Elitism and Nazism

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Why would you go talking about the Vichy regime of all things? Could it be that you read in the newspaper recently that the French government is paying out victims of the Vichy regime and decided to prop up your knowledge with tidbits from the newspaper?

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Nope.

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You post the quotes from Mein Kampf but then you provide no argumentation about what these quotes mean. For instance what particular Christian sect does Hitler belong to? He treats Christ greatest as a fighter in stead of a sufferer, That is much distinct from most all the rest of Christianity which has Jesus on the cross suffering as it's central symbol

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I think what I was implying with the quotes was pretty straight forward...which ones do you need interpreted?I never claimed that Hitler had his christian symbolism right. The originator of this thread and you have made the outrageous claim that Darwinism leads to nazism and The General has denied that christianity could have anything to do with it.To this point neither of you has shown that the science of the theory of evolution and actually nothing of what Darwin wrote is in Mein Kampf rather there are relatively few instances where Hitler refers to the eugenics of Galton and his followers (relative to the number of references to christian symbolism)...and I have not denied that eugenics played a role in the 3rd Reich.I on the other hand (as has PaulK) demonstrated that christian symbolism (which is almost as badly distorted as Hitlers rants on natural selection) pervades Mein Kampf and obviously it had an influence on Hitler's thinking.On the one hand both you and The General claim that because Hitler was influenced by eugenics Darwin = Nazism yet because you both do not like how Hilter described his christian influences, christianity must have had nothing to do with Nazism.I find this to be a strange double standard, and hypocritical.Most importantly it does a great disservice to the victims of the holocaust because it is revisionist.Note to Admin: I did not in the last 3 posts reply in kind.[This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 09-11-2003]{Fixed 1 quote box - AM}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 09-11-2003]

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Darwin even wrote on such esoteric questions as to what the highest state of morality is for a person, as well as giving eugenic marriage advice.

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Could you provide a cite for the last part of the sentence? I would point out though that natural selection to which you mostly seem to object, was dealt with more comprehensively in the Origin of Species.

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If I remember correctly the main reason that the Nazi's didn't develop nuclear weapons is because a scientist gave a contaminated sample of some substance. Would the scientist be innocent if he had just done his job and given a proper sample? Is the knowledge how to make a nuclear bomb really separate from the device itself?

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Here you are conflating two very different concepts. A scientist giving weaapons grade material to the nazi's is not science. Just like the chemical companies that ship me reagents are not doing science. This is a transfer of goods and in this case the scientist would be ethically responsible for what happened with the sample downstream i.e. weapon of mass destruction made or used. However, if a scientist characterizes the properties of plutonium or uranium (or develope methods for characterizing basic elements) are they then responsible if today somebody uses a nuclear weapon? Are the 19th century chemists and their discoveries of the properties of compounds responsible for the screw up with thalidomide development that lead to so many malformed children? Is the fact that DNA is a double helix as determined by Watson and Crick and others responisble in and of itself for biological weapons developed based on principles of recombinant DNA? The discovery or the science can be neutral while the uses to which it is put are not necessarily. You are not making a distinction between the two.

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The case with Darwinism is different then with making nuclear bombs, because Darwinism influenced ideology. The science that went into the nuclear bomb didn't influence ideology.

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I would disagree. The development of nuclear weapons so completely changed politics and re-enforced the polarization of the world during the cold war I think it had a profound impact on ideology...the continual reiterated notion that your enemies were ready, willing and able to obliterate you and the rest of the world had everyone living in fear for decades...not that it is over yet.

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As far as I know Galton is one of the main founders of the statistical method. He was not some lay person who was out of his depth with Natural Selection. I don't know what version of selection he used, but there are many versions of selection even now.

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Galton was also famous for beginning the field of fingerprinting in forensics. In any case, his understanding of fitness was completely wrong and he ignored Darwin when Darwin pointed it out. It was not a correct definition of fitness (i.e. social class determining fitness) in Darwin's time, and it is not a defintion that is used by evolutionary biologists today.

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I don't agree with the General, since there is copious amount of evidence of anti-semitical teaching by Christian priests, and collaboration by Christian churches to eugenic programs. But Nazism especially in the higher ranks was still anti-christian IMO.

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I then apologize to you for lumping you in with him on this particular issue. I was under the impression from a few of your posts that you agreed that christians (and particularly the Catholic church) could ba absolved from any responsibility during the 3rd Reich. I see your main issue is that you want an admission that eugenics also influenced the nazi's and nobody is denying that this is true.

Thanks for the clarification of your position. However, you seem then to miss the fact that it completely disables your arguments against Darwinism. The eugenics movement was not based on the theory of evolution. It was based on a misrepresentation of natural selection and specifically the concept of fitness which instead of being correctly defined as reproductive advantage of specific variants in a given environment, it was equated with class and wealth (in part psuedo Lamarkian). Thus, if you claim that christianity is absolved because the christians involved were not christ like and not following the teaching of jesus, evolution is absolved because the eugencists were not being scientific and were redefining scientific terms to fit their political agenda (i.e. not following what Darwin wrote about evolution.)

Do "confidence intervals" make you feel insecure? Does the "standard deviation" make you want to have inappropriate contact with your neighbors sheep? Does calculation of the "mean" make you aggressive and surly? Does a "lek" make you want to join the Polish solidaritiy movement (though you would be a bit late).

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I would look up the quote for you, but it doesn't seem to matter to you

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I would look up that mathematical proof that disproves the existence of god and proves the moon is made of cheese at the same time but it does not seem to matter to youDoesnt you last post use judgemental tone and language which you of course would never do since judgmental language could lead to nazism by your definition?