With Friends Like These...

The John Birch Society got together to trash evolution in Roxbury, Massachusetts, recently. The society, which has always been marginalized in American society probably could have picked a better target. James Perloff was the speaker. This was reported in the West Roxbury Transcript. Here is part of what the article had to say:

The gathering was in response to a recent celebration of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution in order to see the opposite side of the spectrum, which is creationism — a banned teaching in public school systems nationwide.

Perloff, who lives in Burlington, was brought in to elaborate on his findings against Darwin’s theory of evolution. He has written two books on the subject: “Tornado in a Junkyard” and “The Case against Darwin.”

The event was held in front of a small gathering and was kicked off with a prayer along with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Harold Shurtleff of West Roxbury, regional field director for the John Birch Society.

So what is James Perloff's writing like? Here is an article by him in the New American. I include here a sample paragraph:

Small wonder, then, that Darwinism has always found a comfortable home in totalitarian states. Stein visits the former mental institution at Hadamar, Germany, where over 14,000 mentally ill were once executed by the Nazis. As Stein notes, Charles Darwin advocated eugenics, writing that “the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man.... Excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” Stein explores the link between Darwin and Nazi eugenics, interviewing California State University professor Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler. And he notes that eugenics was espoused in America by Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

Suffice it to say that absolutely nothing in that paragraph is correct. Darwin was rejected in Stalinist Soviet Union, where Lysenkoism was embraced, Hitler especially rejected Darwin as it applied to humans and Weikart's book is full of holes so big you could drive a Mack truck through them. This is yet another example of badly researched propaganda.

Matt's Notepad wrote a review of this paper. He titles the review "Perloff: another who doesn't seem to have a clue." You got that one right. Hat tip to LGF.