Darwinism and Hitler: Is There a Connection?

The leftwing Anti-Defamation League recently denounced Ben Stein's movie Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed as having "misappropriated the Holocaust." In the film Stein spends about 10 minutes showing how Darwin's theories were used by Hitler to justify his policies of eugenics, euthanasia and extermination of "lesser" races.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs agrees with the ADL. See his comments at this link.
However, the ADL arguments are disingenuous and Charles Johnson is wrong to adopt them as his own.

A recent article in National Review shows that Ben Stein was right and his assertions were based on "impeccable scholarship." The article by David Klinghoffer states that the Darwin-Hitler connection is not a new concept, and he quotes a number of scholars who have written about it. Nevertheless, writes Klinghoffer:

Reviewers in Time, Scientific American, Variety, Fox News, and elsewhere
have denounced the filmmakers for suggesting that Hitlerism without the
contribution of Darwinism would be hard to imagine...Expelled touches on Darwinism’s historical social costs, notably the unintended contribution to Nazi racial theories. That part packs an emotional wallop. It also happens to be based on impeccable scholarship.

Read the whole thing. If there's one thing Charles Johnson should remember, it is this: don't adopt leftist arguments uncritically without some research to see if they are justified.

A Lot of Silliness Over Ben Stein's "Expelled" Movie

I haven't seen Ben Stein's film, "Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed" but I figure it must really have tweaked the big red noses of certain scientists and academics. Think of the sound an old-fashioned car horn makes: "Bee-Beep! Bee-Beep!"

Yes, getting your big red honker tweaked can be embarrassing, especially in front of all the students you are trying to indoctrinate, the ones who are supposed to think you are an infallible genius. Scientists aren't sitting still for these nose-tweakings and have launched a counterattack at a website set up by the National Center for Science Education. The website is called "Expelled Exposed," wherein the aggrieved scientists with the swollen snoots point out all the fallacies and mistakes of Ben Stein and other neanderthalls who believe (1) that evolution is far from a proven fact, (2) that it does not explain the origins of life on Earth and, in fact, science hasn't a clue as to those origins; and (3) evolutionary scientists have themselves evolved into a quasi-religion who view skeptics as heretics, fit only for derision and ostracism.

Well the NCSE recommended another website of British scientists who explain why evolution is, in fact, fact. The website is NewScientist. NewScientist says of evolution:

If you think you understand it, you don't know nearly enough about it

It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking – that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection.

Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. Countless fossil discoveries allow us to trace the evolution of today's organisms from earlier forms. DNA sequencing has confirmed beyond any doubt that all living creatures share a common origin. Innumerable examples of evolution in action can be seen all around us, from the pollution-matching pepper moth to fast-changing viruses such as HIV and H5N1 bird flu. Evolution is as firmly established a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth.

Well there you have it folks, evolution is a proven scientific fact and no further discussion is needed or necessary. Sort of like the facts about Global Warming.

Anyone who would say something as transparently false as NewScientist's last sentence above has already utterly destroyed all of their own credibility. Objective they are not.

NewScientist then provides a list of misconceptions about evolution as well as a list of "creationist myths," followed by their rebuttals of these misconceptions and myths. They are hardly convincing as to the evolutionist point of view. See the following example.

One "myth" NS considers is the "creationist" assertion Evolution is just so unlikely to produce complex life forms. (It is intellectually dishonest to imply that only "creationists" believe that evolution is mathematically improbable, but that's another discussion.)

Here's their argument against mathematical improbability:

To understand evolution, you need to appreciate three things. Firstly, that
quadrillion-to-one chances actually happen all the time. Secondly that, while mutation is random, which mutations survive often is not. And thirdly, given enough time, the accumulation of one beneficial mutation after another can produce amazingly complex systems. Natural selection can be seen as a kind of improbability drive that – given enough time – makes the apparently impossible extremely likely.

If you pick even the simplest creatures alive today and calculate the odds of getting their genome by randomly shuffling DNA sequences, you'll find they are pretty astronomical. Even matching the sequence of the simplest virus is stupendously unlikely.

So there you have it, folks. Quadrillion to one chances actually happen all the time. This is their answer to the "unlikely" argument?? Sounds to me like they just refuted themselves.

Well, if they are correct, any day now we can expect a roomfull of chimpanzees with keyboards to retype the complete works of Shakespeare. Or a cyclone to blow through a junkyard and create a fully assembled Boeing 787. Given enough time, it could happen.

I do believe that some form of evolution might be possible and I don't completely discount the possibility. But the whole recent arguments and mobilization of scientists to refute and demean Ben Stein and other nay-sayers only proves the point of his film: scientists are close-minded in their own way and in support of their own prejudices, and sometimes downright intolerant of other opinions.

All of which raises the question: what the heck are you evolutionary scientists so afraid of anyway?

The Theory of Evolution: A Crock or Scientific Fact?

Ben Stein has released a documentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The film is about the intolerance of big Science and academia to those who question the theory of evolution. Various professors are interviewed and tell of academic persecution for their lack of faith in Darwinism. One is told to shut up, another is denied tenure, others are socially ostracized. The trailer to this film follows this text. Do watch it.

The liberal/left faction of academia simply cannot allow competing ideologies on the origins of life on earth. The reason is simple: if life didn't evolve from the muck by blind chance, then God might actually exist. If there is anything the liberal left hates, it is a belief in God. Such beliefs must be repressed at all costs.

I once was a biology major in college and took quite a few courses in biology, zoology, anthropology, chemistry, botany and genetics. I believed in the theory of evolution as fact because it was taught as fact in the college classroom.

Today I am not a member of any organized religion, but I have an open mind about God, creation and everything else. This means that I do not have a vested interest in either evolution or creationism. However, I know that Stein is right about the rigid and closed-mindedness of academia. They are a snooty lot, given to great disdain for the "ignorant"masses who do not subscribe to their theories.

As Stein points out in the film, the smallest unit of life, the cell, is astoundingly complex. One living cell is more complicated and intricate than, say, New York City. Yet we are supposed to believe that a cell first evolved from a mud puddle that was struck by lightening, or some other such random, improbable event.

My mind was not always open on this subject. I believed in evolution. I would not consider the possibility that it was wrong. Ann Coulter opened my mind by devoting a chapter to the subject in one of her books. Once my mind was opened, I was able to see the inconsistencies and improbabilities in the theory as well as the rigid dogmatism of its proponents.

So does that mean God created life on earth? Hell yes. I always believed that, even though I thought he chose a rather slow and cumbersome way to do it (in evolution). Now I am open to the possibilities that he chose better ways to do it. How? I have no idea, and that doesn't bother me in the least. There's a lot to be said for retaining our childlike awe at the vast, wonderful, imponderable universe - while continuing our search for answers.



See also this article at No Sheeples Here - it's excellent.