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Revealed: The Hitler-Darwin Axis
Dr. D. James Kennedy, Senior Pastor at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, presents his epic documentary film on the connection between the H.M.S. Beagle and Treblinka, "Darwin's Deadly Legacy." Starring noted biologist Dr. Ann Coulter, the film argues that “Hitler tried to speed up evolution, to help it along, and millions suffered and died in unspeakable ways because of it.” This was no mechanized pogrom, but the "Darwin-driven Nazi Holocaust":
Ann Coulter is stunned. How is it, she asks, that she could go through 12 years of public school, then college and law school, and still not know that it was Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution that fueled Hitler’s ovens.
...
“To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler,” said Dr. Kennedy, the host of Darwin’s Deadly Legacy. “Hitler tried to speed up evolution, to help it along, and millions suffered and died in unspeakable ways because of it.”
The film's trailer, if you can bear it, is available here.
Update: Dr. D. James Kennedy died last week, and was eulogized by President Bush as "a student of history."
|9.10.07 @ 2:26PM|#
D. (Darwin?) James Kennedy is dead as of last week, if I remember correctly. So far, I have found myself unable to shed tears over this fact.
Jennifer|9.10.07 @ 2:29PM|#
I mourn for the idyllic racism-free world we lost once that dastardly Darwin came along.
Chucklehead|9.10.07 @ 2:29PM|#
So wait, how much do we drink if Hitler is in the title of the thread?
|9.10.07 @ 2:31PM|#
Did I miss the memo stating that Ann Coulter was relevant
again?
So, when is their documentary on the Nationalist Socialist
Libertarian Green Party due out?
iih|9.10.07 @ 2:35PM|#
Is that the same Ann Coulter? Or is Michael making fun of her? Apparently the latter (just checked the link). While Hitler was certainly motivated by a sense of superiority, that does not mean Darwin's evolution has anything to do with it. It is one thing to present a theory and quite another to abuse it for one's cruel intentions.
Fishwithfeet|9.10.07 @ 2:36PM|#
Does this mean that Newton is responsible for all deaths and
injuries resulting from a fall?
The bastard!
|9.10.07 @ 2:36PM|#
This guy seems like a crackpot. But, I think that eugenics and the race theories of the late 19th and 20th Centuries are worthy subject to be discussed. The fact is a lot of very smart and at the time respected people embraced these theories and did so primarly because of the conclusions they made based on Darwinianism. Does that mean that evolution was wrong or that Darwin, who there is no reason to beleive embraced these ideas, is responsible? No way. But, the people who embraced eugenics and race theories were not irrational or insane, Hitler not withstanding. There is a warped logic to it. What is important is how do we develop a coherent ethical theory that holds human life to be of special and unique value with in the context of evolution. Because if man is just another over evolved ape, it can lead to some pretty nasty things.
|9.10.07 @ 2:37PM|#
Darwin specifically renounced the idea that changes and differences in human society can be attributed to natural selection.
|9.10.07 @ 2:37PM|#
Because if there's one thing that biology teaches us, it's that
rational, free-thinking people have an imperative to kill each
other based on nothing more than skin color and slight differences
in skeletal structure.
Are you people blind or something? Dr. Coulter is right about Dr.
Kennedy being right!
|9.10.07 @ 2:38PM|#
It is one thing to present a theory and quite another to
abuse it for one's cruel intentions.
It's the scientist's fault if his/her science is misused. For
prophets it's a different story.
[/cynicism]
|9.10.07 @ 2:38PM|#
Because if man is just another over evolved ape, it can lead
to some pretty nasty things.
Some pretty nasty things have been "led to" by belief in the
Genesis creation story, too.
M.|9.10.07 @ 2:40PM|#
Yeah, and without the Beatles there would be no Charles Manson... Always nice to blame people for how some fucked-up people use their work.
|9.10.07 @ 2:40PM|#
What hitler did (assuming that hitler was partially inspired by
darwins theories) was commit the naturalistic fallacy. Just because
something is, does not mean it out to be that way. So hitler
misuses a perfectly good (and well supported theory) and the theory
gets the blame?
Also, their are lots of evo reasons to be nice to other people (and
not put them in ovens). There are numerous theories about the
importance of altruism. It seems that hitler (and Coulter)
didnt/dont have a clue about evo theory.
dhex|9.10.07 @ 2:45PM|#
man why does luther always lose out on credit for some of
this?
oh yeah KULTUR WAR!!!
fyodor|9.10.07 @ 2:47PM|#
Because if man is just another over evolved ape
How many over evolved apes are there, anyway?
SPD|9.10.07 @ 2:47PM|#
I can't wait for Coulter's next film, "The Inquisition: Christ's Deadly Legacy."
SPD|9.10.07 @ 2:50PM|#
I always evolution as posed by Darwin was about natural selection. The Holocaust was geared towards a most un-natural form of selection.
iih|9.10.07 @ 2:52PM|#
Also, their are lots of evo reasons to be nice to other
people (and not put them in ovens)
One being that the color of our skin is our bodies' way of adapting
to the abundance or lack of sun light, and that everything else is
pretty much the same.
|9.10.07 @ 2:52PM|#
National Review has been writing about this for a long time.
Since scientists have disproven archaic understandings that
undergird their traditionalist, conservative ideology, those
scientists need to be discredited.
Freud, for developing the concept of the subconscious and noting
the universality of sexual drives
Einstein, for relativity
Darwin, for undermining the literal interpretation of the
Bible
Kinsley, for undermining the idea that sexual behavior other than
that approved of by Christian conservatives is common.
iih|9.10.07 @ 2:53PM|#
should read:
One being that the color of our skin is our bodies' way of adapting
to the abundance or lack of sun light, and that everything else
underneath that skin is pretty much the same.
|9.10.07 @ 2:55PM|#
ooh, this can be a fun game we can all play. Kennedy gets us off to a good start with no Darwin, no Hitler. SPD has already taken no Christ, no Inquisition. I'll add no Newton, no space shuttle disasters. Also, no George Washington Carver, no deadly peanut allergies.
fyodor|9.10.07 @ 2:56PM|#
Everyone else's well founded criticisms notwithstanding, what bothers me most about this is the assertion: "To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler," It bothers me because this is a potentially very compelling yet ultimately meaningless way of framing things (even setting aside the question of whether there is any sort of truth to the claim of Darwin's supposed influence on Nazi genocide). It reminds me of when people point to some horrible crime committed by an illegal immigrant and act like that demonstrates how bad illegal immigration is, often by making the indisputable point (clearly even more so than Kennedy's) that if that person hadn't been able to illegally immigrate, said horrible crime would not have been committed. Anyone know a name for this fallacy?
Fluffy|9.10.07 @ 2:56PM|#
Actually, deeply encoded in Kennedy's position is support for
Hitler's belief that the people being exterminated were
inferior.
"Silly Hitler!" Kennedy is saying. "Because he believed Darwin, he
thought if he just killed all the inferior races, mankind would
evolve."
Hitler has nothing to do with Darwin for the simple reason that
Hitler's victims were just as well evolved for mankind's ecological
niche as the SS men were. There was nothing inferior about them at
all, and these murders may as well have been random in genetic or
evolutionary terms. Kennedy obviously thinks that wasn't the
case.
|9.10.07 @ 3:03PM|#
"Because if man is just another over evolved ape, it can lead to
some pretty nasty things."
Apes are generally less war like than man, especially warmongers
like Ann Coulter.
|9.10.07 @ 3:03PM|#
"Freud, for developing the concept of the subconscious and
noting the universality of sexual drives"
Unlike Darwin, Freud completely and totally wrong. No one in
psychology today would seriously call themselves a "Freudian" or
take any of his crackpot ideas seriously in any scientific sense.
Freud lives on the English and Literary Criticism Departments only.
Fraud yes does deserve some credit for starting the field but in
about the same way as medieval doctors who used leaches deserve
credit as the fathers of modern medicine.
"Some pretty nasty things have been "led to" by belief in the
Genesis creation story, too."
By belief do you mean belief in religion or that particular view of
creation? Further, the idea of a God created human race, leads to
the idea that all men are created equal and every man is both
equally flawed and valued in the eyes of God. If we are just
animals who evolved, then what is valuable about the handicapped or
the genetically deficient? When a tiger is born albino, it dies of
starvation because it can't hunt in the wild. Since its mutation
can't compete, it is tossed aside for other mutations that do. That
is what keeps the species alive and thriving. Why should it be any
different for human beings? I think it should be different, but I
am not sure within in the context of evolution I can tell you
why.
|9.10.07 @ 3:04PM|#
An open letter to Ann (you're not that cute) Coulter and the
late Dr. D. James Kennedy:
Sir and Ma'am,
If Darwin didn't exist than Alfred Russell Wallace would have
gotten all the credit, the theory would have been
published at the same time and evolution by natural selection (like
the germ theory of disease, the kinetic
theory of gases, and the universal
theory of gravitation) would still be a true if
incomplete description of reality.
My mother advised me never to argue with fools or drunkards. I'll
follow her advice and sign off now.
Not so V/R
J sub D
iih|9.10.07 @ 3:06PM|#
Apes are generally less war like than man, especially
warmongers like Ann Coulter.
Ann Coulter is a man? Now that explains it all!
Fishwithfeet|9.10.07 @ 3:07PM|#
Um, JasonC, I already addressed the Newton analogy. But I like your George Washington Carver example.
|9.10.07 @ 3:08PM|#
If you thought the Darwinist-inspired Nazi Holocaust of the
1940s was bad, just wait until the quantum-mechanics-inspired
Anti-Robot Pogrom of the 2040s!
Millions of artificially intelligent robots with quantum-computing
brains ... rounded up, loaded onto boxcars, shipped to the
computation camps ... and forced into the dreaded Schroedinger
Ovens, to suffer the agonizing fate of being dead and alive at the
same time!
Hear me, people! Give up the hateful "quantum mechanics" theories
of your so-called "scientists" before it's too late! A future of
horror looms before you!
|9.10.07 @ 3:08PM|#
"Hitler has nothing to do with Darwin for the simple reason that
Hitler's victims were just as well evolved for mankind's ecological
niche as the SS men were."
In fact very advanced in intellect. The Jewish people are very well
accomplished. Need I remind anybody of Einstein?
|9.10.07 @ 3:08PM|#
How many over evolved apes are there, anyway?
Three, humans, yeti and sasquatch. Jeez, Fyodor, where did you go
to school?
|9.10.07 @ 3:10PM|#
Who was it who said that comparing your opponents to Nazis is a
sure sign you've lost the argument?
Also: No Michael Faraday, no electric chair.
|9.10.07 @ 3:13PM|#
You have to remember Hitler was insane, so the facts didn't matter. More imporantly, Hitler didn't start off killing the Jews. The first people the Nazis killed and sterilized were the handicapped and insane. The killing of the Jews and other "lesser races" came later. The Nazis started with the then shockingly uncontroversial idea that the defective should not be allowed to bread and pollute the gene pool. Then they moved to the idea that the defective ought to just be killed so they were no longer a burden to society. Then they expanded the view of "defective" to include anyone who wasn't Aryan. Once you start deciding who is human and who deserves to live, it is a very slipery slope.
No one consequential|9.10.07 @ 3:14PM|#
Who was it who said that comparing your opponents to Nazis is a sure sign you've lost the argument?
Untermensch|9.10.07 @ 3:19PM|#
Does that mean that evolution was wrong or that Darwin, who there is no reason to beleive embraced these ideas, is responsible?
For what it's worth, the union of Darwinism with social ideology
was pretty widespread. I don't know that Darwin himself dwelt on
it, but it is certain that his contemporaries did. In that context
evolution always seemed to have a telos: modern (for the time),
Victorian man. Everything else was lower on the evolutionary
ladder. Some theorists did decouple culture and biology and felt
that paternalistic colonial powers could "help" people skip some of
the rungs and arrive at the top a little sooner. Others, like the
Nazis, thought that it was biological in nature and that you should
sooner talk about teaching a cockroach to do calculus than an
Aborigine to rise out of "savagery." What the Nazis added to social
evolution theories was a particularly nasty sort of concern about
contagion in which subhumans could infect true humans and drag them
back down the evolutionary ladder. Thus, for them, it wasn't enough
to be evolutionarily fitter, you also had to destroy anything that
wasn't the same as you.
Kennedy is right to the extent that Darwinism was used to justify
all sorts of things we now see as wrongheaded or even evil. But
that is meaningless and shows a shallow understanding of historical
causality that does not befit a "student of history." To assert
causality is a big problem: Even without Darwin people were all to
ready to take over other places and wipe out others. It is
absolutely impossible to say that if Darwin had never come along
that the Holocaust would never have happened!
And Darwin certainly couldn't be blamed for the absurd ends to
which some (mis)took his ideas, and more than he can be blamed for
a bad episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that assumed
evolution...
|9.10.07 @ 3:21PM|#
Godwin's law suggests this had to happen sooner or later. Maybe that's what andythebrit was getting at.
|9.10.07 @ 3:21PM|#
"If we are just animals who evolved, then what is valuable about
the handicapped or the genetically deficient?"
I believe it is the evolution of altruistic behavior. We have
survived as a species partly due to a cooperative and helpful
spirit that has protected the whole human species. There are
exceptions ofcourse such as sociopathic individuals, particularly
when these sociopathic individuals achieve positions of power and
start wars, but they are the exception to the rule.
|9.10.07 @ 3:25PM|#
No one in psychology today would seriously call themselves a
"Freudian" or take any of his crackpot ideas seriously in any
scientific sense.
Bull. Shit. That is like saying that no Calculus professor would
call himself a Newtonian. EVERY psychologist is a Freudian.
Freud invented the field. The entirety of psychology amounts to
Freud's contributions, and what has been done to build on Freud's
contributions. There has been criticism - he was an enormous
sexist, for example - and refinements, as in any field that
advances with new discoveries, but just because we don't build the
same way as the Romans does not mean that the Romans have been
discredited as engineers.
fyodor|9.10.07 @ 3:25PM|#
the idea of a God created human race, leads to the idea that
all men are created equal and every man is both equally flawed and
valued in the eyes of God.
Why does it necessarily lead there? Can't it just as easily lead to
the idea that God created some humans to rule over others? Hasn't
it?
Please note, John, that I am not saying you are
saying that. Only that it is downright silly to think that belief
in the Christian concept of God and creation necessarily leads to
better treatment of other people.
Besides, didn't some Pope endorse, or at least accept, Darwinian
evolution? One shouldn't speak of belief in God and Darwinian
evolution as inherently mutually exclusive.
|9.10.07 @ 3:28PM|#
"Kennedy is right to the extent that Darwinism was used to
justify all sorts of things we now see as wrongheaded or even
evil."
The Bible was also used to justify slavery and the killing of
witches.
|9.10.07 @ 3:28PM|#
"Hitler tried to speed up evolution, to help it along, and
millions suffered and died in unspeakable ways because of
it."
Was there no selective breeding prior to Origin?
|9.10.07 @ 3:29PM|#
No Wendy's commercial, no Walter Mondale.
No General Tso, no Chinese takeout.
No MySpace, no Tila Tequila.
No Mickey Mouse Club revival, no Britney Spears or
Christina Aguilera or Justin Timberlake.
|9.10.07 @ 3:32PM|#
By belief do you mean belief in religion or that particular
view of creation?
Both, actually. We need not go into the bloody history of organized
religion, or the defenses of slavery and sexism that have been
based on pointing to Genesis.
Further, the idea of a God created human race, leads to the
idea that all men are created equal and every man is both equally
flawed and valued in the eyes of God. Sometimes, but plainly,
not inevitably. It can equally lead to the belief that infidels
need to be expunged from the face of the earth, and has, with
depressing frequency.
Just as those who profess to follow Darwin include both great
humanitarians and great monsters, so have those who profess belief
in Biblical creation.
It's this certainty that evil can only come from those other
fellers that leads to totalitariansm, John. You need to stop
assuming that your belief system cannot lead to evil, just because
the other guy's can.
If we are just animals who evolved, then what is valuable about
the handicapped or the genetically deficient? They are human,
us. It doesn't require faith in divine creation to value that. We
are not tigers, solitary hunters in competition with every other
tiger. We are a social species whose primary adaptation to survive
in the world is our ability to function as a society, including
looking out for the sick and weak.
|9.10.07 @ 3:32PM|#
"Does this mean that Newton is responsible for all deaths and
injuries resulting from a fall?"
***
That's not my department
Says Werner von Braun
|9.10.07 @ 3:33PM|#
"the idea of a God created human race, leads to the idea that
all men are created equal"
I can see that and I use it as an argument aimed at Christian
racists of whom there are plenty.
Another point though is that Jews seem to imply they are superior
to others by calling themselves "The Chosen People".
|9.10.07 @ 3:33PM|#
"There has been criticism - he was an enormous sexist, for
example - and refinements, as in any field that advances with new
discoveries, but just because we don't build the same way as the
Romans does not mean that the Romans have been discredited as
engineers."
I can use Roman technology and engineering and still build a
building. The arch still works. Name one concrete thing that Feud
beleived that is still considered valid? There is one. All of his
work and clinical conclusions have been discredited.
"He was a charlatan. In 1896 he published three papers on the
ideology of hysteria claiming that he had cured X number of
patients. First it was thirteen and then it was eighteen. And he
had cured them all by presenting them, or rather by obliging them
to remember, that they had been sexually abused as children. In
1897 he lost faith in this theory, but he'd told his colleagues
that this was the way to cure hysteria. So he had a scientific
obligation to tell people about his change of mind. But he didn't.
He didn't even hint at it until 1905, and even then he wasn't
clear. Meanwhile, where were the thirteen patients? Where were the
eighteen patients? You read the Freud - Fleiss letters and you find
that Freud's patients were leaving at the time. By 1897 he didn't
have any patients worth mentioning, and he hadn't cured any of
them, and he knew it perfectly well. Well, if a scientist did that
today, of course he would be stripped of his job. He would be
stripped of his research funds. He would be disgraced for life. But
Freud was so brilliant at controlling his own legend that people
can hear charges like this, and even admit that they're true, and
yet not have their faith in the system of thought affected in any
way"
The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute (1995)
Everything he did has turned out to be completely false. That
doesn't mean that other work in psychology hasn't been valid, it
is. Freud is to modern psychiatry what blood leters are to modern
medicine.
|9.10.07 @ 3:34PM|#
Actually, John, the first people the Nazis killed were unionists
and Communists. They did this going back to the 20s.
Just a little food for thought there.
|9.10.07 @ 3:34PM|#
"Another point though is that Jews seem to imply they are
superior to others by calling themselves "The Chosen
People"."
The Jews only consider themselves to be chosen because of the
convenent God made with Abraham. It has nothing to do with
creation.
|9.10.07 @ 3:35PM|#
joe,
Both you and John overstate your case something terrible, best I
can tell. My uncle, quite frankly a highly regarded psychology
professor (name available via personal email), has nothing but
disparaging things to say about Freud, and I think enough of what
he said has since been shown to be so way off that few
psychologists today would call themselves Freudians. That said, not
everything he said has been discredited, and I don't think anyone
would dispute the universality of sex drives or the effect of
unconscious (Freud's word, not "subconscious") activity in the
brain, joe's two specific point.
|9.10.07 @ 3:36PM|#
A few years ago, my Mom wanted something ordered from Coral Ridge Ministries. So I did it on my computer. Then I started to receive tons of spam from Kennedy. Since they had my address legimitately, I wrote to tell them to take my name off their list. They said they did, but I continued to receive spam. I demanded they remove my adsress. They didn't do it, and denied that they were sending spam. It took a legal letter with the threat of a lawsuit to get them to stop.
|9.10.07 @ 3:37PM|#
"Actually, John, the first people the Nazis killed were
unionists and Communists. They did this going back to the
20s."
They killed them in the streets as part of a program of political
violence and terrorism. What I am talking about is using the state
to kill people in a systematic and organized way. There, the Nazis
started with the sick and the disabled and with sterilization
programs. They didn't just come to power and start killing
millions. They worked up to it and did so partially by terror and
partially by acclimating people to the idea that it was okay to
kill those who were considered lower human beings.
fyodor|9.10.07 @ 3:38PM|#
How many over evolved apes are there, anyway?
Three, humans, yeti and sasquatch. Jeez, Fyodor, where did you go
to school?
Damn you, J sub D, I'm not supposed to laugh at work!!! (Aside from
when the boss makes a joke!!)
|9.10.07 @ 3:38PM|#
John,
Name one concrete thing that Feud beleived that is still
considered valid?
The subconscious exists. People sublimate sexual urges in the face
of social pressure. Those sublimated urges don't go away, but come
up twisted.
Oops, you only wanted one.
Bazil|9.10.07 @ 3:39PM|#
Dr. Ann Coulter
that's really fresh!
Bill Maher said it most appropriately:
"Religion is a mental disorder"
but I think that the mentally disordered find religion
attractive.
We should outlaw science to prevent natural disasters.
|9.10.07 @ 3:39PM|#
Good point Fyodor. I guess my point is that Darwin is a lot more of a legitimate scientist than Freud was and frankly some crackpot linking Freud to this or that ill effect really doesn't bother me too much.
|9.10.07 @ 3:40PM|#
As touched on by a few commenters here, evolutionary theory is a
descriptive account of the way certain aspects of the
world (eg: the developments and changes of organisms over many
generations) work. As a description, it is strongly supported by
evidence.
The theory is silent on normative issues. Questions like
"What should be done?", "What makes something ethically
right or wrong?", or "Are there even such things as ethical
rightness or wrongness?" require discussion outside the parameters
of the theory.
These are huge questions that I couldn't begin to adequately answer
in a single blog post (and maybe will never will adequaely answer
completely). But off the top of my head, i will say this: if there
is such a thing as an objective ethical principle at all, then
ethics should generally be "for" rather than "against" beings with
interests (which as far as we know means humans, and to some extent
other animals). So there is no reason to believe that anything
about the holocaust was morally desireable or acceptable; since its
victims were clearly entities with interests. This argument holds
regardless of whether or not evolution is the mechanism by which
humans came to exist in the first place (as evidence overwhelmingly
indicates that it is).
|9.10.07 @ 3:41PM|#
"Was there no selective breeding prior to Origin?"
The Spartans immediately come to mind.
|9.10.07 @ 3:42PM|#
A person killed in the street in an political power grab is just
as dead as a person killed by the state once that power grab has
been completed.
And let's not pretend that the killing of political opponents was
merely a means to and end. The Nazis killed plenty of Communists
and unionists in the camps, too. Because it's what they
believed.
If you familiarize yourself with the rhetoric and ideology of the
Nazis, perhaps by reading Mein Kampf, you'll find plenty of
dehumanizing ideas about Marxists. Yes, by all means, let's keep in
mind how the dehumanization of classes of people as "parasites" can
lead to the gas chambers.
M. (last time)|9.10.07 @ 3:44PM|#
M said: Say, M., would you please consider getting another
handle? Thanks.
Sure. I'm new here and didn't know there was another one. I'll find
something else.
|9.10.07 @ 3:44PM|#
"not everything he said has been discredited, and I don't think
anyone would dispute the universality of sex drives or the effect
of unconscious (Freud's word, not "subconscious") activity in the
brain"
I think penis envy and the oedipus complex were silly notions, but
I think he was right on in considering religion to be a father
substitute.
|9.10.07 @ 3:45PM|#
fyodor,
The psychologists who define themselves in opposition to
"Freudians" are Freudians, too.
The term has come to define one faction of the field, but the
others are equally dependent on his legacy.
wsdave|9.10.07 @ 3:45PM|#
"One being that the color of our skin is our bodies' way of
adapting to the abundance or lack of sun light, and that everything
else is pretty much the same."
!!!WARNING!!!
BAD TASTE JOKE TO FOLLOW...
Hitler just wanted everyone to be equal. That's why he had them all
thrown into the oven, so they could come out the same color.
ed|9.10.07 @ 3:53PM|#
I've passed by his giant, ostentatious steeple many a time and watched his miserable, evil TV show on Sundays and I'd like to say, "Good riddance, maggot!" but that would be indelicate.
|9.10.07 @ 3:55PM|#
"The Jews only consider themselves to be chosen because of the
convenent God made with Abraham. It has nothing to do with
creation."
But why would God choose them over all others?
Herman Goering|9.10.07 @ 3:55PM|#
Actually, John, the first people the Nazis killed were
unionists and Communists.
Such a good start, too bad the train went so far of the rails and
we moved on to killing innocents
mantooth|9.10.07 @ 3:55PM|#
"the defective should not be allowed to bread and pollute the
gene pool."
Mmmmmm, breaded gene pool...
Untermensch|9.10.07 @ 3:56PM|#
"Kennedy is right to the extent that Darwinism was used to justify all sorts of things we now see as wrongheaded or even evil."
The Bible was also used to justify slavery and the killing of witches.
And I give that argument just as much credence as the one line
(above) you quoted from me, a line I immediately contradicted in
the same post and argued was a stupid way of looking at things.
Talk about taking a line out of context!
|9.10.07 @ 3:56PM|#
It's worth studying how Social Darwinism twisted evolutionary theory. The connection doesn't discredit evolution. Rather, it makes a solid case study of how any philosophy can be corrupted for evil. Some people claim that if we just get the right philosophy, we can sit back and enjoy utopia. Germany spireheaded the Enlightenment and then backslided enough to follow Hitler. This tells us that no matter how tolerant a country becomes, every generation must still guard against evil.
|9.10.07 @ 3:59PM|#
"The psychologists who define themselves in opposition to
"Freudians" are Freudians, too."
Another name for this school of thought is psychoanalysis as
opposed to behavior psycology or humanistic psycology for two other
examples.
Just a thought...|9.10.07 @ 4:00PM|#
"Update: Dr. D. James Kennedy died last week"
good fucking riddance.
Mike Laursen|9.10.07 @ 4:01PM|#
All blog posts are becoming pre-Godwinized. Another sign of the impending Singularity.
|9.10.07 @ 4:04PM|#
"Germany spireheaded the Enlightenment and then backslided
enough to follow Hitler. This tells us that no matter how tolerant
a country becomes, every generation must still guard against
evil."
They were humiliated by the allied powers in the aftermath of World
War I. Hitler scapegated the Jews for all the problems that had
befallen the German people. The humiliated German people accepted
this, it made them feel better about themselves.
|9.10.07 @ 4:04PM|#
Rattlesnake Jake,
Jews were choosen to recieve the Torah. The Torah contains
commandments about when to plant and harvest crops. If people in
other climate zones got and followed the same Torah, they would
probably go hungry. Presumably other nations got different
instructions that are valid for their climates. Think of it as
divine Federalism.
fyodor|9.10.07 @ 4:13PM|#
The psychologists who define themselves in opposition to
"Freudians" are Freudians, too.
The term has come to define one faction of the field, but the
others are equally dependent on his legacy.
I think you're way off on this, joe, but I don't have the hard info
to support that, so I'll leave it there, except to say that my
uncle is anything but a National Review reading conservative, if
that's what you're implying about so-called "anti-Fruedians", and
in fact he's quite to the contrary. I don't know what National
Review has written on the subject, maybe it's consistent with
science and maybe it's not, but you sure don't have to be
conservative to think Freud has been largely discredited.
Nigel Watt|9.10.07 @ 4:15PM|#
I just hope Coulter never tries to show up at Cornell. I don't think we'd be too kind to her.
|9.10.07 @ 4:20PM|#
"Kennedy is right to the extent that Darwinism was used to
justify all sorts of things we now see as wrongheaded or even
evil."
"The Bible was also used to justify slavery and the killing of
witches.
And I give that argument just as much credence as the one line
(above) you quoted from me, a line I immediately contradicted in
the same post and argued was a stupid way of looking at things.
Talk about taking a line out of context!"
I wasn't using that as an argument against anything you said,
Untermensch. I was just quoting from you as a vehicle to apply my
thought to. Sorry if you misunderstood my intentions.
BTW, what does "mensch" mean? I know that "unter" means "under", so
under what?
|9.10.07 @ 4:21PM|#
fyodor,
I think Rattlesnake Jake gets it right at 3:59 PM.
Freud:modern psychology::Abner Doubleday:modern baseball
Or, Freud: modern psychology::Newton:modern physics
Sure, Newton's ideas that classical physics rule everything have
been replaced by Relativity and Quantum physics. Physics isn't the
same today as it was 200 years ago. That doesn't discredit
Newton.
Freud advanced the state of knowledge about the human psyche - so
much so that he can be said to have founded a field. Since then,
the state of knowledge in that field has been advanced still
further.
When ideological conservatives set out to "discredit" Freud, they
aren't just pointing out that the state of psychology has advanced;
they are making the statement that the entire field has been
discredited, as John did with bloodletting. It's an attempt to pull
it out root and branch.
And I didn't mean to imply anything about your uncle, except that
he is using "Freudian" in an inside-baseball sense, different from
how we are using it here.
wsdave|9.10.07 @ 4:21PM|#
jtuf,
"Jews were choosen to recieve the Torah. The Torah contains
commandments about when to plant and harvest crops. If people in
other climate zones got and followed the same Torah, they would
probably go hungry. Presumably other nations got different
instructions that are valid for their climates. Think of it as
divine Federalism."
And yet, all the Jews seem to know how to do is make money: For
doing farming, you really need a Menonite.
Francis|9.10.07 @ 4:27PM|#
The best part is that they not not only try to connect Darwin to Hitler, but they also try to connect him to Marx as well and claim that the Soviet Union was another Darwin-inspired example of social engineering. In reality, the Soviets saw Darwinian biology and genetics as bourgeois nonsense and pushed nonsense like Lysenkoism. Oh, and they also blame evolution for the Columbine shootings. The leaps of logic and fallacious arguments were impressively bad, even for creationists.
|9.10.07 @ 4:31PM|#
BTW, what does "mensch" mean? I know that "unter" means
"under", so under what?
"Man." "Ubermensch" is "superman," and "untermensch" is "underman,"
or more accurately "sub-human."
|9.10.07 @ 4:31PM|#
Most European countries banned Jews from farming until the religious equality came along. I think that contributes to the stereotype.
Untermensch|9.10.07 @ 4:41PM|#
I wasn't using that as an argument against anything you said, Untermensch. I was just quoting from you as a vehicle to apply my thought to. Sorry if you misunderstood my intentions.
BTW, what does "mensch" mean? I know that "unter" means "under", so under what?
No problem. I did misunderstand, but that's the nature of online
discussion. Thanks for the clarification.
Untermensch is a very apropos handle in this discussion: it was the
Nazi's term for "subhuman" (mensch = person/human).
Francis|9.10.07 @ 4:49PM|#
I just found what appears to be a full transcript of the documentary - http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=36656
fyodor|9.10.07 @ 4:53PM|#
Sure, Newton's ideas that classical physics rule everything
have been replaced by Relativity and Quantum physics.
I'm no expert on psychology or physics, but my understanding, based
on what those who do know a lot about these subjects have told me,
is that Newton has not been proven wrong, while Freud has
been. Not on everything, but on a lot.
Again, this is all tangential blather. Show us specific things that
National Review has said that show them to reject science because
it implies things they don't want to know and you've made your
case. Not that I expect you to have a citation for everything you
say, my point is merely that criticizing Freud, in and of itself,
does not demonstrate such a knee-jerk reaction one iota because
most psychologists agree he was wrong on a lot. In addition to my
uncle's dismissive attitude towards Freud (and his implication that
Freud wasn't much of a scientist), I've heard elsewhere that
mainstream psychology accepts some of what Freud said and rejects
much else. I think the various schools you and jake refer to are
actually a little dated.
BTW, I think Frued should have been Time's Man of the Century.
Whatever his current status in his own field, I think he had the
greatest affect on 20th century culture of anyone.
fyodor|9.10.07 @ 5:01PM|#
When ideological conservatives set out to "discredit" Freud,
they aren't just pointing out that the state of psychology has
advanced; they are making the statement that the entire field has
been discredited, as John did with bloodletting. It's an attempt to
pull it out root and branch.
First, an apology cause I didn't read your whole post.
Next, don't worry, I didn't think you were insulting my uncle. I
did think you were associating "anti-Freudians" with conservatism,
perhaps I was wrong. FWIW, my uncle didn't refer only to
"Freudianism" but to Freud himself, whom he ridiculed as if his
discipline has nothing to do with the man. I was actually quite
surprised, to be honest.
Finally, if National Review has said or implied that the entire
field of psychology has been discredited, that's batshit loony. And
I wouldn't put it past them. But saying that Freud has been
discredited and saying that the entire field of psychology has been
are two very, very different things.
|9.10.07 @ 5:05PM|#
fyodor,
I included the phrase "rules everything" for a reason. Newton has
been proven wrong in his belief that his mechanics were universally
applicable.
As for my references, how's this:
First, Marx and Freud - the other two secular and once
seemingly invincible gods of the 20th century - have only recently
died. Some conservatives, myself included, do think it's worth
whacking a little cant and dogma off of Darwin's hide, even if that
leaves what's left stronger and more persuasive. And, where Lind
sees cowardice and corruption, I see people who've been willing to
endure the scorn of people like Lind from the pages of the New York
Times. Let us not forget that Marx and Freud were once established
scientific fact as well. And, moreover, let's see Lind's friends at
Dissent run a negative article about Marx, Freud, or
Darwin.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmFmMjc3NjU3ZDM4NjFjMWFlZGVjMWVmZWExZmQ1ZWU=
|9.10.07 @ 5:30PM|#
But why would God choose them over all others?
He's a big fan of those Hebrew National hotdogs.
|9.10.07 @ 5:34PM|#
No one in psychology today would seriously call themselves a
"Freudian" or take any of his crackpot ideas seriously in any
scientific sense.
John,
Got to agree with Joe here - I have many, many friends that are
psychologists and psychiatrists in the Philadelphia region, and
there is still a lot of credence given to Freud's work.
Psychoanalytics is alive and well. As a matter of fact, my alma
mater UofPENN's psychiatric dept has a relationship with the
Psychoanalytic Institue of Philadelphia whereas they help with
training new psychiatrists. There are, of course, squabbles between
shows of thought, but very, very few folks in that field would
summarily dismiss Psychoanalysis as hogwash.
fyodor|9.10.07 @ 5:45PM|#
joe,
I see nothing anti-scientific in the treatment of Freud in the
passage you quote. From what I understand, Freud has indeed been
largely discredited and at least been taken off his pedastal. Now
to jump from that to the notion that Darwin is about to suffer the
same fate is of course ludicrous. And having skimmed over the whole
piece, I would say my main impression is that his antipathy towards
Lind is pretty goddamn childish. But for whatever its worth, I
would not cite disbelief in Freud's ideas as evidence of hostility
to science, that's all.
As for Newton, that's the point I made some years ago when I was
arguing that Newton had been proven wrong, and my opponent said it
shouldn't be looked at that way at all because within the realms
Newton was aware of, his theories work just fine. Anyway, I'd say
that's very minimal compared to Freud's mistakes. I don't think any
physicist would speak of Newton with the scorn my uncle expressed
for Freud. BTW (again, FWIW), my uncle has written a leading Psych
101
textbook, so I think I'm safe in saying that his views are
fairly consistent with mainstream psychology, not just some
particular "school". And again, I was fairly shocked at the
derision he expressed towards Freud. To me personally, that is. I
have no idea how he treats Freud in the textbook. Maybe that's
something I'll ask him at Thanksgiving....
|9.10.07 @ 6:18PM|#
"...biologist Dr. Ann Coulter...."?
Moynihan is a joke. He cannot even get a basic fact like this
right!
Paul|9.10.07 @ 6:44PM|#
So, help me out here. Kennedy doesn't like Darwin because Hitler used his theory to create a master race? So then Dr. Kennedy believes in evolution. Ie, the Nazi's had something to "speed up"? Color me confused.
|9.10.07 @ 7:21PM|#
I must have misundestood, fyodor. I didn't go looking for a
shoddy takedown of Freud, but for a National Reviewer discussing
his motives.
As for Freud, what tk said.
Untermensch|9.10.07 @ 8:59PM|#
Ferrous Patella, methinks you've missed the "laced with irony"
bit applied to "noted biologist"...
Francis, thanks for the link. Talk about misrepresenting evolution.
They'd scream bloody murder if an evolutionist misrepresented
Christianity as blatantly and baldly as they have evolution.
Philosophy Student and G.E. Mo|9.10.07 @ 9:29PM|#
A bit late, but kcjerith wrote this at 2:40 today:
"What hitler did (assuming that hitler was partially inspired by
darwins theories) was commit the naturalistic fallacy. Just because
something is, does not mean it out to be that way."
This is a pop philosophy conception of the naturalistic fallacy
that confuses it with the is/ought problem. G.E. Moore's original
conception is that a statement about an object's quality can be
wrongly generalized as a statement about that quality. Say that
someone states that "Red is good." "Red" doesn't tell you anything
about what "good" is.
|9.11.07 @ 12:45PM|#
What all of this shows is that people are liable to believe all kinds of stupid shit, regardless of evidence. Trying to debunk creationism is like trying to convince your dog that he should only eat half of a steak.
|9.12.07 @ 12:49AM|#
Did I miss the memo stating that Ann Coulter was relevant
again?
Rimfax wins for best post; all ensuing posts are superfluous
(though one could argue that outside the world of a few dozen
conserva-bloggers and Rushclone talk hosts, she never was)...
|9.15.07 @ 2:15PM|#
Actually Darwin had nothing to do with Hitler's rampages. Hitler believed that history progressed through racial rather than class struggle; the racial community and culture had to be preserved above all else. A proper understanding of Darwinian theory could not have influenced Hitler's thinking, otherwise he may have understood that all the races share a common ancestor. In other words, we are all very much alike. More recent research backs this up: all human beings have something like 99.9% of DNA in common. Stalin's deeds also had nothing to do with Darwin. In fact, Stalin suppressed, jailed, and killed scientists who promoted the Darwinian theory because it contradicted his ideas about genetics: he liked the idea that certain ACQUIRED traits could be passed along to future generations.
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