Re: Did Darwinism Smooth the Way for Nazi Ideology?

76. Glenn
Jan 28, 6:08 pm show options

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From: "Glenn" <glennshel...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> - Find messages by this
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Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 19:08:00 -0700
Subject: Re: Did Darwinism Smooth the Way for Nazi Ideology?
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"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message


news:IvUCf.19911$Yu.16103@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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> Glenn wrote:

> > "Joe Cooper" <joe0...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> > news:1138483188.035393.42480@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


> >>Many of the members of the Nazi party were members of the
> >>intelligentsia, who were to a large degree imbued with racism and
> >>Spencerian Darwinism.


> >>This attitude went back to WW I. William Jennings Bryan
antipathy,
> >>although unjust, to Darwinism has much of its vitriol based on his
> >>reading of one book called "Headquarter Nights" by Vernon Kellogg
> >>(1917), recounting his experiences, before the US entered the war,


> > in


> >>listening to discussions among Germanies highest miliary officcers
> >>while he was part of the Belgian relief effort.


> >>(Vernon Kellogg wrote a major textbood "Evolution and Animal Life"


> > and


> >>was a professor at Stanford. The textbook was coauthored by David


> > Starr


> >>Jordan, president of Stanford and ichythyologist.


> >>The other book, other than "Headquarteres Nights" which
influenced
> >>Bryans campaign against the theory of evolution was "The Science
of
> >>Power", by Benjamin Kidd (1918)


> >>According to Gould, Steven Jay, in "Bully for Brontosaurus" (1991)


> > in


> >>the chapter "William Jenning Bryan's Last Campaign",


> >>"Bryan conflated a perverse interpretation of the thing (the thing
> >>being evolution) itself and affirmed his worst fears about the
> >>polluting powers of evolution."


> >>Steven Jay Gould goes on to discuss why this interpretation
"remains
> >>deeply and appallingly wrong for three basic reasons"


> >>I am attempting to show that Hitler's attitudes was rooted in the
> >>military and possibly the intelligentsia of Germany (also, to a


> > lesser


> >>extent in other countries of the period} rather than a direct
> >>derivation from Darwin.


> >>This attitude of the black inferiority was deeply rooted in the
same
> >>period of creationism. The creationist movement of the time used


> > its


> >>influence to eject evolution from the school curriculem, but


> > accepted


> >>and encouraged the idea of black inferiority. Do you want quotes?


> > Yes, please. Not assertions.


> > It appears you would liken the Nazi movement to a creationist
> > movement, and minimize or exclude any Darwinian thought. Here is
some:
> > http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1871darwin.html
> > "Charles Darwin (1809-1882), an English biologist was one of a
number
> > of scientists considering theories of evolution. He published On
the
> > Origin of Species, in 1859 and set forth his theory that animals
> > evolved through variation and natural selection of those most fit
to
> > survive in particular environments. In The Descent of Man (1871)
he
> > applied his theory directly to the question of human beings. Far
from
> > standing aside from the social, racial and religious consequences
of
> > his theories, Darwin, as we see below, jumped right into the
fray."


> Did you read the rest of the page? Nothing there about "race".






"If you wanted to read about "race", you should have clicked on the
link you snipped to the "Descent of Man" and read away. Is this
another game? "

Here is the page you referred to on the Descent of Man.

Nothing excepttional here, outside of being somewhat dated (150 year
old) theory.

The Southern Baptist Convention had a lot to say about race well into
the 20th century. Along with the other creationist propagandists well
into the 20th century. Jerry Falwell for one has never reneged on his
racist remarks, just doesnt repeat them.
Joe Cooper





http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1871darwin.html

"Modern History Sourcebook:
Charles Darwin:
The Descent of Man, 1871

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charles Darwin (1809-1882), an English biologist was one of a number of
scientists considering theories of evolution. He published On the
Origin of Species, in 1859 and set forth his theory that animals
evolved through variation and natural selection of those most fit to
survive in particular environments. In The Descent of Man (1871) he
applied his theory directly to the question of human beings. Far from
standing aside from the social, racial and religious consequences of
his theories, Darwin, as we see below, jumped right into the fray.


The main conclusion here arrived at, and now held by many naturalists
who are well competent to form a sound judgment, is that man is
descended from some less highly organised form. The grounds upon which
this conclusion rests will never be shaken, for the close similarity
between man and the lower animals in embryonic development, as well as
in innumerable points of structure and constitution, both of high and
of the most trifling importance, - the rudiments which he retains, and
the abnormal revisions to which he is occasionally liable, - are facts
which cannot be disputed. They have long been known, but until recently
they told us nothing with respect to the origin of man. Now when viewed
by the light of our knowledge of the whole organic world their meaning
is unmistakable. The great principle of evolution stands up clear and
firm, when these groups of facts are considered in connection with
others, such as the mutual affinities of the members of the same group,
their geographical distribution in past and present times, and their
geological succession. It is incredible that all these facts should
speak falsely. He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the
phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man
is the work of a separate act of creation. He will be forced to admit
that the close resemblance of the embryo of man to that, for instance,
of a dog - the construction of his skull, limbs and whole frame on the
same plan with that of other mammals, independently of the uses to
which the parts may be put - the occasional re-appearance of various
structures, for instance of several muscles, which man does not
normally possess, but which are common to the Quadrumana - and a crowd
of analogous facts - all point in the plainest manner to the conclusion
that man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common
progenitor.

We have seen that man incessantly presents individual differences in
all parts of his body and in his mental faculties. These differences or
variations seem to be induced by the same general causes, and to obey
the same laws as with the lower animals. In both cases similar laws of
inheritance prevail. Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his
means of subsistence; consequently he is occasionally subjected to a
severe struggle for existence, and natural selection will have effected
whatever lies within its scope. A succession of strongly-marked
variations of a similar nature is by no means requisite; slight
fluctuating differences in the individual suffice for the work of
natural selection; not that we have any reason to suppose that in the
same species, all parts of the organisation tend to vary to the same
degree.

By considering the embryological structure of man, - the homologies
which he presents with the lower animals, - the rudiments which he
retains, - and the reversions to which he is liable, we can partly
recall in imagination the former condition of our early progenitors;
and can approximately place them in their proper place in the
zoological series. We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy,
tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of
the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure had been examined
by a naturalist, would have been classed amongst the Quadrumana, as
surely as the still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New World
monkeys. The Quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived
from an ancient marsupial animal, and this through a long line of
diversified forms, from some amphibian-like creature, and this again
from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of the past we can see
that the early progenitor of all the Vertebrata must have been an
aquatic animal, provided with branchiæ, with the two sexes united in
the same individual, and with the most important organs of the body
(such as the brain and heart) imperfectly or not at all developed. This
animal seems to have been more like the larvæ of the existing marine
Ascidians than any other known form.

The high standard of our intellectual powers and moral disposition is
the greatest difficulty which presents itself, after we have been
driven to this conclusion on the origin of man. But every one who
admits the principle of evolution, must see that the mental powers of
the higher animals, which are the same in kind with those of man,
though so different in degree, are capable of advancement....

The moral nature of man has reached its present standard, partly
through the advancement of his reasoning powers and consequently of a
just public opinion, but especially from his sympathies having been
rendered more tender and widely diffused through the effects of habit,
example, instruction, and reflection. It is not improbable that after
long practice virtuous tendencies may be inherited. With the more
civilised races, the conviction of the existence of an all-seeing Deity
has had a potent influence on the advance of morality. Ultimately man
does not accept the praise or blame of his fellows as his sole guide
though few escape this influence, but his habitual convictions,
controlled by reason, afford him the safest rule. His conscience then
becomes the supreme judge and monitor. Nevertheless the first
foundation or origin of the moral sense lies in the social instincts,
including sympathy; and these instincts no doubt were primarily gained,
as in the case of the lower animals, through natural selection.

The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest but
the most complete of all the distinctions between man and the lower
animals. It is however impossible, as we have seen, to maintain that
this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand a belief
in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal, and
apparently follows from a considerable advance in man's reason, and
from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity
and wonder. I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has
been used by many persons as an argument for His existence. But this iS
a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the
existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more
powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a
beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does
not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by
long-continued culture....

I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be
denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is
bound to shew why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man
as a distinct species by descent from some lower form, through the laws
of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the
individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction. The birth both of
the species and of the individual are equally parts of that grand
sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the result of
blind chance. The understanding revolts at such a conclusion, whether
or not we are able to believe that every slight variation of structure,
- the union of each pair in marriage, - the dissemination of each seed,
- and other such events, have all been ordained for some special
purpose.

Sexual selection has been treated at great length in this work, for, as
I have attempted to shew, it has played an important part in the
history of the organic world. I am aware that much remains doubtful,
but I have endeavoured to give a fair view of the whole case. In the
lower divisions of the animal kingdom, sexual selection seems to have
done nothing: such animals are often affixed for life to the same spot,
or have the sexes combined in the same individual, or what is still
more important, their perceptive and intellectual faculties are not
sufficiently advanced to allow of the feelings of love and jealousy, or
of the exertion of choice. When, however, we come to the Arthropoda and
Vertebrata, even to the lowest classes in these two great Sub-Kingdoms,
sexual selection has effected much....

Sexual selection depends on the success of certain individuals over
others of the same sex, in relation to the propagation of the species;
whilst natural selection depends on the success of both sexes, at all
ages, in relation to the general conditions of life. The sexual
struggle is of two kinds; in the one it is between the individuals of
the same sex, generally the males, in order to drive away or kill their
rivals, the females remaining passive; whilst in the other, the
struggle is likewise between the individuals of the same sex, in order
to excite or charm those of the opposite sex, generally the females,
which no longer remain passive, but select the more agreeable
partners....

The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is
descended from some lowly organised form, will, I regret to think, be
highly distasteful to many. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are
descended from barbarians. The astonishment which I felt on first
seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and broken shore will never be
forgotten by me,< for the reflection at once rushed into my mind - such
were our ancestors. These men were absolutely naked and bedaubed with
paint, their long hair was tangled, their mouths frothed with
excitement, and their expression was wild, startled, and distrustful.
They possessed hardly any arts, and like wild animals lived on what
they could catch; they had no government, and were merciless to every
one not of their own small tribe. He who has seen a savage in his
native land will not feel much shame, if forced to acknowledge that the
blood of some more humble creature flows in his veins. For my own part
I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved
his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from that
old baboon, who descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph
his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs - as from a savage
who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices,
practises infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves,
knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not
through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and
the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally
placed there, may give him hope for a still higher destiny in the
distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only
with the truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it; and I
have given the evidence to the best of my ability. We must, however,
acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities,
with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which
extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with
his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and
constitution of the solar system - with all these exalted powers - Man
still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly
origin.


>>From Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to
Sex (New York: Appleton and Co., 1883), pp. 7, 609, 612-614, 618-619.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The
Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts
for introductory level classes in modern European and World history.

Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document
is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying,
distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use.
If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission
is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.

(c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997 "


.

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