logic could possibly connect the first point with the question of whether organisms, most of which are non-human, have evolved over time. If I suggested to these utter wrecks of reason that pushing people off of buildings is bad, would they conclude that the theory of gravity is evil and must be wrong? Is it all just a type of ad hominem (or “ad theorem”, perhaps) character assassination? Because otherwise it makes not a whit of sense to me.
And to recap another doozy: people choosing who gets to live or die is odious, but a malevolent ogre in the sky making the choices instead is something to sing praises about. It boggles the mind! Thank you Lord for pruning us! We are complicit sheep! An uninterested Nature is at least neutral by virtue of being completely unconcerned. A humanist struggling against Nature to improve the situation of his fellow man is, relatively, an outlandishly virtuous hero.
Баба Яга:
No. It can only be correctly interpreted neutrally.
That’s right. They didn’t. They brutally applied artificial selection in a misguided effort to decrease the genetic diversity of the human race, based on a scientifically unsupported and arbitrarily self-serving definition of fitness.
Kseniya wrote:
Which, if i remember correctly, was fourfold: the ability to be tall, blonde, drink lots of beer and look good in lederhosen.
Aren’t those mutually exclusive?
Aren’t those mutually exclusive?
on the contrary, I rather think one has to drink a LOT of beer before one starts thinking they look good in old-fashioned “lederhosen”.
What could the ??? be? What kind of completely guided, voodoo logic could possibly connect the first point with the question of whether organisms, most of which are non-human, have evolved over time.
I’m sure all you have to do is go watch “Expelled” to find the answer!
Ben Stein will whisper it in your ear…
Ok, so maybe I’m feeling a bit cruel tonight. I actually wouldn’t suggest it unless you have some way of limiting the brain damage it will cause.
:p
True, true – but that supports my contention. There’s a big difference between thinking you look good, and actually looking good!
You are seeming ever more irrational and less capable of thinking critically with each post.
Baba, do you know what projection means?
I’ll see how I go at the next Schutzenfest – though it’s held in summer here and is almost always one of the hottest days of the year.
Good for beer-drinking; not so great for the leather shorts…
It’s a fact that things fall down due to gravity. Therefore, it is our moral responsibility not to fly, and to only build bungalows.
can I stop walking, too?
seems unnatural to stand so upright against all that gravity.
crawling would be so much more… moral.
:P
Baba was here? Thank the Killfile! Was he/she/it still woefully obtuse and a hindrance to dialogue?
Nah, I’m being far too optimistic…
Thanks, Pierce, she is indeed the Majikthise I remember.