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Do Muslims Accept Evolution?
- Thread starter DR OSMAN
- Start date
The discovery of endosymbiosis as the genesis of eukaryotes and horizontal gene transfer b/w microorganisms did disrupt the purely linear natural selection-genes framework of neo-Darwinians since it proved saltationary leaps were possible. Along with epigenetics as another external factor that works in conjunction with genes to produce phenotype.
But I'm surprised about that non-random mutation study, so I read into it a bit (read some blogs, reviews). What did the author mean by this:
"Mutations defy traditional thinking. The results suggest that complex information that is accumulated in the genome through the generations impacts mutation, and therefore mutation-specific origination rates can respond in the long-term to specific environmental pressures."
Are they suggesting currently thought to be nonfunctional genes/proteins (and/or epigenetic modifications) in the genome possibly regulate mutation rates at specific sites? If so isn't it still possible that SSA Africans acquired these theoretical mutation regulatory gene(s) randomly?
The alchemist
VIP
Frankly, is there any proof at all to those hypotheses? It seems to me like any chemical phenomenon of life origin story to increased complexity on the early history of this planet are merely conjectured-together things, which probably is consensus within the severe knowledge limitation. Yet, it doesn't meet any serious evidentiary threshold to claim it is a scientific fact.
One has to distinguish these two things: 1) Proving something can happen on the theoretical ground; 2) it did happen this way. A proof of concept does not mean an evidence case in such a specific occurrence. That leap is yet to be justified, and the former is also not justified.
Such formulations lay upon a platform of the arbitrary and convenient speculatory environment within a limited, simplified, narrow internal framework that assumes a naturalistic process supporting a through-line of tendencies for today's occurrences. It's circular. And this is not even a fraction of it.
The fact that the genetic sequences at and adjacent to the ROIs are identical for the two populations and for the two genes yet the mutation rates vary significantly between the populations and between the genes suggests that what affects these mutation rates in the germline includes more than this local DNA sequence and in that sense is complex. These results are consistent with the observation that the variation of the mutation rates across loci is partly cryptic (not explained by the local DNA context), especially in the case of A↔T transversions which include the HbS mutation-type (A→T). Combining the multiple insights discussed, the results suggest that mutation rates are both mutation-specific and influenced in a complex manner by the genetic and/or epigenetic background.
...suggests that the 20A→T mutation arises more frequently where it is of adaptive significance than where it is not, though data does not suffice to tell whether this effect is due to a population-level difference or due to a locus-based difference or both.
It means that a mutation can stream specific mutational adaptability frequency rates due to the human body's reaction to environmental pressures; an internal informational receptive architecture responsible for mutational occurrence influenced by the external. This unequivocally is non-random mutation.
The referenced study is a powerful case example since it has strongly parameterized boundaries where factors such as malaria geographic coverage are related to sickle cell anemia within site-specific areas.
The randomness of the process was the consensus in the past based on mere assumptions, plus no sufficient technology and techniques utilizing methods to have resolution power existed to confirm or deny. Now, we know this to be not the case. The old explanation of a mere blind selection process cannot statistically account for the 20-fold discrepancy.
The increased mutational rate in this specific case could mean that a mutation is like a tractable package that houses informational retention representing the result of the generational capacity from complex stochasticity between the inner bodily functions' interactions with the environment.
As the study points out, mutation should become the study in the long-term, not the immediate short-term, knowing how it is neither the primary result of selective blindness nor mechanistic randomness. That study was the first research that examined the mutation-specific resolution.
The next step is to work out the variation between these mutational expressions in a suite of areas for refinement of understanding of the correlational and causal complex workings, underlyingly grasp, at least, some of the molecular insight that gives rise to these architectural functions that are partly if not entirely, responsible for the increased rates of mutational occurrence which renders the process sophisticatedly non-random.
Hybrid()
Death Awaits You
Very interesting.You seem highly intellectual. What's your verdict on how man was created in the Abrahamic religions. Although scientific bias can't be avoided in science, it's more believable that humans evolved from apes rather than the theory from a story in a 4000 year old book.
I'm sorry but this sounds like pseudo-intellectual garbage. You're using philosophical reasoning to dismantle the premises of genetic research, I mean really nigga.
That video with Denis Noble where he is refuting Dawkins isn't really referencing evolutionary biology but only one factor in it. Namely of Dawkin's Neo-Darwinian fixation on the gene-centric approach to biology. Mr. Noble had a problem with the approach of genome sequencing because being a physiologist (particularly when it comes to human physiology), he wanted there to be an improvement in the treatment of serious diseases but there was none.
Now according to Mr. Noble there was a minor association with how genomes affect the mechanisms of certain parts of the human body (he talks about the heart rhythm as an example) but he said nothing on the association between genome sequencing and the relation of other organisms with one another particularly the genome of other primates and humans.
It doesn't mean that Dawkins is wrong in his scientific arguments regarding the mechanisms of evolution but rather that he seems to be mistaken in his rigid fixation with genes being the only determinant factor in natural selection.
If you've ever read any of Darwin's books carefully you'd know that he never even mentions religion or even attacks religiously minded people but just stated his experimental findings. Tbf a lots of his ideas have been interpreted and used in ways he would never approve of but if he ever said things that might seem racist or insensitive today, it's only because he was a man of his times. A time of rising European domination.
Darwin was often troubled about what he found in his experimentations and in the conclusions he got from his writings. He even felt very conflicted towards the end of his life regarding the existence of God.
The alchemist
VIP
Re-read what I wrote and drop the low-processing, emotional drivel.
Imbecile thought he addressed anything by strawmaning me with wasteful text. You're not intelligent nor educated enough to hold a rudimentary conversation on this - the reason it flew over your head.
1- he never mentions religion kulaha...
2- darwinism was "interpreted and used in ways he would never approve of" kulaha...
in response to 1-
I am tired of hearing this kind of argument. you can push all sorts of agendas without openly saying what your agenda is. just because someone doesn't openly say they have a particular agenda doesn't mean they don't have a given agenda. George Bush never said anything openly anti-Islam or anti-Muslim.... I'm sure Macron in his speeches avoids being openly anti-Islam and just says nonsense about being "against extremism or separatism" or whatever. even Modi avoids saying overtly anti-Muslim stuff.
it happens all the time that people with agenda avoid coming and openly saying what their agenda is.
Darwin not openly stating "my theory is actually just a tool for an anti-religious agenda" doesn't mean he didn't have an anti-religious agenda.
Furthermore, he did have an anti-religious thing going on... I saw a statement from him where he was basically admitting he was against Christianity (and obviously, I doubt he was going to take Islam into consideration).
2- Non. Sense.
White supremacism was implicit in Darwinism. His whole theory was a veiled justification for white supremacism, colonialism, subjugation and even extermination of non-whites.
I am not some PC person, I am not remotely some PC person, if I'm reading a math book (I don't read math books btw but just speaking hypothetically) by someone from the 1800's, I'm not really going to care if the author made some racist comments or something- as far as when it comes to the contents of the math book. but it's not like Darwin's white supremacist views were just this side thing that had nothing to do with his work- they were central- the book was literally called:
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
the "preservation of favoured races".... you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to read between the lines of what he's getting at.
this guy was literally in favor of extermination of non-whites
" “more civilised 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 civilised races throughout the world.”" -Darwin
when you look at the guy's book title and his private comments on extermination of nonwhites.... to think it's just purely coincidental is like a man walking in, some guy is in the bed with his wife and him thinking they both just ended up there by accident.....
(continued)
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from Chapter 1 of Richard Weikart’s new book, How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism.
In 1881, toward the end of his life, Charles Darwin wrote to a colleague that the “more civilised 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 civilised races throughout the world.”1 This was not just some offhand comment unrelated to Darwin’s science. It reflected important elements of his theory of human evolution. Indeed, he articulated this same principle in his scientific study of human evolution, The Descent of Man (1871), where he claimed, “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”2 Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
This is a position that has been articulated by many historians of science.3 Two prominent historians specializing in the history of Darwinism, Adrian Desmond and James Moore, mince no words about the racism inherent in Darwin’s theory. In their magisterial biography of Darwin, they state, “‘Social Darwinism’ is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing Darwin’s image. But his notebooks make plain that competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into the equation from the start — ‘Darwinism’ was always intended to explain human society.”4
Desmond and Moore reinforce this point later in the book by quoting from a letter Darwin wrote to Charles Kingsley: “It is very true what you say about the higher races of men, when high enough, will have spread & exterminated whole nations.” Desmond and Moore then provide this explanation of Darwin’s sentiments that he expressed in that letter: “While slavery demanded one’s active participation, racial genocide was now normalized by natural selection and rationalized as nature’s way of producing ‘superior’ races. Darwin had ended up calibrating human ‘rank’ no differently from the rest of his society.”7 Darwin’s theory thus provided justification, not only for racism, but for racial struggle and even genocide.
However, not all British men and women in the 19th century embraced racism. Some prominent British intellectuals, missionaries, and church leaders believed that black Africans, for instance, were equal to Europeans and only needed the proper education and upbringing to attain the technological sophistication of the Europeans. The famous British missionary and African explorer David Livingstone not only rejected the notion that black Africans were unequal to Europeans, but also devoted his life to showing them love and compassion. He dedicated his energies to fighting against the slave trade, and he even expressed support for the Africans when they fought against British colonial encroachments.8 No wonder Livingstone was beloved by Africans and is still fondly remembered by black Africans.9 One of the most prominent British intellectuals in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill, likewise rejected the idea of racial inequality.10 Mill, like many of his contemporaries, embraced environmental determinism, so he believed that humans were shaped primarily by education and upbringing, not by their biology and heredity. Finally, Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of natural selection, also rejected racism and opposed the idea that non-European races were somehow closer to non-human animals than their European counterparts.11
evolutionnews.org
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
The Racism of Darwin and Darwinism
Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from Chapter 1 of Richard Weikart’s new book, How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism.
In 1881, toward the end of his life, Charles Darwin wrote to a colleague that the “more civilised 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 civilised races throughout the world.”1 This was not just some offhand comment unrelated to Darwin’s science. It reflected important elements of his theory of human evolution. Indeed, he articulated this same principle in his scientific study of human evolution, The Descent of Man (1871), where he claimed, “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”2 Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
This is a position that has been articulated by many historians of science.3 Two prominent historians specializing in the history of Darwinism, Adrian Desmond and James Moore, mince no words about the racism inherent in Darwin’s theory. In their magisterial biography of Darwin, they state, “‘Social Darwinism’ is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing Darwin’s image. But his notebooks make plain that competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into the equation from the start — ‘Darwinism’ was always intended to explain human society.”4
A Surprise to Some
It might come as a surprise to some that Desmond and Moore include “racial extermination” in this list, since in a later book, Darwin’s Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution, they emphasize Darwin’s humanitarianism and portray his loathing of slavery as a fundamental influence on his view of human evolution.5 However, if one actually reads Darwin’s Sacred Cause, one may be surprised to find that — despite their primary thesis — Desmond and Moore have not at all changed their position about Darwin embracing racism and even racial extermination. They state:Genocide as Progressive Force
Thus, despite stressing Darwin’s opposition to slavery, Desmond and Moore freely admit that he saw genocide — something most of us would consider an even graver evil than slavery — as a progressive force in human evolution. He was thereby justifying the imperialist wars against aboriginal peoples that Europe was conducting in his time. (By the way, Darwin was not unique in embracing both abolitionism and racism, as quite a few 19th-century abolitionists were also racists.)Desmond and Moore reinforce this point later in the book by quoting from a letter Darwin wrote to Charles Kingsley: “It is very true what you say about the higher races of men, when high enough, will have spread & exterminated whole nations.” Desmond and Moore then provide this explanation of Darwin’s sentiments that he expressed in that letter: “While slavery demanded one’s active participation, racial genocide was now normalized by natural selection and rationalized as nature’s way of producing ‘superior’ races. Darwin had ended up calibrating human ‘rank’ no differently from the rest of his society.”7 Darwin’s theory thus provided justification, not only for racism, but for racial struggle and even genocide.
Victorian Racism: Common but Not Ubiquitous
How had Darwin come to embrace these racist views? As many scholars have pointed out, Darwin’s view that races are unequal is unremarkable. Such racist ideas were circulating widely throughout Europe, both in scientific and popular circles, long before Darwin came on the scene. Many Europeans and Americans used these ideas to justify race-based slavery in the Americas, as well as the European conquest of other lands, such as Australia, New Zealand, the Americas, and later Africa.However, not all British men and women in the 19th century embraced racism. Some prominent British intellectuals, missionaries, and church leaders believed that black Africans, for instance, were equal to Europeans and only needed the proper education and upbringing to attain the technological sophistication of the Europeans. The famous British missionary and African explorer David Livingstone not only rejected the notion that black Africans were unequal to Europeans, but also devoted his life to showing them love and compassion. He dedicated his energies to fighting against the slave trade, and he even expressed support for the Africans when they fought against British colonial encroachments.8 No wonder Livingstone was beloved by Africans and is still fondly remembered by black Africans.9 One of the most prominent British intellectuals in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill, likewise rejected the idea of racial inequality.10 Mill, like many of his contemporaries, embraced environmental determinism, so he believed that humans were shaped primarily by education and upbringing, not by their biology and heredity. Finally, Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of natural selection, also rejected racism and opposed the idea that non-European races were somehow closer to non-human animals than their European counterparts.11
The Racism of Darwin and Darwinism | Evolution News
Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
evolutionnews.org
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AdoonkaAlle
Ragna qowl baa xira, dumarna meher baa xira.
It's simply isn't possible to deflect criticisms of racism away from darwin and his theory. Social darwinism was part and parcel of the theory, i mean it's a biological explanation of not only how we humans came about but also our behaviours and most importantly preservation. The guy lived in a time where cadaan were literally invading everywhere killing, displacing, exterminating other people and he attempted to explain why this was the case using biology.
In the fact the full title of his famous work is:
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
He was simply justifying the actions of his kin and why they were superior to others. The story of black humans originating from africa and further evolving to become white etc further reinforces the biological racism inherent in the theory. You see the theory demands that there be less evolved groups in every species from plants, animals to humans. Back then cadaanka were explicit especially the scientific community you'll be hard pressed to find any who debated otherwise.
Now today due to the actions of the nazis, political correctness, liberalism they aren't as explicit about it laakin it still continues to resurge again & again via debates about IQ, lack of development of black africans etc .
In his work he casually discusses the extermination of races/groups by others as if it were a biological necessity that's needed for the improvement of the species as a whole. So what the nazis & other cadaan countries did was in fact in line with the theory.
I wonder what the response of jews will be if you just told them that what nazis did to them was simply the order of the day back then.
AdoonkaAlle
Ragna qowl baa xira, dumarna meher baa xira.
Origin of life theory waa sheeko xariir, it's only being kept alive due to atheistic dogma as the alternative ie admitting that life was created will simply negate everything that they've worked for. Just think about this, if a person destroys a cell in a test tube it's impossible to construct back to what it was despite having all the proteins, cell structures within the tube. Laakin they want us to believe in the distant past everything built itself from scratch via chemistry iyo physics alone
Life is an artefact as no chemical or physical process alone is able to bring it to existence you need another source for our existence. So even though we're constrained by physical, biological process etc we don't owe our origins to them. Just like the same way we can't reduce machines, robots etc to their physics and claim that this explains their origins.
I'm not sure if you know laakin due to the inadequacy of the current ToE there's been attempts to bring about new thesis such as direct mutation, natural genetic engineering (NGE). Laakin majority of the proponents of toe are skeptical
What low-processing emotional drivel? I told you what the guy was talking about in the video and used it as a way of telling you that it really has nothing to do with evolutionary biology or what your intended argument is. I think you're the one who is unintelligent and using whatever refutation no matter how incoherent that you find on YouTube just to make a moot point.
You consider yourself a genetic expert but can't even understand what Denis Noble was trying to say in his own video regarding genetic sequencing. Idiot.
The alchemist
VIP
You're a petulant child, ignorant and disgustingly feminine with zero manners. The level of audacity of thinking you can quote me with this, a bozo with no sense nor intelligence. Don't mention me again, .
You give me the feeling when I step on shit and try to scrape it off - you being the shit itself.
How can you distort and call Darwin a racist when he came from a family who advocated for the abolition of slavery? He's own uncle Josiah Wedgwood was a prominent member of the abolitionist movement, would such people view "savage races" as inferior? I think not.(continued)
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
The Racism of Darwin and Darwinism
Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from Chapter 1 of Richard Weikart’s new book, How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism.
In 1881, toward the end of his life, Charles Darwin wrote to a colleague that the “more civilised 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 civilised races throughout the world.”1 This was not just some offhand comment unrelated to Darwin’s science. It reflected important elements of his theory of human evolution. Indeed, he articulated this same principle in his scientific study of human evolution, The Descent of Man (1871), where he claimed, “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”2 Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
This is a position that has been articulated by many historians of science.3 Two prominent historians specializing in the history of Darwinism, Adrian Desmond and James Moore, mince no words about the racism inherent in Darwin’s theory. In their magisterial biography of Darwin, they state, “‘Social Darwinism’ is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing Darwin’s image. But his notebooks make plain that competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into the equation from the start — ‘Darwinism’ was always intended to explain human society.”4
A Surprise to Some
It might come as a surprise to some that Desmond and Moore include “racial extermination” in this list, since in a later book, Darwin’s Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution, they emphasize Darwin’s humanitarianism and portray his loathing of slavery as a fundamental influence on his view of human evolution.5 However, if one actually reads Darwin’s Sacred Cause, one may be surprised to find that — despite their primary thesis — Desmond and Moore have not at all changed their position about Darwin embracing racism and even racial extermination. They state:
Genocide as Progressive Force
Thus, despite stressing Darwin’s opposition to slavery, Desmond and Moore freely admit that he saw genocide — something most of us would consider an even graver evil than slavery — as a progressive force in human evolution. He was thereby justifying the imperialist wars against aboriginal peoples that Europe was conducting in his time. (By the way, Darwin was not unique in embracing both abolitionism and racism, as quite a few 19th-century abolitionists were also racists.)
Desmond and Moore reinforce this point later in the book by quoting from a letter Darwin wrote to Charles Kingsley: “It is very true what you say about the higher races of men, when high enough, will have spread & exterminated whole nations.” Desmond and Moore then provide this explanation of Darwin’s sentiments that he expressed in that letter: “While slavery demanded one’s active participation, racial genocide was now normalized by natural selection and rationalized as nature’s way of producing ‘superior’ races. Darwin had ended up calibrating human ‘rank’ no differently from the rest of his society.”7 Darwin’s theory thus provided justification, not only for racism, but for racial struggle and even genocide.
Victorian Racism: Common but Not Ubiquitous
How had Darwin come to embrace these racist views? As many scholars have pointed out, Darwin’s view that races are unequal is unremarkable. Such racist ideas were circulating widely throughout Europe, both in scientific and popular circles, long before Darwin came on the scene. Many Europeans and Americans used these ideas to justify race-based slavery in the Americas, as well as the European conquest of other lands, such as Australia, New Zealand, the Americas, and later Africa.
However, not all British men and women in the 19th century embraced racism. Some prominent British intellectuals, missionaries, and church leaders believed that black Africans, for instance, were equal to Europeans and only needed the proper education and upbringing to attain the technological sophistication of the Europeans. The famous British missionary and African explorer David Livingstone not only rejected the notion that black Africans were unequal to Europeans, but also devoted his life to showing them love and compassion. He dedicated his energies to fighting against the slave trade, and he even expressed support for the Africans when they fought against British colonial encroachments.8 No wonder Livingstone was beloved by Africans and is still fondly remembered by black Africans.9 One of the most prominent British intellectuals in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill, likewise rejected the idea of racial inequality.10 Mill, like many of his contemporaries, embraced environmental determinism, so he believed that humans were shaped primarily by education and upbringing, not by their biology and heredity. Finally, Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of natural selection, also rejected racism and opposed the idea that non-European races were somehow closer to non-human animals than their European counterparts.11
The Racism of Darwin and Darwinism | Evolution News
Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
"While some, like Spencer, used analogy from natural selection as an argument against government intervention in the economy to benefit the poor, others, including Alfred Russel Wallace, argued that action was needed to correct social and economic inequities to level the playing field before natural selection could improve humanity further. Some political commentaries, including Walter Bagehots Physics and Politics (1872), attempted to extend the idea of natural selection to competition between nations and between human races. Such ideas were incorporated into what was already an ongoing effort by some working in anthropology to provide scientific evidence for the superiority of Caucasian superiority over non-white races and justify European imperialism. Historians write that most such political and economic commentators had only a superficial understanding of Darwin's scientific theory, and were as strongly influenced by other concepts about social progress and evolution, such as the Lamarckian ideas of Spencer and Haeckel, as they were by Darwin's work. Darwin objected to his ideas being used to justify military aggression and unethical business practices as he believed morality was part of fitness in humans, and he opposed polygenism, the idea that human races were fundamentally distinct and did not share a recent common ancestry."
Darwin's own personal views:
"Darwin's views on social and political issues reflected his time and social position. He grew up in a family of Whig reformers who, like his uncle Josiah Wedgwood, supported electoral reform and the emancipation of slaves. Darwin was passionately opposed to slavery, while seeing no problem with the working conditions of English factory workers or servants."
"Taking taxidermy lessons in 1826 from the freed slave John Edmonstone, whom Darwin long recalled as "a very pleasant and intelligent man", reinforced his belief that black people shared the same feelings, and could be as intelligent as people of other races. He took the same attitude to native people he met on the Beagle voyage. Though commonplace in Britain at the time, Siliman and Bachman noticed the contrast with slave-owning America. Around twenty years later, racism became a feature of British society, but Darwin remained strongly against slavery, against "ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species", and against ill-treatment of native people."
(Continued):(continued)
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
The Racism of Darwin and Darwinism
Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from Chapter 1 of Richard Weikart’s new book, How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism.
In 1881, toward the end of his life, Charles Darwin wrote to a colleague that the “more civilised 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 civilised races throughout the world.”1 This was not just some offhand comment unrelated to Darwin’s science. It reflected important elements of his theory of human evolution. Indeed, he articulated this same principle in his scientific study of human evolution, The Descent of Man (1871), where he claimed, “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”2 Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
This is a position that has been articulated by many historians of science.3 Two prominent historians specializing in the history of Darwinism, Adrian Desmond and James Moore, mince no words about the racism inherent in Darwin’s theory. In their magisterial biography of Darwin, they state, “‘Social Darwinism’ is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing Darwin’s image. But his notebooks make plain that competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into the equation from the start — ‘Darwinism’ was always intended to explain human society.”4
A Surprise to Some
It might come as a surprise to some that Desmond and Moore include “racial extermination” in this list, since in a later book, Darwin’s Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution, they emphasize Darwin’s humanitarianism and portray his loathing of slavery as a fundamental influence on his view of human evolution.5 However, if one actually reads Darwin’s Sacred Cause, one may be surprised to find that — despite their primary thesis — Desmond and Moore have not at all changed their position about Darwin embracing racism and even racial extermination. They state:
Genocide as Progressive Force
Thus, despite stressing Darwin’s opposition to slavery, Desmond and Moore freely admit that he saw genocide — something most of us would consider an even graver evil than slavery — as a progressive force in human evolution. He was thereby justifying the imperialist wars against aboriginal peoples that Europe was conducting in his time. (By the way, Darwin was not unique in embracing both abolitionism and racism, as quite a few 19th-century abolitionists were also racists.)
Desmond and Moore reinforce this point later in the book by quoting from a letter Darwin wrote to Charles Kingsley: “It is very true what you say about the higher races of men, when high enough, will have spread & exterminated whole nations.” Desmond and Moore then provide this explanation of Darwin’s sentiments that he expressed in that letter: “While slavery demanded one’s active participation, racial genocide was now normalized by natural selection and rationalized as nature’s way of producing ‘superior’ races. Darwin had ended up calibrating human ‘rank’ no differently from the rest of his society.”7 Darwin’s theory thus provided justification, not only for racism, but for racial struggle and even genocide.
Victorian Racism: Common but Not Ubiquitous
How had Darwin come to embrace these racist views? As many scholars have pointed out, Darwin’s view that races are unequal is unremarkable. Such racist ideas were circulating widely throughout Europe, both in scientific and popular circles, long before Darwin came on the scene. Many Europeans and Americans used these ideas to justify race-based slavery in the Americas, as well as the European conquest of other lands, such as Australia, New Zealand, the Americas, and later Africa.
However, not all British men and women in the 19th century embraced racism. Some prominent British intellectuals, missionaries, and church leaders believed that black Africans, for instance, were equal to Europeans and only needed the proper education and upbringing to attain the technological sophistication of the Europeans. The famous British missionary and African explorer David Livingstone not only rejected the notion that black Africans were unequal to Europeans, but also devoted his life to showing them love and compassion. He dedicated his energies to fighting against the slave trade, and he even expressed support for the Africans when they fought against British colonial encroachments.8 No wonder Livingstone was beloved by Africans and is still fondly remembered by black Africans.9 One of the most prominent British intellectuals in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill, likewise rejected the idea of racial inequality.10 Mill, like many of his contemporaries, embraced environmental determinism, so he believed that humans were shaped primarily by education and upbringing, not by their biology and heredity. Finally, Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of natural selection, also rejected racism and opposed the idea that non-European races were somehow closer to non-human animals than their European counterparts.11
The Racism of Darwin and Darwinism | Evolution News
Not only racism, but racial extermination was an integral feature of Darwin’s theory from the start.
Darwin's interaction with Yaghans (Fuegians) such as Jemmy Button during the second voyage of HMS Beagle had a profound impact on his view of indigenous peoples.
At his arrival in Tierra del Fuego he made a colourful description of "Fuegian savages". This view changed as he came to know Yaghan people more in detail. By studying the Yaghans, Darwin concluded that a number of basic emotions by different human groups were the same and that mental capabilities were roughly the same as for Europeans. While interested in Yaghan culture, Darwin failed to appreciate their deep ecological knowledge and elaborate cosmology until the 1850s when he inspected a dictionary of Yaghan detailing 32,000 words. He saw that European colonisation would often lead to the extinction of native civilisations, and "tr[ied] to integrate colonialism into an evolutionary history of civilization analogous to natural history".
His views being interpreted wrongly and used wrongly:
"Soon after the Origin was published in 1859, critics derided his description of a struggle for existence as a Malthusian justification for the English industrial capitalism of the time. The term Darwinism was used for the evolutionary ideas of others, including Spencer's "survival of the fittest" as free-market progress, and Ernst Haeckel's polygenistic ideas of human development. Writers used natural selection to argue for various, often contradictory, ideologies such as laissez-faire dog-eat-dog capitalism, colonialism and imperialism. However, Darwin's holistic view of nature included "dependence of one being on another"; thus pacifists, socialists, liberal social reformers and anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin stressed the value of co-operation over struggle within a species. Darwin himself insisted that social policy should not simply be guided by concepts of struggle and selection in nature."
I'd argue that Darwin's views and statements have been distorted and misinterpreted just as much as say Nietzsche's or Marx's work has been distorted and misused by nefarious persons and political organisations.
My first response was mostly civil and I was only trying to state my opinion on your argument in addition to that video you posted. The fact that you were the one who insulted me first by calling my reply "emotional drivel" tells me more about you than it does me.
It seems to me that you're truly an arrogant person devoid of any humility because you believe you're supremely intelligent above everyone else.
Your name is further proof of this. You call yourself "The Alchemist" if that's not the pretentious pseudonym I ever heard I don't know what is.
@HiraanBorn let me be clear. I'm not polluting myself with reading that pro-Darwin stuff.
The alchemist
VIP
You're a loser and categorically incompetent. None of your desperate pathetic ignorant calls for attention change that.
Most people on this thread have the substance to carry a mature conversation no matter their standing on knowledge and views; you're the only one who could not. Everyone treats you like a child, lmao. The only reason you're acting out is because of your raging insecurity so you throw a hissy fit. Everybody sees that. started talking about my name too. Hating ass sissy projecting his weirdo inferiority complex.
Get off my dick and never quote me again.
Well at least you are basically admitting you have a strong bias against Darwin's work so that's why you can't be open-minded about it.
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