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Is the Theory of Evolution racially charged?
After seeing a few vauge accusations, id like to get some sort of explanation for if/how it has anything to do with racial diversity in humans.
6 Answers
- Anonymous12 months ago
Kill yourself, you ******* n!gger!
- ?Lv 71 year ago
Evolution would be the process that created the different races. Humans that moved north needed lighter skin to be able to absorb vitamin D from limited sun. Humans that moved south needed darker skin to protect against the sun's rays. Minus human wandering and evolution we'd all still basically look the same.
- 1 year ago
No, the scientific theory of evolution is not racially charged. The theory of evolution is an explanation of how evolution, the fact, occurs.
That is, individuals within the population of a species that have a variation in a characteristic that enables them to survive longer in the existing environment than the norm within the population will tend to survive long enough to pass that characteristic on to the next generation.
Both, evolution and the theory of evolution are supported by a substantial amount of evidence.
Contrary to what @CRR said, Darwin was not the racist he makes him out to be.
Darwin said this about the races in his Descent of Man:
"Although the existing races of man differ in many respects, as in colour, hair, shape of skull, proportions of the body, &c., yet if their whole organisation be taken into consideration they are found to resemble each other closely in a multitude of points. Many of these points are of so unimportant or of so singular a nature, that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark holds good with equal or greater force with respect to the numerous points of mental similarity between the most distinct races of man."
And in the quote @CRR gave, Darwin was speaking of the level of civilization between Caucasians and Turks. After all, Turks ARE Caucasian, so he HAD to be speaking of their level of civilization. And that is confirmed by a careful reading of the passage. It is unfortunate that Darwin used the term "race" when it is apparent that he really meant nationality.
Here is what Darwin said about the races in his Descent of Man:
"Although the existing races of man differ in many respects, as in colour, hair, shape of skull, proportions of the body, &c., yet if their whole organisation be taken into consideration they are found to resemble each other closely in a multitude of points. Many of these points are of so unimportant or of so singular a nature, that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark holds good with equal or greater force with respect to the numerous points of mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. The American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans differ as much from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Fuegians on board the Beagle, with the many little traits of character, shewing how similar their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded n e g r o with whom I happened once to be intimate.
"Does that sound like someone who believed that blacks are inferior?
Also, contrary to what CRR said, Hitler was NOT an "evolutionist".
If Hitler got his inspiration from Darwin, why then were Darwinian books on the Nazi's list of banned books? See item 6 under Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279. It's about two-thirds of the way down in the document.
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbook...
In fact, Hitler did not accept Darwinian evolution, and his use of the term "evolution" reflected a creationist version of the term, and he adhered to the creationist view of changes only within "kinds":
"Whence do we get the right to believe, that from the very beginning Man was not what he is today? Looking at Nature tells us, that in the realm of plants and animals changes and developments happen. But nowhere inside a kind shows such a development as the breadth of the jump, as Man must supposedly have made, if he has developed from an ape-like state to what he is today.” (Hitler’s Table Talk)
Hitler would have got his inspiration for the Holocaust from Martin Luther's invective against the Jews.
Luther argued that the Jews' synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated. They should be shown no mercy or kindness, afforded no legal protection, and these "poisonous envenomed worms" should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time. He also seems to advocate their murder, writing "[w]e are at fault in not slaying them."
- Anonymous1 year ago
No, as humans were never bred into races. Everybody has a few mutations (DNA-copying typos) that his/her parents didn't have, and some of those are passed on to his/her own offspring.
At some point, somebody had a mutation that led to white skin in those who had it twice, which proved beneficial in higher latitudes when there wasn't enough vitamin-D in the food
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- CRRLv 71 year ago
Of course. In "The Descent of Man" Darwin predicted the eventual demise on the inferior races.
Charles Darwin himself, though strongly opposed to slavery on moral grounds, was convinced of white racial superiority. He wrote on one occasion as follows: "I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit.... 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."The man more responsible than any other for the widespread acceptance of evolution in the 19th century was Thomas Huxley. Soon after the American Civil War, in which the negro slaves were freed, he wrote as follows: "No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried out by thoughts and not by bites."
However one may react morally against Hitler, he was certainly a consistent evolutionist. Sir Arthur Keith, one of the leading evolutionary anthropologists of our [20th] century, said: "The German Fuhrer … has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution."
- capitalgentlemanLv 71 year ago
Not really. In Africa, humans were once all black. But, as we moved away from the equator, with less sun, and different diets, skins lightened to better absorb vitamin D. That is simple evolution, not racism!