What do Design Detection and Nazis Have in Common?

Dave,

It is like tilting at windmills to do what you want to do. Look at the preponderance of comments on this site that are non scientifically oriented vs. those that are. People here in general are not interested in science. They want to vent or discuss theology or social issues, not science. To the people here the science is settled or there exist a consensus that there is no issue.

Besides the main science involved with ID is not pro ID but anti naturalistic evolution. And that is anti Darwin and if you are in the anti Darwin mode, why not talk about its other shortcomings which is really what is driving most of the people here, not its scientific shortcomings. If Darwin had nothing to do with social or religious problems, the whole movement would disappear. There are no movements for the other areas of science that are not settled but for which a dominant model has been put forward. It is only evolution that generates this fervor. An exception is SETI which has fanatical adherents from the other end of the spectrum of belief.

I love the science and the mystery that surrounds evolution and that is what drives me personally but people like myself are a very small minority here or elsewhere in the ID whatever you want to call it. And I too have moral concerns about Darwinian evolution.

Kudos to you, Dave, for your clear and right-on statement.

jerry:

I think it would nice to turn some of that around — maybe have hard science people stop dabbling in philosophy and epistemology; or rather educate them to some nominal level of epistemological self consciousness. Believing in evolution is one thing, but turning around and then dogmatically stating what may or may not exist, is another — and an inane “other” at that.

But then admitting that no one has [de]constructed a Knight’s tour of any organism’s development, and then putting the belief in evolution into some — going out on a limb here — context, might do in a pinch, too.

Or wouldn’t that be the same thing?

Oy veh! Dembski is not just a scientist but a theologian as well. And this is his site!

The list of scientists who were not just scientists but also theologians or philosophers includes all of the most famous scientists of the past five hundred years. Now why is that? Gosh, let’s all put our thinking caps on and see if we can figure this really, really hard question out. Then let’s tackle another really tough question; like, why is there so much sex on TV? Or why do people like Diet Coke?

In case we hadn’t noticed, famous scientists are not content to be mere scientists. If they were, they would have toiled in Mere Anonymity. No, famous scientists become famous specifically by bursting the narrow confines of pure science and seeking a voice in the public square; in the arena of culture that includes philosophy and religion.

The most famous scientist of the 19th century was Charles Darwin. Why? Because his theory of evolution was highly congenial to the cultural elite of the day and their eagerness to do away with God; for example, to Marx and Nietzsche. Anyone who thinks Darwin was not aware of this had better go back and reread him. He knew full well that he was not merely doing science.

The most famous scientist of the 20th century was Einstein because the notion of relativity had connotations that had nothing to do with science. Einstein was used in a culture war against Transcendental Idealism and its universals of Time and Space. And anyone who thinks that Einstein didn’t see himself as a philosopher knows nothing about Einstein.

Now it is true, on the one hand, that experimental science points to a designer. An easy argument to win is the mousetrap argument. Science does indeed show that nature is irreducibly complex and is highly unlikely to have come into being through purely natural causes, as Darwin’s tall tale would have us believe; and picking the low-hanging fruit is a good strategy.

It is also true, however, that the wedge strategy goes beyond science per se. Breaking the stranglehold of Darwinism on modern culture requires making arguments that are not likely to endear one to the Darwinists. But if it is legitimate to use the Crusades and the Inquisition to critique Christianity, then it is also legitimate to use the Holocaust to critique Darwinism.

Or if the Holocaust example makes some of our nicer spirits uncomfortable, what about the mass murder committed in the name of Marxism? Are we going to ignore the fact that Marx and Darwin had a mutual admiration society? That Marx stated that the Origin provided the natural history for his own work? That Lenin, Stalin and Mao were all Darwinists?

Why? Because it’s inconvenient? Because it isn’t nice? Are PZ, Richard and Sam playing nice? Ideas have consequences. Forget “follow the money.” Follow the idea.

http://www.jaytrott.com/

No one has ever claimed that pointing out the connection between Darwinism/materialism and Nazism is a scientific (i.e. biological) argument, just as the evos have never claimed that their rants against God and religion are scientific arguments. But it doesn’t seem to have hurt the evos much to engage in their ranting, except insofar as they have exaggerated and lied and discredited themselves in the process. The Nazism argument is neither an exaggeration nor a lie, however, so there is no parallel danger on the other side.

The reason the argument is brought is that it points up the Dostoyevskian consequence of an amoral universe: if there is no God, all is permitted. This is, whether you like it or not, a scientific argument–not scientific in the restricted modern sense, but in the broader Aristotelian sense of rational demonstration.

I understand your desire, from a tactical standpoint, to suppress such arguments. But the fact is, ID is an argument in favor of teleology, and teleology necessarily involves the assertion of objective order in the world, where objective order both demands an orderer and establishes an objective good as the ground of the moral order. So while ID itself is not concerned with moral arguments, indicating to people the consequences of positing a world in which nothing is intended beyond the strong surviving is a powerful argument in favor of ID, inasmuch as the world, as a matter of fact, is ordered to a further purpose, and people know this intuitively.

Ooooohhhhh Weeeeee! Good points there, allanius. You tell ‘em.

Dave’s right in the sense that these discussions only feed the fire of discomfort and fury, but it’s absolutely true that science crosses the threshold of many other disciplines.

Dave: “Perhaps someone can explain to me whatthe science of design detection has to do with Nazis, the Holocaust, or Hitler”
The answer is not much at all.
The question is a bit strange though.
Darwinism has a LOT to do with Nazi ideology - not ID.

Each time this subject comes up, the rudimentary issue is never discussed. In fact, if Darwinism is pure science, then the attempt to link Darwin to Hitler is misguided and unfair. If, on the other hand, Darwinism is part science and part metaphysics posing as science, then the link is reasonable and fair. We do know that “social Darwinism” clearly did play a role in eugenics, and we also know that social Darwinism is not pure science. So the real question is this: is Darwinism pure science and therefore immune from the present charge being made against it.

For my part, Darwinism is not pure science. What is important about it is false (mind arose from matter) and what is true about it is trivial (things change and adapt). The former is a metaphysical formulation and the latter is a scientific observation. In fact, Darwinists are peddling metaphysics as science, and that is why they impose so many metaphysical rules on non-Darwinists, including the intrusive and arbitrary rule of methodological naturalism. So, if Darwinists will abandon their philosophical materialism, which, by definition devalues life, then I will suspend my charges concerning their inhumanity to man.

By the way, this is one reason why it is important to discuss philosophy as well as science on this blog. Like it or not, ID and Darwinism take us to the intersection of science and theology/philosophy. The idea that the two disciplines ought not to be discussed in the same context is a carry over from the Kantian split from years ago. Those three subjects (theology, philosophy, and science) are distinct, but related. They overlap in important ways. Any attempt to draw a hard line of demarcation reveals a naïve conception of history and ignorance about how one subject relates to another. Indeed, that is the problem. Many among us think of science as the highest form of knowledge, and treat its subject matter as if was a single little bottle on a shelf. Both assumptions are false and naïve. In fact, science is but one part of a hierarchical network of knowable subjects, each of which influences and illuminates the other.

Thanks, StephenB.

Epistemology models ontology.

I agree with DaveScot. This Nazi/Communism/Spanish Inquisition/witch hunts/Crusades back and forth is getting tiresome to me. I say we leave it behind.

Besides, getting rid of Darwinism out of guilt for the Holocaust will turn out to be bad for science because it’s entirely the wrong reason. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is often just as bad as doing the wrong thing.

you guys are missing the point. Dave asks not what Darwinism has to do with Nazis etc. but what design detection has to do with it.

That is a completely different question. Pay attention now class!

Of course then Dave switches the question to Darwinism and says, “Science has left the building once the Nazi card gets played.”

That’s true in this context.
Nevertheless, the whole point of the Darwinism to Nazism discussion is that ideas have consequences - science is ideas just as much a ideology is ideas. Science has no more claim to absolute truth or objectivity than does ideology.

Scientists are just as subjective and subjectively influenced & motived as are philosophers or theologians.

Personally I fail to see the interest in discussing what either design detection or Darwinism have to do with Nazis as science.

ID has nothing to do with Nazis except that some of them very intelligently designed a lot of war machines.

Darwinism is related to Nazis by historical and ideological fact. But that isn’t science - it’s history and morality.

But so what? It’s still worth discussing under a moral consequences paradigm, since Darwinists blindly continue to deny any relationship between Darwinism and Nazi ideology.

What’s yer point Dave? You’ve asked two very questions in one.

I think he’s saying the horse has been beaten to death and maybe it’s time to move on. Let’s face it: We make the Darwinism/Nazi connection as a repartee to the atheist arguments about the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition. Both points have been made. Ideas have power and that power can be abused. IMO it’s not worth discussing further.

bravo to Dave, I concur completely.

Like him I am sick to death of this Darwin=Hitler conceit, as Dave has pointed out before it has no relevance to the science either for or against both ID and neo-Darwininism. However more to the point (and Dave has mentioned this before as well) the other side has at least as much ammunition to use against theists of all stripes and all denominations when it comes to the abuse of ideas in fuelling racism, fascism and outright genocide, heck if anything they have more ammunition in this regard. It is much worse than the usual oft-repeated litany of Inquisition/Crusades, much much worse if truth be told.

As an IDist myself, I find this relatively recent excessive blaring of Hitler=Darwin posture, not only unfortunate and counter-productive but the most negative of anything bearing on ID as a cultural/sociological “phenomenon” (for lack of a better word). In fact I would go so far as saying that future historians of science who may even be sympathetic to ID or at least neutral, will rightly see this “culture war” aspect of ID as a black mark on our side. I know I do, and let me stress, this Darwin leads to Hitler blather wins us no friends among the neutral fence-sitters out there who are undecided as far as the controversy of evolution is concerned, in fact it will only turn many otherwise thoughtful people away from ID, and without them being bothered to look at our actual scientific arguments. In other words it is tremendously counter-productive.

—Borne: “you guys are missing the point. Dave asks not what Darwinism has to do with Nazis etc. but what design detection has to do with it.

You are right in that limited context, but Dave has presented three themes concurrently:

[A] ID has nothing to do with Nazism. (Obviously true)

[B] Darwinism has nothing to do with Nazism (Debatable) and

[C] Frequent violations of Godwins law undermines IDs efforts at public relations. (Debatable)

I was responding to [B}and [C] because I don’t think [A] matters much.

GilDodgen: “The big problem is that the opposition won’t address the science, or allow the science to be addressed.”

I sense though, that the opposition is even less approving of the “moral arguments” coming from the ID movement.

Dave is correct in pointing out that our moralizing over the Darwin Nazi connection is not advancing the cause.

I sense also that there are 3 (perhaps more) levels of argument for ID, which register greater or lesser approval by Darwinists:

Empirical Level
Philosophical Level
Moral Level

Darwinists might listen to Empirical Level arguments for ID.

Darwinists will probably not listen to Philosophical Levels of arguments for ID.

Darwinists will most definitely not listen to Moral Levels of arguments for ID.

The Nazi / Darwin connection argument therefore fits in the “Darwinists most definitely will not listen” category.

I noticed also another dynamic going on. Darwinists have their own Philosophical and moral levels of argument against ID. I was looking over the customer reviews of Dr. Dembski’s new book “Understanding Intelligent Design.” One reviewer wrote the following “Understanding Intelligent Design” is intellectual child abuse aimed at the hearts and minds of children who lack ample appreciation and understanding as to what constitutes valid mainstream science; nothing more and nothing less.”

So one Darwinist’s evaluation of ID as “intellectual child abuse” is the same sort of moralizing tactic. It is a tactic that is obviously not working with us, so when we employ the tactic, we cannot expect any fruitful outcome.

Sorry for one more post, but another dynamic occured to me. There is more than one target audience for ID. There are of course Darwinists, who won’t listen to Philosophical or Morel level arguments.

But there are also those who are not Darwinists, and yet do not understand ID. YECers, etc. For them, Philosophical and Moral arguments for ID are legitimate.

One needs to ask the question “what was the target audience for the movie ‘Expelled’ (for example)?”

If the target audience was one sympathetic to ID, then the use of the Nazi / Darwin connection sequence may have been legitimate. If however the goal of the movie was to convince Darwinists that that they are being discriminatory, then the premise of the entire movie becomes a moral argument to which the Darwinists will not pay attention anyway.

I think it’s clear that ID theorists and symmpathizers have target audiences, and depending on that audience, the use of less empirical levels of argument may be legitimate.

An example is Dr. Dembski’s “Design Inference,” a highly technical entreaty directed towards perhaps a wide audience of Darwinists and non-Darwinists, but since Darwinists are included in that audience, there’s no moral level argumentation.

Philip Johnson’s books, on the other hand seem to be directed towards sympathizers of ID, and therfore employ less empirical level arguments.

tragicmishap
“I think he’s saying the horse has been beaten to death and maybe it’s time to move on. ”
Probably true, but then why does he bring it up again himself?

I brought a group of friends to watch “Expelled”. They weren’t that interested in the science. But I think the notion that destructive philosophy was being packaged as science got their attention.

Everyone has a stake in the ID/Darwin debate, because its about how we all got here, and whether there is any point to it all. Non-scientists shouldn’t be expected to sit quietly in the lobby while science wonks decide their fate in some lecture hall or university lab.

Why blame just Darwin for Naziism’s trespasses? How about the founders of modern chemistry, metallurgy, aeronautics, and psychology, Certainly their sciences bear as much responsibility for Nazi crimes as does Darwin’s.

All scientific ideas have the potential for abuse, independent of their veracity.

Michael

From Discovery.org

Dawkins Flip-Flops on Link between Darwinism and Fascism
According The New York Times, arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins is now asserting that the new film Expelled perpetrates a “major outrage” because the film suggests there is a link between Darwinian ideology and ideas like Nazism.

Say what?

In 2005, Dawkins himself declared that such a link existed, responding to an Austrian interviewer that “a Darwinian State would be a Fascist state,” which is why he says he opposes trying to run a society “according to Darwinian laws”:

No self respecting person would want to live in a Society that operates according to Darwinian laws. I am a passionate Darwinist, when it involves explaining the development of life. However, I am a passionate anti-Darwinist when it involves the kind of society in which we want to live. A Darwinian State would be a Fascist state.
What is interesting in the above comment is not that Dawkins rejects fascism, but that he apparently believes that Darwinism logically applied to government would lead to fascism. This is a far stronger claim, by the way, than the one made in the preliminary cut of Expelled that I’ve seen. The experts interviewed for the film—including historian Richard Weikart and mathematician David Berlinski—are careful to point out that there is no inevitable connection between Darwinism and what happened in Nazi Germany. But that does not cancel out the fact that Darwinian ideology provided the Nazis with one of their key justifications for sterilizing the “unfit” and killing the handicapped. Darwinism similarly provided a rationale for eugenics crusaders in America, which I write about in my recent book Darwin Day in America.

I still continue to hold that we are not making the necessary distinctions. There are two issues here, not one.

RE: The proposition that Darwinism lead to Nazism

[A] Is it true?

[B] If true, does dramatizing the point help our cause?

Most here who say yes to [A] also say yes to [B] and most who say no to [A] also say no to [B].

Is there anyone here who says yes to [A] but says no to [B]? That is the person I want to hear from.

This may be more of a case of not being forthright with each context — evolution “typically” put forth within a framework of nonbelief expressed in various Enlightenment motifs — and theism “typically” put forth within some form of Christianity. In terms of a “what have you done for me lately” argument, those Enlightenment motifs were of hideously little restraint for the cultures that applied them consistently: millions dead pursuing messianic Statist dreams.

In term of that then, yes, the context that led to strident Darwinism — denying that God may exist, is the same base of motivation that put the State in God’s place. (Salvation not through Christ, but through political organization.) Wherever that was pursued consistently, it led to one bloodbath after another.

There’s a classic line Berlinki’s last book:

In the early days of the German advance into Eastern Europe, before the possibility of Soviet retribution even entered their untroubled imagination, Nazi extermination squads would sweep into villages, and after forcing villagers to dig their own graves, murder their victims with machine guns. On one such occasion somewhere in Eastern Europe, an SS officer watched languidly, his machine gun cradled, as an elderly and bearded Hasidic Jew laboriously dug what he knew to be his grave.

What Hitler did not believe and what Stalin did not believe and what Mao did not believe and what the SS did not believe and what the Gestapo did not believe and what the NKVD did not believe and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners, Nazi doctors, Communist Party, theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, gauleiters, and a thousand party hacks did not believe was that God was watching what they were doing.

Patrick:
“I brought friends with me to see Expelled. I asked them what they thought: “It was dishonest.” was their response. I asked what they meant. This reaction was entirely provoked by the section on the Holocaust. They felt like it was an attempt to emotionally manipulate the audience.”

I’m not sure exactly where I stand on the issue discussed in this post, however I do know that people’s feelings [of emotional manipulation] do not negate the veracity of an argument or connection. Sometimes people need a little shock to wake them up or at least make them think. Problem is, too many people rely on their feelings first, so they completely ignore the arguments made.

As to the statement that “it was dishonest,” how do they know this? Have they done any research on the topic themselves? If so, how much? It at least seems that some research has been done on the flip side of the coin as briefly shown above in comment 22.

Doesn’t the Expelled movie merely show what happens when scientific ideas are applied in a materialistic/anti-ID framework?

The answer to the last question is, “No, that is not what Expelled shows.” It makes the claim, but it does not “show” that the claim is true - in fact, the claim is not true. That it is why it is dishonest.

My 2 cents.

What do Design Detection and Nazis Have in Common?

Maybe that’s not how to ask the question. Better would be, What does Design Detection have to do with history?

Winston Churchill, as no doubt I’ve quoted him here before, said “that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants. It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future.”

But is it given to us to detect design in the flow of history that has passed? And how might we do that? ID proposes to detect design in biological history. Someday, as design detection matures, I suggest we will learn to see the hand of God in human history.

But as for the Nazis—is it wrong for historians to chronicle the ideas that gelled in that evil movement just because it might offend a lot of folks today who might in one way or another have entertained those very same ideas?

Ah, messed up again. The link to the Churchill quote was http://www.jewishvirtuallibrar.....22641.html.

Jack Krebs, thanks for the 2 cents.

Now, just hold that thought for 2 seconds.

Is Expelled “dishonest” because it made a claim that you disagree with or because it did not satisfactorily back up the claim in your eyes? Can you define “dishonesty” or is this more of the same “they lied because they don’t agree with me” intellectual dishonesty?

Expelled *did* show how a leader took a scientific idea and applied it to society. Now, would that leader have made the same application from within a non-materialist/pro-ID framework or would he have had the tendency to have a higher regard for life? What does history show? Sure, people who claimed to represent Jesus made up some pathetic and horribly selfish excuses to “Crusade.” However, they went completely against the foundational teaching of the One with who’s name they identified themselves. They represented Jesus’ teaching in no way, shape, or form!

From which framework was Hitler approaching the science and application of evolution? Was it from a pro-ID/anti-materialist or an anti-ID/materialist framework? Does Expelled discuss this at all? Which framework is more likely to hold itself accountable for its applications of science? What does the past and present unfolding of scientific applications show?

BTW: I’m coming from a viewpoint that has no problem with a completely natural evolution of life consisting of variation, selection, cooperation, and law [which definitely contains yet is not restricted to Darwinian elements and is open to ID concepts].

PS. It seems to me that “Darwinism” as it is defined and used in Expelled is explicitly materialistic. Since materialism is a philosophy, Expelled is showing what evolution combined with the materialistic philosophy [of lack of purpose and accountability] has accomplished as evidenced in Hitler’s application of Darwin’s materialistic hypothesis to society.

My 2 cents is that if natural law rules above purpose and accountability (which can only be even implied within an ID framework) then nature will take its course in society. If society is part of nature, why would not Darwin’s theorizing of survival of the fittest and natural selection apply to society? If humans are a part of nature than human selection is ultimately natural selection. Enter “natural” eugenics …

I think Expelled is dishonest because 99.99% of all the people who accept evolutionary theory are just as appalled as those who have an “ID framework” about the beliefs and actions of the Nazis, and I think it is dishonest to ignore this fact.

The case of Expelled’s “dishonesty” is laughable and bogus — they showed what happened and nothing more — even had the tour guide on record making their point for them.

Flattening spirituality — denying humans have souls — then processing them, meat-grinder style, to fit the needs of the State is not arguable as to the outcome. That’s what happened — over, and over and over and over again.

Maybe this isn’t about the information, but the paradigm.

Sure they are appalled, but in light of what I have said above, are they being logically consistent? Is there any basis for being appalled?

I think Expelled is dishonest because 99.99% of all the people who accept evolutionary theory are just as appalled as those who have an “ID framework” about the beliefs and actions of the Nazis, and I think it is dishonest to ignore this fact.Jack, you totally miss the point. The question to ask is would the Holocaust have happened without Darwin. It is more reasonable to believe that it would not have. Expelled (and others) explain why.

People did atrocious things to other people for centuries before Darwin, and always with some type of institutional rationale. Blaming the tendency of human beings to band together in violence against others who are seen as different on Darwin is absurd - the ugly motivations that drove Hitler have surfaced in human societies time and time again since the dawn of recorded history.

Further, Jack Krebs, a materialist can be appalled at how the materialist/anti-ID framework has effected the application of science in history and in the present, but that doesn’t make the facts of how the materialist/anti-ID framework mixed into science leads to specific horrible applications of science any less real.

Again, in light of the logical consistency of what I have briefly mentioned above, does he have any basis for being appalled? Is the materialist/anti-IDer being consistent when he is appalled at the logical reach of his framework?

My 2 cents is that if natural law rules above purpose and accountability (which can only be even implied within an ID framework) then nature will take its course in society. If society is part of nature, why would not Darwin’s theorizing of survival of the fittest and natural selection apply to society? If humans are a part of nature than human selection is ultimately natural selection. Enter “natural” eugenics …

“I think Expelled is dishonest because 99.99% of all the people who accept evolutionary theory are just as appalled as those who have an “ID framework” about the beliefs and actions of the Nazis, and I think it is dishonest to ignore this fact.”Wow, that’s an interesting take on the flick. The film is dishonest because it doesn’t mention something that is obvious? Where in the movie did it present modern scientists as Nazi sympathizers? Obviously, the point was that Darwinism has social implications, and it has been used to justify heinous acts that virtually no one in these debate discussions would ever consider as morally sound.

But, that doesn’t mean that the concept of natural selection hasn’t been abused in the past, nor does it mean that it will never be abused again. It’s something to be cautious of.

I don’t really get why we have to go around and around and around and around about this issue.

Fr’ crap’s sake, people…both Darwinism and religion can be used to try to justify heinous acts! Everybody knows that, so why keep arguing about it?

Sheesh. Maybe we need an 12 step program to get past this.

I’ll go first…

[Hi. I'm FtK, and I realize that religion can and has been used to justify horrific acts in the past. I am personally blessed to be part of a Christian environment where killing, torture, and other abuses are not done in the name of my God.]

There…Jack, you’re next.

I think it misses the point to not keep things in context. When was the last time Christians murdered people for nothing more than expediency?

The latest I’m coming up with is the exploration of the New World — or I guess the persecution of the Puritans by the Church of England — and some of that is iffy as to the “Christian” motivations. Even granting that — it’s 300-500 years in the past.

We are talking about entire countries who until 20-30 years ago [some still are] systematically followed[ing] Kant, Hume, Hegel, Marx, etc.; who scientifically applied the latest and greatest technology, the latest and greatest understanding of Psychology.

And it ended in one bloodbath after another. No exceptions.

“When was the last time Christians murdered people for nothing more than expediency?”

Murder is murder regardless of how or why it’s done.

People did atrocious things to other people for centuries before Darwin, and always with some type of institutional rationale. Blaming the tendency of human beings to band together in violence against others who are seen as different on Darwin is absurd - the ugly motivations that drove Hitler have surfaced in human societies time and time again since the dawn of recorded history.

In America, racism provided a moral justification for slavery that for a time overcame the Judeo-Christian conscience of the nation. But racism was not just a fig leaf “institutional rationale” for slavery. It was a powerful argument that if believed, made it reasonable to perpetuate injustice. “If a man is not really a man, then I may treat him like an animal”.

I think that “Expelled” argues that Darwinism is this kind of idea. A racist might recoil from slavery, even though racism gives him permission to indulge in it.

—-Jack Krebs: “the ugly motivations that drove Hitler have surfaced in human societies time and time again since the dawn of recorded history.”

Yes, and those ugly motivations can be scaled down and softened to fit any agenda. The real problem is the lust for power and the consuming passion to dominate.

If Darwinists are going to renounce Hitler’s Nazi-like policies in government, then they also ought to renounce their own Nazi-like tactics in academia.

If they are going to express disdain about Hitler’s proclivity for murder and genocide, then they also ought to be embarrassed by their own proclivity for intimidation and slander.

If they are truly scandalized by Hilter’s attempt to rule the world, then they also ought to abandon their own attempt to rule science.

Folks:

Pardon an intervention: I think a little facing of the chain of historical facts and trends in ideas that tie Darwin’s thought and books [read esp chs 5 - 6 of his 1870 Descent of Man . . .] to the mass murderers over the past 100 years, will be wise. (Nor, is drawing attention to these potentially all too relevant historical facts “dishonest.” Just the opposite, for we had better learn from sad history lest we repeat it — the precise point Expelled was trying to make.)

The first key observation is that in the past 150 years, “Science” has been in key quarters “redefined” in evolutionatry materialist terms.

Fact, obvious — even “celebrated” (though historically and philosophically ill-founded) — fact. Cf here the notorious Judge Jones Dover “ACLU copycat” ruling.

Fact no 2:

These terms have lent themselves — as a matter of well-documented [though often hotly dismissed] history — to the rise of statist, racist, classist etc totalitarianisms, which have in turn led to the as yet unfinished mass slaughters of the past 100 years. Death toll, well in excess of 100 millions — not counting the ongoing abortion holocaust.

Fact no 3:

It is equally plain that evolutionary materialism, in itself lacks a framework that adequately grounds morality and mind. Indeed, it — by its explanatory programme — reduces mind and morals to purposeless, blind chance + necessity acting on matter + energy, thus undermining responsibility.

As the recent Provine thread documented, through citing a debate with Philip Johnson in 1994, Prof Provine aptly summed this up (as he also did in 1998, and as many other leading materialist thinkers have stated or conceded in significant contexts or works):

There is no intelligent design in the natural world. When mammals die, they are really and truly dead. No ultimate foundations for ethics exist, no ultimate meaning in life exists, and free will is merely a human myth. These are all conclusions to which Darwin came quite clearly. (Stanford University, April 30, 1994)

But, if there is no real freedom to choose, then it immediatrely follows that we can neither truly think nor know nor be moral. In short, we have here an issue of reductio ad absurdum.

Also, let us note how closely Prof Provine ties the rejection of design to the breakdown of foundations for ethics and responsible choice.

Fact no 4:

Sadly, it is not a very big step from that to the sort of reasoning we can see in comparing Darwin, Nietzsche and Hitler — note the trend-line from the scientist, to the philosopher and on to the politician:

DARWIN: I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turk, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world. [Letter to Wm Gray, July 3, 1881. That is, yes, Virginia, Darwin was in key respects a Social Darwinist . . . and drew it out of his understanding of his theory.]

NIETZSCHE: The biblical prohibition “Thou shalt not kill” is a piece of naïveté compared with the seriousness of Life’s own “Thou shalt not” issued to decadence: “Thou shalt not procreate!”Life itself recognizes no solidarity, no “equal right,” between the healthy and the degenerate parts of an organism… . Sympathy for the decadents, equal rights for the ill-constituted—that would be the profoundest immorality, that would be anti-nature itself as morality!ll to Power]

HITLER: A stronger race will supplant the weaker, since the drive for life in its final form will decimate every ridiculous fetter of the so-called “humaneness” of individuals, in order to make place for the true “humaneness of nature,” which destroys the weak to make place for the strong. [Mein Kampf]

(NB: Materialists can indeed be “moral” but as Provine highlighted, they lack a coherent and solid foundation for morality; as was argued out at length in the Charles Darwin thread of about a year ago, from about 46 on, here. Note, this intuitive struggle to be moral is a foundational claim of the Judaeo-Christian framework, as say Rom 2:1 - 15 will explicitly document.)
__________

IMPLICATIONS & FAIR COMMENT:

So, even while often boasting of their superior enlightenment, evolutionary materialism-based [or influenced (i.e here, Nazism)] ideologies have not been self-restraining or self-correcting on matters of morality; until mass slaughters and oppressions have become so undeniable and so plainly a hazard to the community that there has been either a collapse or a recoiling in instinctual horror. (An instinct for morality that reflects, on the Judaeo-Christian frame, the candle of the Lord within, cf. Prov 20:27 — and Locke’s use of this with 2 Pet 1:2 - 4 in his introduction to the essay on Human Understanding, section 5.]

It is true that the madness of crowds and rage-driven hysterical politics can too often find some way to pervert even the best principles to sustain horrors that now stain our history books [for, we are plainly finite, fallible, too often ill-willed and evidently morally fallen], but that does not detract from the force and relevance of the point Expelled is making.

Namely, that there is abundant evidence that points to a very dangerously oppressive trend in contemporary Darwinism, a trend that as comment 22 above shows, even a Dawkins recognises.

A trend that anyone committed to liberty should acknowledge, expose and resist. And, sadly, one to which far too many people are blind to the point of enabling behaviour. (Remember Burke on what it takes for evil to triumph: that good men stand by and do nothing.)

GEM of TKI

PS: Ouch, I seem to have left an open italics tag. Pardon.

PPS: Stephen and Russ: well said.

PPPS: On looking closer, it seems that there is now a “text-skipping” technical problem at UD. For, Will to Power is skipped, and there is where the closed off italics vanished. I have now seen this problem with several posts by various commenters. GEM]

Pardon . . .

But I think there are a few points that need to be cleared up in light of the3 just above:

1] McVeigh:

Wiki:

Religious beliefs

After his parents’ divorce, McVeigh lived with his father; his sisters moved to Florida with their mother. He and his father were devout Roman Catholics who often attended daily Mass. In a recorded interview with Time Magazine[4] McVeigh professed his belief in “a God”, although he said he had “sort of lost touch with” Catholicism and “never really picked it [back] up”. The Guardian reported that McVeigh wrote a letter claiming to be an agnostic.[5] He was given a Catholic ritual before his execution . . . .

McVeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge for “what the U.S. government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge.”[25] McVeigh visited Waco during the standoff, where he spoke to a news reporter about his anger over what was happening there.[26]

In short, Mr McVeigh was plainly not a practising Christian in the period leading up to his attack, nor was his murder motivated by specifically Christian beliefs; but by a most un-Christian motive: revenge (probably against perceived Gov’t tyranny — the shooting of the wife of the man besieged at Ruby Ridge, and the undoubtedly questionable circumstances of the deaths of 80+ people at Waco — think about the gross irresponsibility of using 60 ton tanks to push into the sides of an occupied building largely made of wood and lighted by lamps, on a day of high winds . . .).

2] “. . . A better way to ask the question is to phrase it as killing instead of murder.”

But that is to precisely beg the specific question at stake!

MURDER is unlawful, unjust shedding of innocent blood.

There are, by contrast, specific circumstances that may well make the taking of life excusable, being the lesser of evils.

And, in light of Rom 13:1 - 7 [cf discussion], Christians [or pagans for that matter, Nero being in view in the specific NT text] who are agents of legitimate states would be justified in taking life under approproiate circumstances of acting in defence of justice. Abuse of that power is known as TYRANNY, and under certain circumstances warrants the orderly removal of said authorities, preferably by ballot; but sometimes the ballot is not enough. [Thence, we get to the issue of what may justify war. (For a first level look, cf here.]

(Whether Mr Truman fits in under that may be a matter for debate [e.g. the realistic alternative of invading Japan may credibly have cost over an order of magnitude more lives . . .], but it is not at all the same as a simple question of murder.)

The situation of the Nazis and their use of Darwiniam as “Science” to “justify” euthanising of cripples [including WW I veterans], the mentally retarded etc [including bed-wetting children . . .] and their onward genocide of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians and others, amounting to 12+ millions is simply not in the same league.

Similarly, the wider wave of totalitarian regimes with ideologies incorporating significant elements of Darwinist and/or evolutionary materialist thought across the past 100 years, accounting for in excess of 100 millions through democides, is a significant issue for the moral implications of evolutionary materialism.

That issue, I already addressed in part, this morning at 43 above. Kindly, cf again the key 1994 statement of Provine, and the historical and ideas chains from Darwin to Nietzsche to Hitler.

Yes, people will sometimes abuse their principles and power to do awful things [from which we all need to learn so that wee may prevent it from happening yet again], but that is not at all to justify turning a blind eye to such a chain of ideas and associated history. For, the classic “you’re another” fallacy does not justify what was done, or how people were led in the cases in view to do great evil. It may indeed intimidate into silence, but silence in the face of evil soon becomes enabling behaviour.

Worse, the real link between these issues and the inference to desigfn lurks right there in Provine’s statement of his evolutionary materialism and the onward ideas it makes plausible:

There is no intelligent design in the natural world. When mammals die, they are really and truly dead. No ultimate foundations for ethics exist, no ultimate meaning in life exists, and free will is merely a human myth. These are all conclusions to which Darwin came quite clearly. (Provine, Stanford University, April 30, 1994)

So, StephenB has a very serious point:

If Darwinists are going to renounce Hitler’s Nazi-like policies in government, then they also ought to renounce their own Nazi-like tactics in academia.

If they are going to express disdain about Hitler’s proclivity for murder and genocide, then they also ought to be embarrassed by their own proclivity for intimidation and slander . . .Let us think again.

GEM of TKI

Timothy McVeigh comes to mind. He was a Catholic.

Actually, you it looks like McVeigh was simpatico with PZ in 1995

Science is my religion.

Now, he attended Mass in his youth and he was given Catholic rites at his death, but in the middle there when he planned and carried out the bombing he clearly wasn’t being guided by Christ or anything the Catholic Church taught.

It look like tag isn’t working

Jack — the ugly motivations that drove Hitler have surfaced in human societies time and time again since the dawn of recorded history.

That is true. But check this list. Note that most of the bloodiest wars and greatest genocides were post-Darwin or were instigated by non-Chrsitians or anti-Christians.

Now, two on the noncombatant list that occurred with Christian-professing nations in control of events — the Atlantic slave trade and the slaughter of Native Americans use tallies obtained over three and four centuries and included deaths involving circumstance beyond the control of governing powers i.e. African tribal wars and disease.

The same holds true in the genocide category.

The point is that while someone who holds (not just professes) Christian values may be just feel greed, envy and other things that could lead to murder, those values provide a check, and an apparently measurable one at that.

When Christian values are undermined — whether individually or institutionally — you have the 20th Century.

Christianity — and that is its greatest merit — has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. …
The old stone gods will then rise from long ruins and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and Thor will leap to life with his giant hammer and smash the Gothic cathedrals. …
… Do not smile at my advice — the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder … comes rolling somewhat slowly, but … its crash … will be unlike anything before in the history of the world. …
At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in farthest Africa will draw in their tails and slink away. … A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.
— Heinrich Heine (1832)

Italic! The new standard!

I am guiltless of italics abuse this time.

DaveScot:

I’ve heard the McViegh issue raised in the past, and it just doesn’t have legs in that it doesn’t rise above statistical noise. If we examined every serial killer, every terrorist incident, school shooting, I don’t think we would end up with a trend of “A-Ha!, we have a Christian problem here.” I suppose if you took the combined actions of people who perpetrate criminal acts in America in general you might be able to make a case — but once you look at countries abroad, it becomes ambiguous. There is crime everywhere, and it is hardly large groups of people going to college, following complex philosophical arguments, going through years of academic jousting, then finally self-consciously taking those ideas and implementing them across entire nations — and every single time they did it, they ended up, as Czeslaw Milosz said:

Soon enough, many from Jassy and Koloshvar, or Saigon or Marrakesh
Would be killed because they wanted to abolish the customs of their homes.

Soon enough, their peers were seizing power
In order to kill in the name of the universal, beautiful ideas.

The same with Truman — if there was a Just War in the history of man, it was heading off The Axis in WWII. Taking the rates that we lost men (on both sides) in the island hopping campaign, it is easily demonstrable that the nuking of two cities caused the least amount of lives taken. In any case, it was a “stick with shit on both ends,” not something you can attribute to consistently applying Christian principles to public life.

Now, if you want to go back and draw attention to, say, the fact that the same guy who headed up the translation team of the King James translation, took time out to hang/imprison the odd Puritan, then, fine, I hear you — but that was over 300 years ago, and it hasn’t been a systemic problem since. You then have to look at the fact that we have scientific evidence that ANY time unbelief as it is exhibited in Enlightenment motifs, is consistently applied to society, you have a bloodbath or police state in succession. And in terms of real threats to humanity, the secular state has no rivals that we rationally need to be concerned with. The Tim McVeighs of the world don’t represent any sort of philosophical drift, or “new understanding” of Christianity.

DaveScot asks:

“Perhaps someone can explain to me what the science of design detection has to do with Nazis, the Holocaust, or Hitler.”

Nothing. No-one is saying it does.

On the other hand, whether Darwin’s ideas contributed, to a greater or lesser extent, to the Nazi regime is a factual question. If they did, then they did. If someone, including Dave, has decent evidence to the contrary then let it be heard. So far, it seems Weikart and those of his views have the more presuasive argument.

Thinking that a discussion of what contributed to the Nazi regime is an example of Godwin’s law is simply wrong. If someone is using references to the Nazi regime to cast stones at proponents of Darwinism and avoid discussing the science, then yes, it would be an example of Godwin’s law and should be avoided. However, if the question itself is what contributed to the Nazi regime, then one of course must discuss the Nazi regime. This has nothing whatever to do with Godwin’s law.

I thought Expelled was somewhat one-sided in its presentation of the connection of ideas from Darwin to Hitler, but contrary to what Dave seems to be concerned with, the discussion of the Nazi regime in Expelled was precisely in the context of what contributed to the Nazi regime — certainly a legitimate topic for debate and discussion. Otherwise, we would be in the catch 22 of never being able to discuss the Nazi regime or what led to it — an absurd perversion of what Godwin was trying to point out.

BTW, nice to see another viewpoint above disputing the McVeigh meme . . .

“Darwin’s theory is about natural selection leading to speciation not about selective breeding of animals to produce superior stock of the same species.”

The question isn’t what Darwin actually said in the specific area of a theory regarding speciation. (In my view he certainly didn’t say much of consequence — at least from a scientific standpoint.) The question is whether there is a broader thesis.

It is clear that materialism has larger social and philosophical implications, to wit, Dawkins, Provine, et al. One can suggest that Darwin’s ideas and materialism are completely separate. Logically, perhaps, we should view them as completely separate. It is then very much a curiosity, however, that there is such deep reverence for Darwin’s ideas among committed materialists. Certainly far more than is warranted for a simple idea about how selective pressure might affect existing organisms.

The fact is that Darwinism also has a social/psychological component, which has a life of its own. You are right that we “can’t go back in time, kill Darwin, and see if the holocaust still happened.” Of course, we also can’t do that with any other historical event. Allowing that the effort to study history and understand the trends and impacts of ideas on historical events in the past is a legitimate intellectual endeavour, what then do we do? Look at writings. Look at what was said by those involved in the events. Look at threads and currents of ideas that were percolating at the time.

I’m not sure Berlinski is correct to assert that Darwin was a necessary condition; and it certainly was not a sufficient condition. But did it play a role, did it have an influence, was it an important part of the mix of the times? Berlinski and Stein may both be less than partial, due to their family backgrounds. However, precisely due to that background, I suspect they also have a bit more familiarity with the issues than many of us do.

I have no idea whether the holocaust would have occurred without Darwin, but trying to tease apart the influences of the day, what people were reading and discussing, and how those trends were manifested in historical events is certainly a legitimate endeavour.

I personally would have liked a film that was more about design in biology and less about the potential implications of Darwinism in society. But if Stein wants to make a movie about those implications, it seems that is a legitimate topic for discussion.

Well, enough ink spilled on that. I disagree with the idea that discussions of either the Nazi regime or the implications of Darwinism, or both, are inappropriate. However, if what you are suggesting is that the focus for ID proponents should be on the science and the exquisite design in biology, then I certainly agree.

off-topic: this post is an attempt to end the runaway italics.

Didn’t work — the offending tag is near the text “Thou shalt not procreate!” in KF’s #43 and looks like this: <i<i <i>

Kill italics attempt #2… Testing…something’s gotta work…

“So Darwinian biological science isn’t to blame because the only biological science the Nazis used as justification was animal husbandry which predated Darwin.

Now it’s some sort of social influence as in man is an accidnet of nature not a creation by God?

That won’t wash either.”

Dave, no-one is changing the subject. No-one was saying, certainly not the Expelled folks nor Berlinski, that the Darwinian “science” had anything to do with it. It always has been about the cultural/philosophical baggage that came along with it. Are you suggesting that the Nazis did not read Darwin, did not write about Darwin-inspired ideas, did not use Darwin to justify some of their atrocities? Is it your position that the Nazi regime could not possibly have found support in either Darwin’s ideas or the extra Darwinian-inspired baggage that came along with it? No-one is claiming Darwin single-handedly caused the holocaust. But was there a contribution? If it is possible, then it is a legitimate area for discussion and research and one way or another the facts will ultimately speak for themselves.

As I said, I agree with you that ID proponents should focus on the science. I also said that I would have preferred the movie to spend more time on the science and less on the Darwinian cultural baggage. Nevertheless, I find your insistence that there is no demonstrable link and that it is not even a legitimate topic for discussion a bit strange. It is this procedural aspect I am responding to — not the factual question of whether or not there is a link.

Dave, I hope I’m not trying your patience with my (so far) futile attempts to hack and end to “italics hell” through off-topic comments…/i> /i> /i> /i> /i> /i>/i>/i>/i> Test number 3.