Something rare happened over the course of the last week for me: I struggled to write a post for this website. I knew what I wanted to write on, and some points that I wanted to make, yet discussing the Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed! documentary (now in theatres across America) has yielded more reaction for me in four posts over three months than all of the rest of my posts combined since late 2006. Most of that has been hostile shouts from those who don’t like to be reminded that theirs isn’t the only view in the world, but on the other hand, I aim to add something to the debate every time I go to my keyboard here at the The Politic.
Today’s events have given me that something, as a couple of friends and I hopped in my car and spent the day (fittingly “Earth Day”) traveling 2.5 hours to Buffalo to see the movie because the powers that be here in Canada feel us Canucks are too fragile to be introduced to dangerous, untested ideas that aren’t directly from former Democratic VPs or Michael Moore. It was a fine day with pristine weather, and as much as Buffalo isn’t exactly the Emerald City, it also has a certain charm for me dating back to frequent trips with my grandparents during the Reagan/Bush Sr. eras. Plus, entering the States, you feel that while people aren’t as polished, but they (be they Democrats or Republicans) are more sincere and rooted in their national values.
Regarding the Expelled movie, I start off with what I was going to suggest earlier this week had a post actually emerged: it is not about destroying evolution nor was that the purpose (see the video clip for more verification). Instead, the Darwinists, who are so scared about what this movie could do in the court of public opinion that they even attack a small-fry blogger in Ontario for merely showing interest in this movie, have failed to address the question this movie raise on why scientists (those with PhDs and impressive resumes) who discuss Intelligent Design are ostracized. Science is man’s study of nature and being a human construct is prone to faulty theories and conclusions; just as the ancients observed the universe revolving around the Earth, or the enlightenment folks developed sophisticated alchemy charts to explain compounds, so too have many scientists throughout many centuries observed, but come to the wrong conclusions because of their perspectives. Even Einstein’s speed of light barrier is now being treated as a special case these days and that mathematically-postulated equation was only invented within the last century. From a political perspective, I have to warn the Darwinian forces that continuing to ignore the argument that Expelled makes only risks their side’s own peril. Doing so only reinforces the statement Ben Stein has made that Darwinian scientists are not interested in the continuous defence of their conclusions that has been and should be inherent to the work of science.
Next, on the appearances in the movie, I noticed a striking difference between PZ Myers and his buddy, Richard Dawkins. Myers, who in the movie gushes about the day when God is marginalized in our society despite the recognition of North America’s founding fathers (not to mention even the UN’s approval…) of the freedom of religious beliefs (and not just on the weekend PZ!) was far more confident in his opinions, whereas Dawkins, who wrote “The God Delusion” was surprisingly stuttery and uncertain as he spoke. Being a political animal who specializes in electronic media, I did pay careful attention to see when cuts were made in the scene (which could suggest editing and misleading question-answer sets) and at the end of the movie when Dawkins was being interviewed with Stein one-on-one, these cuts did not exist in a way that could’ve edited the detailed answer that Dawkins gave — namely that he could see the possibility of aliens seeding the Earth via some sort of ID that they developed. In other words, Dawkins agreed on camera that ID could have merit…but as long as we’re not including God in the equation. A rather meta-physical assessment for a biology professor to make, yes, but he also failed to explain how the A* I discussed a few weeks ago came into being (remember, nothing + nothing != something!). I would also note that nothing that any of the Darwinists said in the movie, when taken at face value, could be taken out of context; one guy actually suggested that molecules attached themselves to crystals and *poof*, we had life on Earth — you just can’t splice that kind of stuff!
The movie also did deal with the Hitler-Darwin connection, admitting that not every Darwinist will become a Nazi, but suggesting that Darwinism does lend itself nicely to eugenics and the bloodbath that has been many atheistic regimes throughout the 20th century (see current news on China for more details…). Could the Darwinists counter this claim? I don’t know, but that’s only because they haven’t seriously tried yet except to collectively say “nuh-uh”!
Ultimately though, the movie sets up a dangerous potential for those who follow the status quo. If the movie does well and becomes as recognized as Bowling for Columbine did years ago, it will either force the Darwinists to adapt to a new environment wherein they actually offer a credible rebuttal to ID or, poetically, are cast off into the great waste-bin of historical movements no longer among us. This will include a healthy debate with the scientists who openly challenge the doctrine of Darwinian evolution. It will also mean contending with the large number of scientists, teachers and faculty who, though afraid for their careers now, will down the road get the protection of tenure and management, thus bringing a delayed, but more potent threat to Darwinian group-think. Who’ll win in the end? Well, it’s all about the survival of the fittest, right?
dalton wrote:
It sounds as though the movie raises some questions worth discussing. I can’t comment on the film (not having seen it). I do have a couple of brief comments on the points raise, on their own merits.
“The Darwinists, who are so scared about what this movie could do in the court of public opinion that they even attack a small-fry blogger in Ontario for merely showing interest in this movie…”
Just a note - when you’re talking about “the Darwinists”, who do you mean? If you’re referring to biologists who accept the premise of evolution through natural selection, you’re talking about the overwhelming majority of biologists in the world. I don’t think those biologists have much interest in collectively attacking small fry bloggers in Souther Ontario.
If, on the other hand, you’re talking about blog commenters like me, I certainly have no interest in “attacking” you for “showing an interest in the movie”. I am fascinated by polemicists, ideological propaganda, pseudoscience and critical thought, and I share your interest in this film.
“…have failed to address the question this movie raise on why scientists (those with PhDs and impressive resumes) who discuss Intelligent Design are ostracized.”
Well, by and large, it’s because their science is poor.
There’s a famous cartoon, well known to most scientists, which shows a huge blackboard covered with an incredibly complex equation, with one little box in the middle. A scientist is pointing to the box and saying “And then the miracle happens”. It’s pretty funny: it’s also the perfect description of why ID is dismissed by folks who grasp the difference between faith and science.
“Science is man’s study of nature and being a human construct is prone to faulty theories and conclusions; just as the ancients observed the universe revolving around the Earth, or the enlightenment folks developed sophisticated alchemy charts to explain compounds, so too have many scientists throughout many centuries observed, but come to the wrong conclusions because of their perspectives.”
Yup. And when those conclusions are tested by subsequent generations of scientists and found wanting, they are replaced by more accurate models that have greater predictive value. And those models will be replaced if subsequent models have even greater predictive value.
This is what distinguishes science from other forms of knowledge. Religion requires that the practictioner define reality in terms of an unchanging body of belief: science adjusts the model as more is learned.
“Darwinian scientists are not interested in the continuous defence of their conclusions that has been and should be inherent to the work of science.”
Heh. Most police departments are not interested in investigation Elvis sightings either. With all due respect, ID “scientists” have not mounted a single credible “challenge” to the fundamental premises of evolution by natural selection. If you choose to articulate what you feel is the most credible evidence rebutting that mechanism, I’ll be happy to address your argument. I’ve made that offer several times before, as you know.
“The movie also did deal with the Hitler-Darwin connection, admitting that not every Darwinist will become a Nazi…”
Oh, good. My wife, who holds a post-doctoals degree from McGill in biology, will be delighted to hear that.
“Darwinism does lend itself nicely to eugenics and the bloodbath that has been many atheistic regimes throughout the 20th century (see current news on China for more details…). Could the Darwinists counter this claim?”
That may be one of the stupidest ideological linkages I’ve ever read. (I’m blaming the movie here, not you - assuming you’re accurately describing their statement.
Darwin’s description of natural selection as the mechanism by which evolution occurs appears to be correct. Christianity has been used as a justification for the murder of million. Galileo’s calculation on pendulum motion and parabolas, used for aiming missiles and cannons, appear to be accurate. The application by evil men of an idea tells us absolutely nothing to do with the truth, or the merits of that idea.
“I don’t know, but that’s only because they haven’t seriously tried yet except to collectively say “nuh-uh”!”
If you’d like to rephrase that as an assertion I can respond to, I’ll certainly try.
“This will include a healthy debate with the scientists who openly challenge the doctrine of Darwinian evolution.”
Heh. That debate has been taking place for well over a century, Matthew, and continues to this day. The Darwinians won. The current argument is not scientific; it’s political.
Posted on 20-Apr-08 at 7:15 am | Permalink
igloogirl wrote:
I soooo want to see this movie! Nowhere in Canada you say? Well, isn’t that typical. Guess I’ll have to wait for the DVD. Thank you for writing about it Matthew.
Posted on 20-Apr-08 at 12:15 pm | Permalink
Real Conservative wrote:
I’m always drawn to fringe science for the simple reason that it disses the establishment. When one digs into the fringes of science they quickly learn about the massive lies told to humanity since the beginning. (real conservative)
Posted on 20-Apr-08 at 3:10 pm | Permalink
dalton wrote:
Good point, Real Conservative. It’s truly uncanny how closely the arguments (or rather, the rhetorical strategies) used to support ID resemble those used to support cold fusion, UFOlogists, and perpetual motion theorists, including:
- a grim conviction that the “truth” is being “suppressed” by the scientific “establishment;
- reliance on untestable claims;
- absence of falsifiable hyptheses;
- argument from a conclusion rather than from evidence;
- argument from authority.
Posted on 20-Apr-08 at 8:34 pm | Permalink
anon wrote:
ID is ridiculous and the movie is as well. Kitzmiller vs. Dover said everything that was required.
It is always rather humourous when political bloggers pick up on this as if it’s an issue that can be argued like gun control, or even AGW. The evolution ‘controversy’ is entirely manufactured. It does have a beneficial purpose, however - it clearly illuminates the ignorant among us who assume ideological opinion equates, and competes, with scientific research and methodological reasoning. I’m sorry to say that it also shows us those who have no capacity for independent research.
The case against ID is clear, and clearly documented.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 6:07 am | Permalink
dalton wrote:
“ID is ridiculous and the movie is as well.”
I don’t think ID is “ridiculous”. It’s laughably bad science, but an interesting and intelligent political maneuver.
As for the movie, I am assuming based on Matthew’s post that, like Michael Moore’s films, it’s a polemic masquerading as a documentary. There is an interesting issue to be explore here, for sure - the politics of publication in the scientific community - but given Matthew’s description of what, if accurate, is an utterly, UTTERLY stupid attempt to dispute the scientific merits of evolution by natural selection by suggesting that Nazis used its principles to justify eugenics, I suspect that I’m not going to find much actual substance. Too bad. But I’ll wait to see.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 6:42 am | Permalink
Ken wrote:
I didn’t see the interview with Dawkins, but he says in The God Delusion that he doesn’t know how everything started (or your A*). However, if you were to substitute in some type of god into that gap, you just have a recursive problem of where did this complicated god that can create everything but itself come from. It then surely needed a creater.
“The movie also did deal with the Hitler-Darwin connection, admitting that not every Darwinist will become a Nazi, but suggesting that Darwinism does lend itself nicely to eugenics and the bloodbath that has been many atheistic regimes throughout the 20th century (see current news on China for more details…). Could the Darwinists counter this claim? I don’t know, but that’s only because they haven’t seriously tried yet except to collectively say “nuh-uh”!”
Well for this I think the distinction that Dalton mentioned above needs to be placed in here. If you are talking about the “Darwinists” that are the biologists then I don’t think they even attempt to answer this question as it isn’t relevant. Religion can be a positive for people to believe it, but this does not make it true. If evolution disproves religion and causes people to be atheist, thae result of this says absolutely nothing on whether evolution is true.
For the “Darwinists” that are defending atheism, that’s a different story. Many argue that Hitler wasn’t an atheistic ruler. At the very least he wasn’t doing bad things in the name of atheism. Even if you can find an example of someone doing that, there are examples of people doing bad things in the name of religion. This does not imply anything about the religious population as a whole.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 7:26 am | Permalink
dalton wrote:
It should also be noted that the principle of evolution by natural selection has also been (mis)used to defend capitalism and the operation of free markets.
Again, it must be emphasized that the social uses to which a scientific theory are put say NOTHING about the accuracy or validity of that theory: if this movie suggests otherwise, I’m afraid it’s advancing a seriously flawed and manipulative argument.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 7:44 am | Permalink
Charles Anthony wrote:
Dalton,
Your last observation about the defense of free markets is interesting. I encountered that miyself and it is extremely misguided. Yet, as you say, it is misused all of the time that way.
As a proud defender of free markets and as a person who understands natural selection, I find such defenses to be highly ignorant.
—–
I have read a lot of Ben Stein’s promotional commentary over this movie and I read Dawkins’ account of the interviews. I am less than impressed. As far as I am concerned, Stein is being an idiot.
By the way, I genuinely believe the world is 10,000 years old AND I believe in natural selection. I just do not believe we come from apes.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 10:16 am | Permalink
Ken wrote:
Charles,
That’s good that you don’t believe we come from apes, since that isn’t what natural selection says. We have a mutual ancestor to the current apes that is a lot closer to our ancestors to most other species. Apes are equally evolved as us, they are not some half step that are just left behind.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 11:59 am | Permalink
Charles Anthony wrote:
Sorry, Ken. You are right. You got me on a technicality. I should have said “I believe in micro-evolution but I do not believe in macro-evolution.” instead to be clear.
The reason I said “I do not believe we come from apes.” is because the vast majority of creationists are completely oblivious of the nuances of Darwinism.
Creationists commonly say “The theory of evolution is crazy!! You believe we come from apes!!!” and they dismiss it altogether.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 12:35 pm | Permalink
Shane Edwards wrote:
I’ll only say one thing. I don’t like the “Hitler-eugenics-Darwin” argument because it is as unfair as the “anti-semitism-crusades-Christianity” argument. Just because one whacko (or group of whackos) takes something way beyond what the original authors intended does not mean that the entire set can be painted the same way.
In other words, it is as unfair to compare a Darwinist with a 1940’s Nazi as it is to compare a modern Christian with a 1300’s Crusader (or a 1700’s Inquisitor). Whack jobs do not prove anything.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 12:43 pm | Permalink
dalton wrote:
It’s not just that, Shane. There is NO connection between the Darwinist and the Nazi.
A Darwinist is someone who accepts the nearly inarguable premises that:
a) organisms evolve over multiple generations, and
b) a mutation that gives an organism a competitive reproductive advantage in a specific environment is likely to result in greater reproductive success for that oragnism, and consequently increasing frequency of that genotype.
Capitalists, Nazis, eugenicists and others have used awkward metaphors to distort that fairly simple observation into grand moral statements, none of which are derived from, or even implied by, Darwin.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 1:03 pm | Permalink
Charles Anthony wrote:
Amen to that, Dalton.
Posted on 21-Apr-08 at 5:57 pm | Permalink
Mike wrote:
“as a person who understands natural selection, I find such defenses to be highly ignorant.”
Mostly because for apparently religious reasons, you refuse to read them.
“By the way, I genuinely believe the world is 10,000 years old AND I believe in natural selection. I just do not believe we come from apes.”
Wait, I thought you said you understood natural selection? I guess this explains why you were so unwilling to accept the primate studies in my “Economics and Evolution” post.
Sorry Charles, but if you think that the earth is only 10 000 years old, then you are simply wrong. If you have that basic fact wrong, how can I accept the veracity of anything else you say?
Posted on 23-Apr-08 at 1:14 pm | Permalink
Harebell wrote:
The eugenics/darwin connection is rubbish because mankind was practicing eugenics long before the time of sir Charles. (Sparta being a great example of the kind of dogmatic eugenics the nazis practiced.)
Farmers have known about selective breeding from about the time of the golden crescent at least.
If Charles thinks the earth is only 10K years old then he doesn’t believe in evidence, he believes what bronze age shepherds thought 2K years ago regardless of any evidence.
I’m just hoping I missed the irony in his statement.
Posted on 23-Apr-08 at 2:04 pm | Permalink
CC wrote:
Against my better judgment, I’m going to attempt to engage Mr. Anthony in scientific discourse.
Mr. Anthony writes:
“I genuinely believe the world is 10,000 years old”
Very well, Mr. Anthony, why do you believe that? On what grounds, and based on what scientific evidence? And why 10,000 as opposed to, say, 8,000? Or 12,000? How exactly did you arrive at that particular age and no other? I’m genuinely curious as to how you came to that conclusion.
P.S. You know what this comments section could use? A preview button.
Posted on 23-Apr-08 at 2:26 pm | Permalink
anon wrote:
The Earth is 10000 years old, and the distance from New York to LA is about 20 yards. That’s the order of magnitude you expect us to buy into.
I also love “I *believe* in microevolution but not macroevolution”. Thanks for the insight…I mean it, without comments like this, we wouldn’t know who to ignore when discussing the actual SCIENCE and trying to advance it. I also like the use of the word ‘believe’. Pure gold.
Just say that you don’t understand evolution, it saves everyone the trouble.
Posted on 23-Apr-08 at 3:46 pm | Permalink
Charles Anthony wrote:
Anon-whoever-you-are,
I am not expecting you to believe the Earth is 10,000 years old at all. What makes you think I am???
Furthermore, if you had half of a brain you would be able to tell instantaneously that my belief is not based on science.
—
CanCyn,
I believe the Earth is 10,000 years old because it says so in The Bible. I believe in The Bible for a few reasons:
1) I was taught to believe it
2) it makes me comfortable
3) I have an affinity for the supernatural
Why are you asking to engage me in a scientific discourse? Creationism is not science. Most intelligent people know that.
—-
HareBell,
I mean no irony in my statement. I have no problem accepting evolution has occurred in the last few thousand years. Since I choose to believe that the Earth is only 10,000 years old, that rules out large scale evolution.
—-
Mike,
Concerning the defense of free markets, what are you saying I refuse to read???
I will link to your Economics and Evolution post for everybody to judge for themselves the silliness of how you tried to use evolution to justify free markets, something referrenced by Dalton up above.
Using evolution to support the moral superiority of free markets is pretty dumb.
For those who want the Coles’ Notes version of that dumb thesis to which Mike is alluding, here it is:
1) evolution is complicated and it works
2) free markets are complicated and they work too
2) evolution is true!
3) ergo, free markets are the cat’s ass!
The foundation of that theory really is that simple-minded. Read it yourself.
It is made unnecessarily complicated because the author goes into extensive detail describing how evolution and free markets are complicated for the novice reader. If you are familiar with them already, it is a bore.
Nevertheless, if you attempt to sift through all of the chaff in that thesis, please ask yourself the following: “Wait a minute here…. what would happen to this thesis if we substituted command economies in place of free markets?” and see what you get. I tell you right now: the whole basis of that ridiculous thesis can be used to defend ANY market system, not just free markets. Next, ask yourself “What would happen to this thesis if we substituted laboratory controlled biological systems in place of naturally occurring ecosystems?” Answer: again, the foundation of that thesis can be used to defend non-evolution too.
By the way, Mike, I am not asking YOU nor anybody else to believe the veracity of anything I say. I have no interest in convincing you of the science of evolution nor of the supernatural belief of creationism. I just object to unfounded and dishonest attacks against Richard Dawkins’ writing which, I hope we can agree, is an apt description of Ben Stein’s movie.
Posted on 23-Apr-08 at 7:40 pm | Permalink
Marginalized Action Dinosaur » Intelligent design possible only without God, wrote:
[…] http://www.thepolitic.com/arch.....-the-wise/ […]
Posted on 27-Apr-08 at 7:37 am | Permalink
Brian wrote:
I would like to make a small point of clarification here. Evolution is a FACT. No one with any brains at all argues against this. What IS in dispute is the mechanism(s) that cause evolution. Also, I feel confident that those who disagree that man and apes share a common ancestor feel this way because they don’t like the idea. I don’t see anyone offering any proof why this should not be true, they just don’t LIKE the idea. They seem to think they are “more special” than that. If you study anatomy of humans and apes, even something as simple as our teeth, you will see that we are much more closely related than any other similar species. DNA similarities are even closer, but most people don’t have the technical background to understand that. The Earth is 10,000 years old ? Good grief. Pick up an astronomy textbook and read it. Pick up a book about plate tectonics and read that. As for the Expelled movie, it has been Exposed as a piece of crap. People aren’t being fired for teaching ID, whereas people ARE being fired from jobs at religious enterprises for being gay, or for living common-law, etc. The sooner we can get some knowledge of real science into humanity as a whole (specifically NOT the ID junk) the sooner the human race will progress past the poisoned effect of bronze age thinking and myths.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 6:08 am | Permalink
Charles Anthony wrote:
I guess you do not believe in the supernatural.
Pick up your daily newspaper and turn to the back. Not that I advocate any of it but a brief skim through the astrology section and the adverts for tarot readings should alert you to the fact that a lot more people are quite comfortable rejecting science than you may want to admit.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 8:34 am | Permalink
Pauli Ojala wrote:
Ben(jamin) Stein is under heavy artillery for ‘exaggerating’ or ‘going easy’ on the influence of evolutionism behind Nazism and Stalinism (super evolution of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Russia). But the monstrous Haeckelian type of vulgar evolutionism drove not only the ‘Politics-is-applied-biology’ Nazi takeover in the continental Europe, but even the nationalistic collision at the World War I. It was Charles Darwin himself, who praised and raised the monstrous German Ernst Haeckel with his still recycled embryo drawing frauds etc. in the spotlight as the greatest authority in the field of human evolution, even in the preface to his Descent of man in 1871. If Thomas Henry Huxley with his concept of ‘agnostism’ was Darwins bulldog in England, Haeckel was his Rotweiler in Germany.
‘Kampf’ was a direct translation of ’struggle’ from On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859). Seinen Kampf. His application.
Catch 22: Haeckel’s 140 years old fake embryo drawings have been mindlessly recycled for the ‘public understanding of science’ (PUS) in most biology text books until this millennium. Despite factum est that Haeckel’s crackpot raging Recapitulation/Biogenetic Law and functioning gill slits of human embryos have been at the ethical tangent race hygiene/eugenics/genocide, infanticide, and Freudian psychoanalysis (subconscious atavisms). Dawkins is the Oxford professor for PUS - and should gather the courage of Stephen Jay Gould who could feel ashamed about it.
Some edited quotes from my conference posters and articles defended and published in the field of bioethics and history of biology (and underline/edit them a ‘bit’):
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojal.....ethics.pdf
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojal.....y_ABC5.pdf
The marriage laws were once erected not only in the Nazi Germany but also in the multicultural states of America upon the speculation that the mulatto was a relatively sterile and shortlived hybrid. The absence of blood transfusion between “white” and “colored races” was self evident (Hailer 1963, p. 52).
The first law on sterilization in US had been established in 1907 in Indiana, and 23 similar laws had been passed in 15 States and sterilization was practiced in 124 institutions in 1921 (Mattila 1996; Hietala 1985 p. 133; these were the times of IQ-tests under Gould’s scrutiny in his Mismeasure of Man 1981). By 1931 thirty states had passed sterization laws in the US (Reilly 1991, p. 87). Typically, the operations hit blacks the most in the US, poor women in the Europe, and often the victims were never even told they had been sterilized.
Mendelism outweighed recapitulation (embryos climbing up their evolutionary tree through fish-, amphibian- and reptilian stages), but that merely smoothened the way for the brutal 1930’s biolegislation - that quickly penetrated practically all Western countries. The laws were copied from country to country. The A-B-O blood groups, haemophilia, eye colours etc. were found to be inherited in a Mendelian fashion by 1910. So also the complex traits and social (mis)behaviour such as alcoholism, schizophrenia, manic depression, criminality, rebelliousness, artistic sense, pauperism, racial differences, inherited scholarship (and its converse, feeble-mindedness) were all thought to be determined by one or two genes. Mendelism was “experimental” and quantitative, and its exaggeration outweighed the more cautious biometry operating on smaller variations, not discontinuous leaps. Its advocates boldly claimed that these problems could be done away within a few generations through selection, persisted (although most biologists must have known that defective genes could not be eliminated, even with the most intense forced sterilizations and marriage restrictions due to recessive genes and synergism. Nevertheless, these laws were held until 1970’s and were typically changed only when the abortion legislation were released (1973).
So the American laws were pioneering endeavours. In Europe Denmark passed the first sterilization legislation in Europe (1929). Denmark was followed by Switzerland, Germany that had felt to the hands of Hitler and Gobineu, and other Nordic countries: Norway (1934), Sweden (1935), Finland (1935), and Iceland (1938 ) (Haller 1963, pp 21-57; 135-9; Proctor 1988, p. 97; Reilly 1991, p. 109). Seldom is it mentioned in the popular media, that the first outright race biological institution in the world was not established in Germany but in 1921 in Uppsala, Sweden (Hietala 1985, pp. 109). (I am not aware of the ethymology of the ‘Up’ of the ancient city from Plinius’ Ultima Thule, however.) In 1907 the Society for Racial Hygiene in Germany had changed its name to the Internationale Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene, and in 1910 Swedish Society for Eugenics (Sällskap för Rashygien) had become its first foreign affiliate (Proctor 1988, p. 17). Today, Swedish state church is definitely the most liberal in the face of the world.
Hitler’s formulation of the differences between the human races was affected by the brilliant sky-blue eyed Ernst Haeckel (Gasman 1971, p. xxii), praised and raised by Darwin. At the top of the unilinear progression were usually the “Nordics”, a tall race of blue-eyed blonds. Haeckel’s position on the ‘Judenfrage’ was assimilation and Expelled-command from their university chairs, not yet an open elimination. But was it different only in degree, rather than kind?
In 1917 the immigration of “defective” groups was forbidden even in the United States by a law. In 1921 the European immigration was diminished to 3% based on the 1910 census. Eventually, in the strategical year of 1924 the finest hour of eugenics had come and the fatal law was passed by Congress. It diminished immigration to 2% of the foreign-born from each country based on the 1890 census in order to preserve the “nordic” balance in population, and was hold through World War II until 1965 (Hietala 1985, p. 132).
Richard Lewontin writes:“The leading American idealogue of the innate mental inferiority of the working class was, however, H.H. Goddard, a pioneer of the mental testing movement, the discoverer of the Kallikak family,
and the administrant of IQ-tests to immigrants that found 83 % of the Jews, 80% of the Hungarians, 79% of the Italians, and 87% of the the Russians to be feebleminded.” (1977, p. 13.) Regarding us Finns, Finnish emmigrants put the cross on the box reserved for the “yellow” group (Kemiläinen 1993, p. 1930), until 1965.
Germany was the most scientifically and culturally advanced nation of the world upon opening the riddles at the close of the nineteenth century. And she went Full Monty.
Today, developmental biologists are anticipating legislation of laws that would define the do’s and dont’s. In England, they are fertilizing human embryos for research purposes and pipetting chimera embryos of humans and monkeys, ‘legally’. The legislation should not distract individual researchers from their personal awareness of responsibility. A permissive law merely defines the ethical minimum. The lesson is that a law is no substitute for morals and that dissidents should not be intimidated.
I am suspicious over the burial of the Kampf (Struggle). The idea of competition is innate in the modern society. It is the the opposite view in a 180 degree angle to the Judaeo-Christian ideal of agapee (contra epithumia, eros, filia & storge) (ahava in Hebrew), that I personally cheriss. The latter sees free giving, altruism, benevolence and self sacrificing love as the beginning, motivation, and sustainer of the reality.
pauli.ojala@gmail.com
Biochemist, drop-out (Master of Sciing)
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-ID.htm
Posted on 01-May-08 at 2:13 am | Permalink
dalton wrote:
Pauli, that’s all very interesting. It’s also irrelevant. See point 13. Thanks.
Posted on 01-May-08 at 6:13 am | Permalink
Charles Anthony wrote:
I actually like the Dinoglyphs page. That is new to me. Gives me more faith that the dinosaurs walked the Earth at the same time as humans did.
Posted on 01-May-08 at 9:00 am | Permalink