From: Ted Davis (TDavis@messiah.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 19 2003 - 13:13:51 EST
Rich wrote:
I'm not sure I am comprehending this. Social Darwinism took a scientifc
advance and used it to justify labeling other races inferior, but quite
honestly,
that justification came from people already inclined to believe that. The
science doesn't justify anything.
Ted replies:
Rich, please keep in mind that I am speaking here as an historian of
science and religion, not as a philosopher or a theologian. I entirely
agree with your points here, the "science" doesn't justify anything about
racism, either way. However, leading scientists at the time believed that
"science" supported blatantly racist conclusions. This belief was
widespread, on both sides of the Atlantic. And it was (among other places)
splashed all over the pages of the biology textbook, Hunter's Civic Biology,
that was used as the officially approved book in the state of Tennessee at
the time of the Scopes trial. In short, it was (speaking historically)
fully "scientific" to be a racist, on the basis of evolution. I agree that
the racism was brought into the science, but at the time it passed for a
scientific conclusion. In other words, I'm using an historical/sociological
definition of science: science was, what a large number of professional
scientists said it was. It wasn't true, it wasn't morally good, but it
surely was science--on that definition.
We might apply the same definition today, as Judge Overton did two decades
ago when he ruled against the teaching of creationism in Arkansas public
schools. Science is what scientists do, he basically said in his opinion;
and scientists don't do creationism.
I agree this definition isn't adequate for all purposes, but I do think it
adequate for my observations about the historical situation.
ted
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