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Author | Topic: Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.7 |
Faith writes:
Well, I've already indicated what I see in the paragraph that suggests Darwin has an evolutionary explanation for the differences between the races as he has for the differences between the species.
And so what if Darwin was a racist? This would have as much effect on the theory as it would if he was a transvestite. It's irrelevant, and, as it happens, untrue. And, bye-the-way, some elements of racial differences *are* evolution driven, the obvious one being skin colour.
Human skin color ranges in variety from the darkest brown to the lightest pinkish-white hues. Human skin pigmentation is the result of natural selection. Skin pigmentation in human beings evolved to primarily regulate the amount of ultraviolet radiation penetrating the skin, controlling its biochemical effects.[1] Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Hi Faith,
I didn't say Darwin didn't have racist attitudes. I said his racist attitudes were typical of his time and in fact better than most. To accuse Darwin of something that was true of almost all Europeans of his time makes no sense. You may as well accuse him of bathing only once a week. You are correct that Darwin believed the negro races (and a number of other races that he names in The Descent of Man) inferior to the white races, and that he believed there was an evolutionary explanation. He actually believed the white races so superior that they would outcompete and exterminate them at some point, and I see you quoted this portion. What I disagreed with most was the association of evolution with the Nazis. The Nazis were correct that a dominant race might be dominant because it evolved superior qualities, but evolution defines no inherently superior qualities. A trait is deemed superior if it allows an organism to better compete in a given environment, but that same trait may make an organism less competitive in a different environment. Move the blond fair-skinned Nazis to equatorial regions and watch them succumb to heat prostration and skin cancer. Even intelligence is not always a superior quality. The human brain carries a great price in energy demands, and an environment low in food resources would encourage a smaller overall body size, including the brain. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Faith writes: The context suggests evolutionary differences, and I won't be disappointed if that's not what he meant, but it reads like that to me. I don't know why people are arguing against you on this. It seems obvious to me, too, that Darwin believed the mental differences between races were real and not merely cultural. He was not afraid to draw comparisons between mental abilities. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
PaulK writes: So, there's really no way that you could get the idea that Caucasians are superior to Africans from the theory. The most you could do is to START with the idea of racial superiority and then appeal to the theory to "explain" it. But then the racism wouldn't be coming from the theory... Well said. I've been trying to make this point, but not successfully so far. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Hi Marc,
The implications that you claim were there are just your own imaginings. You don't read for comprehension so much as you read looking for excuses you can make up for introducing hateful diatribes on your own favorite topics into a discussion. The facts remain the facts. Bill Nye never said or implied that only innovation was important to competitiveness. The debate was about science, and so Bill Nye appropriately confined his comments to be about science. --Percy
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saab93f Member (Idle past 1415 days) Posts: 265 From: Finland Joined: |
The point was that the PARAGRAPH presents the THEORY in that light. Everything I've said is based on how I read what that paragraph says. It suggests to me that that was DARWIN's view of the theory at that time.
There was nothing honest in your "point". You had an agenda and tried to bolster it by inserting something most would find objectionable to where there is none. ala "Have you stopped beating your husband?"
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
All I can do is say again that I have no agenda and I'm being completely honest about all of this. When I first read that paragraph, or reread it a couple years ago now, I was rather shocked by it then because it does appear to say what many people took evolution to mean in those days. That is, it implies that human races are on different levels of evolution just as humans are in relation to apes, different levels meaning "lower" and "higher." That was of course the way it was thought of in Darwin's day so he didn't invent it, but it does appear from that paragraph that he accepted it and provided an evolutionary explanation for it. Truly, honestly, that is how I read that paragraph, and I don't see how it can be read any other way. No doubt these things are thought of differently now, but I don't think you can honestly say Darwin had today's point of view.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
What I disagreed with most was the association of evolution with the Nazis. The Nazis were correct that a dominant race might be dominant because it evolved superior qualities, but evolution defines no inherently superior qualities. A trait is deemed superior if it allows an organism to better compete in a given environment, but that same trait may make an organism less competitive in a different environment. Move the blond fair-skinned Nazis to equatorial regions and watch them succumb to heat prostration and skin cancer. I certainly don't agree with the Nazis' understanding of what makes a race superior or of the theory evolution. My only point was that in the paragraph by Darwin it was clearly implied that human races are on lower or higher levels of evolution, that's Darwin himself saying that as I read that paragraph. Perhaps he himself lost track of the implications of his own theory at that point, or merely intended to be explaining the generally accepted idea without sharing it, but as written that is simply what it appears to say: civilized man is evolutionarily superior to "savage" man. He also didn't propose the extermination of the "lower" races, of course, but there is the implication that it would be a good thing if it happened. Especially when he ends his paragraph by saying that it would be better if there were an even greater gap between civilized man and the apes due to civilized man's evolving even higher while the "lower" races die out. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Faith writes: All I can do is say again that I have no agenda and I'm being completely honest about all of this. When I first read that paragraph, or reread it a couple years ago now, I was rather shocked by it then because it does appear to say what many people took evolution to mean in those days. That is, it implies that human races are on different levels of evolution just as humans are in relation to apes, different levels meaning "lower" and "higher." It isn't the theory of evolution saying that the races are on different evolutionary levels. That there are qualitative differences between the races is something that was already believed when Darwin introduced his theory (and concerning some differences, such as skin color, they were of course correct). But there's nothing in the theory of evolution that says, "Black races are less evolved than white races." But the theory of evolution did provide an explanation for those differences. It was believed that whites were cognitively superior to blacks, and evolution said that this was because whites had evolved greater cognitive abilities. That smarter is better is a value judgement made by people, not by evolution. Smarter is not better than stronger (which 19th century Europeans believed was true of the black races), in the same way that faster is not better than digging burrows. The key requirement for survival is adaptation to the local environment. Improved adaptation is what is better. Depending upon the creature and the circumstances better might mean faster or stronger or taller or longer-necked or even smarter, but none of these qualities are inherently better than any other. There are many intermingling factors. At heart, what is better just all depends. --Percy
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Dawn Bertot Member (Idle past 104 days) Posts: 3571 Joined:
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BTW here is the full version of racist Donny Reagan's racist rant: Wow DA and you thought we had our differences in the past, this guy is gone, isnt he. I dint realize there were still people out there that actually verbalized thier prejudices out loud. I mean we all retain a certain amount of racisim, wehther we verbalize it or not, But this guy looks like Russel Johnson and Robert Culp gone bananas. I guess the two most logical questions to ask him, besides why he didnt quote the Bible, would be , can only handicapped white people, only marry other handicapped white people, because thats the way they were made? And. If only persons of the same color, can marry only the same color, shouldnt the reproductive process not actually work, since it is against Gods purposes and against his will? I guess whats scary is that he is not alone in his conclusions. What a goob Dawn Bertot Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given. Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Again, what the theory is today is apparently somewhat different than it was in Darwin's mind, as evidenced by what he wrote in that paragraph that has been quoted here.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2
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quote: I think you're confusing the theory itself with common (but wrong) ideas ABOUT the theory - and projecting them on to the quote. The main point of the quote is to say that the differences between humans and other animals was not an adequate objection to the theory. And Darwin pointed to extinction as one way such a gap could be created. And he was right, as we've since discovered. The quote is NOT about the differences between human races. Those differences are simply assumed and referred to in the service of making a quite different point. Edited by PaulK, : correction & clarification to 1st sentence
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
PaulK's previous message has it right.
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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Faith writes: My only point was that in the paragraph by Darwin it was clearly implied that human races are on lower or higher levels of evolution,...Perhaps he himself lost track of the implications of his own theory at that point,... Except that there's no such thing as "levels of evolution", not today, not then, and especially not ever in Darwin's mind. As PaulK says, this is something you're projecting onto that passage. There can be varying degrees of adaptation to the environment, but there's no such thing as "levels of evolution." You're letting your mind become infected with the whole fallacy of one organism being "more evolved" than another. There's no such thing. There's only better adaptation. And of course if the environment changes then all that better adaptation that was evolved? Out the window, up for grabs, whatever.
...but as written that is simply what it appears to say: civilized man is evolutionarily superior to "savage" man. The term "evolutionarily superior" has no meaning, so Darwin didn't say it or appear to say or imply it or hint at it. The word "evolution" didn't even appear in the first edition of Origin of Species. What's key is adaptation, and the measure of adaptation is relative to the environment.
He also didn't propose the extermination of the "lower" races, of course, but there is the implication that it would be a good thing if it happened. Especially when he ends his paragraph by saying that it would be better if there were an even greater gap between civilized man and the apes due to civilized man's evolving even higher while the "lower" races die out. There is no such implication. Someone already explained this to you earlier, but I'll explain it again. That paragraph is addressing the gap between man and "his nearest allies" (chimpanzees and gorillas). He says this could be due to extinction, and that if the "savage races" and the "anthropomorphous apes" (again, chimpanzees and gorillas) were to go extinct in the future then the gap would become even larger. I can only guess that your misinterpretation of that passage stems from a stumble over application of the phrase "man in a more civilised state." To make the hypothesized future gap even larger he's postulating that in the future man might be more civilized than in his day. --Percy
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Phat Member Posts: 18298 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
Creation Museum: Bill Nye Debate Sparked Funding 'Miracle' Ken Ham credits God and Bill Nye for funding the struggling project.
...on Thursday he announced that his Creation Museum's proposed Noah's Ark theme park, including a 510-foot replica of the Biblical vessel, had against all odds secured a last-minute $62 million municipal bond offering. The miracle was God's, he said, but Nye also had something to do with it I suppose God won't mind sharing top billing.
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