Was Darwin racist, and did evolution push racism? (Abraham, believers, Savior)

[ulnevrwalkalone]

I think i am going to like this forum...

First of all, Darwin originally thought that his theory was going to help prove that there is a god, he was wrong. He thought some races of people r superior to others, he was wrong. He was wrong on many things, but those errors do not in any way affect his theory. And yet religious people keep trying to prove the theory wrong. They say its wrong until proven right (like pointing to missing fossil records, etc.), while the rest of us say its right until proven wrong.

People try to disprove Darwin because his theory is another reason not to need god as an explanation. u all can go ahead and believe that the earth is 6000 years old or that we used to ride on dinosaurs because somebody else told us so or read it in a book with no author. but I am going to trust my intellect and the scientific community that has helped mankind progress from wondering nomads into the civilized world we have today. Western Religion is basically anti-progress

[Spotted1]

Originally Posted by kdbrich

They were wrong? I got no problem with admitting they were wrong. The fact that some knuckleheads did it then doesn't mean I agree with them today.

You missed the irony of sanspeur's post.

Christians (like you, there kdbrich) claim evolution is a lie, it doesn't work, it's not possible. And then they turned around and used ideas that were part of the theory of evolution in an attempt to eradicate the people they saw as inferior.

Basically they were being hypocrits. "Evolution is a lie! Natural selection isn't possible!" in one breath, and "Let's steralize these people so they die out because they're inferior to us" (I.E. Use natural selection to eradicate a seemingly 'inferior' group) in the next.

[coosjoaquin]

Originally Posted by kdbrich

I've not said that it being racist says it's not right. There are plenty of reasons to say it's wrong without pointing to its racist tendencies.

If this is true then why have your last three rebutals literally been ~yeah but Darwin was a racist~? What does Darwin have to do with it? Are you no longer claiming that the theory of evolution is racist?

[ParkTwain]

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/12 (broken link)

"While both the author and the book have become historical icons, few people likely are aware of the full title of Darwin’s most famous work: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection—or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The Oxford English Dictionary denotes that, historically speaking, the term “race” referred to a group of persons, animals, or plants connected by common descent or origin—in other words, similar to the way it is used today."

Beware of being too literalist in your readings!

[kdbrich]

Originally Posted by coosjoaquin

If this is true then why have your last three rebutals literally been ~yeah but Darwin was a racist~? What does Darwin have to do with it? Are you no longer claiming that the theory of evolution is racist?

I think his theories are wrong. We don't have to point to his racist beliefs for that. But besides that, we can see that part of his motivation for pushing the failed theories was his racism.

[coosjoaquin]

Originally Posted by kdbrich

I think his theories are wrong. We don't have to point to his racist beliefs for that. But besides that, we can see that part of his motivation for pushing the failed theories was his racism.

Seriously though, why are you intent on attacking the poor dead man? That level of racism was prevalent on the era so you have a moot point. He spent 5 years travelling the world on the beagle and then 20 years writting up his ideas so we know that his real motivation was to find the truth of our origins.

[coosjoaquin]

How come I don't see people saying that Aristotle was racist? Or that Newton was a sexist? They sure as hell can be considered that way when compared to the norms of modern society.

[sanspeur]

Originally Posted by kdbrich

I've not said that it being racist says it's not right. There are plenty of reasons to say it's wrong without pointing to its racist tendencies.

So why bring racism into it then? Lets see some of your other reasons, but don't give us "there are no transitional fossils" nonsense again, because I think you are smart enough to know that there are.

[Roxolan]

Originally Posted by kdbrich

You don't think his theories could have been affected at all by his prejudices? I mean...considering the fact that his whole theory was about how certain races are inferior to others...

1. Darwin wasn't very racist. He was certainly a liberal for his time.

2. Evolution also teaches that we're the same race as blacks etc. Which makes it much harder to be racist.

Originally Posted by Darwin, The Descent of Man

But the most weighty of all the arguments against treating the races of man as distinct species, is that they graduate into each other, independently in many cases, as far as we can judge, of their having intercrossed. Man has been studied more carefully than any other organic being, and yet there is the greatest possible diversity amongst capable judges whether he should be classed as a single species or race, or as two (Virey), as three (Jacquinot), as four (Kant), five (Blumenbach), six (Buffon), seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz), eleven (Pickering), fifteen (Bory St. Vincent), sixteen (Desmoulins), twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawfurd), or as sixty-three, according to Burke. This diversity of judgment does not prove that the races ought not to be ranked as species, but it shews that they graduate into each other, and that it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive character between them.

In the rest of his work, Darwin makes it clear that he does not find many differences beyond skin colour and the like.

3. The background racism of his time could have influenced his work. Other scientists of that period did indeed atempt to use the theory of evolution to support racism. Today, their work are discredited. Evolution itself, though, has passed through the same ordeal of scientific criticism and survived. It is today accepted as fact by the overwhelming majority of qualified scientists. If there was any part of the theory of evolution which was baseless speculation based on racist beliefs, it would have been pointed out and removed long ago.

Originally Posted by kdbrich

That's the thing--there are all kinds of holes in his arguments.

Your opinion. Not scientists'.

Originally Posted by kdbrich

There is also a lot of dissenting opinions about it, and a lot of missing evidence.

Same. Remember that post of mine where I made an estimation of the number of qualified scientists who do not accept evolution? Remember that 0.003%?

Originally Posted by kdbrich

The fact that Darwin considered non-white races to be inferior species says that it's racist.

So the fact that Darwin was [a bit] racist is evidence that the theory of evolution is? Everything racists do or write is racist?

Originally Posted by ulneverwalkalone

They say its wrong until proven right (like pointing to missing fossil records, etc.), while the rest of us say its right until proven wrong.

That sentence is a bit misleading. Evolution is wrong until proved right. That's true of any hypothesis, be it evolution or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The difference is that evolution has been proved right beyond reasonable doubt.

[agnostic soldier]

The usual jabberings from someone who knows less than nothing about evolution and is incapable of understanding what evolution actually says so they make up nonsense to try and 'prove' it false. For one, the cultural norms in Darwin's time said that blacks were inferior, it has nothing to do with the theory(the fact) of evolution.