To Evolutionists: Why are the ideologies of bigotry, racism, and genocide not scientifically disproved?

Question

Many evolutionists labor extensively to prove their concept exists. They work hard to uncover finds in layers of rock and dirt, they form together bone fragments and fossil remains, but why don't any of them use that same dedication to resolving the long standing concept which their belief's progenitor, Darwin, clearly divulged about races and his prediction of genocide of the 'lesser species'?

This poses a major social issue which has been ignored and pushed aside as "social darwinism", but no one truly brings closure to it. In fact every so often an evolutionist will claim other races to be inferior. Will this ever end?

Answer 1

I read your February paper based on your book.

Evolutionary biologists don't spend their valuable research time and dollars trying to disprove racist ideas held by others, even the founder of their area of study, who lived over 100 years ago because there is no point. The theory of evolution has itself evolved over the years, as all theories do. It is increasingly difficult to strictly divide beings in the taxonomy system as we uncover the relationships between the species. There have been ongoing debates between punctuated equilibrium and slow and steady versions of evolution, and many more scientific debates. It's not Darwin's theory, he just started it. Critiques of Darwin's personal views, racist or not, have no bearing on the theory today.

I don't know if Darwin himself was racist and I really don't care. The n**i's took Nietzsche's work and converted it into racist propaganda. Granted, with Nietzsche that wasn't hard to do, but they took what they wanted and ignored the fact the Nietzsche wrote that the antisemites should get out of Germany or that he wrote a whole book trying to understand how Wagner could make such beautiful music while being such a horrible racist pig. You can't blame the neutral idea for being pervertable by propagandists.

Nor does the term "social darwinism" have any bearing on evolution. It is a play on the similarity of natural selection to some concepts in sociology. The two ideas are distinct and separate and have little bearing on each other.

Further, there is a great deal of evidence for evolution. Watch this episode of NOVA, it outlines the scientific case for the theory very well, and also provides an interesting lesson in recent US history:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program....

This primarily focuses on the debate between evolution and creationism, but it is also useful simply as the case for evolution, whether you want to know about creationism or not.

Answer 2

Do you not realize the man lived in the 1800s. Times change and so do attitudes. They don't have to resolve anything. I think it is common knowledge not to overgeneralize judgement of others on outside characteristics. Humans will never be free of some preferences but that most likely be less of a problem as time passes. Don't blame Darwin he was just pointing out something that has been known since ancient times. We have been watching animals since the dawn of man and breeding them for upteen thousand years.

Answer 3

Which came first - the chicken or the egg - the negative atrtitudes or the bogus justifications for them?

The problem is that the bigotry you mention is NOT exclusive to Darwinism.  Clearly, if someone WANTS to think something, they WILL - regardless of what they believe to be the origins of life on Earth - they will just find a way to MAKE their anti-social feelings and attitudes fit their belief system!.

Ironically, I have found more hard-core bigotry among fundamentalist religious zealots than among evolutionists.

My late husband could not stand to be around his own brother because his brother was one of the worst of the worst radically dedicated bigots - and he was fanatically religious, too!

His justification for this extreme bigotry was that the "mark of Cain" mentioned in Genesis was that God turned Cain BLACK!  He's been dead well over a decade now, but in retrospect I still find it hard to accept the fact that he - or anyone else, for that matter - could REALLY BELIEVE something like that, but he DID!

It seems to me that Darwinism SHOULD be a champion of equity and equality because it pretty much says that we are ALL in a state of evolutionary flux - not just one or two races.

Lately, however, people are beginning to look closer at the only two options we have to explain our own origins and finding BOTH creationism AND Darwinism to be full of holes and BOTH missing critical support data.

I firmly believe, myself, at this point, that the REAL TRUTH of how, where and under what kind of circumstances we originated is STILL an un-filled-in blank - that we just plain DON'T KNOW YET, and maybe sometime in the future someone will discover the clue(s) that tells us who and what we are and where we came from - FOR REAL!  (Yeah, and when we finally DO find it, I'll bet it will prove to have nothing to do with EITHER creationism OR Darwinism!)

Answer 4

Darwin was very racist and believed in lesser species.  He stated that he would rather be a descendant of an ape than of a savage.  You are right, Darwin was not tolerant of other races.

Racism has been discussed as an evolutionary adaptation.  People tend to reject those that don't look like them for a reason, survival.  It was necessary for us to be cautious when we were primarily Hunter Gatherers so that we wouldn't end up getting killed by other people.  

No it will never end.  We will be tolerant of other races but it will take a long time to get past our evolutionary adaptations towards racism.