Is the theory of evolution a racist idea?

Question

I know that its just a theory and doesn't have much evidence to support its ideas but some people these days really get into it.

I believe that God created each of the three races independently and that is why the Asian, European, and African races are so different from each other. Others think that evolution is what made the European race so much more advanced than the others.

But with that said the theory of evolution only says that African Americana's haven't fully evolved yet. For at least hundreds of years Africans have lived with Europeans in the same climate yet the Africans aren't showing any evidence of evolving. This is proof that they must be a different creation and this also disproves that evolution is possible.

So why do people still follow the old racist theory of evolution?

Answer 1

Don't know if you are stupid or just ignorant.  In addition to the excellent points made by most of your previous answers, what 3 races are you talking about?  On what basis are you differentiating? Skin color?  Socio-economic status? country of birth?  Or can you just "tell" by looking?  Follow whatever religion appeals to you but learn more about what humankind already knows about evolution before making idiotic claims such as disproving that evolution is possible.

Answer 2

you do have a point there.

Answer 3

wtf are you talking about, for someone who believes in God you sure are going to h**l with ideas like  that.

and to the poster above, you are dumb

Hitler used the idea of Social Darwinism and Eugenics (even though Darwin was against eugenics) to justify mass murder, evolution does not excuse racism and is not "a companion" of it

Answer 4

This is one of the most spectacular examples of setting up a straw man argument, and knocking it down. You are claiming that the theory of evolution suggests or espouses racist ideas, and then as a counterargument, you forward clearly racist ideas!

"I believe that God created each of the three races independently and that is why Asian, European, and African races are so different from each other" (!).

Nobody in the field of evolution or anthropology is making a "scientific claim" that Europeans are "so much more advanced than the others". Why are you even suggesting that anyone is thinking that "Africans aren't showing any evidence of evolving"? How did you pick up that idea? Might it be possible that your own perception of the theory of evolution is affected by your own now-discredited views of what races are?

Please study the Wiki article on "historical definitions of race"!

Answer 5

There is no scientific theory that suggests that Europeans are more advanced than black Africans.  Both are descended from the same common ancestors that migrated out of Africa, as all humans are.  

The only real differences between the two is different degrees of pigmentation which is based upon the climates in which they seperately evolved - Africans retaining their highly pigmented skin and hair to protect against UV rays in hotter climates, Europeans losing most of their skin pigment to allow better absorbtion of sunlight for Vitamin D production in northern, colder climates.

Answer 6

From Talk.Origins, the website devoted to the Evolution/Creationism debate.

Claim: Evolution promotes racism.

Response:

1. When properly understood, evolution refutes racism. Before Darwin, people used typological thinking for living things, considering different plants and animals to be their distinct "kinds." This gave rise to a misleading conception of human races, in which different races are thought of as separate and distinct. Darwinism helps eliminate typological thinking and with it the basis for racism.

2. Genetic studies show that humans are remarkably homogeneous genetically, so all humans are only one biological race. Evolution does not teach racism; it teaches the very opposite.

3.Racism is thousands of years older than the theory of evolution, and its prevalence has probably decreased since Darwin's day; certainly slavery is much less now. That is the opposite of what we would expect if evolution promotes racism.

Answer 7

Evolution did not make Europeans advanced, it just made the differences in races appearance. The differences in technology (or what kind of evolution are you comparing??) are caused by different paths the spatially separated groups of people decided to follow.

I believe that Africans, for example, simply did not need much of technology since they have had pretty much food and heat and land and water (in some areas) simply obtainable. This does not make them worse evolved, everyone is just adapted to his surroundings.

Answer 8

The idea is that Asians evolved from orangitangs, Africans evolved from the dumb gorilla, and Europeans evolved from the more intelligent chimpanzee.

The truth is that These people groups actually descended from Noah's three sons. I think this is how it goes: Asians from Japheth, Africans from Ham, and Europeans from Shem.

The bible talks about Egypt as "The tents of Ham." Since Egypt is in Africa, it would make sense that Africans are descended from Ham (althought I could be wrong).

Also, Japheth is said to travel really far (enlarge his tents). I believe it was the Asians who travelled over the land bridge that used to connect Asia with Alaska, and that's where Native Americans came from. There is alot of similarities between the DNA of Central and South Americans with that of Eastern Asians.

Then the Jewish people descended from Shem (this I know). And Jewish people obviously moved up into Europe (like Germany) along  with other people groups. Honestly, there are alot of Jewish people in America that look like any other white guy. It can be hard to tell who is Jewish sometimes.

So, as for your question: YES. Evolution is extremely racist. Evolution was used as justification to wipe out the Jews in the Holocaust. Evolution was used to justify slavery in America.

However, racism has been a problem long before the theory of evolution was fabricated in the imaginations of atheists. But evolution is definitally a close companion of racism.

Answer 9

I'm kind of confused about a few things you've mentioned here.

First of all, I don't know what you mean by Europeans being more 'advanced'. The only obvious difference between races is appearance. If anything though, Europeans are the least advanced. For example, Asians are statistically smaller than other races, therefore they require less energy to survive (less food) which is a significant benefit as far as evolution is concerned.

Africans and African-Americans are generally more physically able, as evidenced by their tendency to dominate many Olympic events.

Europeans are perhaps the richest of these three, but that has nothing to do with evolution, it's just circumstance.

Secondly, 'hundreds' of years isn't very long in terms of evolution. And you haven't even been around for those hundreds of years to confirm that absolutely no change has occurred.

In addition to that, humans are not affected by evolution the same way as 'wild' animals, since we can create shelters and care for the weak/poor. Meaning we don't exactly follow the 'strongest survive' concept like other animals do anyways.

And lastly, how is the idea of 'three independent races' which are 'so different from each other' any less racist than the concept of evolution?

Answer 10

I love when people learn science at church...

Actually if you look back through time it was the Middle East that was the most advanced technologically (not Europeans) but just because they were more advanced they were not more evolved.

Evolution is an extremely slow process like in 10,000 years at a time slow...you are evolving right now - every time you get a virus your DNA is changed, sometimes for the better sometimes for the worse.

What one answerer said is absolutely correct, we don't evolve very quickly because we have the physical ability to adapt our environment to suit us via shelter and food sources. Plus our climate has been pretty mild and not extreme (too hot or too cold) for several thousand years. Our bodies don't have the need to adapt to anything externally.

But our minds (well at least some of us) are now evolving at a very rapid pace. This is due to the fact that we are no longer threatened by wild animals or stressful climate changes, but we are constantly stressed by mental issues.  That's why it is difficult to see the changes. Most of the change these days is on the inside, not the out. And it is very subtle...not something you can measure in 10-15 generations of people.

Your immune system is also evolving - many diseases that would have killed you several thousand years ago don't now. Partially because of medical advancements (which by the way is artificial evolution) - if you want to see evolution change in your life time - watch what happens within the next 100 years (as long as we don't blow ourselves up).

Medical advancements with genetics is going to make for some crazy artificial evolution in the human body over this century. Some people will opt for the changes for aesthetic reasons so that they can be different on purpose, just like people get breast implants today. You'll see people have their DNA changed so that they have blue skin, green skin, red skin, and even glow in the dark skin...

Evolution has nothing to do with racism. Racism grows from ignorance and is passed along by ignorant people. Please stop continuing its spread by asking questions like this.

Answer 11

<<Is the theory of evolution a racist idea?>>

No.

<<I know that its just a theory and doesn't have much evidence to support its ideas but some people these days really get into it.>>

What you know is wrong.  There's masses of evidence.

<<But with that said the theory of evolution only says that African Americana's haven't fully evolved yet.>>

No it doesn't.  "Fully evolved" makes no sense whatsoever in terms of evolutionary theory.  That's your own miscomprehension.

<<So why do people still follow the old racist theory of evolution?>>

I see.  So your first question was a dishonest one, as you'd already decided upon the answer before you asked it.

Answer 12

Ok love, continue going through life thinking that "god" gave each of the "different" races good and bad characteristics (which you can clearly tell). That's not racist at all...

And scientists are just a bunch of Klan members conjuring new ways of spreading their ideas of hate, with no objectivity. While you are wasting your time with, what can only be described as stupid and childish ideas, hopefully manipulated by your religion.

You should really do a little research on evolution before contaminating the world with "theories" of your own.

Answer 13

"I know that its just a theory"

Wrong.  You don't understand what a theory is.  A fact is an observation, and a theory is an explanation of a fact.  Theories never get promoted to facts, theories are top of the line, theories are more important than facts.

And, since evolution has actually been directly observed, it is both a fact and a theory.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolutio...

"doesn't have much evidence to support its ideas"

Wrong again.  It has TONS of supporting evidence.  It's virtually bulletproof at this point.

It's actually the most well supported theory in all of science.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

"I believe that God created each of the three races independently and that is why the Asian, European, and African races are so different from each other."

THAT'S racist.  You're saying that the races are completely distinct from each other, put that way by god.  That's a racist point of view.

Evolution says that we are all the same species with different adaptation, and that none of us is better than the other, just differently adapted for different environments.  There's no racism there.

"For at least hundreds of years Africans have lived with Europeans in the same climate yet the Africans aren't showing any evidence of evolving."

'Hundreds of years' is NOTHING in terms of human evolution.  That's, what, 15 or 20 generations?  OF COURSE there haven't been any major evolutionary changes in 20 generations, that's just stupid.  Evolution does not say that will happen.

The long term evolution experiment by Richard Lenski took around 30,000 generations before a major change was observed.  Come back in a few hundred THOUSAND years and see how people look...

You really have no idea what you're talking about.  Evolution does not say that anybody is 'more evolved' than anyone else.  You and I are no more evolved than a snail or a beetle.  We're just DIFFERENTLY evolved.  There's no such thing as 'more evolved' or 'fully evolved.'  We're not at the top of evolution, we're STILL EVOLVING, along with every other organism on earth.

"This is proof that they must be a different creation"

Do you seriously not see how racist you're being here?

I hate to break it to you, but someone has lied to you BIG TIME when they told you about evolution.  You should learn what evolution really says and is really about so that you can make an intelligent, educated decision on your own.

Answer 14

The theory of evolution is not a racist idea; African American's are exactly the same as Europeans and everybody else. This has been scientifically proven. The theory of evolution deals with religion more than race, so one's ideas about evolution are influenced by what religion they follow.