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."  

Comments

[Jake Boone]

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]

I mourn for the idyllic racism-free world we lost once that dastardly Darwin came along.

[Chucklehead]

So wait, how much do we drink if Hitler is in the title of the thread?

[Rimfax]

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]

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]

Does this mean that Newton is responsible for all deaths and injuries resulting from a fall?

The bastard!

[John]

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.

[joe]

Darwin specifically renounced the idea that changes and differences in human society can be attributed to natural selection.

[Jamie Kelly]

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!

[George Tenet Fangirl]

Guns don't kill people, evolution kills people!

[Rimfax]

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]

[joe]

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.]

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.

[kcjerith]

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]

man why does luther always lose out on credit for some of this?

oh yeah KULTUR WAR!!!

[fyodor]

Because if man is just another over evolved ape

How many over evolved apes are there, anyway?

[SPD]

I can't wait for Coulter's next film, "The Inquisition: Christ's Deadly Legacy."

[Dan T.]

MCM certainly is a fan of picking the low-hanging fruit.

[SPD]

I always evolution as posed by Darwin was about natural selection. The Holocaust was geared towards a most un-natural form of selection.

[iih]

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.

[joe]

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]

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.

[M]

Say, M., would you please consider getting another handle? Thanks.

[JasonC]

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]

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]

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.

[Urkobold™]

THE URKOBOLD BLAMES THE PRIME MOVER UNMOVED.

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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.

[John]

"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.

[J sub D]

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]

Apes are generally less war like than man, especially warmongers like Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter is a man? Now that explains it all!

[Fishwithfeet]

Um, JasonC, I already addressed the Newton analogy. But I like your George Washington Carver example.

[Stevo Darkly, Time Traveler Fr]

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!

[No, NO initiation! Nor]

Fraud yes does deserve some credit

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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?

[J sub D]

How many over evolved apes are there, anyway?

Three, humans, yeti and sasquatch. Jeez, Fyodor, where did you go to school?

[andythebrit]

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.

[John]

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]

Who was it who said that comparing your opponents to Nazis is a sure sign you've lost the argument?

[SPD]

No Roger, no Rerun, no rent.

[Untermensch]

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...

[dbullock]

Godwin's law suggests this had to happen sooner or later. Maybe that's what andythebrit was getting at.

[DADIODADDY]

JsubD
She is too cute, in an S&M Gestapo sort of way

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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.

[iih]

No supreme court, no GWB (and Iraq war?)

[joe]

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]

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.

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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.

[P Brooks]

"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?

[de stijl]

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.

[joe]

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.

[P Brooks]

"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

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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".

[John]

"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.

[joe]

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.

[John]

"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.

[fyodor]

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.

[Happy Jack]

No Cro-Magnon, no stupid commercials.

[Brandybuck]

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.

[John]

"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]

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!!)

[joe]

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]

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.

[John]

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.

[BG]

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).

[capelza]

"Was there no selective breeding prior to Origin?"

The Spartans immediately come to mind.

[joe]

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)]

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.

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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.

[joe]

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]

"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]

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.

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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]

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]

"the defective should not be allowed to bread and pollute the gene pool."

Mmmmmm, breaded gene pool...

[Untermensch]

"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!

[jtuf]

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.

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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...]

"Update: Dr. D. James Kennedy died last week"

good fucking riddance.

[Mike Laursen]

All blog posts are becoming pre-Godwinized. Another sign of the impending Singularity.

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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.

[jtuf]

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]

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]

I just hope Coulter never tries to show up at Cornell. I don't think we'd be too kind to her.

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"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?

[joe]

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]

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]

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.

[NotThatDavid]

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."

[jtuf]

Most European countries banned Jews from farming until the religious equality came along. I think that contributes to the stereotype.

[Untermensch]

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]

I just found what appears to be a full transcript of the documentary - http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=36656

[fyodor]

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]

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.

[joe]

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=

[mediageek]

But why would God choose them over all others?

He's a big fan of those Hebrew National hotdogs.

[tk]

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]

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....

[Ferrous Patella]

"...biologist Dr. Ann Coulter...."?

Moynihan is a joke. He cannot even get a basic fact like this right!

[Paul]

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.

[M]

@ M. (last time) | September 10, 2007, 3:44pm

Thanks. And welcome.

[joe]

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]

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]

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.

[ChrisO]

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.

[Jim Walsh]

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)...

[Jeff_b]

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.