Hi Buz,
You've gotten a lot of replies for this already, so I hope you still see this one. I'm going to avoid the usual kneejerk reaction, and instead I;m going to say this:
You're
partially correct.
However, the Nazis were also
wrong.
The Nazi ideals of a "master race" did play into the early ideas of "social Darwinism," the basic idea that the human race can be improved by removing "less fit" individuals from the gene pool. This idea was not unique to the Nazis - America was delving heavily into that same abyss, contemplating euthanasia (note that voluntary euthanasia of terminally and untreatable ill patients is different from forced euthanasia for "undesirables") and actually performing forced sterilizations.
The idea's not even entirely wrong - you
can hypothetically remove
some heritable diseases and disorders (some are heritable, others occur via mutation and cannot really be reduced through selective breeding or culling, terms that should really be kept to animal husbandry and never used to describe human societies) by removing carriers from the gene pool. It's merely
insanely unethical.
But the Nazis weren't actually trying to remove genetic disorders from their national gene pool - or at least those individuals constituted only a small minority of those sent to camps. The Nazi policy was one of
racial purity, which of course would have done basically nothing in terms of eliminating heritable disease. Not only were they embracing a repugnant, unethical policy, they weren't even
doing it right
Why? Because Darwinism
played into their ideals of a "master race," but was
not the primary motivation. The "master race" idea already existed, and was already embraced, before Darwinsim came into the fray. Darwinism isn't even
really "survival of the fittest." Rather, it's "survival of the fit enough, as determined by natural selection." You don't have to be "on top" to be able to survive.
The "superiority" of the Aryan race and particularly the "inferiority" of the Semitic (Jewish and Arab) race had begun long ago, voiced perhaps most vehemently (before Hitler echoed his words) by none other than Martin Luther in the early 1500s, founder of the Protestant movement. Hitler drew on Luther's "On the Jews and their Lies" extensively in his own "Mein Kampf," as well as virtually all of his public speeches.
If the Nazis had actually investigated biology (granted, I'm adding a few decades of research onto what they knew at the time, but that's no excuse as they were acting when they should have
known their ignorance), they would have found that what we call "race" is virtually indistinguishable in the genetic code. African, Caucasian, Semitic, Asian, there's no real difference. If you put some samples in a lab, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, that's how close we are. Which should be understandable given that we share more than 95% of our genes with
chimpanzees.
In time, continued studies of genetics utterly invalidated the Nazi idea of a "master race." There simply is no such thing.
So scientifically the Nazis were, plainly, unethical idiots.
But what about the notion of social Darwinsim at all?
Human societies don't usually take their cues from nature. We don't eat our young, which happens all the time in nature. We don't eat each other, which happens all the time in nature. We don't base social ethics on the Theory of Gravity. Scientific models of how the Universe works don't always have relevance to human ethics. They're a description of
what is in nature, not necessarily what
should be in human society.
Oddly enough, libertarians and therefore a large branch of the Republican party here in the states
are social Darwinsists, just in a more passive-aggressive manner than the overt action of the Nazis. The libertarian\Republican position of cutting welfare and unemployment benefits and healthcare coverage boils down to "the poor are less fit, let them just die, my second home is more important."
There's a difference between
social Darwinism and the
Theory of Evolution. One is an (un)ethical system, used to determine right or wrong action, and the other is a scientific theory, a model of one aspect of how nature actually works.
Others have mentioned gravity, and it's accurate - we might as well blame the Theory of Gravity for all the people who kill themselves by jumping from heights, if we think it's appropriate to blame the Theory of Evolution for social Darwinism.
Part of the problem here is the English word "belief," which can carry different meanings. I can "believe in" something, without believing it to be accurate. I can believe something is good, without believing it actually happens.
One can believe that the survival of the fittest (or at least the "fit enough," which is more like actual Dawinism)
actually happens in nature, without believing that the practice of social Darwinism is a good and desirable position. Much like I can believe in Democracy without believing that every government is a Democracy, or can believe in peace while still believing that war happens.
How, then, can one honestly suggest that the understanding of how new species arise from pre-existing species through natural selection and mutation is, in itself, "criminal?"
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
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