In my online essay critiquing Christopher Hitchens’ book God is not Great 1 I pointed out that
he had ignored the impact of evolutionist theory on Western society while searching diligently
for any impact religion may have had on any of the tragedies of Western civilization so as to
blame it rather than evolution. How ironic it is that after I had finished that essay I was alerted to
West’s book in a Conservative Book club flier and immediately bought it. Darwin Day is richly
documented and well researched and serves to buttress Hitchens’ reluctance to give Darwinism
its due credit for changes in our culture.
Those alien to these issues will be surprised at how prevalent evolutionism was before Darwin.
West traces these ideas through Greece, reflecting on the works of Epicurus and here one will
find Wiker also useful. Epicurus believed there were two great disturbances that trouble us, the
first that gods can influence us directly or cause things in the sky (moon, sun, lightning) to do
so and the second the belief in the afterlife. The purpose of natural science is to remove these
troubles and Epicurus relied on the atomistic theories of Democritus that all things were
reducible to the movement of individual particles to do so. Wiker makes a clever point at this
juncture: microscopes were not invented by this time and so none of Epicurus’ arguments were
based on direct evidence. They were biased presuppositions just as Darwinian presuppositions
exist now. Epicurus did not believe in an immaterial soul, either, and allowed for the existence of
free will only by suggesting that sometimes the collisions of particles are not predetermined.
Christianity put an end to such ideas, but they always remained in back of the minds of
numerous intellectuals. Here John Chancellor and Ronald Clark speak plainly.
West’s chapters on the impact of evolution on the legal profession are scary. Gradually our
culture evolved (pun intended) from the acceptance people have free will and need to be
judged accordingly to the belief people are helpless victims of material causes and hence not
accountable. West says “by the end of the nineteenth century, American scholars were talking
with excitement about the ‘new school of criminal anthropology,’ which sought to use science to
identify the causes of crime.” Just recently Duke University professor of psychology John
Staddon noted that “nearly all psychologists believe that behavior is completely determined by
heredity and environment.” Often these ideas reached comedic proportions. Freudian
physician David Abrahamsen tried to explain why a teenage boy frequently stole cars and
eventually, through a long strain of arguments, concluded that the car represented his mother
and his theft was his attempt to find a substitute.
This reasoning makes perfect sense in a Darwinian world. If we are merely programmed to act
by our genes and environment, then free choice is a myth. Hence, we can cure people of their
bad choices by finding what causes them to act like they do. When we change their
environment they will act correctly. This is the underlying religious nature of humanism: rather
than preaching to someone the sinfulness of their act and their need to obey God, we can cure
them of their maladaptive actions by altering their environment so they act correctly in the
future. Of course there is a lethal contradiction in this reasoning: if criminals are conditioned to
act as they do without the ability to change, then it is logically possible that we only believe this
because our brains have been programmed by environment or heredity. Hence, we have no
rational reason to suppose we have come to these ideas by rational thought and hence cannot
necessarily believe they are true.
West has interesting chapters on evolution’s impact on eugenics and here casual observers will
be surprised at how much American biologists had in common with Adolf Hitler. Eugenicists
presupposed that the poor and other defective individuals ought to be sterilized or kept from
reproducing and, West says, “The American eugenics movement was so well established by
1912 that it was drawing favorable notices in Europe.” In July of that year American eugenicists
played a starring role in the first International Eugenics Congress in London and Professor
Ruggeri from Italy recognized American eugenicists by saying “thanks to recent researches in
the United States, it was now certain that the races of man acted in exactly the same way as the
races of animals.” Here eugenicists conflicted with the traditional view of religious social welfare
workers who stressed the poor could empower themselves rather than claiming the poor were
prisoners of their biology.
Of course followers of Marx and Communism quickly seized upon such theories as did Nazi
Germany. Hitler told one of his colleagues that he had “studied with great interest the laws of
several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny
would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.” Hitler took this idea to
its fruition and several Americans were jealous of the Nazi success because, as West says, “it
was much more comprehensive than patchwork American efforts.” However, American eugenics
died while Nazi efforts flourished, but they too died because of what we found once we
unearthed the horrors of the Nazi war machine.
Evolution has influenced a hedonistic culture and Wiker traces its impact through three
individuals - Ernst Haeckel, Margaret Sanger, and Alfred Kinsey - and here Wiker is almost as
well documented as I would have liked him to be. Wiker reproduces a quote from Haeckel that
insinuates there are different races of man, some nearer to mammals (apes and dogs) than
civilized Europeans, and we must assign a different value to their lives. Such an opinion today
would be considered politically incorrect, but in Darwin’s day it was in vogue and Darwin himself
relied heavily on Haeckel’s work (if that fact is not clear from reading Darwin’s Descent).
Hundreds of thousands of Haeckel’s books were sold in Germany and he was constantly cited
in texts about racial and social biology which were used to disseminate eugenics and Nazi
ideas. Sanger likewise believed only the racially fit should reproduce and Wiker believes she
relied heavily on Darwin. Sanger comes across as a sex-obsessed Darwinist when saying
“Through sex, mankind may attain the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world,
which will light up the only path to an earthly paradise.” Kinsey also embraced eugenics, but
sexuality became his hobby. Kinsey assumed that nature was amoral and that deviations from
present day sexual practices were not deviations from the norm but a return to the old natural
order of life.
When reading these books, one comes to the conclusion that evolution has been embraced by
intellectuals waiting to find an excuse either to fail to abide by conservative Christian sexual
dictates or waiting to find a reason to engage in totalitarian race-perfecting activities. The
desire for Darwinism gives many a reason to engage in intellectual censorship, and West has
examples of this in a chapter as well. Here we reflect back on Wiker early in his discussion of
Epicurus.
One of the chief difficulties in advancing intelligent design arguments in the public square is
that this square is guarded by those who are trained to believe that there are only the two stark
alternatives: materialist science (which defines the very meaning of rationality) or immaterialist
irrationalism. That there are rational arguments for the existence of an intelligent cause is
simply ruled out by declaring if the argument is not materialist, then it must be irrational (or,
more kindly, “theological”).
I recommend these books if you want to know how evolution has impacted our societies. I
recommend Hitchens get these books as well. LSI
References
1. Webpages, charter.net/jeffstueber/hitchens.htm.
2. John Chancellor, Charles Darwin (New York, Taplinger, 1973), p. 13.
3. Ronald Clark, The Survival of Charles Darwin: The Biography of a Man and an Idea (New
York, 1984), p. 5.
he had ignored the impact of evolutionist theory on Western society while searching diligently
for any impact religion may have had on any of the tragedies of Western civilization so as to
blame it rather than evolution. How ironic it is that after I had finished that essay I was alerted to
West’s book in a Conservative Book club flier and immediately bought it. Darwin Day is richly
documented and well researched and serves to buttress Hitchens’ reluctance to give Darwinism
its due credit for changes in our culture.
Those alien to these issues will be surprised at how prevalent evolutionism was before Darwin.
West traces these ideas through Greece, reflecting on the works of Epicurus and here one will
find Wiker also useful. Epicurus believed there were two great disturbances that trouble us, the
first that gods can influence us directly or cause things in the sky (moon, sun, lightning) to do
so and the second the belief in the afterlife. The purpose of natural science is to remove these
troubles and Epicurus relied on the atomistic theories of Democritus that all things were
reducible to the movement of individual particles to do so. Wiker makes a clever point at this
juncture: microscopes were not invented by this time and so none of Epicurus’ arguments were
based on direct evidence. They were biased presuppositions just as Darwinian presuppositions
exist now. Epicurus did not believe in an immaterial soul, either, and allowed for the existence of
free will only by suggesting that sometimes the collisions of particles are not predetermined.
Christianity put an end to such ideas, but they always remained in back of the minds of
numerous intellectuals. Here John Chancellor and Ronald Clark speak plainly.
West’s chapters on the impact of evolution on the legal profession are scary. Gradually our
culture evolved (pun intended) from the acceptance people have free will and need to be
judged accordingly to the belief people are helpless victims of material causes and hence not
accountable. West says “by the end of the nineteenth century, American scholars were talking
with excitement about the ‘new school of criminal anthropology,’ which sought to use science to
identify the causes of crime.” Just recently Duke University professor of psychology John
Staddon noted that “nearly all psychologists believe that behavior is completely determined by
heredity and environment.” Often these ideas reached comedic proportions. Freudian
physician David Abrahamsen tried to explain why a teenage boy frequently stole cars and
eventually, through a long strain of arguments, concluded that the car represented his mother
and his theft was his attempt to find a substitute.
This reasoning makes perfect sense in a Darwinian world. If we are merely programmed to act
by our genes and environment, then free choice is a myth. Hence, we can cure people of their
bad choices by finding what causes them to act like they do. When we change their
environment they will act correctly. This is the underlying religious nature of humanism: rather
than preaching to someone the sinfulness of their act and their need to obey God, we can cure
them of their maladaptive actions by altering their environment so they act correctly in the
future. Of course there is a lethal contradiction in this reasoning: if criminals are conditioned to
act as they do without the ability to change, then it is logically possible that we only believe this
because our brains have been programmed by environment or heredity. Hence, we have no
rational reason to suppose we have come to these ideas by rational thought and hence cannot
necessarily believe they are true.
West has interesting chapters on evolution’s impact on eugenics and here casual observers will
be surprised at how much American biologists had in common with Adolf Hitler. Eugenicists
presupposed that the poor and other defective individuals ought to be sterilized or kept from
reproducing and, West says, “The American eugenics movement was so well established by
1912 that it was drawing favorable notices in Europe.” In July of that year American eugenicists
played a starring role in the first International Eugenics Congress in London and Professor
Ruggeri from Italy recognized American eugenicists by saying “thanks to recent researches in
the United States, it was now certain that the races of man acted in exactly the same way as the
races of animals.” Here eugenicists conflicted with the traditional view of religious social welfare
workers who stressed the poor could empower themselves rather than claiming the poor were
prisoners of their biology.
Of course followers of Marx and Communism quickly seized upon such theories as did Nazi
Germany. Hitler told one of his colleagues that he had “studied with great interest the laws of
several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny
would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.” Hitler took this idea to
its fruition and several Americans were jealous of the Nazi success because, as West says, “it
was much more comprehensive than patchwork American efforts.” However, American eugenics
died while Nazi efforts flourished, but they too died because of what we found once we
unearthed the horrors of the Nazi war machine.
Evolution has influenced a hedonistic culture and Wiker traces its impact through three
individuals - Ernst Haeckel, Margaret Sanger, and Alfred Kinsey - and here Wiker is almost as
well documented as I would have liked him to be. Wiker reproduces a quote from Haeckel that
insinuates there are different races of man, some nearer to mammals (apes and dogs) than
civilized Europeans, and we must assign a different value to their lives. Such an opinion today
would be considered politically incorrect, but in Darwin’s day it was in vogue and Darwin himself
relied heavily on Haeckel’s work (if that fact is not clear from reading Darwin’s Descent).
Hundreds of thousands of Haeckel’s books were sold in Germany and he was constantly cited
in texts about racial and social biology which were used to disseminate eugenics and Nazi
ideas. Sanger likewise believed only the racially fit should reproduce and Wiker believes she
relied heavily on Darwin. Sanger comes across as a sex-obsessed Darwinist when saying
“Through sex, mankind may attain the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world,
which will light up the only path to an earthly paradise.” Kinsey also embraced eugenics, but
sexuality became his hobby. Kinsey assumed that nature was amoral and that deviations from
present day sexual practices were not deviations from the norm but a return to the old natural
order of life.
When reading these books, one comes to the conclusion that evolution has been embraced by
intellectuals waiting to find an excuse either to fail to abide by conservative Christian sexual
dictates or waiting to find a reason to engage in totalitarian race-perfecting activities. The
desire for Darwinism gives many a reason to engage in intellectual censorship, and West has
examples of this in a chapter as well. Here we reflect back on Wiker early in his discussion of
Epicurus.
One of the chief difficulties in advancing intelligent design arguments in the public square is
that this square is guarded by those who are trained to believe that there are only the two stark
alternatives: materialist science (which defines the very meaning of rationality) or immaterialist
irrationalism. That there are rational arguments for the existence of an intelligent cause is
simply ruled out by declaring if the argument is not materialist, then it must be irrational (or,
more kindly, “theological”).
I recommend these books if you want to know how evolution has impacted our societies. I
recommend Hitchens get these books as well. LSI
References
1. Webpages, charter.net/jeffstueber/hitchens.htm.
2. John Chancellor, Charles Darwin (New York, Taplinger, 1973), p. 13.
3. Ronald Clark, The Survival of Charles Darwin: The Biography of a Man and an Idea (New
York, 1984), p. 5.
| Published 2008 |
The Origin of the Species was the most important book of the nineteenth century. Its achievement was
to teach people to believe in evolution. Not only the general public but also many naturalists were
horrified by the theories, or by the implications of the theories, which Darwin propounded. He was, they
said, trying to dethrone man from his proper place in the scheme of things and to challenge the
incontrovertible truths of the Bible. He had dared to question the view that the human race was a
unique and lofty species, created by God in His own image and quite independent of every other form
of living thing. He suggested instead that species . . . had started as quite different creatures from
those we see today: that they had undergone all sorts of subtle changes over the years, thus giving
rise, by slow and natural
processes, to new species. 2
Today, it is impossible to appreciate the changes Darwin wrought in man's view of the universe, and of
his own place in it, without understanding the basically different outlook of the 1830s. The belief on
which all rested was that the biblical story of the Creation was history rather than symbolic mythology. . .
. Then came Darwin. Many years later, proof of Einstein's general theory of relativity had, as the Times
put it, dealt with the fabric of the universe. Darwin was cartooned as the man tearing apart the fabric of
belief. 3
to teach people to believe in evolution. Not only the general public but also many naturalists were
horrified by the theories, or by the implications of the theories, which Darwin propounded. He was, they
said, trying to dethrone man from his proper place in the scheme of things and to challenge the
incontrovertible truths of the Bible. He had dared to question the view that the human race was a
unique and lofty species, created by God in His own image and quite independent of every other form
of living thing. He suggested instead that species . . . had started as quite different creatures from
those we see today: that they had undergone all sorts of subtle changes over the years, thus giving
rise, by slow and natural
processes, to new species. 2
Today, it is impossible to appreciate the changes Darwin wrought in man's view of the universe, and of
his own place in it, without understanding the basically different outlook of the 1830s. The belief on
which all rested was that the biblical story of the Creation was history rather than symbolic mythology. . .
. Then came Darwin. Many years later, proof of Einstein's general theory of relativity had, as the Times
put it, dealt with the fabric of the universe. Darwin was cartooned as the man tearing apart the fabric of
belief. 3
| Hitchens |
| Hitler |
| Marx |
| Haeckel |
| Sanger |
| Kinsey |