tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19722540.post68995581901526320..comments2023-09-09T07:28:35.681-04:00Comments on Science and Religion: A View from an Evolutionary Creationist: Charles Darwin, Social Darwinism and ColumbineJimpithecushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10143519573877156940noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19722540.post-32519119306738739342009-11-17T04:47:43.130-05:002009-11-17T04:47:43.130-05:00Regulo, good points. I'll stop saying "Da...Regulo, good points. I'll stop saying "Darwinism" when I mean "Darwinian [something]".<br /><br />But most people front this argument as a way to say that the work of Darwin is somehow bad or evil. That is, in my opinion, just a load of scare-mongering. If belief in F = M x A should be the formula behind every murder weapon (it is), that should say absolutely nothing about Newtonian physics, Sir Isaac Newton, or the six billion Newtonians alive. :o)<br /><br />It has a place in a debate on bioethics, but not in a debate of the validity of evolution.<br />(And I say this as one who has failed to believe in Darwin's theory, in spite of having no known barriers to it.)The 27th Comradenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19722540.post-42052806014010023602009-11-14T13:54:17.331-05:002009-11-14T13:54:17.331-05:00The links between Darwin's racism and the Nazi...The links between Darwin's racism and the Nazis are far from illusory. Darwin believed that some races were genetically superior to others and that the higher races would exterminate the lesser. No big leap needed to the Nazi ideas of Aryan master-race exterminating untermensch.<br /><br />Besides, the Nazis themselves boasted they were basing their ideology on Darwin's work and used slogans like: Politics is Applied Biology etc. The leading German geneticists were nearly all involved in eugenics and many were among the earliest members of the Nazi party.<br /><br />Being against 'Darwinism' isn't the same as being against evolution. Darwinian is the adjective applicable to evolutionary science. 'Darwinism' is an ideology or worldview which is a variant of materialism and declares that there is a naturalistic explanation for everything.Regulonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19722540.post-17030414793078224482009-11-14T11:05:46.402-05:002009-11-14T11:05:46.402-05:00I think I understated Darwin's acceptance of t...I think I understated Darwin's acceptance of the common mores of the times. However, he, through his understanding of natural selection, came to understand that lower animals and humans evolved and that is how things came to be. He understood that the western society to which he belonged has "progressed" further than those of the tribes that he encountered on his travels and, like most other people of his time, he considered them less "advanced." It is not clear that he ever thought of them as less "evolved," however.Jimpithecushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10143519573877156940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19722540.post-82701178918878479192009-11-14T06:48:03.440-05:002009-11-14T06:48:03.440-05:00I'm also getting tired of hearing this nonsens...I'm also getting tired of hearing this nonsensical link between Darwinism and any specific behaviour.<br />Even if Darwin had said "survival of the fittest" (which is what he implied, anyway, by the vaguer-but-less-problematic "natural selection"), it would <i>not</i> have implied that he endorses it as a living philosophy. Merely as an observation[1] in nature. He didn't even recommend it for any one or any species.[2] The ID camp can get better arguments against Darwinism (they abound), but this is just a pathetic strawman. (Even if it were true, it wouldn't hurt or augment the validity of Darwinism. ID people, stop it already.)<br /><br />[1] An observation I consider true and valid. The extrapolations, on the other hand, are probably the stupidiest thing science is enduring and trying to accomodate today.<br /><br />[2] Darwin was racist, actually, just not as virulent as the kind that he campaigned against. Then again, I don't consider racism to be intrinsically a bad thing. <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin#The_Descent_of_Man_.281871.29" rel="nofollow">Quoth</a>:<br /><i>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… 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 civilised 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. </i>The 27th Comradenoreply@blogger.com