Religion

Tralhob,

I will ask again “Do you now concede that if evolution has no goal, path or criteria then there is no wrong selective choice?” My argument is not based on “survival of the fittest”, it is based on the fact that if there is no direction or purpose to evolution (which you maintained with the ‘advancement’ discussion), then whatever happens, happens! If there is no direction, then there is no criteria, then whoever survives for whatever reason, is evolution!
So there are two key points; the non-directional nature of evolution, and the fact that whoever survives evolves. So by these two principles there can not be any wrong selective choice.

I haven’t changed my approach, the direction of the discussion has just changed, this is just the natural path of a discussion. I still hold both positions; if evolution is true then eugenics should be a high priority to ensure the further evolution of mankind. And the non-directional nature of evolution states that anything is evolution.

If social Darwinism was just social ‘change’, then it would be called “social evolution”, which would simply mean “changes in social structures”. The fact is that social Darwin is based on biological evolution. You can’t have the racist components that are intrinsic to social Darwinism with out a biological Darwinian basis.

“I've seen no evidence that Hitler knew the slightest thing about science, Darwinian evolution included.”
You saw no evidence for Hitler believing in evolution either, did you? The fact is that Hitler believed in evolution (which you now concede), and he used that as a basis for his eugenics policies. Which was my point from the very start.

“What else have I been wrong about?”
1)Hitler was an evolutionist.
2)Hitler was not a YEC
3)Eugenics is legitimately applied under the theory of evolution
4)It is possible to know the fitness of an organism.
5)You don’t need to have an intimate understanding of an organism to know if it’s fit or not; if it survives then it’s fit!

owm:

This is what a debate should like like:

1. Person A: Argument.
2. Person B: Counterargument.
3. Person A: Counter-counterargument
4. Person B: Counter-counter-counterargument. etc.

This is what a debate should not loook like:

1. Person A: Argument.
2. Person B: Counterargument.
3. Person A: Same argument.
4. Person B: ???...same counterargument.

In other words, if you disagree with a counterargument, you make a counter-counterargument. You do not just repeat the first argument as though the other person hadn't said anything.

Yet this is what you do. Examples:

"I will ask again "Do you now concede that if evolution has no goal, path or criteria then there is no wrong selective choice?" "

Dealt with. I already answered this question. Since you literally copy-pasted the question I answered after answering it, I will simply copy-paste my answer: "If the goal of eugenics is to do exactly what unencumbered natural selection would do - to "mimic natural selection," as you put it earlier - than yes, there clearly is a wrong choice." And also: if the goal of eugenics is to improve the human condition, then yes, there are wrong choices. The point is that evolution has no goal, but eugenics does, so yes, there are wrong selective choices, whatever that goal may be.

"whatever happens, happens!"

Dealt with. This does not argue more for eugenics and genocide than anything else. If we decide to save as many people as we possibly can, and succeed at saving many of them, then that happens, and so it happens. Your argument is totally impotent; it renders all things equal. At best, it equates to 'why not?' It doesn't give any strong reason to perform eugenics, or not to fight eugenics. It says everything is OK, and nothing is more OK than anything else. In other words, it says nothing.

"if evolution is true then eugenics should be a high priority to ensure the further evolution of mankind."

Dealt with, dealt with, dealt with. From many perspectives, from many angles. Particularly in my longer posts, which you called "behemoths."
1. There is no "should" in evolution. Whenever you see a statement that goes 'evolution says we should __," that is a pretty much infallible guide that the person saying it has some very deep misunderstandings about what science is, and is not. Now frankly, I am getting really sick of having to explain this to you. You should have learned this in high school.
2. Things do not have to evolve much, or even at all, in order to survive. Crocodiles and sharks have done just fine. (I'd get into your 3/30/08 counterargument, but it's not relevant here.) 3. There is no evidence that we are not evolving anyway; we've only existed in our modern form for about 100-200,000 years, which is a tiny sliver of geological time. You can't look at the immediate moment (in geological terms) and say nothing's happening. 4. Natural selection is imposed by the environment. We live in a 'civilized' environment, where selective pressures are lessened greatly, but it is still an environment," and it is the relevant environment for natural selection. You with your joint problem are probably not at a disadvantage in this environment.

All this stuff, I've said before. I can't tell you how much it bores me to repeat these arguments. I'm not going to do it again. Next time I see you ignoring my counterarguments and rehashing your same initial arguments, I'm just going to say: "Dealt with."

This is part of why I stopped engaging you. Look at the last post in the other thread before I left, the one where you asked me what university I went to. The section on genocide is strewn with this kind of thing. Asking me where in the Bible it says such and such when in fact I provided you with the relevant passage earlier...selective quoting followed by a question which is answered in the part of the quote you left out...I looked at it, I wrote a very short post, I deleted it and wrote a longer post, then I thought 'screw it. This is pointless,' and deleted the longer post, and that was that, until you called me back here. Why?

Do you do it just to annoy me? Are you trying to bore me into submission? Pretend you're me. Why would you want to debate a person who doesn't even seem to register your counterarguments?? Don't you think that would get unbelievably boring??

I disagree that the nature of the discussion has changed. It's come full circle. You just made me repeat arguments I'd already made, as though I'd never made them.

"The fact is that social Darwin is based on biological evolution."

Social Darwinism is an interpretation of Darwinism. Social Darwinism extends the tenets of Darwinism beyond what Darwinism actually says. It is a stretching of Darwinism into fields that the theory was not intended to apply to. And this extrapolation is baseless. What reason is there to think that because the biological world works one way, society must work the same way? Which brings me to my other point: Darwinism is solely concerned with what is; Social Darwinism is concerned with what should be. So yes, there is a connection between Darwinism and Social Darwinism, but there is no logical connection, which is all we should be concerned with.

"You can't have the racist components that are intrinsic to social Darwinism with out a biological Darwinian basis."

What an absolutely idiotic comment, on so many levels. This doesn't deserve a response. Dealt with.

"You saw no evidence for Hitler believing in evolution either, did you?"

No, not for a very long time. You know why? Because there is very, very little definitive evidence of it in Hitler's writings. If you actually read Hitler's words, rather than the pre-packaged set of conclusions that you trumpeted before the book even arrived at your house, you'd see that Hitler was quite ignorant about science, particularly Darwinism. Actually, no you probably wouldn't see that; that would presume that you understand Darwinism.

"The fact is that Hitler believed in evolution (which you now concede), and he used that as a basis for his eugenics policies. Which was my point from the very start."

Is that your sole point? I thought you were blaming Darwinism for the Holocaust. These are very different statements.

"1)Hitler was an evolutionist."

I said what else.

"2)Hitler was not a YEC"

Probably not, but he was a creationist as well as an evolutionist, and he used creationism as well as evolution to justify racism; that's not seriously in dispute, is it? Is his opinion of the age of the Earth really relevant to anything?

"3)Eugenics is legitimately applied under the theory of evolution"

What do you mean, 'legitimately?' Evolutionary theory is pure science; eugenics is applied science. Do you think scientific theories come with rules and guidelines as to what is and is not a 'legitimate' application? Is there anything in atomic theory that says 'splitting atoms for use in nuclear weapons is not a legitimate application of this theory; it can only be used for good.' No. The 'legitimacy' you are talking about is an ethical question, and no scientific theory includes ethical guidelines as to its use; therefore, there is no meaning to the concept of legitimacy 'under' a scientific theory. In other words: Dealt with. Descriptive scientific theory here, not prescriptive ethical framework.

"4)It is possible to know the fitness of an organism."

This is essentially the same as #5.

"5)You don't need to have an intimate understanding of an organism to know if it's fit or not; if it survives then it's fit!"

No no no...I'm telling you, your understanding of evolutionary theory is inadequate for you to even be having this discussion. Spend a few hours away from the ICR website and take some time to get to know your enemy.. Fitness is not tautological.

First of all, "fitness" is just shorthand for 'possessing phenotypic traits that increase the likelihood of survival and reproduction in a given environment.' The term "fitness" is much more economical; obviously we aren't going to type out 'possessing phenotypic traits that increase the likelihood of survival and reproduction in a given environment' every time we want to refer to this concept. So "fitness" will do. The tradeoff of this brevity is accuracy; "survival of the fittest" doesn't really convey how natural selection works.

Also note that Darwin himself did not even coin the term; Social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, who published his major work 2 years before Origin, coined the term after reading Origin.

Here's a very, very crude, simplistic metaphor for fitness: suppose you and I go to Antarctica. One of us is wearing state-of-the-art thermal protective clothing. The other is naked. One of us is more likely than the other to die. One of us is more 'fit.' This is true even before the naked person dies. The person in the state-of-the-art thermal protective clothing possesses a 'trait' that makes him more likely to survive and reproduce (pretend there are naked and clothed women too) than the naked person. There is a difference in fitness even before the naked person dies. They are not equally 'fit' during the few minutes it takes the naked person to freeze to death.

Again, this is not meant to be an accurate or complete description of fitness, natural selection is much more subtle than this. It is a crude metaphor, and I hope it gets the point across.

Why are we still here?

What do you actually hope to get out of this debate?

I would actually like to know, if we are to continue. At this point, I am only here because you called me back. We've been at this almost 2 months; pretty soon this poll will be on p. 2. How long do you see this going on? What, in your mind, is the endpoint?

Remember: I stopped engaging you. I made this decision after I saw how much you were wasting my time on 2008-03-30 05:10:04.

You are a shrill, ideological harpy and it was naive of me to even begin trying to engage you on a reasonable level.

So state your goals.

Tralhob,

Did it ever occur to you that the reason that I have to consistently repeat my questions is because you never answer them? As long as you continue to evade my questions and charges I will continue to repeat them.

“The point is that evolution has no goal, but eugenics does, so yes, there are wrong selective choices, whatever that goal may be.”
Yes eugenics has goals, but under the theory of evolution it doesn’t matter what goals are or aren’t achieved, every outcome is ‘evolution’.
The point that I am trying to make is that if there is no God, then evolution has no direction and is purposeless, thus any act is a valid evolutionary act because there is no criteria to judge what act is right or wrong, ‘evolution’ is every act.

"if evolution is true then eugenics should be a high priority to ensure the further evolution of mankind."
As I said in the other thread; I’m fine with you disavowing eugenics, as long as you admit that without eugenics evolution can not proceed.

“Why would you want to debate a person who doesn't even seem to register your counterarguments??”
As I said at above, the reason that I repeat the original arguments is because you consistently avoid my questions and provide an answer that fails to address my questions. If you ceased f%cking around and stoped skewing my questions into something that you can answer, then you wouldn’t be so boarded and frustrated. All you have to do is directly answer the actual question that I ask, it’s pretty damn obvious that you are evading my questions that you can’t answer by skewing my questions into something that you can answer, that is frustrating!!!

“Is that your sole point? I thought you were blaming Darwinism for the Holocaust. These are very different statements.”
I have been saying that evolution/Darwinism gave Hitler the reason to commit genocide, so yes evolution was to a large extent to blame for the holocaust, this is the point that I was making from the beginning.

“Is his [Hitler’s] opinion of the age of the Earth really relevant to anything?”
The fact that Hitler believed in evolution is clear evidence that he was not a YEC. Evolution requires billions of years, YEC has only 6000. The two are mutually exclusive, surely you realize this?

“no scientific theory includes ethical guidelines as to its use”
This is exactly my point, evolution has no “guidelines”, therefore anything under evolution is evolution; eugenics is evolution. Thus, point number three is correct; eugenics is legitimately applied under evolution.

Point number five: Yes I see your reasoning, but it is irrelevant. Your analogy fails because the only criteria for evolution is for an organism to reproduce, the reason that ‘death’ is used is because it generally means that if it dies it will produce less offspring than an organism who lives. Thus I will change “if it survives, then it is fit” to “if it reproduces, then it is fit”, this is far more accurate.
So your analogy would only work if we knew how many offspring is produced. So to rephrase point number five; You don't need to have an intimate understanding of an organism to know if it's fit or not; if it reproduces then it's fit!. So armed with the rephrased point, eugenics does work because if you kill someone you eliminate any further reproduction, thus; if it reproduces it is fit, if it doesn’t it is unfit.

“What do you actually hope to get out of this debate?”
The main reason that I started this thread was to document what I read in the book “From Darwin to Hitler”.
The second Point that I made was that because evolution is purposeless and without direct, then you were wrong to state that eugenics-or anything for that matter-is not legitimately applied under Darwinism. I thought that this point had to be raised because your argument that ‘eugenics is based on a incorrect interpretation of evolution’ is in itself based on a wrong interpretation of evolution, an apt point wouldn’t you think?

"Did it ever occur to you that the reason that I have to consistently repeat my questions is because you never answer them?"

Nice try. :)

"As long as you continue to evade my questions and charges I will continue to repeat them."

No no no, owm. No no no.

Smirk

These aren't unanswered questions we're talking about here, owm. They're rebutted arguments. Go back and look over the examples.

Yawn

"Yes eugenics has goals, but under the theory of evolution it doesn’t matter what goals are or aren’t achieved, every outcome is ‘evolution’."

Dealt with.

"The point that I am trying to make is that if there is no God, then evolution has no direction and is purposeless, thus any act is a valid evolutionary act because there is no criteria to judge what act is right or wrong, ‘evolution’ is every act."

Dealt with.

And who sez there's no God?

"As I said in the other thread; I’m fine with you disavowing eugenics, as long as you admit that without eugenics evolution can not proceed."

Dealt with.

Also, does anyone really care what you're fine and not-fine with?

Come on, owm. Give me something new.

"I have been saying that evolution/Darwinism gave Hitler the reason to commit genocide, so yes evolution was to a large extent to blame for the holocaust, this is the point that I was making from the beginning."

Big claim; zero evidence. And a simplistic little view of history, too.

Age of Earth: what, you're expecting logic and consistency out of Hitler? Fact: Hitler mentioned the Earth spinning through space for 'so many thousands of years' in the first edition of MK, 'hundreds of thousands of years' in later editions...who knows how old he thought the Earth was. Who cares?

btw, I never actually said he was a YEC; I said there was "every indication" he was, meaning the evidence was strong. Which it is. Although there is evidence that contradicts that. And that's the thing. This is a guy who contradicted himself. Which you would only be aware of if Weikart pointed this out, since he's the one who is spoon-feeding you your opinions on this matter.

"evolution has no “guidelines”, therefore anything under evolution is evolution; eugenics is evolution."

Dealt with.

I'll add: your complaint, if valid, applies to all science.

Point 5: Changing the question changes nothing, and suggests you missed the point of my little analogy, which still holds, whether we're talking about survival, reproduction, or both. You actually didn't adress the point at all. You just reformulated the 'tautology' angle. Which has been what? Dealt with.

"The main reason that I started this thread was to document what I read in the book “From Darwin to Hitler”."

Then do so. All your quotes seem like they come from the introduction; there is something very 'introductory' about them.

"your argument that ‘eugenics is based on a incorrect interpretation of evolution’ is in itself based on a wrong interpretation of evolution, an apt point wouldn’t you think?"

I don't know what specific statement of mine you are referring to; those are obviously your words, not mine. And I'm not interested in defending your paraphrases unless I know exactly what they refer to. They're straw men as far as I'm concerned.

If you direct me to a specific quote, then I will answer your question rephrased with the direct quote replacing your paraphrase.

Until then, no, I 'wouldn't think.'

Let's get real here, owm.

The very first ingredient that the Nazis needed to get the Holocaust going, was a hatred of Jews.

This had already existed in Europe for centuries before Darwin was ever born - much of it actively promoted by the Christian religion, by the way. Did Darwin ever write anything anti-Semitic? Ever? Did he contribute anything to Europe's ancient, Christian-sponsored tradition of anti-Semitism? Is evolution an 'inherently anti-Semitic' theory?

Nobody fanned the flames of anti-Semitism more than Martin Luther, the founder of the German Christian religion, Hitler's spiritual guide, author of "On the Jews and their Lies."

But Luther is just the most egregious example I know of; there have been many, many other Christian thinkers over the centuries who wrote about how vile and filthy the Jews are.

I wouldn't say Christianity is an anti-Semitic religion at its core. But it has nurtured and promoted anti-Semitism almost since its inception. This is historical fact. Do you acknowledge this?

Does Weikart discuss the long partnership between Christianity and anti-Semitism at all in his book?

And I only bring it up at all because you're attacking evolution. I say you are in a glass house, throwing stones.

There were other factors as well, such as World War I, Versailles, the Depression, all of which fed into German nationalism and anti-Semitism.

I read in another thread that you said "The whole reason for the holocaust was evolutionary eugenics, so on what basis do you deny this?" (That's in "What does your religion mean to you?") That's what you said; "the whole reason," with "whole" italicized for empahsis, meaning Darwinism was 100% to blame; there were no other causes at all. Here, you are just saying it was "to a large extent to blame," though you also say it was "the reason," although you didn't italicize "the" this time. So my question to you is, is your view of history really that blinkered and myopic that you dismiss any cause other than Darwinism, including the long history of Christian anti-Semitism?

It's my understanding that Weikart acknowledges that there were manifold causes of the Holocaust, and he openly admits that Darwinism was not solely to blame. He says that these other factors are beyond the scope of his study. So you are necessarily reading a very narrow, selective slice of history here.

What does Weikart have to say about the Wannsee Conference? That's the meeting where the Nazis formally decided to implement "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question." "The Jewish Question" of course was, in so many words, 'what to do about these damn pesky Jews?' and was, unfortunately a "question" Europe had been asking itself since centuries before Darwin was born.

Are you done with FDTH yet?