Tim, where the anti-defamation league is right is that nothing really explains
the Nazi's
genocidal madness. Where it is wrong is that a lot of water flowed under the
bridge
between Darwin and Hitler, and the Nazis very specifically called upon science
as
justification of their views. The whole of western society of the 1920s was
infatuated
with how science could improve both the quality and purity--which often were
seen as
synonymous terms--of national life. In 1919, Samuel L. Holmes, a professor of
Zoology at
the University of California, published a booklet entitled, "The Factors of
Evolution In
Man." There was ongoing discussion in every western nation about the costs of
balancing
human life in the interest of national health as a means to make the nation
fittest for
survival. In 1927, the Rockefeller Foundation funded the construction of the
Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute on Anthropology, Heredity, and Eugenics in Berlin.
Nevertheless, it
wasn't Darwin's Theory of Evolution that was one of the paths to the Holocaust
so much as
its application, or rather misapplication, to society by Herbert Spencer that
became known
as Social Darwinism, which turned Darwin's theory upside down on its head. Of
course, you
could always argue that without Darwin there would have been no Social
Darwinism. But,
you could also argue that there would have been no Darwin without.....all the
way back to
the Big Bang.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of History
http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\____/\ \/\
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hills" -/
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