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April 18, 2008
The Final Solution
David Klinghoffer writes about Hitler and the Jews and Darwin here. He notthat the one thing about the new film Expelled out this weekend that will draw perhaps the most fire is its connection of Darwin and the Holocaust. Darwin would have been appalled, but maybe not surprised?
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Comments
Jonah Goldberg comments on Klinghoffer's article:
1. If we're going to play this game, I think the real villain is Malthus, not Darwin. As I've mentioned here before, both Marx and Darwin believed they were merely standing on Malthus' shoulders, at least when it comes to "bad" parts of either.2. But even here I don't think we can blame Malthus — or Darwin — for the evil actions rationalized by their ideas. Herbert Spencer was a dedicated Darwinist too, but he saw in Darwinism proof of the libertarian paradigm (of course, according to liberals, the libertarian is responsible for the Holocaust as opposed to the progressives and socialists who saw Darwin as an excuse to round people up and kill or sterilize them).
3. As Derb rightly notes, we wouldn't blame Einstein for an evil use of nuclear weapons several generations after his death. Indeed, Einstein is in many ways as "blameworthy" as Darwin. Einstein's theory of relativity was greeted by the Western world as scientific corroboration that everything was relative. Paul Dirac, a Cambridge mathematical physicist complained that “relativity came along as a wonderful idea leading to a new domain of thought. It was an escape from the war…Relativity was a topic that everybody felt himself competent to write about in a general philosophical way.” Jose Ortega y Gasset declared that relativity was served as “marvelous proof of the harmonious multiplicity of all possible views.”
Of course, as Bertrand Russell and Julien Benda anticipated the "multiplicity of views" didn't turn out to be all that harmonious. Rather, the idea that there is no capital T truth, only personal or identity-politics tribal truth, led to the bloodiest century. Michael Novak had a great post on this point a long time ago.
4. I do think Darwinism led to Nazism, in a sense. But that's because I see Nazism as one of many responses to modernism. And Darwin, for good and ill, represents the rise of modern science — along with Einstein and others. Nazism and Communism and Progressivism were all impossible without the industrial revolution, Darwinism, relativism, mechanized warfare, mass production, etc. They were reactionary responses to these things. Those responses amounted to an express rejection of the conservative and libertarian vision of society, which is why they were leftwing.
Nazism was reactionary in that it sought to repackage tribal values under the guise of modern concepts. So was Communism. So are all the statist and collectivism isms. The only truly new and radical political revolution is the Lockean one. But, hey, I've got a book on all this stuff.
Posted by: Judy K. Warner | Apr 19, 2008 8:48:00 AM
Klinghoffer: "The major Hitler biographers – Toland, Fest, Kershaw, Bullock -- all agree on Hitler’s debt to Darwinism.
A gentle soul, Darwin himself never advocated genocide. But in The Descent of Man, he predicted that the logic of natural selection made inevitable something like what Hitler attempted against the Jews:
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”"
Kushiner: "Darwin would have been appalled, but maybe not surprised?"
I agree. I don't think Darwin would have been greatly surprised either.
Saw the movie last night. Two rounds of applause(!) in a full theatre.
Of note, several of the atheists interviewed said that their belief in neo-Darwinian evolution played a large role in them becoming atheists.
Two interesting slippery slopes for conjecture:
(1) Darwinism ---> Hitler's Holocaust (& Eugenics, Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood).
(2) Belief in Neo-Darwinian Evolution ---> Belief in Atheism (or agnosticism).
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Apr 19, 2008 9:25:12 AM
For some reason I can't get through on the original Klinghoffer link posted here, though I did find related Klinghoffer pieces on the Discovery Institute web site:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/
and the original direct link should in fact to be to Klinghoffer's article in the National Review Online:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mjg1NDg2ZDM5YTMwMGFiZGNhNTU5M2MwOTQ2NGE1Mjc=
I find it ironic that Klinghoffer's "game" which Goldberg rightly identifies and criticizes here is precisely the one that he practices ad nauseum in his own "Liberal Fascism." For a trenchant critique of the latter from a quite conservative source, see:
http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_28/review.html
A Wikipedia article does a good job in a short compass of setting the Darwin quite in its larger context, instead of using and distorting it out of context as Klinghoffer does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent_of_Man,_and_Selection_in_Relation_to_Sex
The article correctly highlights (in somewhat different language) the dual indebtedness of Darwin and Galton to a contemporary liberal political context of minimal state intervention (i.e. classical liberalism in the sense of J. S. Mill) in domestic policies combined with a benign view of British colonialism and imperialism.
As for Hitler's debt to Darwinism, one must nuance that a good deal more than e.g. Klinghoffer does. In Germany, Darwin was received primarily through the medium of the writings of the renowned biologist Ernst Haeckel, who substantially altered a good deal of its content to correspond to his own neo-Lamarckian views. But Haeckel was hardly the entire story of Darwinism in Germany. It received a very different and equally eccentric twist at the hands of the best-selling scientific popularizer Wilhelm Boelsche, whose ideas were in line with the gradualist views of the socialist leader Eduard Bernstein that social (as well as biological) evolution would eventually lead to elimination of "survival of the fittest" competition in favor of homogenization and peaceful cooperation.
One might also note that Hacekel, like his friend and successor as President of the German Monist League, the Nobel Laureate chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (the latter was the subject of my dissertation research for several years before I wound my way backwards to Aristotle) was a member of the German Pacifist League. The definition of "pacifist" in this case was rather peculiar, as it only ruled out wars of aggression rather than defensive wars, and when WWI occurred both Haeckel and Ostwald were signatories of the notorious manifesto by 93 of Germany's most noted intellectuals defending Germany's invasion of Belgium as part of a completely justified defensive response to an English - French - Russian alliance aimed at dismembering Germany.
On the theological side, James R. Moore documented in his 1979 monograph "The Post-Darwinian Controversies" that many conservative Christian theologians had little difficulty with Darwin's theory during he later 19th century. Much of the theological opposition to Darwin at that time came instead from progressive liberal theologians who held instead to Lamarckian theories of evolution.
In short, for the genealogy of ideas and their historical influences (i.e. "intellectual history" or "the history of ideas"), context is everything. And context is what is sorely lacking, in different ways, in both Klinghoffer and Goldberg. At the risk of boring folks here with details from my own earlier years dissertation research (before it subsequently led from late 19th c. chemistry all the way back to Aristotle), I will provide an example of such larger context.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It is inaccurate and unfair to tag Darwin and his theory with responsibility for racialist theories, which were first fully developed in the 18th c. as an offshoot of Linnaeus' classificatory schemes for flora and fauna. The theory of evolution merely provided certain racialists with a particular means to adorn their pseudo-scientific theories with borrowed scientific peacock's plumage.
There is of course quite a large literature on the subject of Darwinism qua Darwin's original theory and Darwinism qua political and social offshoots from it. Yes, the Nazis were enamored and made use of "survival of the fittest" and nature "red in tooth and claw" (a phrase from Herbert Spencer, not Darwin himself), while studiously ignoring the fact that Darwinism defines "fitness" in relative rather than absolute terms, by adaptive suitability to a given environment environment rather than fixed inheritable traits. Similarly, Marxists seized upon the struggle for survival as a metaphor for class revolution, and evolutionary adaptation as implying that man and the environment are both infinitely malleable (which Darwin certainly did not think -- not knowing of RNA and RNA, he believed that fixed heritable factors were passed on chemically through blood), which led to the disasters of Lysenko's agronomic programs under Stalin. Social Democrats in turn glommed on to the gradualism of Darwinian evolutionary adaptation to support their own theories of a gradual peaceful refinement of society and class. In fact, the Marxist and Socialists notions of evolution drew far more heavily of Lamarckian than Darwinian concepts of evolution. And both the political Left and Right had factions that were enamored of eugenics, and factions that opposed it.
The works of Alfred M. Kelly, and of his mortal academic enemy Daniel Gasman, are good examples of how intellectual history can miscarry. The wildly popular works of Wilhelm Boelsche in early 20th c. Germany are the subject of Kelly's "The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwin in Germany, 1860-1914," an uneven work of mediocre quality. (Gasman published an absolutely vitriolic review of Kelly's book in the "American Historical Review" of the "Your mother is a dyke in army boots" variety, and it was patently unfair of the AHR to have given the rabidly partisan Gasman the opportunity to write the review.) Both Kelly's book, and Gasman's first work, "The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League" were Ph.D. dissertations that managed to get published. (Kelly had a leg up because his father was a noted scholar and university president. Gasman's was quite serendipitous. His dissertation advisor left the U. of Chicago for another school as Gasman was close to completing his dissertation, and my dissertation advisor inherited him by default as the only remaining faculty member in an even remotely related field. My advisor was a specialist in 16th-18th c. alchemy and chemistry with no real knowledge of Gasman's topic. The final version of Gasman's manuscript came into my advisor's hands the same week that an agent from his publisher came to sere him about publishing his latest work. My advisor was impressed with Gasman's manuscript, gave a copy to the agent, and, to employ a bad pun, the rest is history.)
Kelly's work focused too much on a single influential figure (Boelsche) and ignored many countervailing cross-currents to give a very one-sided picture of a rather benign, almost "new age" Social Darwinism. In Germany. Gasman, by contrast, ruthlessly suppressed and dismissed any evidence that contradicted his obsessive theory that the entire Nazi program could be traced to the German Monist League (Deutsches Monistenbund) founded in 1906. E.g., he presented Haeckel as an ardent militarist, although Haeckel was a card-carrying member of the German Pacifist League (see Roger Chickering, "Imperial Germany and a World Without War: The Peace Movement and German Society, 1892-1918"),. He also presented the Monist League as being fundamentally an anti-Semitic organization, despite the fact that a disproportionate percentage of its membership, including its leaders, were Jewish intellectuals (cf. the unpublished Ph.D. dissertation on the Monist League at Yale U. by Niles R. Holt), and the official magazine of the Monist League carried ads and articles denouncing anti-Semitism. To the person who has not read the primary source material, however, Gasman's thesis and evidence would appear absolutely damning. (Over 25 yeas later Gasman published a second work, "Haeckel's Monism and the Birth of Fascist Ideology," that beats the same drum and argues that Haeckel was the intellectual godfather of all Fascism -- never mind that Fascist thought was primarily an Italian creation, that its roots in thinkers such as Maurice Barras in France predated Haeckel's belated and limited involvement in politics, etc.)
It was reading Gasman's book early in my graduate school career that led in part to my original dissertation subject, the Nobel Prize laureate (in chemistry) Wilhelm Ostwald, who succeeded Haeckel as president of the Monistenbund in 1911. Whereas the elderly Haeckel was a symbolic figurehead with little involvement in the working so the Monistenbund, Ostwald was very much "hands on" and provoked splits in it by his determined efforts to re shape it in his own image -- which was politically quite leftist. (Ostwald was popularly known as "der rote Geheimrat" -- "the red professor" and once shared a speaking platform with Germany's leading Marxist, Karl Liebknecht, though Ostwald himself was only a Socialist along the lines of Eduard Bernstein.) It was in reading Ostwald's writings, Holt's dissertation, and scanning hundreds of pages of Monist publications that I discovered how completely Gasman has misrepresented the actual historical picture by ignoring and suppressing evidence that did not fit in with his grand monocausal thesis. ["For every complex problem there is a solution that is neat, simple, and wrong" -- H. L. Mencken] As tiny as it was (perhaps 6,000 members at its peak), the Monistenbund was in fact badly split between liberal and conservative factions, the former based in Vienna and the latter in Munich. (Ostwald was at the University of Leipzig for most of his academic career. One of the more chilling moments of my archival research in Germany during 1989-1990 came in reviewing University ledger books for the granting of master's and doctor's degrees, in which some Nazi official had punctiliously gone through with a stamp and retroactively revoked all the degrees awarded to Jewish students -- a goodly number of whom were Ostwald's.)
Like Haeckel, Ostwald was also a card-carrying pacifist (he gave speeches at international pacifist meetings), though their pacifism was admittedly of a peculiar sort that opposed only "wars of aggression" while justifying "defensive" wars. (Chickering provides the details). Once World War I broke out, both defended Germany as being an innocent victim of aggression by a hostile Anglo-French-Russian alliance determined to deny Germany her rightful leading place in world affairs, and both were among the 93 famous signatories of the notorious manifesto defending Germany's invasion of Belgium. The Monistenbund then took on a decidedly martial tone. A disillusioned Ostwald resigned as president and withdrew from it in 1915 (the aged and sickly Haeckel would die in 1919); greatly in decline, the Bund then fell into the hands of the Munich conservative faction, and more or less died out by 1919, despite a few sporadic flickers thereafter.
To add yet another interesting twist, in 1907 a Christian biologist in Frankfurt am Main named Eberhard Dennert founded an organization called the "Keplerbund" (Kepler League) to actively oppose the overtly atheistic program of the Monistenbund, including Haeckel's championing of Darwinism. [The one and only work on the Keplerbund remains a published German Ph.D. dissertation: Otto Selle, "Antidarwinismus und Biologismus: Naturwissenschaft, Weltanschauung, und Politik Im Werk Eberhard Dennerts (1861-1942)" -- "Antidarwinism and Biologism: Natural Science, World Outlook, and Politics in the Work of Eberhard Dennert (1861-1942)."] Dennert remained its president until 1920, when he stepped down due to age and ill health. And while the Nazis formally suppressed the Keplerbund in 1941 (though it too had become a skeleton by 1933), guess which one -- Ostwald or Dennert -- became an enthusiastic supporter of Adolf Hitler in the late 1920s? Not the leftist Ostwald (who lived to 1932), but the old-line conservative and nationalist Dennert. (One of Ostwald's sons, an engineer, turned turtle on his father's legacy and became an ardent Nazi -- I have photocopies of two extremely rare articles by him from a Nazi magazine celebrating the conquest of the Russian "Untermenschen" and the prospective exploitation of oil resources in the Caucasus for the German war machine.)
In sum, efforts to trace the propagation and influence of idea X from progenitor A to successive propagators B, C, D, etc., are almost never linear and are fraught with perils, as B, C, and D do not simply transmit idea X unaltered, but adapt and alter it, often radically, to suit their own purposes and/or historical circumstances. It is folly when historians (and others) do not endeavor to follow the complex path of an idea through its manifold and often contradictory developments and applications, but rather offer up simplistic sweeping theories as to how idea X produced movement M, with monumental result R, in a neat linear fashion. This applies equally to the theory of Darwinism, the doctrine of papal primacy, the principle of Sola Scriptura, etc. And if we draw simplistic linear connections ourselves, we have little room to complain when our foes likewise do so from e.g. Christian theology to the Spanish Inquisition or the Serb-Croat fratricide in the Balkans. Let us therefore have a care, lest our methods here come back to haunt us.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Apr 19, 2008 8:02:02 PM
A opint well made, James, and I hope well taken.
Posted by: Ethan C. | Apr 19, 2008 8:48:00 PM
The atheistic materialist today cries out that Hitler was an extreme and that they really can live moral lives without believing in the existence of God. The thing about Hitler is he took Darwinism (coupled with Nietzsche's thought) to its logical end: If there is a fittest that must survive then there is an unfit that must be destroyed. Hitler took this to heart and destroyed those he thought inferior to his own superrace. Now there is backpeddling about how Hitler was extreme, but how long until those types of sympathies creep up again. We already see it in the legalization of abortion (i.e. aborting fetuses that are believed to be disabled) and the discussion of euthanasia (esp. with the recent case of Terry Shivo). You cannot ignore the facts that Hitler was influenced by Darwin, and that today's culture is too. This culture may see Hitler as the epitome of evil, but how many more generations until he is seen as the champion of evolutionary survival? That's a scary thought really.
Posted by: Krista | Apr 19, 2008 11:14:35 PM
"As for Hitler's debt to Darwinism, one must nuance that a good deal more than e.g. Klinghoffer does."
Klinghoffer: "The major Hitler biographers – Toland, Fest, Kershaw, Bullock -- all agree on Hitler’s debt to Darwinism."
Not only Klinghoffer, but perhaps the major Hitler biographers of Toland, Fest, Kershaw, and Bullock might have also needed to nuance a great deal more than they did with regards to Hitler's debt to Darwinism. (Although perhaps they did, and Klinghoffer made a reductionistic summation).
-------------
Apostate neo-Darwinist Dr. William Provine, interviewed in Ben Stein's movie "Expelled", wrote the following, ""Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either."
Provine, W.B., Origins Research 16(1), p.9, 1994.
And he also wrote:
". . . belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism." as quoted in "No free will". In Catching up with the Vision, ed. Margaret W Rossiter, Chicago University Press, 1999, p. S123.
For some people, thankfully not all:
Belief in Neo-Darwinian Evolution ---^-^-^---> Belief in Atheism (or agnosticism).
(Where ---^-^-^---> represents a non-linear, rough, bumpy road)
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Apr 20, 2008 12:28:38 AM
I dunno, for this to make sense we have to try applying Darwinism on a social level. Which I think ranges from unreliable to useless. And abuse of a theory by mad dictators has absolutely zero relevance to the question of whether or not its valid.
Really the whole hitler-darwin links comes across as the latest tactic from creationists who just plain don't like what the natural world seems to tell us. Can't you just assume a creator who made the natural laws the way they are such that humanity arose?
Oh, and stretching Relativity to carry implications to social stuff seems iffy also! And it still has some constants - the same laws apply to everyone, we all observe the same speed of light.
Posted by: Stoo | Apr 20, 2008 6:25:00 AM
>>>Oh, and stretching Relativity to carry implications to social stuff seems iffy also! And it still has some constants - the same laws apply to everyone, we all observe the same speed of light.<<<
If you think that purely scientific theories or concepts do not have broader philosophical and social ramifications, then you have not read your history--neither the social history, nor political history, nor the history of science. Before making such mindlessly naive statements (and opening yourself to the megabyte wrath of James Altena), you had best do your homework.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | Apr 20, 2008 7:33:37 AM
"The thing about Hitler is he took Darwinism (coupled with Nietzsche's thought) to its logical end: If there is a fittest that must survive then there is an unfit that must be destroyed."
This is precisely an instance of the reductionism I just addressed -- an Ayn Rand style fallacy of "what is the case ought to be the case," of pretending to deduce moral imperatives from existential factors. The fact that A is more fit than B does not in any way imply that B *must* be destroyed, any more than e.g. the fact that Leontyne Price was a better operatic soprano than Martina Arroyo meant that no recordings of Arroyo should have been made and any existing ones destroyed.
As Darwin himself stated (see the Wikipedia article), despite the evolutionary biological principle of "survival of the fittest" he believed that there was nonetheless an obligation for men to care for, rather than to try to eliminate, weaker members of the human race. Likewise, the language he used about "extermination" of less fit members of the human race was intended by Darwin as a description of a likely gradual process of elimination by natural means, not a social - political imperative for an agenda of positive action. And, of course, the Nazi categories of "Uebermenschen" and "Untermenschen" plagiarized from Nietzsche had no relation to any objective evolutionary biological criteria whatsoever.
None of which is per se a defense of Darwin's own theory or of Darwinisn (as a scientific theory descended and developed from, but not idential to, Darwin's original theory). The point is to criticize fairly, and not to resort to simplistic reductions through sweeping and inaccurate generalizations.
Also relevant to this point --
William Provine was a product of my alma mater, the U. of Chcicago. I well recall a seminar held by the history and philosophy of science sections of those department (I was working on my dissertation in the history of science) about 20 years ago, at which Provine was the guest speaker. About 15-20 people were present. He presented a boiler-plate cliched argument that religion consists only of a "God of the gaps" magical-superstitious explanation of natural phenomena that is in constant retreat before the irrevocable and unstoppable march of scientific knowledge, and that as soon as the biochemistry of brain consciousness is fully mapped out (which he predicted would happen withn 50 years) the last reason for belief in God would be refuted. When he finished, the entire roomful of people -- virtually all of whom fully believed in evolution, and few of whom had any religious beliefs -- proceeded to rip Provine apart mercilessly, dismissing the entire talk as "shallow," "shoddy," "ignorant," "simple-minded," etc. The withering contempt was so palpable one could almost touch it.
Having been in the academic world for many years, I am well aware of its manifold and deep faults. But credit should also be given where it is due. Those present at this seminar (and they were quite typical of academia as a whole) did not allow their personal convictions on the subject to blind them to the fact that Provine was wasting their time and insulting their intelligence with palpable b.s. They expected a well-reasoned argument with supporting evidence, and did not heistate to give Provine a thoroughly deserved roasting for not providing it.
Unfortunately, many of the arguments presented against evolution are of no better quality than that which Provine purported to offer against religion. I have also been at academic conferences on evolution at which the strengths and weakensses of the theory were frankly and openly discussed by evolutionary biologists, historians, and philosophers. Again unfortunately, the attacks on evolution that appear in most literature produced by creationsits or ID proponents seldom represent or address those issues accurately or at anywhere near the same level of nuance and sophistication. (Behe is an honorable exception.) Of course, those evolutionsists who are against religion, such as Provine or Dawkins, do the same thing with theological arguments. The less we should draw, from this is that we should not descend to the level of such opponents and imitate them. Let us show ourselves superior by dealing with their arguemnts and evidence fairly, even if they deal with ours unfairly.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Apr 20, 2008 7:45:17 AM
I can't begin to match Stuart for megabyte wrath, but I thank him for dealing brielfy and effectively with STOO's comment (which I simply chose to ignore) in my stead.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Apr 20, 2008 7:47:45 AM
Stuart:
"If you think that purely scientific theories or concepts do not have broader philosophical and social ramifications, then you have not read your history-"
Special Relativity describes how observers moving at different constant velocities measure time and distance. That's all. General Relativity brings gravity and acceleration in too.
Trying to apply these concepts to society seems... a crazy extrapolation. I'm sure some people have tried, but I don't really get what their justification would be. And, again, whatever nutty conclusions they arrive at doesn't affect whether or not the theories of Relativity work!
Posted by: Stoo | Apr 20, 2008 10:34:10 AM
o "When he finished, the entire roomful of people -- virtually all of whom fully believed in evolution, and few of whom had any religious beliefs -- proceeded to rip Provine apart mercilessly, dismissing the entire talk as "shallow," "shoddy," "ignorant," "simple-minded," etc. The withering contempt was so palpable one could almost touch it.
Those present at this seminar (and they were quite typical of academia as a whole) did not allow their personal convictions on the subject to blind them to the fact that Provine was wasting their time and insulting their intelligence with palpable b.s. They expected a well-reasoned argument with supporting evidence, and did not heistate to give Provine a thoroughly deserved roasting for not providing it."
Thanks for being a first-hand witness to the seminar and for recounting it for the benefit of all. If I read you correctly, let us carefully note that Provine was offering a slightly different argument. His argument was that neo-Darwinian evolution would convincingly refute his strawman caricature of religious belief in due course. For this he was subjected to withering contempt by a room of 15-20.
His thesis was to make an extension of neo-Darwinian evolution and apply it to the realm of religious belief. The extension was thought to be untenable and unwarranted by the 15-20. One, is it not reasonable to assume that there are more than 15-20 people worldwide who do believe in the extension that Provine is positing? Two, it would wonderful to watch/read a debate between neo-Darwinians who believe evolution thoroughly refutes religious belief versus the neo-Darwinians who don't. Three, as regards the withering contempt, the creators of "Expelled" contend that those who don't affirm neo-Darwinism in several/many university departments are subject to not only withering contempt, but blacklisted as well. I.e., if Provine was not a neo-Darwinist and had instead made the case that evolution was ultimately just as faith-based as the Jewish or Christian faith, then he would have endured withering contempt from the 15-20 as well. And perhaps worse.
o "Unfortunately, many of the arguments presented against evolution are of no better quality than that which Provine purported to offer against religion."
It is interesting to note that media poll results show that the majority of Americans do not believe in neo-Darwinian evolution. I believe GL cited this in past posts.
This is probably an old question for neo-Darwinists, but I have forgotten their response: If neo-Darwinism is so obviously true and factual, then there is surely no reason to be afraid of debate and discussion. In fact, why not capitalize on the opportunity to show how more compelling neo-Darwinism is by eagerly engaging in debate and discussion with those who are skeptics of neo-Darwinism? Let the neo-Darwinists convincingly show that the emperor is well-clothed and stunning in his array.
o "I have also been at academic conferences on evolution at which the strengths and weakensses of the theory were frankly and openly discussed by evolutionary biologists, historians, and philosophers."
The creators of "Expelled" would love to see this increase! Yet unfortunately, there are scholars who've been fired, and who have been subsequently unable to find academic work elsewhere because they have discussed the weaknesses of neo-Darwinian theory.
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Apr 20, 2008 11:07:10 AM
Subtitle of Darwin's work "Survival of the Favoured Races" enough said.
The point in the film and in many other works is not a specific detailed inheritance structure of what all influenced the German National Socialists, but that worldviews matter, basic theoretical underpinnings matter, that ideas have consequences.
Posted by: labrialumn | Apr 20, 2008 12:37:49 PM
>>>Trying to apply these concepts to society seems... a crazy extrapolation. <<<
The world is full of crazy extrapolators. Newtonian physics transformed not just the understanding of bodies in motion, but also politics, philosophy and theology--and through those the fabric of society itself. Einstein's theories of relativity overturned the Newtonian universe, establishing in its stead a world in which it was understood that the position of the observer affected his perception of reality. This was taken up by crazy extrapolators who invented deconstructionism. If Newton is in some ways responsible for the rise of modernism, with its overarching metanarrative, then Einstein is in many ways responsible for the rise of post-modernism, with its overarching rejection of all metanarratives.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | Apr 20, 2008 1:48:54 PM
The quote that Truth Unites provides toward the top of this discussion (bolded below) is even more evocative in its fuller context:
"The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who convinced by general reasons believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks incessantly occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp, and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest alies--between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae--between the elephant and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and other mammals. But all these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Prof Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, by Charles Darwin, pp.192-193
Darwin was not just expounding scientific theory; he was applying it to society as he saw it.
Posted by: Blake Walter | Apr 20, 2008 4:24:42 PM
Hi James (and Stuart),
Have you, by any chance, had the opportunity to read The Design Matrix? I highly recommend it - speaking as one who has grown more than a little disillusioned with this debate.
Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Apr 20, 2008 8:18:09 PM
There is a parody on You Tube called Sexpelled (no sexual content)--Ben Stein stands up for academics dismissed for their support of Stork theory.
It's becoming clear in these posts that Isaac Newton is the real inspiration of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and therefore Darwin, Hitler, and, well, everything bad.
No I can sleep peacefully blaming one Englishman for the world's ills. Although I know it's not an original idea.
Neil
Posted by: Neil Gussman | Apr 20, 2008 10:43:48 PM
"Darwin was not just expounding scientific theory; he was applying it to society as he saw it."
Walter Blake merely repeats Krista's fallacy. To repeat: Darwin is not advocating policy here; he is making a prediction. "Can" or even "will" does not automatically translate into "should" or "must." And Mr. Blake omits the further context (already cited) in which Darwin specifically opposed that with which Mr. Blake wishes to impugn him. This also applies (as always) to Labrialumn.
But, again as I already said, there are always people who will ignore context -- historical, social, poltiical, intellectual -- and misrepresent matters to push their own agenda. Neil's post here illustrates the resulting reductio ad absurdum quite well. (How many of those attacking Darwin here have actually read both "Origin of Species" and "Decsent of Man" from cover to cover, or compared the variant editions?)
"Wisdom is justified of her children." Even if Darwin's theory is not wisdom, Darwin (like Einstein on relativity) cannot be blamed for those who wrenched his words and ideas out of their proper context and misused them. Otherwise, on the same rationale, we must agree with the liberals who attack the Scriptures as evil because men have e.g. used Numbers 31 to justify forced conversions, mass slaughter, and other atrocities.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Apr 21, 2008 5:19:52 AM
As usual, Mr. Altena is unable to refrain from mud-slinging (as he has no argument)
Posted by: Sodbuster | Apr 21, 2008 11:22:46 AM
Stuart, as you no doubt know and possibly were implying, post-modernism *is* a metanarrative.
Posted by: Sodbuster | Apr 21, 2008 11:25:31 AM
Hear that, James? And there I was thinking your PhD thesis qualified as an "argument".
Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Apr 21, 2008 12:10:43 PM
>>>Stuart, as you no doubt know and possibly were implying, post-modernism *is* a metanarrative.<<<
When I used to go to Science Fiction conventions (along with sometime participant Sandra Miesel), they had costume parties in which people dressed up as characters in different books and movies. There was one iron-clad rule, used to set the boundaries on allowable skimpiness: "No costume is no costume"
In the same vein, one can say to the Deconstructionists and PoMos, "No metanarratives is still a metanarrative.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | Apr 21, 2008 12:31:15 PM
Klinghoffer: "Critics have misconstrued the point Ben Stein makes in the film. Expelled does not – repeat: DOES NOT -- try “to blame Darwin for the Holocaust,” as the subhead on an attack piece at the Scientific American website puts it.
Instead it shows the indebtedness of Nazism to ideas expressed in Darwin’s writing.
Darwin’s theory of evolution is enmeshed in a worldview, Darwinism, that emerges clearly in The Origin of Species and, more so, in The Descent of Man. Hitler gave to Darwinism his own evil twist. Yet Hitler without Darwin’s influence, however indirect, would not have been the same Hitler we know from history. Without Darwin’s legacy to draw on, Hitler would have been compelled to frame his appeal to the German people in greatly altered terms.
That’s different, it should be obvious, from blaming gentle Charles Darwin for genocide.
Expelled isn’t about Christianity’s legacy as it pertains to Jews. It’s about Darwinist suppression of dissent in American academic life. But when it does widen its focus to take in the broader legacy of Darwin’s ideas, it very reasonably touches on the way Hitler took Darwinism to a conclusion that should not be surprising.
To insist that the movie deliver a complete accounting of all the threads of thought that, woven together, resulted in Nazi mass murder is an expectation that would have made it cumbersome verging on impossible for Expelled to raise the subject it does.
Hitler’s debt to Darwin has long been known to mainstream scholars, from Hannah Arendt down to the latest Hitler biographers..."
From: Expelled does NOT try to "blame Darwin for the Holocaust”
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Apr 21, 2008 12:53:44 PM
Indeed, there's an inherent contradiction in any rationalization that "X is inferior/unfit and thus must be destroyed"; if Natural Selection eventually dooms X, then "doing nothing" ought to work just fine. (Just as a truly confident racist would never pass a law against admitting an inferior minority into graduate school; he'd assume that inability to make admissions standards would render the point moot.)
But real people have little difficulty weaving convenient concepts together to come to their desired results and implement the policies they already want...I think it's fair to say Darwinism's respectability was a gift to ANY point of view undermined by a Christian or Jewish view of creation. Nazism and Soviet Communism were two of those points of view. And I learned last week of a lunatic in Charleston (late 19th century) who was preaching that whites were created, but blacks evolved; had Darwin been a bit earlier in history and Christianity been weaker, his ideas could have given real aid and comfort to exponents of the plantation system.
I am getting the impression that critics find the brief reference to National Socialism in the new movie, to be its "weak point" (perhaps because bring Nazism into any argument is generally thought to be a lowbrow tactic). This is very good news, then; for perhaps it suggests that the rest of the movie is very strong!
Posted by: Joe Long | Apr 21, 2008 1:46:59 PM
"I am getting the impression that critics find the brief reference to National Socialism in the new movie, to be its "weak point"
No. "Weakest" is more accurate. "Most dishonest" is closer.
http://www.expelledexposed.com/
In summary, the so-caled expelled--Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, Caroline Crocker, Robert Marks, Pamela Winnick and Michael Egnor--were not expelled at all.
Winnick, Marks, Sternberg, and Egnor sufferd no change in job status or income. They merely ran into other people who exercised their own first amendment rights to disagree with the self-proclaiemd "martyr" publicly. Welcome to the real world.
Gonzalez was denied tenure--as often occurs to aspiring college professors. Not fired, not demoted. The grounds for denying tenure are fair game for discussion.
Crocker was a temporary hire in the first place, whose contract was not renewed. She was not fired, terminated, demoted or suffered any disciplinary action. Viewing her teaching materials leads to the conclusion she should have been fired, but she was not. Again, she obtianed another temporary teaching position, and even better, real research positions. I look forward to hearing how her research supports intelligent design.
If this collection of individuals is the best that can be offered to support a claim of systematic blacklisting and a grand conspiracy to suppress solid science, Expelled fails to convince. We can safely move onto other, more significant problems relating to science and ingnore the crazy extrapolators and conspriracy theorists.
I recommend re-reading James Altena's post regarding how, as a general rule, academics tolerate well-reasoned arguments for and against evolution and harshly criticize shoddy arguments on any suject, including religion. His description mirrors my own experience in acdemic discussions.
Posted by: JRM | Apr 21, 2008 3:23:59 PM
>>>Gonzalez was denied tenure--as often occurs to aspiring college professors. Not fired, not demoted. The grounds for denying tenure are fair game for discussion.<<<
Actually, Gonzalez was on the was on the tenure fast track, considered by most of his peers to be a shoe-in. He had outstanding publications and an excellent teaching reputation. It was only after his support for intelligent design became open knowledge that his tenure was denied.
And, oh, by the way, while it might not be the same as getting fire, for all intents and purposes, being denied tenure ends one's career at a particular university. Associate professors work on contract, and the contract of a professor denied tenure, for whatever reason, is seldom renewed.
>>>If this collection of individuals is the best that can be offered to support a claim of systematic blacklisting and a grand conspiracy to suppress solid science<<<
Tut, tut! Liberals have been waving the Hollywood blacklist for half a century, with a lot more effect for a lot less reason. After all, most of those blacklisted really were communists, while few of those being denied tenure today are truly creationists.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | Apr 21, 2008 3:58:18 PM
>>> Actually, Gonzalez was on the was on the tenure fast track, considered by most of his peers to be a shoe-in. He had outstanding publications and an excellent teaching reputation. It was only after his support for intelligent design became open knowledge that his tenure was denied. <<<
Excerpt: "Gonzalez, who will be out of his job at ISU after the 2007-2008 year if the decision is not changed, was rejected by officials despite his publication of 68 peer-reviewed scientific articles, nearly four times what his own department suggests as a standard for "excellence."
His articles also have the highest normalized citation count among all of the astronomers in his department, a standard used to evaluate the work of professors.
Dr. Gonzalez: "It is now clear to me that this decision, in effect, had been predetermined by August 2005, when Hector Avalos and other ISU professors began circulating a petition statement condemning Intelligent Design. At the same time, several of the same ISU faculty spread misinformation about me and the nature of my Intelligent Design research in the local press. These events poisoned the atmosphere among the faculty and administration on campus towards Intelligent Design, and, ultimately, impacted negatively on my tenure evaluation. It is unfortunate that the personal religious and ideological beliefs of some faculty have been so influential on this issue," he said.
The day after ISU's president announced his rejection of Gonzalez's first appeal, a member of ISU's department of physics and astronomy published an article in the Des Moines Register openly admitting that Gonzalez's support for intelligent design was the only reason he voted against tenure for Gonzalez.
Gonzalez has said he does not teach intelligent design at the school."
From: Professor: 'Religion' behind tenure dispute
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Apr 21, 2008 4:22:58 PM
There is a parody on Youtube called Richard Dawkins Rap - Beware the Believers!
I sleep better at night knowing Richard Dawkins's frank honesty regarding neo-Darwinism where he makes clear that neo-Darwinism, properly understood, virtually compels atheism and leaves no room for religion, and, further, that this neo-Darwinist "truth" is being fudged, minimized, or glossed over by people in the evolution defense lobby.
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Apr 21, 2008 5:37:04 PM
The funniest thing about that Richard Dawkins rap? How long it took "Dicky D" to figure out that it was making fun of him! Reading the YouTube comments is amazing, too.
Posted by: Ethan C. | Apr 21, 2008 7:03:35 PM
Of course, Dawkins has already been given the full South Park treatment, so anything Ben Stein does to him must seem benevolent in comparison.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | Apr 21, 2008 8:05:51 PM
I hope to offer a further substantive comment by late Wednesday evening, dependent in part upon obtaining copies of two books I am seeking.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Apr 21, 2008 8:54:47 PM
"I hope to offer a further substantive comment by late Wednesday evening, dependent in part upon obtaining copies of two books I am seeking."
Perhaps you might also have time to watch the movie too. And offer us substantive comment on "Expelled" as well.
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Apr 21, 2008 10:37:47 PM
Academics skeptical about neo-Darwinism seem to share the same fate as academics skeptical about global warming:
"International scientists, climate experts and policymakers at the event listened to lectures and panel discussions exposing the fraud of the global warming “truth,” perused studies and reports showing stark division in the scientific community over global warming, and swapped stories about how they’d been “denied tenure, shut out of scientific conferences and rejected by academic journals because no matter how scrupulous their research,” their conclusions contradicted the truth espoused by the climate change pharisees (National Post, March 10). Many attendees spoke of colleagues too afraid to attend the conference for fear of losing their jobs."
Excerpted from: A Really Inconvenient Truth
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Apr 22, 2008 12:32:28 AM
Seems like some folks here are willing to write off, upfront, the work of anyone associated with I.D. or the Discovery Institute just by nature of that association. I do think that there are some problems with the movement, but that doesn't negate the fact that they are saying some important things, things that Darwinists, neo-Darwinists, and their fellow-travellers either ignore or don't want heard.
For those who think that Darwinian ideas and all ideas derived from them are harmless, I'd recommend you read John West's book Darwin Day in America.
Posted by: Is This Your Homework, Larry? | Apr 22, 2008 6:23:35 AM
Larry?,
I think that the antipathy here for ID flows from a rejection of the notion that its proponents have produced any real science to back up their theories. I, for one, believe that ID proponents have some *potentially* valid theories, but science is more than developing theories. It also involves developing means to test those theories. That is where the ID theorist have failed.
My position is that ID theory is relatively new and it may still have time to develop means of testing the theories it has made to date and making any modifications needed to the theories as a result. Until they do, however, criticism of their failure to do so will carry a lot of weight, even with devout Christians who believe in the Creation. The fault, therefore, lies not with the posters here who criticize ID but with the ID proponents themselves for not doing the hard work to test their theories.
Posted by: GL | Apr 22, 2008 9:49:33 AM
That makes sense, GL. But I think that some of the good work that the D.I. is doing in the areas of philosophy of science and the history of ideas is being disregarded because of the perceived weakness in their straight scientific endeavors.
As a matter of fact, I'd prefer to see the D.I. back off a bit on the "hard" science stuff and spend more time on philosophical and cultural critique. I think that so far has shown to be where their strength is.
There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Darwinian claims. It does not serve well the cause of truth to dismiss the work of certain skeptics simply because of their association with the D.I. or with ID. What I'm beginning to discern among some Christians is exactly that tendency, which is troubling.
Posted by: Is This Your Homework, Larry? | Apr 22, 2008 10:17:06 AM
"But evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and possibly the most famous atheist in the world, was not taking any chances. He gave a PowerPoint presentation driving home that religion does not meet any of the standards of basic scientific inquiry, before casually flicking away a few of His last crutches. Doesn’t God provide people some solace? asked an audience member. “Isn’t that a little childish?” Dawkins replied. “Just because something is comforting doesn’t mean it’s true.” Then someone asked about death, and Dawkins quoted Mark Twain: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born.”
The room erupted in loud applause. God had definitely left the building—if he were ever here at all. Dawkins and his colleagues had helped to produce a kind of atheist big bang, a new beginning. But what kind of new structures might evolve? ...
So some atheists are taking seriously the idea that atheism needs to stand for things, like evolution and ethics, not just against things, like God. ...
Additionally, many atheists see the challenge of tearing down the pillars of organized religion as far from over—just check the numbers of Americans who don’t believe in evolution, they say. ...
Even Richard Dawkins is not one to reject certain memes based on their churchly pedigree. He calls himself a “cultural Christian,” admitting that he likes to sing Christmas carols as much as the next guy. But there’s a limit to his tolerance of religion. He can see the tactical virtues of making temporary alliances with religion—to “hold hands with religious people” when it comes to making the case for important causes like teaching evolution in the classroom. But there are definite limits. “In the larger war against supernaturalism, frankly, it doesn’t help to fraternize with the enemy,” he says."
Excerpted from: If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?
"He can see the tactical virtues of making temporary alliances with religion—to “hold hands with religious people” when it comes to making the case for important causes like teaching evolution in the classroom."
As a matter of tactics, Dawkins is saying that atheistic neo-Darwinists should hold hands with theistic evolutionists.
Who wants to hold hands with rap master "Dicky D"?
Not me.
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Apr 22, 2008 11:56:00 AM
James A (belatedly):
(Behe is an honorable exception.)
Not the only exception IMHO (for example, the agnostic David Berlinski writes beautifully on related topics) but honorable indeed!
Posted by: bonobo | Apr 23, 2008 8:45:39 PM
I found and read my books, and took my notes, but due to a prior obligation my promised post for here (now significantly longer than orignally expected) will be delayed until at least Sunday.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Apr 24, 2008 4:25:38 AM
"...will be delayed until at least Sunday."
Eagerly awaited. Thank you.
Posted by: JRM | Apr 24, 2008 2:56:40 PM
"...will be delayed until at least Sunday."
Eagerly awaited. Thank you.
Posted by: JRM | Apr 24, 2008 2:56:42 PM
Unfortunately (for those interested, such as JRM), an exceptional number of personal commitments is delaying completion of my promised post here for at least another week. Herewith the first part, a bibliography of the major monographic literature. (When two dates are given, they indicate the original and most recent revised edition of that work)
Convenient anthologies of excerpts are:
- Robert Jastrow, ed., The Essential Darwin (1984)
- Philip Appleman, Darwin: Texts, Commentary (2001)
On Darwin as a philosopher (as distinct from a scientist), see:
- Jonathan Hodge and Gregory Radick, eds., the Cambridge Companion to Darwin (2003)
The longstanding doyen of Darwin studies in the English-speaking world is the prolific English scholar Peter J. Bowler. His relevant monographs (he has also written on other topics) include:
- Charles Darwin: the Man and his Influence (1990) [the standard biography]
- Biology and Social Thought, 1850-1914 (1993)
[Includes major sections on Anglican and English RC responses to Darwin, and is obviously the basis for Elder’s book mentioned below.]
- The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades around 1900 (1983, 1992)
[A landmark study which showed that despite its great influence, Darwin’s theory did not fully secure its current regnant status in biology until the “neo-Darwinian synthesis” accomplished by J. S. Haldane and his allies in the 1930s.]
- Evolution: the History of an Idea (1984, 2003) [*the* starting place for anyone interested in the topic]
- Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth (1988) [debunks many untruths about Darwinism and its scientific rivals]
- Life’s Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Life’s Ancestry 1860-1940 (1996)
- Reconciling Science and Religion: the Debate in Early 20th-century Britain (2001)
- Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate 1844-1944 (1986)
- Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design (2007)
[I just had time to glance at this last work briefly. It’s what I’d call an “academic potboiler,” something tossed off quickly to get sales in a hot topical market. Bowler describes himself here and in previous works as “a hard nosed sceptic” concerning religion, and does not hide his disdain for ID, but he also makes clear his strong objections to the Dawkins/Dennert axis of aggressive atheism. Instead, he argues that history shows the possibility of a real accommodation between science and religion – though his concept of religion tilts toward liberal revisionist theology. He expresses favorable opinions of Michael Ruse and, more surprisingly, research into the so-called “anthropic principle” as pursued by e.g. John Polkinghorne.]
Some other works of interest, with particular relevance to Darwin, Darwinism, and religion, are:
- Edward Caudill, Darwinian Myths: The Legends and Misuses of a Theory (1997)
- Adrian Desmond, James Moore, and Janet Browne, Charles Darwin (2007) [A recent biography, commended by no less that Peter Bowler for its emphasis on Darwin’s social context]
- Gregory P. Elder, Chronic Vigor: Darwin, Anglicans, Catholics, and the Development of a Doctrine of Providential Evolution (1996)
- Neal C. Gillespie, Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation (1979)
- Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (1967) [A contrarian classic, heavily criticized by many Darwin scholars but very thought provoking]
- David L Hull, Darwin and his Critics: the Reception of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community (1973, 1983)
- Walter J. Ong, ed., Darwin’s Vision and Christian Perspectives (1960)
[Fr. Ong S.J. was a fine scholar, whose treatise on the Huguenot philosopher Petrus Ramus is fundamental to understanding the 16th c. philosophical revolution that broke away from Aristotle]
- William E. Phipps, Darwin’s Religious Odyssey (2002)
- Michael Ruse, Darwinian Revolution: Nature Red in Tooth and Claw (1979, 1999)
- Paul A. Zimmerman, Darwin, Evolution, and Creation (1959)
Studies that examine biological and social Darwinism in various specific countries include:
- Robert C. Bannister, Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought (1979) [severely critical of Hofstadter]
- Richard Hofstader, Social Darwinism in American Thought (1955)
[This work, by one of the “mandarins” of liberal American academia, established “Social Darwinism” as a category in U.S. intellectual/social history. A conveniently available on-line comment on Hofstadter and his critics is: http://darwiniana.com/2005/12/17/hofstadter-vs-bannister/ ]
- Cynthia E. Russet, Darwin in America: the Intellectual Response 1865-1912 (1976)
- Robert E. Stebbins, French Reactions to Darwin 1859-1882 (1975)
- Richard Weikart, Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein (1999)
- From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (2004)
- Adel A. Ziadat, Western Science in the Arab World: The Impact of Darwinism, 1860-1930 (1866)
Part II will (Deo volente) be an extensive discussion of the introduction to Weikart's "From Darwin to Hitler" with application to the present thread. Weikart published an article heavily excerpted from the book in Touchstone's summer 2004 issue devoted to ID.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Apr 30, 2008 7:56:40 PM
The comments posted by Truth Unites about me [Daniel Gasman] and my writings on Haeckel and Nazism are without foundation. Professor S. William Halperin of the University of Chicago was my dissertation adviser and never left the University until he retired. The authority on Alchemy he refers to is probably Professor Allen Debus who recommended the dissertation for publication. In addition, his summary of my research on Haeckel is based on false information. Boelsche ended his life as a convinced Nazi and published in favor of Nazism as the realization of Monist ideals. Pacifism as defined by Haeckel meant support for the imperialist hegemony of Germany and for its racial supremacy. Barres was deeply influenced by Haeckel's ideas and was in touch with him. The writer seems to have never read any of the Monist journals nor does he appear to be familiar with the organization's history and development.
Posted by: daniel gasman | May 7, 2008 5:09:49 AM
While I'm still working on my follow-up post, a brief note has become necessary here. Gasman's post displays all of his typical inaccurracies and distortions.
First, Gasman can't even read carefully enough to attribute the post to the right person here -- indicative of how he read the Monistenbund literature.
Second, Prof. Debus, my advisor, told me the story of the publication of Gasman's first book personally, so if there is any inaccuracy in it Gasman can blame him. ("Never left the University until he retired" is apparently a circumlocution designed to avoid admitting that Debus would up being his final advisor by default when Halperin departed, and recommended for publication a manuscript on a topic completely outside Debus' field of expertise.)
Third, the statement "The writer seems to have never read any of the Monist journals nor does he appear to be familiar with the organization's history and development" simply ignores my explicit statement as to having read Monist journals ("scanning hundreds of pages"), as well as my entire paragraph discussing Ostwald and the Monistenbund. Once again, this is a typical example of how Gasman treats both historical evidence and argument, and those who challenge what e.g. Prof. Weikart has rightly described as his simplistic monocausal theories.
Fourth, as to the rest, Prof. Weikart and other competent authorities have already dealt sufficiently with Gasman's oversimplifictions, distortions, inacurracies, misrepresentations, etc. His statement here of Haeckel and the complex nature of German pacifism is quite typical, and again ignores my own brief description of the rather peculiar nature of German pacifism as differing from our conceptions of the term. (Again, Chickering gives the proper overview).
Fifth, as Gasman's treament of Kelly's book in his AHR review will demonstrate to anyone who cares to look it up, one cannot expect from Gasman any fair treatment of either evidence or opponents. His standard tactics are denial, dismissal, and bald re-assertion.
Gasman is, in short, simply a much lesser known exemplar of the Daniel Goldhagen school of 20th c. Germany history, with all the attendant faults. There's nothing like riding roughshod over all the complexities of actual history and lopping off whatever doesn't fit with an axe of rigid preconceptions.
Posted by: James A. Altena | May 7, 2008 6:34:29 AM
Why Mr. Altena is determined to deny me my thesis advisor remains a mystery to me. There were three readers of my dissertation: Professors S. William Halperin, William H. McNeill and Allen Debus. Professor Halperin remained always the person that I was primarily in touch with and it was Halperin who approved the final draft of the manuscript. Professor Halperin signed as primary reader and was also at the defense along with McNeill and Debus. Allen Debus did not critique the manuscript at any time during the research period but was at the defense and indicated to me at that time that he supported its acceptance. As for Kelly, he has had about thirty years to respond to the criticisms in my review. I believe that my comments about his book on Boelsche were accurate.
Posted by: daniel gasman | May 7, 2008 8:08:33 AM
Academic food fight! Always so vicious because the stakes are so small!
As for Gassman, me thinks he doth protest too much, without bothering to offer a detailed refutation. "Hey buddy, I've got a doctorate, so shut up", he explained.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 7, 2008 8:18:38 AM
One again, Prof. Gasman addresses none of thee points I made and responds with an evasion. There is nothing further to be said on the score.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Jun 2, 2008 6:59:55 PM
Well, nothing like reviving a moribund discussion thread six weeks later! But, having finally cleared a major off-line obligation from my desk, I'm keeping my promise for my major post here, for the few whom that may interest.
What I wish to do here is to present a potted synopsis of Richard Weikart's "From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany" (New York: MacMillan, 2004). While I have a few reservations or difference in emphasis (duly noted throughout), overall it is an excellent work, and an examination of its argument is illuminating regarding the pitfalls and fallacies to be avoided in discussing evolution, Darwinism, and Social Darwinism. Weikart is no stranger to the pages of Touchstone; he participated in the following roundtable discussion published in the July/August 2004 issue,
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=17-06-060-I
and published an article (adapted from his then forthcoming book) in the same issue,
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=17-06-032-f
and an ID organization is listed in the “Acknowledgments” section of the book as having provided support during its composition.
The following is taken from the “Introduction” and “Conclusion” of Weikart’s book, in which he presents and recapitulates the thesis that he carefully works out in detail in an intervening 200 pages (page numbers are given in parentheses). He begins by properly distancing Darwin himself from racialist theories that latter claimed his ideas as their justification:
“Politically Darwin was a typical English liberal, supporting laissez-faire economics and opposing slavery. Like most of his contemporaries, Darwin considered non-European races inferior to Europeans, but he never embraced Aryan racism or rabid anti-Semitism, central features of Hitler’s political philosophy.” (3)
Weikart then poses the question as to the proper relation, if any, between “Darwinism” – which was and is not simply identical to Darwin’s own theory of evolution – and Nazism:
“So, what are the connections between Darwinism and Hitler and are they really all that significant? . . .Did Hitler hijack Darwinism and hold it hostage to his own malevolent political philosophy, or did he merely climb on board and follow it to its destination? (3)
and correctly notes and balances the arguments of the existing scholarly literature, avoiding extremes that simplistically assert either no substantive relation, or else a direct linear descent that equates Darwinism and Nazism or makes the former solely and/or directly responsible for the latter:
“Most scholars have, in fact, argued for the importance of Darwinism – or at least social Darwinism – in preparing the ground for Nazi ideology and the Holocaust.” (3-4)
However, “The opposing view – that Hitler hijacked Darwinism – has significant supporting arguments, for many scholars have pointed out that Darwinism did not lead to any one particular political philosophy or practice.” [E.g.,] “Eugenics discourse was commonplace all across the political spectrum. . . .Nazism was not predetermined in Darwinism or eugenics, not even in racist forms of eugenics. . . .The multivalence of Darwinism and eugenics ideology, especially when applied to ethical, political, and social thought, together with the multiple roots of Nazi ideology, should make us suspicious of monocausal arguments about the origin of the Nazi worldview.” (4)
However, “Just because Darwinism does not lead inevitably to Nazism does not mean that we can strike Darwinism off the list of influences that helped produce Hitler’s worldview and thus paved the way to the Holocaust.” (4)
Weikart recognizes “the influence of political, social, economic, and other factors in the development of ideologies in general and Nazism in particular – but these topics are outside the scope of this study.” He supports Kevin Repp’s thesis that “the social reform milieu in Wilhelmine Germany . . . contained many different possibilities, some benign, some malevolent. There were multiple paths to modernity and most did not lead in the direction of Nazism.” (5)
Weikart then specifically limits his thesis to considering only one dimension of Nazism, and arguably not the most important one (I – and I am confident most historians of Nazism – would rate both anti-Semitism and the “Fuerhrerprizip” as being far more central to Nazi ideology):
“One’s perspective on how straight or how crooked the path was from Darwinism to Nazism also depends on which aspects of Nazism one is considering, since social Darwinism was only one component – albeit a central one – in Nazi ideology. If one concentrates on anti-Semitism, surely an important part of Hitler’s worldview, then there does not seem to be any direct connection between Darwinism and Nazism. . . .Many other aspects of Hitler’s worldview and political practice, too – dictatorship, for instance – seem to have little to do with Darwinism. However, if we focus more narrowly on the question of ethics, the value of human life, and racism, as I will do in the succeeding pages, the historical connections appear more significant.” (6)
Weikart next correctly notes [in contrast to the historically tone-deaf Daniel Gasman, who Weikart quite properly criticizes – see particularly pp. 216-217] the fallacy of imposing modern political categorizations of certain issues upon other historical periods, citing e.g. Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, “The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945” as having shown that Nazi ideology cannot be simplistically pigeon-holed as “reactionary” or conservative. (6)
Nevertheless, “Darwinian terminology and rhetoric pervaded Hitler’s writings and speeches, and no one to my knowledge has ever questioned the common assertion by scholars that Hitler was a social Darwinist.” (7) While “some historians assert that Hitler’s views were pseudo-scientific or eccentric,” Weikart counters that “many mainstream scientists, professors, and physicians – including those identifying with the political Left – upheld views about Darwinism and eugenics quite similar to Hitler’s.” (8)
At this point Weikart states the main purpose and thesis of his book:
“My study will demonstrate that many of Hitler’s ideas derived ultimately from respectable scientists and scholars who were grappling with the implications of Darwinism for ethics and society (though Hitler probably imbibed them mostly second or third hand). These included not only prominent scientists and physicians, but also professors of philosophy, economics, and geography.” (8)
At this point, Weikart makes an important definitional distinction regarding his thesis:
“When I use the term Darwinism in this study, I mean the theory of evolution through natural selection as advanced by Darwin in ‘The Origin of Species.’ In the late nineteenth century, however, the term Darwinism was often used loosely. Sometimes it meant the idea of biological evolution in general, other times it referred to Darwin’s particular theory of natural selection (as I am using it in this work) and elsewhere it meant an entire naturalistic worldview with biological evolution as its centerpiece.” (8)
Weikart then correctly makes it clear that his presentation of the arguments by German Darwinists is historical, and flatly rejects as “absurd” the idea of any necessary logical connection between Darwinism and Nazism:
“When I draw connections between Darwin, German Darwinists, eugenicists, racial theorists, or militarists, I am not thereby endorsing their logic. I leave it to the reader to decide the logic of their case. Nor am I making the absurd claim that Darwinism of logical necessity leads (directly or indirectly) to Nazism. In philosophical terms, Darwinism was a necessary, but not a sufficient, cause for Nazi ideology.” (9)
Weikart re-emphasizes this point in his conclusion:
“It would be foolish to blame Darwinism for the Holocaust, as though Darwinism leads directly to the Holocaust. No, Darwinism by itself did not produce Hitler’s worldview, and many Darwinists drew quite different conclusions from Darwinism for ethics and social thought than did Hitler. . . .To deny the influence of Darwinism on Hitler would also be foolish, however, especially since almost all scholars of Nazism acknowledge it” (232)
“Darwinism by itself did not produce the Holocaust, but without Darwinism, especially in its social Darwinist and eugenics permutations, neither Hitler nor his Nazi followers would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince themselves and their collaborators that one of the world’s greatest atrocities was really morally praiseworthy. Darwinism – or at least some naturalistic interpretations of Darwinism – succeeded in turning morality on its head.” (233)
Weikart then also limits his study to four specific topics, again sounding a caution again a simplistic labeling (a la Gasman) of these as “proto-Nazi”:
“I will focus primarily on Darwinian influence on eugenics, euthanasia, racial theory, and militarism in Germany. While these were fundamental features of Nazi ideology, I do not think it serves any purpose to label those holding these views as proto-Nazi, as though Nazism inevitably flowed from their views.” (9)
One reason is that similar ideas circulated in the U.S., England, and other democratic countries, and in political and circles in those countries that cannot simplistically be characterized as totalitarian. Weikart quotes Nick Kemp, a historian of euthanasia movements in the U.S., who like Weikart distinguishes between laying personal blame on Darwin for modern secularism and laying blame on the use of his ideas by others to propound secular views:
“While we should be wary of depicting Darwin as the man responsible for ushering in a secular age we should be similarly cautious of underestimating the importance of evolutionary thought in relation to the questioning of the sanctity of life.” (10)
Weikart again reinforces this point in his conclusion:
“Klaus Fischer has rightly stated, ‘Adolf Hitler’s racial image of the world was not simply the product of his own delusion but the result of the findings of “respectable” science in Germany and in other parts of the world, including the United States.’” (232)
[A parenthetical note: Weikart notes the problem in assessing the sources of Hitler’s Darwinist ideas, since available evidence clearly indicates that he never read any works by Darwin, Haeckel, or other leading Darwinist authors – nor even the notorious racialist Houston Stewart Chamberlain – but rather digested a farrago of ill-conceived ideas from second- and third-hand popularized accounts. Weikart’s own conjectured candidate is Julius Lehmann, a rabidly anti-Semitic journalist in Munich in the 1920s with whom Hitler was in close contact, and who regularly published such materials. (221-224)]
Weikart thus clearly, carefully, and progressively narrows his focus to Darwinism as distinct from Darwin; to German Darwinism as distinct from Darwinism in other countries; to only such dimensions of Nazism as were related to Darwinism as distinct from Nazism as a whole; and to Darwinism as a necessary factor in the formation of Nazism as opposed to a sufficient one. He then further narrows his focus to a specific class of Darwinians in the natural and social sciences, whom he terms “naturalistic Darwinists” in contrast to Darwinians in the humanities. Regarding the latter, he observes:
“There were, of course, many of their contemporaries who accepted the validity of evolution for biological purposes, but denied it any influence on theology, ethics, or social thought.” (13)
E.g., Wilhelm Dilthey made his famous distinction between natural and human sciences, while philosopher G. E. Moore identified attempts to derive morality from nature as the “naturalistic fallacy.” However, the situation in the natural sciences and medicine was quite different:
“Indeed, among scientists and physicians the voices of support for a naturalistic Darwinian worldview were far stronger than the voices of opposition. Most of the opposition came from the humanities. It is the naturalistic Darwinists, then, those who tried to apply biological evolution to ethics, rather than those denying its applicability, on whom we focus in this work.” (13)
In the remainder of his introduction, Weikart grapples with the thorny historical issue of the relation between Darwinism and the broader 19th-20th c. movement of naturalism and secularism. Once again, he properly sounds a note of caution against simplistic extremes:
“Are the intellectual developments I portray in this work the product of something specifically Darwinian or do they flow from a more general naturalistic (materialistic or monistic) worldview? This is a difficult question, for the historical connections between Darwinism and naturalism are incredibly complicated.” (13)
On the one hand, “Some historical evidence suggests that Darwinism may not have been all that influential in promoting philosophical naturalism.” (13) Points in favor of this view include:
1) the rise of naturalism prior to Darwin (cf. the work of Buechner, Vogt, and Moleschott);
2) many people embraced Darwinism after embracing naturalism, and not the other way around; 3) many people embraced Darwinism without embracing naturalism. (13-14)
But Weikart then goes on to argue:
“However, while these points demonstrate that there was not a necessary relationship between Darwinism and materialism or monism (one could and did exist in the absence of the other), nevertheless strong connections developed historically between Darwinism and naturalism in late nineteenth century Germany that require some explanation.” (14) Linking factors include:
1) most materialists and monists adopted Darwinism and argued that it supported their views;
2) many people claimed that Darwinism was a key factor in converting them to such views;
3) leading Darwinian biologists and ethical philosophers argued that Darwinism implied psychological determinism and a materialist view of the human mind. (14)
Thus, Weikart continues,
“Even though they may have embraced their metaphysical views before adopting Darwinism, it was convenient to claim scientific sanction for their metaphysics. . . .I suggest that the reception of Darwinism in nineteenth-century thought was both influenced by and an influence on the spread of a naturalistic paradigm. . . .I would assert that without Darwinism, materialism would still have increased during the late nineteenth century, but it would have been far less persuasive and thus would have gained fewer adherents than it actually did.” (14)
A similar chicken-and-egg question exists regarding the respective influences of Darwinism and naturalism on ethical issues, particularly those related to the sanctity of life:
“Which more directly influenced ethical and moral ideas – Darwinism or naturalism?” Once again, “the situation is not all that clear-cut.” (14)
“In what ways, then, did Darwinism impact ethical thought?” Weikart suggests four key points:
1) It “made philosophical materialism and positivism more respectable by providing a non-theistic explanation for the origin of ethics.”
2) It “contributed to the rise of ethical relativism by denying the timeless and transcendent character of ethics.”
3) It gave impetus to the view that the human moral sense is a biological instinct – or at least based on one – rather than a spiritual endowment (the traditional Christian position) or a purely rational function (Kant’s view).”
4) It “altered conceptions of human nature and the value of human life, which had far-reaching ethical (and political and social) implications.” (16)
Weikart sees Darwinism as having crucial implications for the fourth point in three ways:
1) It “implied that humans arose from animals, and many interpreted this to mean that humans did not have the special position accorded them in Judeo-Christian thought,” including denial of any immortal human soul.
2) The emphasis on variation within species “implied biological inequality,” and when applied to humans was used “to justify social and racial inequality.”
3) Instead of death being only an evil to be overcome, the principle of natural selection and “survival of the fittest” implied that death instead also worked as a “beneficial force” for the constant progression and improvement of the species by weeding out its unfit members. (16-17)
Weikart closes his introduction by remarking that the actual historical relation between Darwinism and evolution (as distinct from a necessary logical relation – cf. p. 9 above) has tended to be a one-way street:
“Many recent studies on the reception of Darwinism by religious leaders have stressed accommodation, since many Christian theologians and pastors, even those of a conservative theological bent, were willing to embrace some form of evolutionary theory. However, my study helps illuminate why the debate over Darwinism was so acrimonious at times. Also, it reminds us that regardless of how accommodating leading religious figures may have been to evolutionary theory, many leading Darwinists were not so accommodating to religion. Many not only used Darwinism to attack the traditional Christian understanding of miracles and the supernatural, but they also undermined many deeply cherished Christian values that had become entrenched in European culture.”
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In the body of his book, Weikart skillfully puts concrete historical flesh on the preceding theoretical bones. He correctly notes that Darwinism was especially influential in Germany; indeed, Darwin himself specifically looked to that for hopes that his theory ultimately would prevail. (10) Likewise, it was the left-wing German Darwinist Ludwig Woltmann (1871-1907) who coined the term “Social Darwinism” in the 1890s. (11)
The leading figure in the spread of Darwinism was the renowned and extremely influential biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). In 1921 the renewed physiologist Max Verworn stated: “One can state without exaggeration that no scientist has exercised a greater influence on the development of our contemporary worldview than Haeckel.” (11) [This statement predated the influence of Einstein and Heizenberg, just rising to general renown at that time.]
Weikart properly notes that what took hold in Germany was not Darwinism as originally articulated by Darwin, but rather Darwinism as extensively adapted and reworked by Germany’s leading biologist, Ernst Haeckel, who synthesized Darwinism with its main preceding rival evolutionary theory, Lamarckism: “[M]ost German biologists in the nineteenth century followed Ernst Haeckel’s lead in synthesizing Darwinism and Lamarckism.” (9)
As I once wrote in a graduate school term paper, “If Huxley was ‘Darwin’s bulldog,’ then Haeckel was his German shepherd.” Indeed, Haeckel assumed in Germany not only the role of T. H. Huxley, but of Herbert Spencer as well, in not only propagating Darwinism as a biological theory, but in also freely adapting int into a metaphysical system and social theory that gave rise to Social Darwinism. Weikart summarizes five philosophical and social implications that Haeckel drew from his own version of Darwinism (25):
a) Evolution undermines mind-body dualism, which means that human beings are only biological organisms.
b) Evolution implies determinism rather than free will.
c) Evolution implies moral relativism rather than transcendent moral laws.
d) Evolution implies that behavior and moral character are hereditary, and not formed by personal choice or social environment. (Weikart notes on p. 105 that Darwin held a similar view, though he did not take it in Haeckel’s directions.)
e) Natural selection is the driving force that produces altruism and morality. (This point would famously be borrowed and amplified by the renowned evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson in his controversial book “Sociobiology.”)
It is vital to note that Haeckel’s general exposition of these views in an influential form came more than 15 years after Darwin’s death, in his “Die Weltraetsel” of 1895-1899 (translated into English as “The Riddle of the Universe” in 1901.) Consequently (see my discussion of Fr. Oakes’ review of Weikart’s book below), one can not chide Darwin for a failure to “demur” from such misuses of his theory.
In addition to combing the roles that Huxley and Spencer played in England, one might also characterize Haeckel as the German Peter Singer and Carl Sagan. In addition to his slashing attacks on religion, he was an avid supporter of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. (146-148) However, one cannot conclude from this that Haeckel was a stereotypical right-wing political figure. He was also a declared pacifist (if one of a stripe very peculiar to modern eyes – see my previous post in this thread on this point, and Fr. Oakes’ review linked below) and a proponent of other causes that are now considered quite leftist. Contrary to Gasman’s gross misrepresentation of the German Monist League as a “proto-Nazi” organization (of which Haeckel was the godfather figure and effective leader from its founding in 1906 until the energetic Nobel Laureate chemist Wilhelm Ostwald [my one-time initial Ph.D. dissertation subject] assumed the presidency in 1911) , Weikart correctly notes :“The Monist League promoted many reforms that were anathema to Hitler, such as homosexual rights, feminism, and pacifism.” (70) There was also the bitter debate between Haeckel and his major rival as Germany’s leading biologist (and Reichstag member), Rudolf Virchow, over whether Darwinism inevitably led to Socialism. (90-94)
Nor was Darwinism particularly anti-Semitic; several leading German proponents of Darwinism were Jewish, and one – the sociologist Arthur Ruppin – was a Zionist. (136) Weikart is also properly cautious regarding possible links between Darwinism and scientific racism. The former does not necessarily imply the latter, and the latter is not necessarily dependent on the former; but shared affinities made them compatible and mutually attractive, and so they became historically conjoined. (116)
The roster of German intellectuals who supported Darwinism in some form ran the gamut of the political and ideological spectrum. Among those mentioned by Weikart, the names immediately familiar to me (a memory lane trip from my onetime research on Ostwald – all were members of the German Monist League, and most of them held left-wing political views) included the political feminist writer Helen Stoecker; the historian of classical antiquity Georg Seeck; the psychiatrist August Forel; the Munich physician Johannes Unold; the journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Alfred Fried; the Jewish sociologist Rudolf Goldscheid; the philosopher Friedrich Jodl; and the free-lance writer and scientific popularizer Wilhelm Boelsche.
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While I therefore highly value Weikart’s book as an excellent study, I do have some differences of emphasis, reservations, and points of disagreement.
First, a noticeable limitation of the book is Weikart’s lack of a background in the history of science. Thus, he does not even note, let alone address, the strong pre-Darwinian heritage of evolutionary ideas in Germany biology (carrying the prestige of figures such as Goethe and Hegel) that laid the groundwork for the ready acceptance of Darwin’s theory in Germany. This becomes apparent in a questionable assertion: “However, Lamarckian explanations were not contradictory to Darwin’s ideas of natural selection (even Darwin accepted a measure of Lamarckism). . . .” (9). This is true in a very narrow sense, but quite misleading overall; Haeckel’s own evolutionary views had a far greater component of Lamarckism than did Darwin’s theory, and were also rooted in the already existing climate of German biology and philosophy. The result is that while Weikart is an excellent exponent of the Social Darwinist views of his many subjects, he makes little or no attempt either to tie specific points of those views to specific points of scientific Darwinism beyond general references to the “struggle for existence,” “survival of the fittest,” and similar stock phrases, to explain in detail how the transition from biological to social Darwinism was made by Darwinists, or to set the acceptance of naturalistic Darwinism in Germany in a necessary larger context of continuous strains of German biology and philosophy of science.
Second, as a result of the previous point, Weikart does not follow his own definitional distinction between Darwinism as “the theory of evolution through natural selection as advanced by Darwin in ‘The Origin of Species.’“ and other uses (e.g., “an entire naturalistic worldview with biological evolution as its centerpiece.”) as consistently or clearly as he should have. Many of his invocations of the term tilt toward the latter rather than the former, or are equivocal.
Third, while Weikart specifically eschews tackling “the influence of political, social, economic, and other factors in the development of ideologies in general and Nazism in particular” as lying outside th scope of his study, one wishes that he would have made some brief attempt to relate the ready acceptance and exceptional development of Social Darwinism in Germany to the central conundrum of German historiography, the “Sonderweg” (alternative way) thesis. It is certainly no accident that Germany and Russia, two of the three major European nations with the most historically retarded political development (Italy being the third) were also the ones where Darwinism suffered perverted adaptations to support pathological political systems – racialism in Nazi Germany, Lysenkoism in Stalinist Russia.
Finally – and this is my one substantial point of outright disagreement with Weikart, though one that lies well within the bounds of proper scholarly debate – I believe that Weikart errs in regarding Darwinism as a “necessary cause,” though not a “sufficient cause,” for Nazism. In fact, it was neither. Had Darwinism not been the regnant biological theory, the Nazis would simply and surely have equally employed in their own support a perverted bastardization of whatever biological theory held sway instead, or else endorsed and advanced some rival theory. In fact, for a short time they did precisely the latter in the realm of physics, with two Nobel Prize laureates, Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard, promoting a non-relativistic “Aryan physics” in opposition to the allegedly decadent relativistic “Jewish physics” of Albert Einstein. (For details see Alan Beyerchen’s “Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich.” The Wikipedia article covers the basic ground but needs reworking.) Again, a better knowledge and employment of the history of science by Weikart would have been desirable.
Weikart’s brief reference to naturalistic Darwinism as a “necessary cause” for Nazism is also ambiguous and susceptible to misinterpretation. In a strict or strong sense, it asserts that Nazism would not have developed at all; in a weak sense, only that Nazism would be something somewhat other than what we historically know it to be . If Weikart means the former, I disagree emphatically. If he means the latter (which, given his necessary/sufficient cause distinction, is what I suspect), then I think it is true only in a rather mundane definitional sense – the same sense in that, e.g., I would be someone other than I am now if I had not read the works of Solzhenitsyn. In either case, however, I agree with Weikart that one should not backslide into the notion that Darwinism was somehow directly the cause of or primarily responsible for Nazism. Naturalistic Darwinism was more of a flying buttress in support of Nazi ideology than a central supporting pillar; it visibly helped to shore it up, but was not a critical architectural element of it in the way that anti-Semitism and the Fuehrerprinzip were.
In the “Touchstone “Roundtable” discussion Weikart’s remarks, particularly at the conclusion, indicate a much more decided viewpoint on his own part regarding the “connections between Darwin, German Darwinism, eugenicists, racial theorists, or militarists” than the non-committal “I leave it to the reader” stance suggested in the passage I quoted (9). While there are several reasonable explanations for this difference (addressing different audiences, a desire to avoid needless argument over subsidiary points, etc.), it would strain credulity to suppose that Weikart’s own views on these connections are not somehow at least implicitly present in his selection, presentation, and interpretation of his historical data.
Since I hold there to be a lesser degree of logical (as distinct from historical) connection between naturalistic Darwinism and Nazism than does Weikart, I therefore also see a lesser degree of responsibility of Darwinian ideas for Nazi thought and other evils of the 20th century for which it is sometimes blamed. As I observed in my previous post, “wisdom is justified of her children”; and whether Darwinism as a biological theory ultimately proves to be wisdom or foolishness, it is an injustice to hold either Darwin or his biological theory responsible for the irresponsible and illogical misuses made of it in politics, economics, or social welfare or military policies.
In sum, I agree with Weikart that the connections between naturalistic Darwinism and Nazism are historically significant. Where we disagree is that I see them as being far more contingent than he does.
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As Weikart rightly emphasizes, one cannot draw a simple straight line from Darwinism to Nazism or other racialist theories. Rather, while one can draw a rather crooked continuous line between the two historically, one cannot do so logically (in the sense of a condition that is sufficient as well as necessary). But far too often – e.g. in the evolution vs. ID debates – one finds precisely the kind of simplistic claims (on both sides, and to both extremes) that Weikart rightly disclaims and rejects.
Sometimes this regrettably occurs from unexpected sources, in more sophisticated guises. An instructive example of the pitfalls to which the historically uninformed and unwary can fall prey is the laudatory review of Weikart’s book in “Books and Culture” by Fr. Edward T. Oakes:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2006/006/15.35.html
Fr. Oakes’ frequent articles in “First Things” are a regular source of illumination and delight, but in the introduction to his review (the remainder is excellent) he goes seriously astray, and it is instructive to see how. Oakes opens with a lengthy personal blast against Darwin as follows:
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“One of the most pernicious and widespread fictions ever foisted on an unsuspecting public claims that Charles Darwin was not a social Darwinist. Not so. For example, in a letter to one William Graham dated July 3, 1881, Darwin wrote:
“‘I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turk, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.’
“According to the myths of standard historiography, Darwin confined himself strictly to matters biological – even in The Descent of Man, when he finally came, late in life, to apply his theory to man's place in the evolutionary tree. So whatever damage came to the poor and downtrodden from Darwin's theory is due to others, above all Herbert Spencer. Here, in Spencer, can be found the villain of the piece: that second-rate thinker ruined a perfectly good biological theory by hijacking it for cutthroat capitalism, contempt for the poor, laissez-faire lassitude about social legislation, and so forth. Spencer, the claim goes, was the first to transpose ethics into evolutionary terms, defining as good whatever promoted the "progress" of evolution and as bad whatever hindered it.
“Unfortunately for Darwin's own reputation, this thesis does not bear scrutiny. Spencer might well have been the first to coin the phrase "survival of the fittest." But Darwin enthusiastically adopted it in the 6th edition of his Origin of Species as a substitute term for "natural selection." Nor did he ever demur when other advocates of evolution's social application came pleading their case. Karl Marx asked if he might dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin, which request Darwin declined only because he did not want to offend the religious sensibilities of his deeply Christian wife.
“Nor were Darwin's own musings on the social implications of his theory limited to private correspondence. In one particularly chilling passage in Descent of Man he asserted, "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races." Even more ominously, this insouciantly expressed sentiment cannot be regarded as an illegitimate conclusion from the earlier and more reliable Origin of Species. In a passage historians often cite to prove that at the time of the Origin Darwin was still struggling to maintain his belief in God, Darwin actually, if unwittingly, promulgated the charter for all later social Darwinists: "Let the strongest live and the weakest die. . . .Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows." In effect, this passage turns Christian theodicy on its head and gives St. Paul's line "Death is swallowed up in victory" a total reversal of meaning. Victory now belongs only to the fittest.”
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First, to address some glaring errors. There are no such “myths of standard historiography” that “Darwin confined himself strictly to matters biological” as Fr. Oakes claims – in some careless popularized accounts, perhaps, but certainly not in any serious Darwin scholarship properly included under the rubric “standard historiography.” The same can be said of his overheated rhetoric about Spencer. The assertion that Darwin “enthusiastically” adopted Spencer’s phrase “survival of the fittest” is inflammatory and misleading; Darwin’s own papers indicate a far more ambivalent attitude toward it as a grudging concession to popular usage established by Spencer. Finally, the claim that Marx asked to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin is a myth (resulting from a misreading of Marx’s correspondence) that was decisively refuted decades ago. (Peter Bowler, cited in my previous post, has references to the periodical literature on this point.)
In short, Fr. Oakes evinces here an unfortunate lack of knowledge about Darwin and the relevant scholarly literature that makes his criticisms rather embarrassing, and quite properly raises questions about his other assertions as well. There are his similarly tendentious and unsupported characterizations of another Darwin statement as an “insouciantly expressed sentiment” (on what basis does Fr. Oakes purport to determine this?), and of Darwin’s alleged failure to “demur” the social application of his theories (why should Darwin be required to do so?), which simply seek to load the rhetorical dice.
This raises another and more complex point. Fr. Oakes has set up a straw man of an alleged Darwin of “standard historiography” who had no Social Darwinist views, but who in fact did and failed to “demur” from uses of his theory for social Darwinism. This involves two further errors beyond those already noted. First, Fr. Oakes fails to make any distinction between Darwinism and Social Darwinism, such as Weikart makes. Second, he consequently fails to offer to offer any definition of “Social Darwinism” or a “Social Darwinist” and the grounds for considering Darwin to be such. As this is not a point explicitly discussed by Weikart (at least in the passages I have quoted), I will offer my own clarification.
“Social Darwinism” is a term that has at least two distinct senses, which I will call “weak” and “strong.” In the weak sense, it refers to a theory that explains social (and often economic, political, and military) phenomena using principles drawn from Darwin’s theory of evolution. (Per Weikart’s caution, this does not mean that the derivations and applications are logically and properly made.) In the strong sense, it refers in addition to advocacy – proposal of and efforts to implement and promote the phenomena that Social Darwinism purports to describe. The weak sense is merely descriptive, whereas the strong sense is prescriptive.
In fact, many Darwinists were either not Social Darwinists at all (cf. Weikart on Darwinists in the humanities), or at most were such only in the weak sense of the term. Many intellectuals who accepted Darwin’s views did so with some reluctance or ambivalence, believing that while true as naturalistic descriptions, the destructive implications of e.g. “survival of the fittest” should be met with active resistance, not passive acquiescence. (A parallel intellectual phenomenon, also particularly strong in Germany, was the belief that the “universal heat death” [Waermetod] predicated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics had moral implications which required active counter-measures Wilhelm Ostwald’s philosophy of “energism” – with its obsessive assertion of the principle “Do not waste energy – convert it!” as the solution to every social problem – was the ne plus ultra of this outlook; a contemporary expression of it is found in the camp followers of Al Gore and the furor over “global warming.”)
Some Darwinists and Social Darwinists – including Darwin himself – believed that the moral capacities of man gave him both an ability and obligation to resist and counter the negative aspects of “survival of the fittest.” As Weikart notes (22-23), Darwin himself held that the “rule of life . . . to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest and which seem to him the best ones” leads not to hedonism or brutal exploitation, but rather to the “Golden Rule,” because evolution gave rise to the human moral sense and made cooperative social instincts and ethical impulses to be the strongest and best ones. Populations in which the members cooperated would, in the struggle for existence, out-compete those in which members selfishly and destructively competed with one another.
Darwin of course was not a Christian ethicist here. He held that the moral sense does not differ between man and animals; instead, man had advanced to the highest position on the evolutionary scale in part precisely because in him the evolution of the moral sense had undergone the greatest development. But despite his frequent use of military metaphors to describe the struggle for existence, duly noted by Weikart (166), Darwin was no advocate of militarism, and he also explicitly defended on the grounds just cited institutions such as orphanages that on first glance seemed to be directly contrary to the principle of “survival of the fittest.” [Per Weikart, no endorsement of premises or argumentative logic is implied here; I am only pointing out that Darwin himself held these views.]
The problems with Fr. Oakes’ argument are manifold, and all run contrary to Weikart’s own repeated cautions. He tacitly or explicitly assumes that:
1) Virtually all Darwinists were and are also Social Darwinists;
2) All Social Darwinists (and hence all Darwinists) subscribe to the “is/ought” fallacy, and hold a prescriptive rather than merely descriptive approach to Darwinian principles;
3) Social Darwinism is monolithic in character, and that character is exemplified by Hitler;
4) The logical implications of Darwinism necessarily led to Hitlerian Social Darwinism in a straight-line fashion;
5) There was thus a monocausal and straight-line descent from Darwin to Hitler through Nietzsche and Haecekl
The manner in which Fr. Oakes this fallacious argument, while remaining oblivious to historical context, is exemplified by his quotes from Darwin regarding competition between different human “races” – the Turk vs. the European, the savages vs. the civilized – and the corresponding quote from pacifist Bertha von Suttner. On the face of it, the passages Fr. Oakes quotes –
“Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races”;
“a gradual extermination of the belligerent tribes by peace-loving nations”
– seem redolent of Nazism. Weikart similarly quotes a passage by the physiologist G. F. Nicolai on the “peaceful extermination” of “inferior races” (202-203) However, unlike Fr. Oakes, Weikart places it in its proper historical context, by noting that terms such as “extermination” or “elimination” were used not only in the sense of eradication by any active or destructive measures, but also in the sense of a gradual process of natural attrition or amalgamation. (Weikart even notes one German Darwinist who advocated the elimination of the Jews as a separate “race” in Germany” by intermarriage and miscegenation with Germans – not exactly a Nazi viewpoint!) In short, the quoted passages do not mean what Fr. Oakes takes them to mean. And, to borrow Darwin’s metaphor for a moment, I doubt that Fr. Oakes would be much pleased if Arabic Islamic civilizations were to defeat European Christian ones in a “struggle for existence.” Fr. Oakes is likewise also not an advocate of the notion that Christianity and Islam are faiths of equal worth and truth content, or of a policy of detente or peaceful co-existence between the two. His denigration of Darwin here thus seems decidedly misconceived.
Finally, there are the following further passages from Fr. Oakes:
“Perhaps the greatest lesson to be drawn from Weikart's narrative is the astonishing metaphysical continuity he limns in the views that started with Darwin and ended up with Hitler. To trace this continuity, one need only compare this passage from Nietzsche's Will to Power with a similar one, immediately following, from Mein Kampf.”
And: “Darwin forms the warp and woof of Nietzsche's ethics. . . .in my opinion [Nietzsche] saw that it would be impossible to accept Darwinian theory in any of its guises without falling into the abyss of nihilism.”
This is simply wrong. Oakes presents nothing that ties Darwin to either Hitler and Nietzsche, for the simple reason that no such tie exist. Weikart not only does make it, he specifically rejects the claim of a such a simplistic tie between Darwinism (let alone Darwin himself) and Nazism as “foolish” and “absurd.” Nietzsche did not get his views primarily from Darwin, but from Haeckel and previous German thinkers. But, in order to convict Darwin of responsibility for Nietzsche, and through him for Hitler as well, Fr. Oakes resorts to a crude and logically fallacious rhetorical sleight of hand. First, he invokes the names “Darwin” and “Hitler” in quick succession to create a connection between them in the reader’s mind. Then, he jumps to quotations that tie Nietzsche to Hitler, hoping that the reader will not notice that Darwin has suddenly dropped completely out of the picture. He next substitutes “Darwin” for “Darwinism” as the alleged “warp and woof of Nietzsche’s ethics,” again hoping that the reader will not notice a further shell game that shuttles about the verbal pea. Finally, Fr. Oakes asserts what he believes Nietzsche saw regarding Darwinism while silently passing over the question of whether Nietzsche’s vision was accurate, fallacious, or even delusional.
In sum, Fr. Oakes’ review is a prime example of how an otherwise intelligent and perceptive reader can go seriously astray when an insufficient knowledge of historical context is conjoined with a too-ready desire to prove a previously held conviction. In fairness, the same can and should be said of many apologists for Darwinism who, in a very similar fashion, offer facile explanations that pretend that there are no historical (let alone logical) connections between scientific Darwinism and pseudo-scientific racialist theories such as those proffered by Nazism.
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In conclusion, Weikart’s self-imposed limitations and numerous cautions in his study – generally ignored by Fr. Oakes – should serve as a salutary warning. One can and should not simply and hastily generalize and recklessly extrapolate either from Darwin to Darwinists, or from one very specific stripe of Darwinists (naturalistic Social Darwinists) in one very specific national, cultural, and temporal setting (late 19th and early 20th c. Germany) to all Darwinists in all times and places. Darwin, Darwinists, and Darwinism are too complex and varied for that, precisely because Darwinism as a theory (meaning a complex set of explanatory ideas, not a vague hypothesis or guess as in much popular usage), and Darwinists as distinct persons subscribing that theory, are themselves both shaped by as well as shaping their historical milieus – a point missed by too may people on both sides who tend to see Darwinism solely as a causal agent and not as also a causal patient.
And, lastly, this brings us back to Jim Kushiner’s original question on this thread: would Darwin have been surprised as well as appalled? In response, I would say that we can never know; but, given Darwin’s own views, I think that a cautious “yes” is in order. Whether some of the German naturalistic social Darwinists studies by Weikart would have been either surprised or appalled is another matter.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Jun 2, 2008 7:12:38 PM
>>“If Huxley was ‘Darwin’s bulldog,’ then Haeckel was his German shepherd.”<<
Nicely turned phrase!
Posted by: Bobby Neal Winters | Jun 2, 2008 9:45:43 PM
Superb article, James--and I do mean article! It took me some time to finish it (as you can tell). Perhaps you should submit this for publication?
Posted by: Bill R | Jul 2, 2008 5:17:07 PM
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