Darwin and Racism
By
Marty
on February 17, 2006 at 07:07 am
6 Comments
I am currently in the process of reading Central Europe, Enemies, Neighbors, Friends, a scholarly history by Lonnie R. Johnson. In the section describing the nineteenth century German attitudes toward the 'inferior' Slavs, The author had this to say:
The Darwin quotes in this article Darwin on race and slavery while strongly stating that he was very much opposed to slavery do not indicate whether he considered one race to be superior to another.
In "Scientific Racism" in Enlightened Europe", the author considers that racism began with Enightenment and was possibly reinforced by the evolutionary theories
There is also the possibility of the misuse of Darwin's theory.
But the full extent of racial discrimination based on scientific theory was not reached until the establishment of eugenics by Francis Galton.
In the article Darwin's Racism, the author is perhaps less kind to Darwin as he wrote
and concludes with
Regardless of Darwin's intentions, if man is considered merely to be an animal subject to the natural selection laws of evolution, it would seem that the only logical conclusion that could be made is that the different races of man have evolved different characteristics at different rates and it is these differences that give fuel to racism.
The development of the pseudoscientific and social Darwinistic theories of race toward the end of the nineteenth century added a completely new racial dimension to the historical, linguistic, and cultural definitions of the Germans as a Volk and Mitteleuropa as a "German space." As soon as biologists began defining culture as a racial attribute and started using the concept of natural selection - or its social Darwinistic bastardization, "the survival of the fittest" - as a means of distinguishing between allegedly superior and inferior races, historical struggles between Germans and Slavs appeared in a completely new light.Indeed, what role did Darwin himself and his theories have in the establishment of racial biases?
The Darwin quotes in this article Darwin on race and slavery while strongly stating that he was very much opposed to slavery do not indicate whether he considered one race to be superior to another.
In "Scientific Racism" in Enlightened Europe", the author considers that racism began with Enightenment and was possibly reinforced by the evolutionary theories
The concept of racism did not always exist: in fact, it only really began with the ideas of the Enlightenment, mainly those that focused on evolution. And it was not solely influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution: even before the one he put forth in Origin of Species, other evolutionary theories such as Lamarckism - proposed by Jean- Baptiste de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, and modified by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel - a certain version of Lamarckism - already existed. Although the theories of the last two evolutionists did not involve natural selection, they also managed to inspire racism that was justified: it had science as its basis. Even as early as 1774, Edward Long - a Jamaican physicist - insisted that peoples of African descent "were a lower order of humanity, probably 'a different species of the same Genus'
There is also the possibility of the misuse of Darwin's theory.
Although the publication of his ideas in Origin of Species in 1859 caused quite an uproar within religious circles, it revolutionized natural science and - although it was not his intent - vindicated imperialist practices. Since Europeans believed themselves to be more technologically advanced than other peoples, Darwin's theory suggested that they were indeed the most superior race of all. It also suggested that the different human races were engaged in a competitive struggle to survive. Thus, it justified such ignorant acts as the conquest, colonization, and extermination of entire peoples.
But the full extent of racial discrimination based on scientific theory was not reached until the establishment of eugenics by Francis Galton.
Francis Galton, who happened to be cousin to Darwin, is conventionally held responsible for the beginning of this scientific study of breeding and its improvement. In the chapter of his book Hereditary Genius - published in 1869 - entitled "The Comparative Worth of Different Races," Galton uses a sort of grading scale to point out where each race in the classification system he used lay according to its range of intelligence. On this scale, he stated that half of the men of each race would lie on the higher side of its ability, and the other half would lie in the lower side of its ability
In the article Darwin's Racism, the author is perhaps less kind to Darwin as he wrote
In the 19th century, when Darwin put forward his claim that living things had not been created, that they had emerged by coincidence, and that the human being had a common ancestor with animals and had emerged as the most highly developed organism as the result of coincidence, perhaps most people could not imagine what the results of this claim would be. But in the 20th century the end result of the claim was lived out in terrible experiences. Those who saw human beings as a developed animal, did not hesitate to rise by treading on the weak, to find a way of disposing of the sick and weak, and to carry out massacres to get rid of races which they saw as different and inferior. Because their theory with a mask of science told them that this was a "law of nature." The disasters Darwinism brought to the world began in this way, and gathering speed, spread over the whole world.
and concludes with
Furthermore, Darwin's theory's denying the existence of God had been the cause of peoples' not seeing that man was something created by God and that all men were created equal. This was one of the factors behind the rise of racism, the acceleration of its acceptance in the world and the 20th century saw massacres carried out for reasons of racism
Regardless of Darwin's intentions, if man is considered merely to be an animal subject to the natural selection laws of evolution, it would seem that the only logical conclusion that could be made is that the different races of man have evolved different characteristics at different rates and it is these differences that give fuel to racism.
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