Science Fueled a White Supremacist?

I just realized that I was confusing him with Johnathan Wells. AFAIK, West has not studied evolution in any formal sense. He still has no excuse, of course.

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I think that the reason we hear so much of this type of thing is precisely that. Knowing that they have an immense problem with racism, the creationists would like oh, so very much to point the finger at others. This is why, for example, you hear about obscure Germans who had daft notions about what evolutionary theory might somehow be strangely construed to say about various ethnic minorities, but you never hear them talk much about Martin Luther’s On The Jews and Their Lies.

I doubt that it fools anyone. But it may soothe some of those who are in the core audience of the DI and Tucker Carlson.

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I have moved this topic to Conversation.

Jonathan Wells.

Some do, some don’t.

Not an argument, but just some information here. I don’t know who “them” includes, but I recall a fellow grad student, who was a Lutheran pastor in addition to a Ph.D. student, say quite openly that he, along with a good number of Luther scholars, fully admitted Luther’s prejudice and were deeply embarrassed by it. He offered no excuses for it.

That said, my impression of most fundamentalists is that, unless they happen to be specifically Lutheran fundamentalists, they have read very little of Luther. This is true even of non-fundamentalists. I taught at a non-Lutheran, non-fundamentalist Protestant seminary for a while, and if the students knew anything about Luther at all, it was from maybe a very quick pass through, say, his essay on Galatians, if they read even that. There were survey courses on Protestant theology, but no courses with titles like: “Lutheran Theology” or “The Main Works of Luther.” It would be quite possible for most Protestant lay people and even most Protestant seminary students (if their professors did not bring up the topic) never to have come across the passages where Luther comments on the Jews. So the lack of commentary on Luther’s remarks about the Jews, while it may in some cases be a result of deliberate avoidance of the topic, is probably in most cases due to simple ignorance of what Luther wrote.

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His thesis also falls apart for the simple facts that:

Racism existed for millennia prior to the theory of evolution and people who don’t believe in evolution are also racist

What you see here is a desperation to rationalize extreme beliefs and to justify abhorrent behavior

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I previously posted an article (full article now available here) a while back that found correlation between rejection of evolution and bigotry (including against Blacks and immigrants).

I’ve just done some more scratching around, and found these results of a survey:

… which finds a correlation between ‘Great Replacement’ beliefs and Christian Nationalism (which is itself strongest among White Evangelical Protestants, Republicans, Conservatives, those who trust Fox News and/or Far Right TV News, and QAnon Believers).

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And, moreover, to deny the culpability of the DI’s political allies for the spread of those beliefs.

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Nevertheless the history of Christian anti-semitism does show that Christians have engaged in racial massacres. And it seems to me that the German portion of that history - which is hardly limited to Luther - is more relevant to the Holocaust than anything that Darwin wrote. Which is certainly not to say that it was the only factor, or even the most important factor - I would make neither claim.

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I’m a firm believer in multicausal origins of historical events, so I certainly don’t disagree with you that the Holocaust had many sources, and I agree that Christian anti-Semitism (or at least, anti-Semitism practiced by Christians) was one of those causes. I believe in fact that it was the most important single cause. It doesn’t follow, however, as some people here (I’m not speaking of you) seem to have suggested in the past, that certain ideas found in Darwin played no role in the justification of the Holocaust.

I’d be the first to say that whether or not evolution (by which I mean descent with modification) is true as a biological claim is not affected by the nasty uses which some people have made of evolutionary ideas. One can firmly believe that evolution in fact happened without endorsing Nazi racial theory or any other theory of the inferiority of certain human groups. Nonetheless, to deny, or completely ignore, the use of Darwinian language in the framing of Nazi and other racialist theories is to willfully turn a blind eye to some thought-connections which have actually existed in the past and which still exist today, and is therefore historically and sociologically irresponsible. If a man writes several books and articles documenting hundreds of such connections, it is unwise to simply dismiss all that research as fantasy or error – especially when the majority of those doing the dismissing (on this site, anyway) have not actually read that research, but take their opinions about it from negative book reviews or other sources hostile to the conclusions of that research.

I think it is more accurately described as the misuse of Darwinian language, especially when your audience is already primed to find reasons to demonize evolution.

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Could you please provide an example of use (or misuse) of Darwinian language in Nazi racial theory?

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I don’t think it is necessary to pass judgement on Weikert’s research to reject the Discovery Institue propaganda like the vile Hitler Vindicated advert on the Babylon Bee

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Given that we are talking about Nazi theorists and other racialist theorists, it would not be at all surprising if much of what they wrote was a “misuse” of Darwinian language (just as such people misuse Biblical and Christian language to serve their ends), so I don’t disagree. My point was that evolutionary-sounding themes (e.g., “survival of the fittest”) do find their way into racialist and other kinds of discourse, and that connection needs to be explored. If after the exploration is done, it is determined that what we have is misuse rather than legitimate use of Darwinian ideas and language, that is fine with me. But the exploration should be done.

What I find lamentable is that so many people on this site are willing to declare, without even reading the text-based research, that there was no connection whatsoever between the way Nazis and other racists thought about race, inequality, etc., and their reading of works about evolution. I’d be the first person here to say that the main cause of the Holocaust was pre-existent hatred of Jews in Europe in general and in Germany in particular, but I don’t automatically rule out some causal effect from the reading of evolutionary works by Nazi intellectuals and political leaders. And if someone tells me that a trained and published scholar of European history has spent ten years or more studying primary German documents from the relevant periods, and has written several books and several articles presenting evidence for a causal connection in the realm of ideas, my first instinct is not to dismiss that research without reading it (based wholly on negative book reviews, out-of-context short excerpts, and a general dislike of some of the associates of the author), but to read it and see if there is any good evidence of a connection. So I would suspend judgment on whether the author’s thesis was plausible until I had read (not skimmed) a few hundred pages of his text-based analysis, from one or more of his books. And if I did not have the time or inclination to read his books, I would not offer any decisive judgment on the value of his work at all, but would just say that I didn’t know enough about his argument to render an informed opinion.

And when an organization like the Discovery Institute actively promotes the idea that “Darwinism” supports Nazism, they are perpetuating and, in fact, exhibiting the same “thought-connection”.

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“Survival of the fittest” is descriptive, not prescriptive. That’s about as far as anyone needs to explore.

If I read a book describing how guns kill people would I be justified in shooting people because of what I read in the book?

If I read a bunch of books on infectious diseases and Germ Theory, would I be justified in purposefully infecting people because those books clearly stated that germs cause disease?

If someone reads in a book that the fittest tend to survive at a higher rate are they justified in concluding that they should start killing people they see as less fit?

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The term “survival of the fittest” did not originate with Darwin, but Darwin approved of it as accurately capturing his idea of natural selection. And “survival of the fittest” (phrased in various ways) was a frequent theme in Nazi writings. See the article on the Holocaust at Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology | Holocaust Encyclopedia, and see also the last paragraph of the article at Survival of the Fittest | Definition & Examples | Britannica.

If you want more examples, I would suggest you read one or more of the books of Weikart, who has made a special study of Nazi writings and their connection with evolutionary ideas. Weikart can make the case far better than I can.

Perhaps not (I haven’t read the article you reference), but several people here, in past discussions of Weikart’s books, have passed judgment on his research – without reading it.

It’s a question of evidence. Discovery points you to the book(s) where the purported evidence is found. If you have an open mind on the question, and want to know whether there is any historical connection, you are free to read the book(s) by Weikart named in that Discovery article. If your mind is closed on the subject, and you have no intention of reading Weikart’s research, no one is twisting your arm to do so. But the one thing you shouldn’t do is claim to know that Weikart is wrong when you haven’t read the extended argument, based on actual historical sources, that he presents.

There is a word in English for making a judgment before one has listened to the relevant evidence. It’s called “prejudice.”

I would add the works of David Hume where he discusses the Is/Ought problem, and various books on ethics and morality that discuss the naturalistic fallacy.

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You misunderstand. I am not denying the existence of such an historical connection.

Rather, I am pointing out that the role of the DI is not merely one of documenting the existence of this connection, but rather that it actively perpetuates and encourages the acceptance of this connection.

That is to say, if you look thru the articles at the link I provided, the DI explicitly endorses or strongly implies agreement with the sentiment they attribute to the Nazis and which can be expressed as:

P1: If Darwinism (sic) is true, then Nazism is true.

The DI then counts on their devoted readers to fill in:

P2: Nazism is not true.

and let modus tollens do the rest.

But there’s nothing to say that none of their readers are bigger fans of modus ponens , and will therefore fill in:

P2: Darwinism is true.

and take it from there.

And if that happens, well, what can you do? Surely not argue that it is a misconception that Darwinism implies or entails Nazism. Exactly who would that help?

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