From Anonymous Posts: Evolution

This is a good example of misinformation and deception in creationism.

Original Anonymous Post By: anon_94714
Did you know that most of the mass executions was because of the evolutionistic idea?

No one has ever killed anyone in the name of 'natural selection as the mechanism by which species change'.

So we start off with a completely false statement.

Hitler's hit list had jews as the highest priority because he beleived that they were mostly ape.

Hitler was a christian, in fact, he often talked about god as the 'creator', if anything, he was a creationist.

So we've moved on to the tactic of saying 'my opponent is like hitler'.

if he was not stopped he would have continued to do blacks.

I find it hard to beleive that the nazis weren't throwing blacks in germany into the camps already, not that there would've been more than, what, 4 black guys in germany at the time anyway?

So we see a mix of false statements slapped together to make an emotional appeal and using race politics at that.

he thought that removing the more premitive cultures will benefit mankind. If you look on the inside cover of Darwins book "The origin of species" you will see the complete title: "The origin of species, By means of natural selection, Or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life"

Race is a real biological term, it refers to variation below the species level, that is, variation that has not lead to a new species. Darwin didn't mean 'human races' when he said this.

So we have deliberate confusion of words to slander Darwin, which is yet another common tactic in creationism.

It was the evolution idea that made leaders think that "maybe one race has evolved further than the rest"

People were racist long before darwin was around.

So, agian, more lies, and the expectation that the reader is too stupid to realize a basic fact of history.

There are various things that disprove the evolutionary theory:

Without looking at the whole list yet, I am going to bet that most of the items are completely unrelated to evolution, or are just plain lies.

(please read it through)
this one disproves the big bang: www.halos.com

THe big bang has no more to do with the theory that species change over time through a mechanism of natural selection than it does with the theory that atoms exist. Disprove the big bang theory, which hasn't been done, and you've done nothing to the theory of evolution, the theory of gravity, nor atomic theory.


So we have a common and specific tactic in creationism of trying to say that the big bang is wrong, and that therefore there is no evolution.

this one describes a number of things: www.drdino.com see video 4: "lies in the text books" (go to downloads)

"Dr. Dino", Kent Hovind, fraudulently claims to be a Dr, when infact he has a 'degree' from an insitution that isn't accredited to give out degrees.
Besides, Kent Hovind is a liar and a felon who is currently serving 10 years in jail. Normally, one would like to focus on the ideas that a person puts forth, rather than their person, but in Hovind's case, there are no ideas put forth, just lies.

So we have an example of peopel refering to 'ideas' that have been completely refuted, but still refering to them as if they weren't.

video 5 shows how this is linked to NWO

The paranoid political rantings of a guy named dr. dino have nothing to do with evolutionary theory.

So here we have a simple non sequitor.

As you see, if evoltion is false

....

So here we can see the major tactic in creationism, indeed, this is what creationism boils down to. Claim that there is evidence that disproves evolution. Present NO evidence. Claim that evolution has been disproven.

there are no other options than the one presented

So this is another tactic in creationism, claim that evolution is infact false, and then try to say that that somehow has demonstrated that the genesis accounts in teh bible are now true. That of course doesn't make sense. If evolution is false, then any number of other things may be true. Disproving evolution wouldn't prove creationism.

and people dont like it - so they keep evoltion in.

So here we see what is sometimes called 'projection'. Creationists don't like evolution, so they simply make up stuff about it and pretend that its wrong, and then promote their own silly little beleifs in its place. WIth projection, they take their own actions, and attribute them to their opponents.

argument 1 for creationism:

i don't understand evolution, so i'm going to throw in the big bang
make foolhardy attempt at disproving big bang


argument 2 for creationism:
make foolhardy attempt at disproving something about evolution


see, it is false...

yet there is no actual evidence that outright proves ID

That easily has to be my biggest pet peave. Switching around the whole burden of proof thing.

Can you proove with 100% certainty that the theory of natural selection is flawless? No, then the only answer is that creationsim correct.

It's a silly and childish way of thinking, and almost impossible to argue against, simply because those that make the arguement in the first place most likely won't understand the arguement when debated.

While I don't take issue with the gist of your post, there are a couple of things I wanted to address:

Originally posted by Nygdan
This is a good example of misinformation and deception in creationism.

This is in fact, a horrible example of anything resembling what is commonly known as Creation "Science," or Creationism. This post looks like it was written by an 15 year old who visited drdino.com, and probably just a single time.

No one has ever killed anyone in the name of 'natural selection as the mechanism by which species change'.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold may have. This claim is also dubious for another reason. The American Eugenics movement is a well documented period of American History. Certainly people, lots of people... more the 65,000 in the US alone were forcibly sterilized in an effort to better the gene pool through NS. The German Eugenics Programs are alleged to have been modeled after the US programs.

Hitler was a christian, in fact, he often talked about god as the 'creator', if anything, he was a creationist.

True, and he often justified his hatred of Jews on Biblical grounds. However, this doesn't change the fact that Hitler did view the semetic races as inferior to the aryan. The concordance between Hitler's ideas and those of Herbert Spencer are undeniable, however. IOW, Hitler was a Social Darwinist.

So we have deliberate confusion of words to slander Darwin, which is yet another common tactic in creationism.

Well... I agree with you in spirit here, however - and I'm wondering if you've read The Descent of Man, I tend to feel that Darwin, like most in his time was in fact, a Social Darwinist. While anonymous' statements re: The Origin, are simplistic and uninformed, they are not necessarily totally devoid of any basis in reality.

There are various things that disprove the evolutionary theory:

this one disproves the big bang: www.halos.com

THe big bang has no more to do with the theory that species change over time through a mechanism of natural selection....

halos.com is run by RV Gentry, a Seventh Day Adventist Creationist. He is further responsible for Young Earth theories that refute OE hypotheses based on He diffusion in Zr crystals, and probably a couple of others.

I don't believe halos.com attempts to refute the Big Bang. Halos argues for a recent creation of the Earth as recorded by Po Haloes in Primordial rock. I could be wrong... perhaps he's added other stuff. I don't remember Gentry being opposed to the BB though... I thought he was strictly a YE, Biblical literalist, which easily accomodates BBT.

One of Gentry's more noteworthy and whacky theories is the notion that there is a galactic center nearby the Earth, and I believe he speculates that this is Heaven.

So we have a common and specific tactic in creationism of trying to say that the big bang is wrong, and that therefore there is no evolution.

Refuting the BB isn't a common tactic of creationists. It generally tends to fit in with their interpretation of the Bible quite nicely. There is however some disagreement in the Creationist communities about the validity of this model.

So here we can see the major tactic in creationism, indeed, this is what creationism boils down to. Claim that there is evidence that disproves evolution. Present NO evidence. Claim that evolution has been disproven.

Well, I would question your choice of 'Creationist's' to pick apart. This one particular was easy pickin's, and as I've described above isn't the best representation of your average Creationist. It would appear that this particular individual's post was selected specifically because of the scope of ignorance it encompasses. In particular, I would take issue with the idea that Creationists 'present no evidence.' Now like it or not, there are Creation 'Science' journals, that deal in the 'evidence' that you say they don't present. The ICR in fact, has the RATE project that deals with the age of the Earth, maintains and active field research program, and further does laboratory research using a variety of sophisticated, modern techniques. Other Creationist organizations such as GRISDA, etc. are actively engaged in research and publish their findings in their own journal. The claim that Creationist's present no evidence is dubious at best.

So here we see what is sometimes called 'projection'. Creationists don't like evolution, so they simply make up stuff about it and pretend that its wrong, and then promote their own silly little beleifs in its place. WIth projection, they take their own actions, and attribute them to their opponents.

This is an interesting statement... especially considering the above. One could read through your post and get the impression that you are doing exactly what you are accusing Creationists of. You picked an obviously misinformed individual, who doesn't appear to even understand Creationism, much less evolution, and proceed to paint this individual as somehow representative of all Creationists.

It would appear in this case, that you don't like Creationists, and so you take the opportunity to dismantle a strawman creationist in grandiose fashion, meanwhile ignoring the Creationist societies and researchers that aren't quite so easy to dismantle.

One wonders why you've choosen to dismantle the strawmen offered by anonymous, when you'd be better off dismantling the 'misinformation and deception' that have come from the RATE project, or some other such Creationist effort.

*This post in no way represents Kallikak's personal views re: Creationism or Evolution, and should not be taken as endorsement of any position offered by any Creationist organization. *

What does Social Darwinism have to do with biological evolutionary theory?

Originally posted by Providence
What does Social Darwinism have to do with biological evolutionary theory?

Social Darwinism is a direct consequence, or a direct extension of biological evolution into the social realm. The former would likely not exist without the latter.

Originally posted by Providence
What does Social Darwinism have to do with biological evolutionary theory?

The ideas behind 'social darwinism' were around long before Darwin's theory with the likes of Hobbes and Malthus. Spencer laid the basis for social darwinism a few years before Darwin's theory as well. Spencer actually applied Lamarkism to his idea and it was different to Darwin's theory in a few ways (individualistic and deterministic). The class system in the UK was looking for justification of removing support for the poor and many people, including religious dudes, were predicting that the 'savage races' would be superseded by the more 'advanced' well before Darwin. Dehumanisation of out-groups and genocide never required Darwin - reading a Luther screed would suffice for anti-semitism, the OT for genocide. Even scientific racism predated Darwin by a hundred years or so.

So, the answer to the question is, nothing. Darwin's theory was bastardised to fit a pre-exisiting socio-political movement (and capitalist stratified systems exist to this day). It was a movement looking for a degree of scientific jusitification (Larmarkism or Darwinism were sufficient for their needs). Its self-serving ideas supported capitalism, inequality, racism, and imperialism. If Darwin's theory never existed, we would probably be speaking of 'social Lamarkism' instead.

Was Darwin a social darwinist? Possibly. But he didn't advocate it like others at that time (Spencer, Galton etc).

[edit on 8-2-2007 by melatonin]

Thanks mel, that's what I thought. I simply thought I'd ask since a previous poster seemed to be indicating that there was some sort of connection between the two.

Originally posted by Providence
Thanks mel, that's what I thought. I simply thought I'd ask since a previous poster seemed to be indicating that there was some sort of connection between the two.

To say there is absolutely no link would be wrong, but social darwinism is not in any way a consequence of darwinism, the fact the base ideas of Spencer et al. were around before Darwin's supports this. Darwinism was just used to give a scientific justification to a social theory. Lamarkism would have been just as useful to this end (and was).

It's a bit like asking what does intelligent design have to do with Shannon's information theory? Nothing. Shannon's theory is just being badly misused by a group of neo-creationists for their own ends.

[edit on 8-2-2007 by melatonin]

Originally posted by kallikak
While I don't take issue with the gist of your post, there are a couple of things I wanted to address:

Originally posted by Nygdan
This is a good example of misinformation and deception in creationism.

This is in fact, a horrible example of anything resembling what is commonly known as Creation "Science," or Creationism. This post looks like it was written by an 15 year old who visited drdino.com, and probably just a single time.

No one has ever killed anyone in the name of 'natural selection as the mechanism by which species change'.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold may have.

Those kids were nutjobs who merely chalked up their killlings to 'natural selection', there is nothign indicating that they were evolutionary ideologues.

The American Eugenics movement is a well documented period of American History. Certainly people, lots of people... more the 65,000 in the US alone were forcibly sterilized in an effort to better the gene pool through NS. The German Eugenics Programs are alleged to have been modeled after the US programs.

The problem is that the eugenics movement doesn't jive with evolutionary theory, especially what the Nazis did had nothing to do with darwinism. "Social Darwinism" is a misnomer, it wasn't an actual scientific movement based on darwin's theories, it was a political movement based on a distortion and popular misunderstanding of this theories.

However, this doesn't change the fact that Hitler did view the semetic races as inferior to the aryan.

The very idea that a race can be inferior is contradictory to darwinian theory. Species have fitness. They aren't 'ranked' in an ascending order, that idea, the 'scala naturae' was antithetical to darwinism and darwin's ideas worked against it.

Hitler was a Social Darwinist.

I think that there might be room to debate that nazism was different from 'american eugenics', but the problem here is that Social Darwinists aren't Darwinian.

Social Darwinism is a direct consequence, or a direct extension of biological evolution into the social realm. The former would likely not exist without the latter.

I disagree. Social Darwinism was never anything other than racism really, and that long preexisted darwin. Infanticide of invalids long predated darwin, destroy other races 'because they are not full men' was around long before darwin. If anything, it was a popular misunderstanding of Darwin's ideas that allowed these people to give their ideas the shiny and acceptable veneer of science. IOW, social darwinism is pseudo-science, not biological science.
If darwin (or wallace of course) was never born, we'd certainly still have lunatics trying to get rid of the infirm. Its not good science, but its good politics (well, its successful politics anyway, not 'good' as in ethically good of course).

And just to reiterate, I think that Nazism is even further removed from all this. Social Darwinism at least pretends to be a rational effort, but Nazism was an irrationalist movement, like Dadaism or the hippies.

I thought he was strictly a YE, Biblical literalist, which easily accomodates BBT.

I'm not sure about gentry's thoughts vis a vis the big bang. I'd find it surprising if any yecists thought that there was a big bang (outside of laypeople).

Refuting the BB isn't a common tactic of creationists.

Well, I can't speak for all creationists, but in my experiences, there is often a claim that the big bang is false and 'silly' and that you can't have evolution without the big bang.

Well, I would question your choice of 'Creationist's' to pick apart.

Indeed, and the person that made that anonymous post might very well not even see this thread and not get the chance to respond, which is unfortunate also. I picked it out because I thought it was interesting, it seemed to jive with what I've seen from most people in regards to creationism, lots of people will accept a handful of the statements made in that post, but perhaps not all those statements all together. It seemed a good representative post in that way.

I would take issue with the idea that Creationists 'present no evidence.' Now like it or not, there are Creation 'Science' journals, that deal in the 'evidence' that you say they don't present.

I'l agree that they say that they present evidence, but when it comes right down to it, they're not.

The ICR in fact, has the RATE project that deals with the age of the Earth, maintains and active field research program, and further does laboratory research using a variety of sophisticated, modern techniques.

And yet whever any 'evidence' conflicts with the basic faith, it is rejected, because it conflicts with the faith, not because of the evidence.

Other Creationist organizations such as GRISDA, etc. are actively engaged in research and publish their findings in their own journal.

And yet they also reject evidence that contradicts their faith and promote 'evidence' that can be passed off as supporting it.

The claim that Creationist's present no evidence is dubious at best.

If we accept anything that they claim is evidence as evidence, then sure, they present it.

One could read through your post and get the impression that you are doing exactly what you are accusing Creationists of.

Indeed. Thats allways the problem with saying someone else is projecting.

You picked an obviously misinformed individual, who doesn't appear to even understand Creationism, much less evolution, and proceed to paint this individual as somehow representative of all Creationists.

I think that they are representative in many ways. The statements in that post I have seen repeated greatly by many creationists. True enough, some creationists organizations will be more careful in their choice of propaganda, and not make the claims that this person did.
So they're perhaps not representative of the 'clergy' pushing creationism (likesay AIG or ICR as organization), but are representative of the 'laity', the people who are beleivers but not active workers in the organizations. And of course, the post was spot on for guys like Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, etc.

It would appear in this case, that you don't like Creationists, and

I have met people who are creationists of varying degrees and I found them likeable enough. I do not dislike a person merely because they consider themselves a creationist or because they beleive things that creationism pushes.

so you take the opportunity to dismantle a strawman creationist in grandiose fashion,

This was not a strawman. THis was an actual person putting forth their ideas. Their ideas are so ridiculous as to appear like a strawman arguement, but just because creationist arguements are ridiculous doesn't mean that they can't be argued against.

One wonders why you've choosen to dismantle the strawmen offered by anonymous

The anonymous poster offered up his/her own understanding. That is not a strawman.

, when you'd be better off dismantling the 'misinformation and deception' that have come from the RATE project, or some other such Creationist effort.

To be clear, the thing that most stood out to me about this anonymous post was that it was a veritable litany of typical creationist arguements and beleifs. I noticed it on the anonymous board (where there is some pretty darned neat stuff), and thought that it was interesting as an example of what you get from creationism as a whole, and it was interesting to see the 'standards'; 'no big bang means no evolution, darwin was a nazi, no evolution means jesus is lord', at work.

i'd just like to point out that eugenics existed far before the birth of darwin
the spartans, remember them?
they would place any "unfit" children in the wilderness to die