Sunday, June 19, 2016

Darwin and Racism

Darwin did have a very limited concept of the value of human life.  His famous Origin of the Species is subtitled “The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” —ominous words, especially when we consider that in The Descent of Man Darwin wrote:  “At some future period, not very distant when measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”

If a right-wing fundamentalist Christian wrote about superior races exterminating savage races, there would be anguished howls of righteous indignation from the secular anti-religious left, and the statement would be used as proof of the evil intolerance of theistic religious belief.  But, if Darwin said it?  It should be added that Darwin saw nothing wrong with this extermination—he saw it as natural and normal.

Joseph KeysorHitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible, pg.350

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