Richard Dawkins Gets "Expelled" by Ben Stein! (page 13)

MegaDude

I rarely come here anymore but I saw the film last night and figured there would be a thread on it.

It's well made, funny and biased as any other documentary out there.

For me the film accomplished one thing marvelously. No matter how people try to cloak themselves in science and truth, they have a bias. That and the issue has become dangerously politicized, religionized and ego-tized.

If it's true that scientists who support some modicum of intelligent design are having their careers ruined it just goes to show you how the problem is more one of human nature than anything else, IMHO.

Dawkins comes off as a zealot who gets trapped by his own ego and Ben Stein's questions. How did this guy become of the face of atheism?

I believe Ben Stein goes too far in implying Darwinism gave birth to Nazi ideology and its evil. Watch the excellent documentary "Bonhoeffer." Hitler and the Nazis used everything including God and religion in shoring up his power.

funkyderek

BurnTheShips:

I can't believe you are so stupid that after all my explaining you still think I am accusing Darwin of anything to do with Nazis.

Well, you keep repeating that the Nazi eugenics programme was based on Darwin's theories. This is of course not true in any significant sense, but my most recent post was intended to emphasise not the falsehood of the claim but its utter irrelevance. The Nazis no more got their ideology from Darwin than the United States did from Einstein, even if they used some of those men's scientific discoveries to further their own goals.

BurnTheShips

Well, you keep repeating that the Nazi eugenics programme was based on Darwin's theories.

It was not?

Really?

So what was it based on?

Flying Spaghetti Monsters?

Wikipedia entry on the International Eugenics Conference.

"Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution"

Three International Eugenics Conferences took place between 1912 and 1932 and were the global venue for scientists, politicians, and social leaders to plan and discuss the application of programs to improve human heredity in the early twentieth century.

Nazi implementation
After 1933 the Nazi government implemented eugenics according to the recommendations as made by Harry H. Laughlin and modified by Ernst Rüdin who wrote the 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. In its propaganda the government could point to related steps in other European countries and the leadership that had been provided by the United States. Soon the process to rid society of "the unfit" was initiated.
No further International Eugenics Conferences were convened

Here is the New Your Times article from 1921.

WANT MORE BABIES IN BEST FAMILIES; Major Darwin Sees It Patriotic Duty of Better Classes to Increase Their Offspring. LIMITATION ALSO NEEDED Danger of Best Types Disappearing and the Inferior Multiplying, He Tells Eugenists.........

Guess who "Major Darwin's" father was?

Major Leonard Darwin.

I keep finding connections here...hmmm.

Burn.

funkyderek

BurnTheShips:

Hmm, we don't seem to be getting anywhere so let me try a different tack. Let's say I concede your point. Can you then complete the following sentence in a useful or interesting way?

"The Nazis' eugenics programme was made possible by the discoveries of Charles Darwin, therefore..."

BurnTheShips

"The Nazis' eugenics programme was made possible by the discoveries of Charles Darwin, therefore..."

"therefore Darwin is evil"?

That is not my point.

"therefore the application of Darwinism to human society without regard to the sacred dignity of the human person is evil".

That's something I could line up behind.

Let's say I concede your point.

I would hope you would concede the point. The evidence is strong. You are "evidence based" are you not?

Cheers,

Burn

funkyderek

BurnTheShips:

(pre-edit)

I claim no therefore.

I'm glad you thought of something better. You've put a lot of effort into arguing for a proposition you believe to be irrelevant.

"therefore the application of Darwinism to human society without regard to the sacred dignity to the human person is evil".

Except of course that "social Darwinism" is about applying the idea of "survival of the fittest" to human society. That does not involve exterminating those believed to be an underclass but rather letting them fend for themselves. Those who are better suited to living in such a society will be the ones who survive, thrive and reproduce. In a supremely ironic twist to this thread, that seems to more closely align with your political beliefs than with those of the Nazis.

I would hope you would concede the point. The evidence is strong.

So far I've seen none. Nothing that Darwin wrote provides a justification for eugenics, and nothing about eugenics requires the existence of Darwin's theories. I will concede that it's possible that some Nazis may have pointed to some horrible misinterpretation of Darwin's theories to justify their actions, but you've certainly provided no evidence of that.

hamilcarr

Burn,

Thanks for the link. I think WWII historiography is tricky stuff with emotions running high on both sides.

There may be a bit of historical revisionism at play here.

Historical revisionism. Hmm. Isn't that a pleonasm? But seriously, the aim of my post was to show that it's impossible to give only one explanation (either Darwinism or Christianity) for Hitler's psyche. I think both played a role and it depends on your own perspective which influence you deem most important. The article you're referring to deals with the Church's reaction to Hitler's regime, not with Hitler's mind. No one doubts the Church took a firm stand against him, the main question at stake is what were the main influences leading up to the cruel mix in Hitler's mind.

BurnTheShips

In a supremely ironic twist to this thread, that seems to more closely align with your political beliefs than with those of the Nazis.

Not at all. How do you think so? My political belief emphasizes individual freedom, not the playing at God by meddling with the human gene pool.

So far I've seen none. Nothing that Darwin wrote provides a justification for eugenics, Nazis may have pointed to some horrible misinterpretation of Darwin's theories to justify their actions, but you've certainly provided no evidence of that.

Darwin quotes related to Eugenics.

http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~suchii/DonEug.html

He refers to Galton, among others.

Apparently Irish Celts are a rather inferior sort of human.

I have a few choice words with respect to that idea. &I^&*^()*^&^%&*@(*&*(^*&%*)^(*

Burn

hillary_step

That Darwinism may have played a role in the ideology of the national Socialists and that on that premise Darwin is to be reviled, is rather like saying that Enrico Fermi, who created the first nuclear chain reaction, was responsible for Hiroshima. A ridiculous viewpoint.

Survival of the fittest is a universal scientific truth and not an ideology. It is true for all types of life from bacteria to Elton John. That Darwin noted this fact does not mean that he endorsed the slaughter and enslavement of millions of people because a group of people decided to experiment on mankind with this universal truth, just as one cannot lay the use or misuse of nuclear fission at the feet of Fermi.

HS.

Perry

Perry:
As you've apparently taken up Burn's eccentricity of referring to Dawkins as "the Dawkins" perhaps you could shed some light on why you do so. Burn doesn't seem to want to share his reasons.

Perhaps you missed the link to the short parody to the Dawkins:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4630952244581765675

and for the more musically inclined:

http://pop.youtube.com/watch?v=RmHll5jpRUE&feature=related

Richard Dawkins Gets "Expelled" by Ben Stein!

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