Misuse of evolution

"The Races of Man - At the present time there exists upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or Yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilised white inhabitants of Europe and America."(Hunter, A Civic Biology, 1914, textbook of teacher Scopes, of Scopes
trial fame)I know this is "just" a textbook, and rather old, but many influential Darwinian scientists supported it's teaching at the time of the trial, and the Scopes trial is still used today by many Darwinists to defend teaching of the theory of evolution. As far as I know it would be illegal to teach now, what was taught then in government schools in the United States.Besides that you can look at standard books on Nazism such as Fischer's 12 year reich, or Burleigh's "the racial state revisited".For criticism of more modern evolutionary theory on this point, or really just criticism of Darwinism and Darwinists actually, you can look to peadiatricians who criticize Dawkins assertion of being born selfish, and activist organizations, as well as Gould's and associates criticism of "ultra-Darwinists".But mainly you should just look at what you come up with yourself on account of thinking in terms of being born selfish, and that universal love doesn't exist, and that there is blind pitiless indifference at the bottom of nature, or that nature is red in tooth and claw, which are all presented as quasi-scientific findings by Dawkins.I think forcing Dawkins to submit his ideas in a formal way to a journal would prevent "misuse" of his ideas. I think for Christians to investigate their relations to Jews would prevent misuse of Christianity.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

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[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 07-05-2002]

I'm sure the basis for racism is all religious, but then Darwinism tends to be a substitute religion for many, or have significant religious influence. Like the founder of eugenics Galton explicitly called for a "eugenic religion" on account of Darwinism. And Konrad Lorenz insisted that he made students into Nazi's simply by teaching a course in evolution. And Haeckel argued that there was no separate moral dimension to reality (duality), but that all is one (monism), on account of Darwinism. And Darwin argued that inferior should not marry superior etc. etc. etc.I just read an article which said that about half of the people at the Wannsee conference (where the order for the Holocaust was worked out) held a doctorate in anthropology. (edited to correct: they held a doctorate in law, not anthropology)It's really not reasonable to deny the link between Darwinism and Social Darwinism.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

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[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 07-09-2002]

You are being very simplistic, trying to argue back the origin of Social Darwinism to one man, Herbert Spencer, who supposedly was the only person who "deviously" attached valueconcept to evolution, which were never intended. The original meaning of evolution with the old Greeks was progressive, so evolution was apparently at first intended to be noted as progressive complexity by Darwinists.I get racist and genocidal thoughts all the time when I think about the past, present, and future of mankind in terms of "races of man encroaching on one another until some finally become extinct", as some kind of law of Nature (natural selection). There is no one person from which Social Darwinism stems, it is a general thing among Darwinists.A theory can also be wrong if the theory does not live up to ideals of neutrality in science. You can judge the selfish gene version of evolution theory wrong for instance, simply because it has the emotive word selfish in it.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

If you don't come up with racist and genocidal ideas on account of that, then what do you come up with?Please demonstrate your thoughts in thinking about the past, present and future of mankind in terms of races of man encroaching on one another, until some finally become extinct.Your denial is immoral.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

If I view cats or mice, or any other creature in terms of races encroaching on one another until some finally become extinct, then my view of those creatures tends to become racist, in my experience, to any extent that it is possible. I would tend to use language such as inferior and superior etc. Even a grass lawn can be made to look horrific in the context of Darwinist theory, by my experience.This is less so if I view creatures in terms of a general theory of reproduction, because the emphasis is shifted there from comparison of organisms (and competition) to looking at how organisms interact with the environment in reproducing.Notice that Darwinists generally view nature as cruel, where a superficial look on nature whole would find that for the most time it is sedate and peaceful, and for very little time is it apparently cruel. So since there is no observation that legitimizes the emphasis on cruelty, the emphasis on cruelty has to come from prejudices (or faults) inherent to Darwinism itself.But we weren't talking about cats, we were talking about people. Schrafinator, Quetzal, you, John etc. should simply demonstrate what you come up with on account of thinking about people in terms of races encroaching on one another until some finally become extinct. As with Quetzal, I consider your denial of a meaningful link of Darwinism to Social Darwinism basicly empty politics, when you do not consider evidence like that.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Again, your opinion is just empty politics, since you don't demonstrate what you come up with on account of "races of man encroaching on one another until some finally become extinct", and things like that.A general theory of reproduction doesn't exclude the horrific bits the horrific bits are incorporated in how organisms reproduce. Again, it just shifts the focus from a pretty meaningless (and often valueladen) comparison, to a pretty meaningful interaction of organism with the environment in view of the event of their reproduction.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I guess that this should be properly researched by psychologists, since I think psychologists will be more able to get a response. A study of what people come up with on account of the main things in Darwinism. Your response is very short.The rest is a repetition of a discussion we had before. It is pretty meaningless knowledge to know how many of any particular sort there are in a population, since it tells you nothing about how any particular sort reproduces. Photosynthesis, how the eye works etc. are simply blissfully ignored in differential reproductive success. The one thing that has interest for a Darwinist, is to note how many organisms with eyes there are, in respect to organisms with no eyes, or different eyes. And the one of which there are the most of would then usually be referred to as fitter, better, superior.No Darwinist I know talks about the potential to adapt to a future change, that is much your own reworking of Natural Selection. It is something like Dawkins his "evolvability" notion.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

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[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 07-10-2002]

I'm reasonably sure that close to a 100 percent will come up with racist and genocidal thoughts on account of it, if any psychologist would bother to research it. So I'm guessing that you would too, if you would spend more then half a page in response.What you said before about races encroaching being just a natural phenomenon can be explained in differnt ways. Was the war in Yugoslavia just a natural phenomenon, just the same as with animals enroaching on one another? It is trickier then you make it out to be, to consider Natural Selection in neutral terms, especially the old Darwin version of it.You say, some could photosynthesize and others couldn't. Is it informative to know that some creatures can't photosynthesize? I don't think so. Why compare? It's meaningless.You have it the wrong way round. A general theory of reproduction is more inclusive, describes countless times more then the incredibly narrow differential reproductive success. As before the theory of differential reproductive success almost never applies, because there is almost always stasis.What is the potential for adaptation of pinguins then? And giraffes? Potential in respect to which of the infinite number of possible changes to the environment? I never heared of such a thing from Darwinists, and it doesn't make sense to me to focus on it, over focusing on a static environment and mutation, as explained before.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Schrafinator:
quote: "I don't think of people in terms of races, because we are only one race. I think of cultures and traditions intermingling with each other, and sometimes one culture decides that it is superior to other cultures (Christians and Moslems imposing their beliefs upon native cultures and forcing conversions are common throughout history) and old cultures and religions die out."So as a Darwinist you think of what has come to be called cultural genocide. You have demonstrated my point I think, eventhough it's clear you didn't want to. Whatabout the descent of man from apelike progenitors? Do you have conceive of that in terms of racial encroachment?You omit to mention science and Darwinism in particular as a potential culture destroyer. Dawkins' talk about countless "worthless" cultures in respect to Darwinism, comes to mind, and his express desire to teach to young children about Darwinism (selfish genes), in stead of teaching about "sacred hearts".regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

It's not about lay people misusing science, it's not about a lack of knowledge. Galton, Darwin, Haeckel, Lorenz, Plavsic etc. weren't lay people but they still drew eugenic consequences from Darwinian theory, to a very large degree. In my opinion the theory should be cleaned up, in the way I proposed before, with a general theory of reproduction. Aside from that people like Dawkins should be coerced in to providing formal treatments of their theory, and present them for peerreview. So in short I would propose to do away with messy concepts (stuggle for existence, differential reproductive success, selfish genes, innate aggression etc.), and that way it would be easier to distinguish between moral and neutral statements.The comments from Dawkins you mention, and there are several more like those, are duplicit, in that he first says not to want make a morality, and then continues to make a morality. To believe that you have to conquer your genes is a morality, and a pretty farreaching one potentially, once it would become established and widespread. Society would look different if the people in it were all convinced that they would have to conquer their selfish genes to become moral persons.I think your comments about lay people are not only demonstrably false, I think they are also a bit elitist. Please write down what thoughts come up with you on account of Darwinism. I think you are just like everybody else, and would also come up with racist and genocidal ideas when considering Darwin's "the races of man encroach on each other until some finally become extinct", as some kind of law of Nature.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Again, you simply do not give much of a response. No wonder if you do not think about it, you wouldn't get any racist or genocidal ideas. And then say it is not difficult for you, eventhough you don't talk about it at length, is a dishonest disregard for evidence. Please show me how you can easily talk about races of man encroaching on each other without being racist or genocidal. Name names of races, and then describe how these races encroach. Then maybe I will believe you. But what you say now is just empty politics without evidence, and I don't believe a word of it.Even so, what you did respond was already questionable. War is not appropiately understood as a natural phenomenon in my opinion, inherent in the human psyche. You could better understand it in terms of choice and emotionality of people. Choice is not a mechanical cause and effect concept, by definition. In my experience Darwinists have a terrible time of understanding that, or even acknowledge the existence of choice, since they usually treat everything in terms of cause and effect.Environments are much static, meaning that the overwhelming majority of organisms live in the same environment as their parent. You don't know the potential for adaptation of penguins, simply because you don't know which changed environment you are supposed to measure this potential against. It is your own reworking of Natural Selection.I'm disappointed you didn't acknowledge the very limited scope of differential reproductive success, where before you wrongly argued that a general theory of reproduction was limited in scope.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This is still not an open response, and not very long. When I personalise the question, then it makes me think about what race I belong to, what race is encroaching on my race, and what race is my race encroaching on. What are the numbers of my race, how are we doing, etc.Anyway Darwinism has changed since then into differential reproductive success of variants. There has already been a cleanup and shift of focus from competition to reproduction, and in my opinion this shift should be completed by going to a narrow definition of Natural Selection, as a general theory of reproduction.Sorry, but in my opinion you and Schraffinator are basicly just political "liars" for implying that races of man encroaching on one another until some finally become extinct, is as easily a neutral concept as is, differential reproductive success of human variants.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I've seen this repeated a view times, also in literature about the Holocaust, but it's not a smart anti-racist position in my opinion. The genome for different groups of people, and exactly which genes contribute to "inherent character" (which is the main interest of racists) is essentially unknown. So it's possible that we do find some genes that are the same for a group of people, that don't have this greater variety within the group. Then racists can speculate these are charactergenes, using some statistics, and turn the argument on it's head to argue that you have to be racist because science says so. So I think this sort of argument will in the end give unwarranted credibility to the existence of genes for character which control behaviour.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Again, I will not accept anything on this subject from people who will not give lenghty and open responses of what they come up with on account of Darwinist theory. In my experience it is useless to talk to people who are not open to that sort of evidence.Your similarity with foldingchair manufacturers is not really complete. You would have to say that the manufactures themselves used the chairs for hitting over the head, as did Darwin, Galton, Haeckel, Lorenz, a large share of the most influential Darwinists, use Darwinism to give credibility to Social Darwinism in their works of "science". Your similarity, trying to make this into a joke, is also not appropiate for the subjectmatter discussed.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

To know about how, or if Darwinism relates to Social Darwinism you would have to look at the evidence, which you, and the rest, are plainly unwilling to do, even after numerous requests. I more or less expected this by experience in earlier discussions, but every time it's still surprising to see people who can at the same time cheer for science, and then proceed to simply disregard evidence and open honest inquiry without a second thought.Again, I would change my point of view, if research by psychologists would show that less then aproximately 100 percent of people would have racist and genocidal thoughts associated with Darwinism as expressed by Darwin, when they have thought about his thesis for about an hour or so. That you are unwilling to demonstrate your thoughts at length, leads me to suspect that you too come up with racist and genocidal thoughts, which would be perfectly normal, although highly undesirable.Your response, lacking the demonstration of your thoughts that I asked for, was nothing more then fingerpointing. You can't judge the relative weight of some factor when you don't actually investigate the factor.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu