Is eugenics the logical result of Darwinism?

I didn't mean to say that Nazism was based only on evolutionism, but evolution was THE biggest intellectual influence of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It fueled all kinds of inventive thinking about society, and frankly, I can't think of one GOOD influence it had.Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was a strong advocate of abortion because she wanted what she considered to be the unfit eliminated from our world, so as to better our human stock. Her image has been considerably whitewashed since then.Of course racism already existed, nothing new there. What evolutionism did was give it a pseudoscientific basis. Applying animal breeding techniques to human beings was just about unthinkable until evolutionism made the idea respectable. It was even considered by some to be the highest humanist ethics.You say you think I'm wrong that there is no logical tension between evolutionism and compassion. I'm not sure I follow your argument about offspring, as it doesn't seem to contradict my point. Perhaps the difference is that you emphasize "selecting" while the social engineers emphasized "selecting OUT." Sterilization of "the unfit" --defined of course by whoever had the power -- was a major element of the new humanist ethics. Social Darwinism and other distortions did enter into this. Euthanasia was based on some idea that society would be healthier and stronger without the burden of those who needed special care. Such ideas wouldn't have been thinkable without evolutionism, whether they accurately represent it or not.Your version MAY be a more orthodox version of how the ToE might be intentionally applied, though I'm not sure it necessarily is. Even without the distortions, I see no logical way to get from the idea that we are all the result of aeons of random mindless chemical and biological processes to compassion toward the accidental products of such a system. Compassion must be imported into the system from outside it.These ideas were still popular even after the Holocaust. I had the odd experience of being in a high school class in the late fifties where some of my fellow students were discussing eugenics in general and euthanasia in particular as a way to genetically improve the human race. The idea was new to me -- I was a sheltered small-town kid who had transferred to a big city school that year -- and I expressed astonishment, which got me teased for being concerned about the fate of my inferior genes. Possibly some here can sympathize with their position.Since the 70s you can find the idea of human evolution in a "spiritual" direction supported in some New Age circles, the idea that we are evolving toward a universal spirituality, and guess who the most unevolved are? Well, fundy Christians of course, who don't have the good sense to realize that our beliefs are just one of many, and all are the same in the end. You may even find the occasional recommendation that we should be exterminated for the good of the species and society.The following links aren't intended to be definitive. They just seemed to be good at defining and quoting to make the point.http://www.hospicepatients.org/alchemy-eugenics.html Missing Link | Answers in Genesis v12n1p14 - Lesson 3 - Evolutionism This message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 06:04 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 06:15 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 06:17 PM

Let me put it this way to bring out the intended context which you should have been able to figure out for yourself: "Such ideas wouldn't have been thinkable IN THE 19th and 20TH CENTURIES by such a large segment of the population without evolutionism, whether they accurately represent it or not." Thank you. My original point, however, was that this is the ONLY social/ethical influence evolutionism exerts, the elimination of the "unfit" from society, and it was an extraordinarily popular view of the intelligentsia, the avant garde elite of that period.LOGICALLY there is no other ethic that comes out of evolutionism. Compassion is logically incompatible with it. The task on this thread, as I understand it, is to show that it is not incompatible with it, but perhaps the incompatibility has been tacitly conceded? That is a blind prejudice. The clear directive of the Bible is toward human compassion. What is done in the name of Christianity may be all kinds of things (human beings being fallen and likely to think they are Christians when they are not), but Biblical Christianity is always a force for compassion where it is truly understood and obeyed. The fact is that Biblical Christianity was the impetus for almost all the social services that developed in the world. The influence in the West began as soon as Christians were freed from persecution by the Roman Empire. Hospitals grew out of individual Christian provision for the sick; orphanages grew out of individual Christian adoption of abandoned children, many of them infants left to die of exposure; universal education grew out of the desire that children be able to read the Bible; universities began as training for priests and clergy, with the aim of having a clergy knowledgeable in everything about human history, literature, science etc.We are on the verge of throwing all that out nowadays, on the false premise that religion as such is an illusion and/or a negative social force and/or that all religions are the same.==========
Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Isaiah 5:20This message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 07:46 PM

Funny, that's how so many argue against Christianity. But it's not what my post did at all. I developed the logical point. The logic is clear in the post, too taxing for your patience though it apparently is.

The point is that it is INTRINSICALLY LOGICALLY incompatible with compassionate social systems, not just that it has been misused. Nobody has suggested outlawing science. Science and evolution are not synonymous despite the habitual association of the two. I consider evolution to be a gross violation of science. Your mission, should you accept it, is to prove that there is any OTHER logical result of Darwinism than these that are incompatible with a compassionate society. Then show us a LOGICAL result in a compassionate direction if you wish to refute the premise of this thread. Nuclear power is a blind physical force. Evolutionism is a theory, an interpretation, a philosophy, an idea, a far more lethal force than nuclear energy. You are comparing apples with oranges. Science of the empirical sort started in the late Middle Ages with monks, Christians, who understood through Biblical revelation that the natural world was made by a rational orderly God and therefore accessible to investigation, a brand-new idea that bore tremendous fruit in the development of science from that point on. Science before that point was all speculative philosophy. The Bible is not the source of such superstitions, it has always been the answer to them. Such popular revisionist ignorance is going to destroy the West some day, quite soon it seems to me. No, science is a great blessing from God. Evolutionism is false science. A dangerous misrepresentation.=======================================
"...faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology."
---Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1926, p.19"Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil" Isaiah 5:20This message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 08:12 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 08:13 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 08:13 PM

The topic here is not positive breeding for chosen results, it is breeding OUT the "unfit." Besides which, social class and economic class were always the biggest motivation for arranged marriages, whatever part the idea of bloodlines may also have played. And "good breeding" has referred to manners, not inheritance, for so long that any origin in the idea of blood inheritance is long since past. I think she was very sincere, a do-gooder, definitely a creature of her time. She sincerely thought the human race would benefit from the elimination of the "unfit." It shouldn't be hard to find information about her early inspiration, Jar, but I will make an effort to find it for you if you really need it. Unless they played a great part in the popularity of Nazi eugenics {Edit: not to mention Marxism, and we know Marx was definitely inspired by Darwin, and his stuff led to the greatest bloodletting ever seen on this planet over the last century. I know, you'd rather have shamanistic tribalism that operates by witchcraft than that any of it be supplanted by Christianity, and all the lore of the occult in the books that were burned, because satan is so much smarter and more interesting than Jesus Christ, and he cares about us so much more. That's the kind of "knowledge" you deplore the loss of. Well, hey, it's all coming back and Christianity is being suppressed so you may have your wish very soon.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 09:35 PM

Don't know why you are having a problem with this, but let me try to be more explicit:You cannot derive a SOCIAL or ETHICAL system from the ToE that is consistent with a compassionate attitude toward the suffering.The ToE is a worldview, a philosophy of life, not merely a scientific theory confined to the labs. As such it affects every one of us, colors our understanding of the meaning of life, and the logical tendency of evolutionism is toward the depreciation of life.

It was sarcasm. It is the logical conclusion from your lament that Christianity supplanted many cultures. Many primitive cultures, the entirety of European tribes for starters, were supplanted by Christianity over the centuries, MOST OF THEM BY CHOICE. They were all tribal cultures whose religion was some form or other of witchcraft. Civilization didn't even begin to happen until Christianity supplanted all those delightful tribal cultures that lived by raping and pillaging. I used the term "bloodlines" I understand the term. YOU don't understand that it has not MEANT what you impute to it except in the most limited contexts. You are misusing the words.Prove it, Jar. Prove that those terms refer to conscious selection of a mate on the basis of genetic value.

The idea that we came up out of primitive life simply devalues everything about us as human beings. It devalues life itself. It makes a mechanical empty meaningless thing out of it. It makes us one big nothing. It makes us a product of a blind process that is subject to any kind of engineering or manipulation we might dream up because it is a process utterly devoid of meaning. We are just bits and pieces of chemicals. Why bother about something that was simply concocted in a giant chem lab? You can only arrive at that idea by observing that compassion exists and making it fit with your belief in evolutionism. It is not something the theory itself would ever predict, not an idea that flows organically from the theory, which is devoid of any of the moral and ethical assumptions we all live by -- or used to. The kind of compassion that you can derive from the theory is purely an instrumental "function," an "adaptation," a mere accidental artifact of the great overarching evolutionistic value Survival. Which is a sad irony, since why should anybody CARE about survival given such a demoralizing bleak view of our nature?Have a heart? Evolution HAS no heart. That's the point. And wherever it dominates people's thinking in a social context it has the effect of deadening hearts.

Sure. Why not. Darwinism says human beings were evolved by purely chemical and biological (mechanical and physical) means from early forms of life. This results in a mechanical and physical understanding of human nature without any intrinsic value or meaning except that we exist, we got here. A basic cynicism about our existence and the value of life, our own, human life in general. Devaluation of life in a nutshell. We got here, but for what?Please be careful not to confuse your own morals and values with what can be logically derived ONLY from the ToE.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 10:30 PM

I am pointing out the actual historical social views OTHERS have drawn from the theory. These were all the rage in the late 19th and early 20th century, and although these views have been suppressed and certainly their origin in the ToE has been suppressed, nevertheless the ToE generates a certain mindset which is still with us. I am explaining as well as I can what seems to be the REASON these tendencies take a certain direction, which is toward the callous devaluation of life.

You are evading the point. The point is that only certain social views result from the understanding of life we get from the ToE and these ARE immoral.I'm waiting for somebody to prove they aren't.

All the European groups. The Vandals and Visigoths, the Goths, the early Anglo Saxons, the Celts etc etc etc. They were supposed to conquer and supplant the idolatrous tribes which were due for God's judgment. They weren't Christian except in name. The Africans themselves sold each other into slavery. A TRUE Christian who was a slaver, when he had an actual conversion (you are not a Christian unless you are born again)-- when he was born again he denounced slavery. That was John Newton who wrote "Amazing Grace." Christianity is ANTI-slavery. Yeah, they were trying to take it back from the vicious Muslim conquerers who had murdered and enslaved all the Christians and Jews in the area. They were DEFENDING the West. Hey, if you prefer Shariah law I think you're going to get your chance to experience it. Sure, true history, not the revisionist propaganda they call history these days. I specifically referred only to EUROPEAN civilization. Message 70 Got it? Do learn to read.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 10:55 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-29-2005 10:56 PM

So much for reasoned discourse. You turn it into a disgusting ad hominem. So why should I expect any better of anybody here? Well, truth be told, I don't.

Sorry I guess I missed it. I haven't seen one moral position derived from the ToE except the selection of the fit over the unfit for the good of the species.

The master of well reasoned rebuttal aren't you? LOL Out go the rules when Jar is posting.