BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
"Hitler and Stalin did what they did as Darwinists." - @BilliardsBall
I categorically reject anything by Weikart due to many instances of his shoddy scholarship:
"Weikart is best known for his 2004 book From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics and Racism in Germany.[24][25] The Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement, funded the book's research.[26] The academic community has been widely critical of the book.[4][13] Regarding the thesis of Weikart's book, University of Chicago historian Robert Richards wrote that Hitler was not a Darwinian and criticized Weikart for trying to undermine evolution.[27] Richards said that there was no evidence that Hitler read Darwin, and that some influencers of Nazism such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain were opposed to evolution.[27]"
But I do thank you for linking the Roberts article, for it would appear that you did not read it, for it concludes, any emphases mine:
"Countless conservative religious and political tracts have attempted to undermine
Darwinian evolutionary theory by arguing that it had been endorsed by Hitler and led to
the biological ideas responsible for the crimes of the Nazis. These dogmatically driven
accounts have been abetted by more reputable scholars who have written books with
titles like From Darwin to Hitler [was that not written by your hero, Weikart the righty propagandist?] . Ernst Haeckel, Darwin’s great German disciple, is presumed to have virtually packed his sidecar with Darwinian theory and monistic philosophy and delivered their toxic message directly to Berchtesgaden or at least,individuals like Daniel Gasman, Stephen Jay
Gould, and Larry Arnhardt have so argued. Many more scholars are ready to apply the casual, but nonetheless, telling sobriquet to Hitler of "social Darwinian.” In this essay I have maintained these assumptions simply cannot be sustained after a careful
examination of the evidence.
To be considered a Darwinian at least three propositions would have to be
endorsed: that the human races exhibit a hierarchy of more advanced and less
advanced peoples; that the transmutation of species has occurred over long
stretches of time and that human beings have descended from ape -like ancestors; and that
natural selection — as Darwin understood it — is the principle means by which
transmutation occurs. Hitler and the Nazi biologists I have considered certainly claimed
a hierarchy of races, but that idea far antedated the publication of Darwin’s theory and
was hardly unique to it. There is no evidence linking Hitler’s presumption of such a
hierarchy and Darwin’s conception. Moreover, Hitler explicitly denied the descent of
species, utterly rejecting the idea that Aryan man descended from ape - like predecessors. And most of the Nazi scientists I have cited likewise opposed that aspect of Darwin’s theory. Hitler did speak of the “struggle for existence,” but likely derived that language from his friend and supporter Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an avowed anti-Darwinian. Moreover, by Hitler’s own testimony, his anti-Semitism had political, not scientific or biological roots; there is no evidence that he had any special feeling for these scientific questions. And in any case, remote and abstract scientific conceptions can hardly provide the motivation for extreme political acts and desperate measures.
Among Nazi biologists, at least those publishing in an official organ of the Party,
Mendelian genetics and de Vriesian mutation theory were favored, both vying at the
beginning of the twentieth century to replace Darwinian theory. Moreover, the
perceived mechanistic character of Darwinism stood in opposition to the more vitalistic
conceptions of Nazi biologists and that of Hitler — or at least vitalism accords with the
drift of his thought about race. Finally, though his own religious views remain uncertain, Hitler often enough claimed religious justification for racial attitudes, assuming thereby the kind of theism usually pitted against Darwinian theory.
If “Social Darwinian” is a concept with definite meaning, it would have to refer to
individuals who apply evolutionary theory to human beings in social settings.
There is little difficulty, then, in denominating Herbert Spencer or Ernst Haeckel a social
Darwinian. With that understanding, Darwin himself also would have to be so called.
But how could one possibly ascribe that term to Hitler, who rejected evolutionary
theory? Only in the very loosest sense, when the phrase has no relationship to the
theory of Charles Darwin, might it be used for Hitler.
In order to sustain the thesis that Hitler was a Darwinian one would have to ignore all the explicit statements of Hitler rejecting any theory like Darwin’s and draw fanciful implications from vague words, errant phrases, and ambiguous sentences,neglecting altogether more straight -forward, contextual interpretations of such utterances. Only the ideologically blinded would still try to sustain the thesis in the face of the contrary, manifest evidence.
Yet, as I suggested at the beginning of this essay, there is an obvious sense in which my
own claims must be moot. Even if Hitler could recite the Origin of Speciesby heart and referred to Darwin as his scientific hero, that would not have the slightest bearing on the validity of Darwinian theory or the moral standing of its author.
The only reasonable answer to the question that gives this essay its title is a very loud and unequivocal No!
So, yes, I accept your own reference as proof that Hitler was not a Darwinian or follower of Darwin, and thank you for enlightening me on yet another act of desperation and dishonesty undertaken by MANY creationist and right-wing extremist religionists in their sad, pathetic efforts to employ fallacious and dishonest methods to try to prop up their own failing ideology.
Thank you again @BilliardsBall for making so clear an admission. Very brave of you to have undermined and dare I say, debunked one of your own mantras.
Ah, yes, so that totally proves that Stalin did what he did in Darwin's name. Excellent scholarship.
Please tell me that this 'academic conference' you are chairing will not be on any of the topics you broach on this forum?
I'm offended, since I’m a firm Darwinist! Black and women are inferior to Caucasian males, as Mr. Darwin insisted!
You didn't look at the link I sent to my academic conference.
