What is the relationship between the theory of evolution and racism?

I’ve gone far enough afield on this subject form the OP–sorry! I’ll either PM you or start a new thread. GKChesterton’s book “The Ball and the Cross” seems relevant, but I’ll post elsewhere. Thanks.

I disagree. I don’t actually think many of these genocidal dictators had the scientific theory of evolution in mind or shaping their values as they pursued their agendas any more than Christian leaders of Europe had biblical teaching in mind as they pursued their agendas. Nothing about WW1 trench warfare has to do with Darwin. The whole concept of Aryanism is not scientific and many of the most brilliant scientists in Germany and Russia were Jews who were persecuted and exiled by these dictators you claim were so sensitive to the science in the air. I’m not buying it any more than I buy the narrative that Christian belief is directly responsible for the brutality of the Crusades.

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I suppose that is why slavery did not exist before Darwin’s publishing his theory in 1859.

Interesting that as far as know, the year of Jubilee was never observed. Anyone with any evidence to the contrary? Of course, that tells you more about man than about God.

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Again, someone twisting something for evil purpose does not make that thing evil. Evolutionary Theory says absolutely nothing about one race being better than another. Evolutionary Theory says nothing about killing anyone being a good thing. It’s simply talking about change over time, with no purpose or superiority implied. You’re adding in any kind of evil intent. It’s just not there.

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I’m not sure about that. If one race is fitter than another, doesn’t that make it superior in evolutionary terms? That seems the implication of the title of Darwin’s book:

Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Note, ‘race’ in this context is another word for ‘varieties’ of animals in general, not specifically humans. But, it applies to humans as well, insofar as humans are also animals.

“Race” has no biological basis. It’s a social construct. There are no different species of humans, there is a single human race.

In the title of Darwin’s book, race was synonymous at the time with species. That is how the word is used in the context of the book.

Humans are a single species or “race” of animal. Darwin was not saying anything about some ancestry of human being superior to another ancestry of human.

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So which is more superior, an octopus or a cow? Evolution doesn’t tell us, does it? Even looking at “beneficial mutations” and “survival of the fittest”, it’s in reference to how that organism handles its current environment. A cow in the ocean wouldn’t do very well. An octopus in a field of grass wouldn’t do very well. Neither animal is superior to the other. The have different niches where they survive well.

And I’ll ditto Christy’s point that there is only one species of human. You have to twist words to get racism from evolutionary theory.

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The idea that humans came in different species predated Darwin, and he actually tried to oppose it with science. He probably did view Europeans as superior, like most Europeans of his time. But let’s not pretend that Darwin invented racism. Race as a societal construct developed in the sixteenth century to serve the interest of colonizing European powers in the New World.

(From a review of a 1991 biography)

During his vision-shaping voyage on the Beagle, he was able to consult an encyclopedia which arranged humankind into 15 separate species, each of a separate origin. (…)

For those who feel that there is more to science than nature, however, Adrian Desmond and James Moore offer a bold new account of what drove Darwin on. His opposition to slavery in principle is well known, as are his appalled reactions to the evidence of its brutality he encountered on his Beagle voyage, such as the use of thumbscrews to punish slaves, or the man who cowered at his harmless gesture, reflexively anticipating a blow. What’s new in Desmond and Moore’s interpretation is the idea that this humanitarian concern motivated Darwin’s science and guided it on its unique course. Evolutionary thinking enabled him to rescue the idea of human unity, taking it over from a religion that no longer provided it with adequate support, and put the idea of common descent on a rational foundation.

Darwin thus emphasised human unity and dwelt upon superficial differences, while acquiescing in the contemporary assumption that some races were superior to others. At the time that Josiah Wedgwood’s “A Man and a Brother” cameos were being fired in his kilns, three great principles were firing up on the other side of the Channel. Each was subsequently at stake in the interlinked questions of slavery and race. Liberty was the simplest. Darwin held to the conviction he grew up with, that human beings must not be bought, sold or owned. Fraternity was the principle that, in Desmond and Moore’s reading, he worked to establish by building a theory of common descent. But equality was a different matter. Equality so often is.

Creationists of various stripes have seized the opportunity to include racism in their indictments of Darwin. From their point of view, it is one more wicked consequence of teaching that people are animals. Considering the comfort slave-owners in the American South drew from scripture, a selective biblical quotation comes to mind: the one about beholding the mote in thy brother’s eye without perceiving the beam in thine own. On the other side, those who argue that some peoples are cleverer than others insist that theirs are scientific claims, to be judged by their content rather than their context, according to facts rather than values. Here modern idiom springs to mind: “Bring it on.”

Desmond and Moore observe that their Darwin is “a man more sympathetic than creationists find acceptable, more morally committed than scientists would allow”. Whether or not his sacred cause was what made him so special, their Darwin is a character that will speak eloquently to many people who have reached their middle years: somebody who strove to work the ideals of his youth into the fabric of a world that exalted some kinds of change, but had turned its face against others.

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His other book “The Descent of Man” is clearer on his views. For example, he has a chapter titled “On the Races of Man” where he discusses the debate whether the races of man are various species or the same species.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2300/2300-h/2300-h.htm#link2HCH0007

CHAPTER VII. — ON THE RACES OF MAN.

The nature and value of specific characters—Application to the races of man—Arguments in favour of, and opposed to, ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species—Sub-species—Monogenists and polygenists—Convergence of character—Numerous points of resemblance in body and mind between the most distinct races of man—The state of man when he first spread over the earth—Each race not descended from a single pair—The extinction of races—The formation of races—The effects of crossing—Slight influence of the direct action of the conditions of life—Slight or no influence of natural selection—Sexual selection.

Also, search for “lower races of man” to see how he thought about human evolutionary progress. E.g.

In the case of corporeal structures, it is the selection of the slightly better-endowed and the elimination of the slightly less well-endowed individuals, and not the preservation of strongly-marked and rare anomalies, that leads to the advancement of a species. (16. ‘Origin of Species’ (fifth edition, 1869), p. 104.) So it will be with the intellectual faculties, since the somewhat abler men in each grade of society succeed rather better than the less able, and consequently increase in number, if not otherwise prevented. When in any nation the standard of intellect and the number of intellectual men have increased, we may expect from the law of the deviation from an average, that prodigies of genius will, as shewn by Mr. Galton, appear somewhat more frequently than before.

or

A most important obstacle in civilised countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class has been strongly insisted on by Mr. Greg and Mr. Galton (19. ‘Fraser’s Magazine,’ Sept. 1868, p. 353. ‘Macmillan’s Magazine,’ Aug. 1865, p. 318. The Rev. F.W. Farrar (‘Fraser’s Magazine,’ Aug. 1870, p. 264) takes a different view.), namely, the fact that the very poor and reckless, who are often degraded by vice, almost invariably marry early, whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, marry late in life, so that they may be able to support themselves and their children in comfort.

It seems pretty clear that Darwin’s views are not too different than the racists and eugenicists of the past and today. I.e. he thinks there are distinct races, some are superior, superior races come about through superior breeding practice, and there is a threat to the superior races from the inferior races if they are not kept in check. Textbook racism as far as I can tell. It also seems pretty clear that he supports his views with his theory of evolution. It is unclear how his theory would eliminate support for his racism.

Do you think Darwin’s theory created racism? That is the question.

I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that Darwin was racist, along with virtually everyone else in educated Europe at the time.

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There is a difference between “breeding” and natural selection. Surely you know that.

It didn’t eliminate racism. It didn’t create racism. Racism is social and cultural in origin. It eliminated support for the idea that different races had different origins, which was an idea used to support racist practices at the time.

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The NT doesn’t condemn slavery. Paul actual counsels a runaway slave to return to his master.

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Not hard at all. Not when you have the infamous Matthew 27:25.

I don’t know. Seems all the fundamental tenets of racism are in the full title of his famous book.

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

In a Judeo-Christian context, or even the Platonic-Aristotelian context of the Western tradition, racism as we know it today is impossible to hold consistently, because the human mind has to have a supernatural origin, and this supernatural element has to be what is in common among all mankind. Plato illustrates this symbolically with his dialogue Meno, where a slave boy is shown to have the power of ‘recollection’, namely the power to grasp abstract forms beyond the physical realm. The implication being that even the slave, lowest of the low in the ‘might makes right’ Hellenistic world which is pretty close to modern social Darwinism, has the supernatural ability that forms the basis of the highest human endeavour: philosophy. Now Aristotle is a step down, since he believes that some are by nature slaves, although he doesn’t seem to attempt to prove this point. But, his teacher Plato preaches the same “Imago Dei” concept that the Judeo-Christian tradition brings to the the world, and which cannot live side by side with philosophical racism.

Darwin, on the other hand, provides a coherent basis for philosophical racism, since all humans are reduced to animals, and some animals are higher than others, and the higher animals (humans) breed and utilize the lower animals. Hence, no reason why higher humans cannot breed and utilize supposedly lower humans, especially if the scientists of the day argue they are subhuman. It also provides a basis for eugenics, since natural selection is supposedly the source of the superior animal race, humans, and thus a Christian ethic that prioritizes the weak will lead to degeneration of the human race.

Now, I understand prejudice predates Darwin. However, Darwin gives it all a firm ideological foundation, which doesn’t really exist within the Judeo-Christian-Platonic-Aristotelian worldview. So, I would argue that Darwin does indeed invent the rigorous philosophical foundations necessary for ideological racism to exist, vs the standard prejudice that has existed since Cain slew Abel.

Let’s get this straight.

Are you in fact suggesting or arguing that the 20th century racism manifest in things like the eugenics movement is something society or societal leaders learned from reading Darwin’s book?

Are you suggesting that when Darwin wrote on the Origin of the Species he introduced “fundamental tenets of racism” that did not exist in society prior to its publication?

Let’s define racism. I typically use the standard definition that it is prejudice against a group deemed different based on ancestry or culture when that prejudice is backed by institutional power. Racism as we know it today, against “non-whites,” is a product of European colonization and power structures instituted in by conquerors in the New World. Before that there was no such thing as Black people and White people. There were civilized people and barbarians. Christian, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and pagans. People had plenty of ways to divide themselves from one another and use power to act on prejudice. But at one point in time, Alexandria was a height of culture and Western Europe was ruled by people deemed barbaric, the issue wasn’t African vs. European descent. If you are claiming that in a Judeo-Christian or Platonic-Aristolelian context, people will not use power to enforce their prejudices out of some respect for “consistency,” that is nonsense. They did and do, regardless of where they think the human mind comes from.

Modern social Darwinism is a failed social theory, not the scientific theory of evolution proposed by Darwin, and you should stop conflating them as if they are one and the same.

Sure for some people. People will use whatever tools available to them to maintain and advance their power. I used to work in a prison with juvenile offenders, many of whom were members of Aryan Nation. All of them found a philosophical basis for their racism in the Bible and their own twisted idea of history, not a single one ever referenced Darwin. It was all Bible verses. Racism is a product of fallen human nature which finds a philosophy, religion, or cultural narrative to serve its ends.

I seriously doubt that Darwin or most evolutionary biologists today think the theory of evolution “reduces humans to animals.” They are part of the animal kingdom, that doesn’t mean they are “just animals” in some philosophical sense. Plus, what in Darwin’s science advocates for some humans breeding and utilizing other humans as “lower animals?” He argued all humans were the same “animal.” His ideas of race were social constructs based on ideas about “civilization” not taxonomic biological categories. And if we are talking about modern evolutionary theory, genetics has shown that there is no biological basis for race, it’s a social construct. So the idea that our modern manifestations of racism are somehow because of “Darwinism” is wrong. Evolutionary biology has repeatedly pointed out that 1) we all have African ancestors, and 2) you can’t tell whether someone is White or Black from their genes.

You do realize that as a social movement, eugenics was entirely discredited and is not considered “scientific.” All you are pointing out is that people can have bad philosophy and try to back their philosophy up with things that sound scientific. You are doing nothing whatsoever to advance the argument that science leads to racism. The racism behind the eugenics movement was there long before they co-opted ideas from evolutionary biology and tried to apply them to social engineering.

Racism predates Darwin, not just prejudice. They didn’t need an ideological foundation, no one was questioning it, not even Christians.

But even a cursory study of the development of post-colonization racial categories and race-based superiority arguments would show that this is not actually historically what happened in society. Racism isn’t dependent on anyone having “rigorous philosophical foundations,” it’s based on having power and needing to protect it.

What you said is really close to what I read in Racisms: From the Crusades to the Twentieth Century by Francisco Bethencourt. Racism develops in the context of political projects (building a colonial society, a modern nation-state, etc.) in which an ethnic group desires power at the expense of other ethnically/culturally distinct groups which are racialized (deemed unassimilable and thus dangerous).

Bethencourt defines racism as discriminatory action based on prejudices relating to ancestry, ethnicity, or supposedly innate qualities, not just the prejudices themselves. It is one thing to have Arabs and Berbers having ethnic prejudices against each other, but it is another thing to have Old Christians expelling and expropriating property from New Christians (converted Jews and Muslims, who supposedly inherited bad blood and thus were not innately loyal Christian subjects) in 15th century Spain. This happened only a few decades before Columbus’s arrival to the Americas but long before Darwinism ever existed!

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Racism is endemic to the Bible including in the person of Jesus: Syro-Phoenician dogs?

Human social evolution has to go down every cul-de-sac and work its way out. The fact of evolution has made us that stupid. Survivors learn from suffering, with guilt. If there is no God then evolution has also created the trajectory from the wonderful, radical, non-coercive, non-violent, all-inclusive, equal outcome good news of the Jewish prophets culminating in the mythical Jesus. A trajectory that has never been at a better point for so many and is increasing.

RIght. Usually this would entail having the societal power or status to act on them without the threat of reprisal.

Is it your assertion that evolution advocates the destruction of the weak by the strong? Science is descriptive. If you have sources where science has been issuing these kinds of prescriptive directives I’d really like to see them.

We’re obviously not mineral or vegetable. Of course we’re animal. Are you then also asserting that evolution advocates mistreatment of animals? Do you have citations?

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