Blue Collar Scientist

The Discovery Institute has written more anti-semitic Holocaust revisionism, this time slandering a recently-passed resolution of the Methodist Church. The DI says:

The quadrennial international convention of the Methodist Church, meeting in Fort Worth, today adopted an historic and detailed resolution deploring the legacy of Darwinian eugenics that saw its 20th century extreme expression in the theories of Adolf Hitler.

So the Discovery Institute says, among other things, that eugenics specifically comes from Charles Darwin.

Contrast this with what the Methodists’ well-researched resolution actually says:

The study of eugenics did not begin with Hitler or his German scientists, but rather was first promoted by Sir Francis Galton, in England.

Darwinian eugenics, huh?

Poor creationists. They can’t tell the difference between the name Charles Darwin and Francis Galton. No surprise, I guess; they seem to be unable to understand considerably simpler biological concepts.

Hat tip to Bay of Fundie, who has a more complete takedown.

I have posted previously that the creationists’ minions have been advancing the myth of Hitler’s atheistic motivations at the science presentations I’ve been giving, and I’ve documented some of Hitler’s own remarks that show he was a Christian and demonstrate that his inspiration for eugenics came from ancient Greece.

Now Skeptico, one of my favorite bloggers, has pointed out several passages from Mein Kampf that further illustrate how Hitler was influenced by Christianity. Take note, all who are in the same boat with me.

From Mein Kampf:

The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-and this against their own nation.

It is not plausible to believe that Hitler, if he were an atheist, would have problems with a Christian political party trying to get votes from Jews for theological reasons.

But there’s more.

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: ‘by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

This is simply not something an atheist would say.

Skeptico provides the only necessary commentary:

There’s a lot more of the same in Mein Kampf, and in other speeches Hitler gave, if you can stomach reading any more. It doesn’t sound to me as though Charles Darwin was much of an influence. In fact, I haven’t been able to find even one mention of Darwin or the theory of evolution in Mein Kampf. Not one. Now, isn’t that strange? Don’t you think that if Hitler had been influenced by Darwin that he would have mentioned it somewhere in his book? Why wouldn’t he? But not even once.

Skeptico also provides a good set of links to other resources on the subject.

The BCS does a lot of public speaking about science. It’s mostly astronomy, and some physics, but I emphasize the scientific method and how we know what we know, and that opens up the dialog with the audience to just about any scientific subject. Because so many whackjobs hate science in general, and evolution in particular, a lot of the give-and-take involves evolution.

Over the last six months or so, the under-20 crowd seems to be parroting the meme that Hitler practiced Darwinism, therefore Darwinism is bad. (Nevermind that a lot of evolutionary theory these days is non-Darwinian.) I’m guessing that there is some creationist propaganda mill that is priming these foot soldiers with the talking points, because everyone who brings the topic up says pretty much the same thing.

I’m working up a mini-program in response to these kinds of claims, and collecting pertinent quotations of Hitler’s to show the sources of his ideas. Via Bay of Fundy, here’s the latest addition to my collection:

At one time the Spartans were capable of such a wise measure, but not our present, mendaciously sentimental, bourgeois patriotic nonsense. The rule of six thousand Spartans over three hundred and fifty thousand Helots was only thinkable in consequence of the high racial value of the Spartans. But this was the result of a systematic race preservation; thus Sparta must be regarded as the first Völkisch State. The exposure of the sick, weak, deformed children, in short, their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject, and indeed at any price, and yet takes the life of a hundred thousand healthy children in consequence of birth control or through abortions, in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates burdened with illnesses.

That’s from Hitler’s Zweites Buch, which wasn’t published until 1961. What this quotation helps establish is twofold - first, that eugenics was practiced long before Darwin’s time, and second, that a significant source of Hitler’s ideas on the subject derive from ancient Greece.

More as the program takes shape….