Thanks for the quote. I do want to go back and see the larger context, but on face value this does not look good.
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The very act of attempting to place the entirety of human diversity within his particular Western religious paradigm is itself something that has been done many times in the past to contextualize racial prejudice. Spanish colonialists didn’t view native Americans as human until they agreed they were descended from Adam. Henry Morris is Jeanson’s hero and by Morris’ own admission this idea that particular groups of people come from one or the other sons of Noah is associated with ascribing particular personality traits to particular races and the less flattering traits to darker skinned people. Jeanson and Ham are clearly working within that tradition.
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Agreed without reservation. Having now done some digging into Henry Morris’ abhorrent writings, and seeing Jeanson’s idiodic color plate as posted by @Tim, I support that your critique on the vile racism latent in Traced is entirely warranted.
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This is a bit silly.
I can do the same thing for the current paradigm.
“The very act of attempting to place the entirety of human diversity within his particular Western [evolutionary] paradigm is itself something that has been done many times in the past to contextualize racial prejudice. [Insert example of scientific racism here]. [Darwin] is [insert scientist]’s hero and by [Darwin’s] own admission this idea that particular groups of people come from [more or less evolved races] is associated with ascribing particular personality traits to particular races and the less flattering traits to darker skinned people. [Insert scientists] are clearly working within that tradition.”
I’d rather proscribe views to people that they actually espouse.
Yes. The difference however is that modern evolutionary biologists very readily, sometimes eagerly, recognize that Darwin and other 18th century biologists were indeed racists and that racism was rampant in the early scientific work on human variation.
Morris was writing very overtly racist stuff about the qualities of racial groups descended from the sons of Noah just a few decades ago.
“Neither Negroes nor any other Hamitic people were intended to be forcibly subjugated on the basis of this Noah declaration. The prophecy would be inevitably fulfilled because of the innate natures of the three genetic stocks, not by virtue of any artificial constraints imposed by man.” – Morris, The Beginning of the World: A Scientific Study of Genesis I-II
That was written by Morris not in the 19th century but in the 1970s.
Jeanson and Ham to my knowledge have made no effort to acknowledge the history of racism in creationism to the degree that evolutionary scientists have in their field. Stephen J Gould wrote The Mismeasure of Man decades ago and it explicitly addressed blatant scientific racism in the 19th and early 20th century. Jennifer Raff in her new book Origin in the history of the peoples of the Americas also deals explicitly with the history of scientific racism (and racism among Christian creationists) in the study of indigenous Americans. I don’t see any such critical treatment by creationists of their own racist past, or present.
So it’s hardly silly at all. There are glaring differences in how the two camps have recognized and dealt with racism. I would say given that Ken Ham and Nathaniel Jeanson today admit that they revere Morris and themselves make racist statements in their writings (see Jeanson’s “All Asians look the same” trope in Traced) that it’s pretty clear that they are not recognizing racism in creationism to the same degree that evolutionists have dealt with racism in their own history.
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No Valerie. It is your false equivalence that is “silly”, and more than a little offensive.
Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species before the American Civil War, when slavery was still widely practiced in America. Compared with his contemporaries , Darwin’s views on race were relatively progressive. Henry Morris, on the other hand was writing a century later (almost to the year, in writing The Genesis Flood), during the Civil Rights Movement – but it would be hard to tell that this century had passed, and attitudes had changed, from his views on race. And he was actively writing up until his death in 2006 – so not only within living memory, but recent memory.
This should not be surprising, as an article I previously posted demonstrates:
A disbelief in human evolution was associated with higher levels of prejudice, racist attitudes and support of discriminatory behavior against Blacks, immigrants and the LGBTQ community in the U.S
I will admit that Jeanson appears to be less abrasively racist than Morris in his writings, but his writings relating to race demonstrate that he is ill-informed and lacking in self-awareness.
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This book by Henry Morris is available from Master Books
From this web article, Creationism, Noah’s Flood, And Race, regarding Noah’s sons and their descendants, what Morris writes speaks for itself:
Appendix: extracts from The Beginning of the World
With the deepest hearts of his own sons thus laid bare before him, Noah was moved to make the great prophetic declaration of Genesis 9:25 – 27. To some extent the insight thus revealed into the future was no doubt based on the insights he had into the hearts of his sons… But, more importantly, he spoke in the Spirit, prophesying as the Spirit gave utterance. [p 127]
As he knew the characters of his own sons, he could foresee that their respective descendants would be characterised chiefly by religious zeal (Shem), mental acumen (Japheth) and materialistic drives (Ham).) [p 128]
The prophecy is worldwide in scope and, since Shem and Japheth are covered, all Ham’s descendants must be also. These include all nations which are neither Semitic nor Japhetic. Thus, all of the earth’s “coloured” races, – yellow, red, brown, and black – essentially the Afro-nation group of peoples, including the American Indians – are most likely to be Hamitic in origin and included within the scope of the Canaanitic prophecy, as well as the Egyptians, Sumerians, Hittites, and Phoenicians of antiquity. [p 129]
Truly they have been ‘servants’ of mankind in a most amazing way. Yet the prophecy again has its obverse side. Somehow they have only gone so far and no farther. The Japhethites and Semites have, sooner or later, taken over their territories, and their inventions, and then developed them and utilised them for their own enlargement. Often the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have become actual personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a racial character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they have eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites.… Neither Negroes nor any other Hamitic people are intended to be forcibly subjugated on the basis of this Noahic declaration. The prophecy would be inevitably fulfilled because of the innate nature of the three racial stocks, not by virtue of any artificial constraints imposed by man.” [p 130]
Every little Indian or African tribe seems to have developed its own language, by virtue of its own isolation and the peculiarly concrete and materialistic thought-structure inherent in Hamitic peoples. [p. 142. Morris regards all languages other than Indo-European and Semitic as Hamitic]
Apart from the casual and blatant racism of these passages, the very idea that such personality traits are inheritable by race could only held by someone in the thrall of pseudoscience.
From the fly of this volume, the invitation is extended, “Please visit out website for other great titles:”
Sure. Another published title from Master Books:
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No one should forget that Jeanson and Ham are imbedded in this tradition of Henry Morris. They model themselves after him. Jeanson has said so explicitly.
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