How aware are students that Darwin taught superiority of British to other races?

Question

Would students ( or teachers for that matter ) generally be informed that the book Origins of the Species and the Preservation of Favored Races claimed the Irish were more primitive genetically than the English and the Asians and Africans yet more primitive genetically? Would they be aware Darwin ordered some aborigines to be captured and brought back dead or alive to England for taxidermy?

Answer 1

and what pray tell does that have to do with evolution ? Evolution is a fact and all your sniveling, and name calling , and other voodoo scince claptrap will not make it not so...many men and women of many different professions have been racists or bigots.....more recently the Nobel laureate Shockley, but ad hominem attacks on Darwin do not in the least diminish the grandeur of his basic ideas. I guess you would rather believe lines in a book written by men in a society that believed the earth was flat and the center  of the universe, demons caused disease, and that one could transmute base metals to gold ......Try reading the theory  after you gain a modicum of understanding  of scientific principles

Answer 2

he also said a married man is a poor slave, worse then a negr0, and that women are weaker then men in all ways, and those are just a few of the things he said.

The great man was a racist bigot, and now those that don't follow him are called that, or worse.

He even admitted they there is allot of evidence against evilution, and very little to support it, and now what little he had has been proven to be nothing more then adaptation withing a species.

oops I meant evolution...

No... EVILution is right.

Answer 3

Oh really.  How about specific quotes with page numbers from his original books?  You are not even aware the word gene did not exist when Darwin and his peers wrote.

You should be totally ashamed of yourself.  Disgusting.  The cold hard facts are that religion, especially Christianity, is responsible for much of the racism that existed and still exist.

The Mis-portrayal of Darwin as a Racist

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articl...

Answer 4

good to know

Answer 5

Even if it were true, what does this have to do with the veracity of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection?

Did you know that Isaac Newton worked more on alchemy than he did on physics? His mistaken belief in (now) outdated ideas does not make his work on physics any less valid or brilliant.

Answer 6

You have been misinformed (lied to). There is no mention of these things in The Origin of Species - the book is not about humans but other animals. He certainly couldn't have stated other races are "genetically" more or less primitive because DNA wasn't discovered until after his death. The aborigine taxidermy story is an outright fabrication made up by creationists (AiG among others continue to perpetrate this load of cobblers).

It is true that there are passages in his other writings that show he did hold attitudes that today would be considered racist (as did many people at the time). He does in several places refer to some groups as "less civilised" or "savages", but these terms are rather more loaded and pejorative today than they were 150 years ago. On the other hand, Darwin was vehemently opposed to slavery, which is a less usual attitude for his time.

The subject of Darwin's attitudes might indeed be suitable for discussion in a history or sociology class, but it doesn't need to be brought up when discussing the science of evolution because it's irrelevant to the topic. Do we dismiss Edison's discoveries because of his egotistical bickering with Westinghouse and his mistreatment of Tesla? No, because the science he did has stood the test of time and been built upon since. The same is true of Darwin - he laid the foundations of evolutionary theory, and regardless of the man's eccentricities it is solid science and has been built upon since. Ad hominem arguments don't have any bearing on good science.

Answer 7

It isn't necessary that students be taught these things, it would serve absolutely no purpose. I suppose your goal would be for students to dismiss Darwin's' ideas based on the fact that he was a racist (in the majority during that period) and had character flaws. We should only dismiss an idea if the idea is flawed, it has nothing to do with the individual who proposes it. If an individual comes up with a flawed idea, his/her idea wouldn't gain universal support on the basis of the individual, it would only gain universal support if the idea itself was sound and supported by evidence, which evolution is. I'm sure Einstein and newton had some distorted beliefs and character flaws as well, but that doesn't diminish their contributions to scientific knowledge, that would be ridiculous.