From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Mon Sep 22 2003 - 08:52:13 EDT
Robert Schneider wrote:
>
> Richard writes:
>
> >
> > Implications are all important.
> >
> > Genocide is just an example, an implication, of your proposed evolutionary
> > development of morality. Why should some groups not destroy others if it's
> good
> > for their evolutionary advancement - survival is the game in this scheme.
> Nazis
> > used this kind of reasoning to excuse their immorality.
> >
>
> Bob's comment:
>
> The arguments used by German generals in WWI that evolution shows the
> superiority of the white (i.e., Germanic) race and justifies declaring war
> on inferior races is a perversion of a perservion. It had nothing to do
> with Darwin's theory and was a taking of Social Darwinism, for which Darwin
> was not responsible, far beyond what I believe Herbert Spencer would have
> countenanced. Whatever arguments the Nazis might have used based on this
> false concept, they did not base it on the science of evolution. Let us be
> clear that the Nazi hatred of the Jews was based on 2000 years of
> anti-Semitism, to which, sadly, Christianity contributed a great deal. To
> lay the blame on belief in evolution is to greatly distort the situation. A
> scientific theory is not responsible for the misunderstandings and
> perversions that people subject it to.
>
> I doubt very much that the thugs under Pol Pot who committed genocide
> against their own people in Cambodia during the 70s, or the Serbian thugs
> who massacred thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats in the 90s , murderers
> who were rural people of limited education, had the faintest idea of what
> evolution is, if they were even introduced to the term.
>
> I have heard this canard expressed frequently in recent years. After the
> Columbine massacre, Rep. Tom DeLay stood on the floor of the House, and
> without a shred of evidence to support him, accused the teaching of
> evolution for motivating the two students to commit this massacre. People
> who make such charges have an obligation to provide evidence to back up
> their claims. Otherwise they should avoid making such irresponsible
> accusations.
& I would add on the theoretical side that a person who believes that evolution
has taken place & that humanity developed through evolution is by no means obligated to
get his or her ethics from the way evolution works (let alone perversions of
evolutionary theory). At most, this just shows the danger of natural law arguments.
The claim "You accept evolution so you must (in theory) approve of genocide" is pure non
sequitur.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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