Some Darwinists will say anything to try to draw attention away from the obvious. The point of my “Scientific Certitude” post was to show that evolutionary theory has been used to support racist views. Darwin was a firmly committed racist, and he was not shy about expressing his racist views:
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” Charles R. Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd ed. (1871; reprint, London: John Murray, 1922), 241-42.
While Darwin was still alive his contemporaries took his racism/evolution link and ran with it. For example, Ernst Haeckl, the great popularizer of Darwin’s theories on the continent wrote:
“The Caucasian, or Mediterranean man (Homo Mediterraneus), has from time immemorial been placed at the head of all races of men, as the most highly developed and perfect . . . In bodily as well as in mental qualities, no other human species can equal the Mediterranean. This species alone (with the exception of the Mongolian) has had an actual history; it alone has attained to that degree of civilization which seems to raise man above the rest of nature.” Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation: Or The Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes. A Popular Exposition of the Doctrine of Evolution in General, and of that of Darwin, Goethe, and Lamarck in Particular, translated by E. Ray Lankester, 6th English ed., First German Publication 1868, (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1914), 2:321
and
“If one must draw a sharp boundary between them [i.e., higher mammals and man], it has to be drawn between the most highly developed and civilized man on the one hand, and the rudest savages on the other, and the latter have to be classed with the animals.” Haeckel, Ibid., Vol. II, 365.
Or how about this from Darwin’s friend Huxley:
“No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried out by thoughts and not by bites.” T.H. Huxley, Lectures and Lay Sermons (1871; reprint, London: Everyman’s Library, J.M. Dent, 1926), 115.
The point of my earlier post was that by the turn of the 20th century the link between racism and evolution was so entrenched in orthodox thought that it made it into the Encyclopedia Britannica, which some would say is the very epitome of current conventional learning.
The link continued to be made well into the 20th Century:
“The new creed [i.e., Christianity] was thus thrown open to all mankind. Christianity makes no distinction of race or of color; it seeks to break down all racial barriers. In this respect the hand of Christianity is against that of Nature, for are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce? May we not say, then, that Christianity is anti evolutionary in its aim?” Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: Van Rees Press, 1947), 72
Evolutionists, when they are being honest, admit this link:
“We cannot understand much of the history of late 19th and early 20th century anthropology, with its plethora of taxonomic names proposed for nearly every scrap of fossil bone, unless we appreciate its obsession with the identification and ranking of races. For many schemes of classification sought to tag the various fossils as ancestors of modern races and to use their relative age and apishness as a criterion for racial superiority.” Stephen Jay Gould, “Human Equality as a Contingent Factor of History,” Natural History (November 1984): 28, 26-32.
“Since Darwin’s death, all has not been rosy in the evolutionary garden. The theories of the Great Bearded One have been hijacked by cranks, politicians, social reformers – and scientists – to support racist and bigoted views.” M. Brookes, “Ripe Old Age,” review of Of Flies, Mice and Men, by Francois Jacob, New Scientist, January 1999, 41.
The Darwinists who responded to my previous post were not honest. Instead of facing the facts, they tried to deny the undeniable connection between Darwin and racism, or they tried to change the subject by saying, “hey, some people who say they are Christians are racists too.”
This would be amusing if it were not so tragic. Someone said, “There is none so blind as he who refuses to see.”
This is the bottom line:
(1) It takes only the tiniest step to go from Darwin’s theory to the conclusion that some races are “lower” than others. Darwin took that step himself; his contemporaries took it with him, and by the turn of the 20th Century it was “conventional wisdom.” Note to Darwinists: Them’s the facts; you don’t advance your cause by denying them.
(2) Nothing Jesus said gives the slightest credence to racist views. Therefore, racists who call themselves Christians hold their views in the very teeth of the teachings of the Christ they purport to follow. So Darwinists. What is your point? That some people – even some people who call themselves “Christian” – are stupid or evil or both? No one denies that. Sadly for your position, this does notthing to blunt the force of (1) above.