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Mark Mathis is Associate Producer of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a forthcoming documentary that says the Darwinists of American universities are suppressing scientific inquiry.
World on the Web: What makes Expelled different from other “radical idea” documentaries, like the ones Michael Moore has produced?
Mark Mathis: This film is not told from a conservative worldview, though that accusation will happen. Most of the documentary films that have been well done are driving an agenda that comes from the left side of the political spectrum. Films that do (come from this perspective) are less ambitious, more true to documentary form. Our agenda is that science needs to be free, and that the freedom’s not there. When you come to a Michael Moore or Al Gore film, the message is, “we have the answer; and everyone else, just shut up.” Expelled wants to do the opposite: stop the shutting down of scientific inquiry and return freedom to science.
WoW: Who is the film’s target demographic?
Mathis: Our target is the general public. The public is not aware of the materialist, atheistic agenda that is driven by elitists. We know that within the academic elitist institutions across this country, we are going to persuade almost absolutely no one. They’ve stopped looking at the evidence in an unbiased way.
WoW: And who do you think will be most interested in seeing this?
Mathis: People who care about freedom. People who are sick and tired of elitists dictate to them what truth is, people who believe that when they look at nature, they see reason to pursue scientific inquiry, and people who believe in God will have a strong interest in seeing this film. Having a free society will ultimately show us the truth.
WoW: In the documentary, you draw a connection between Darwinist scientists and the Nazi ideology. Do you think that approach will draw criticism?
Mathis: Should we shy away from the truth? People are uncomfortable that a materialist philosophy can lead to a phenomenon like Nazism. Just because it makes people uncomfortable doesn’t mean we should leave it out. All the more reason we should leave it in. It’s not a guaranteed outcome, and we’re not saying that. But…we know that Adolph Hitler was a staunch Darwinist, and those ideals consciously drove him. It was a consequence. The unfortunate thing in this is that there are far too many people have misappropriated Nazism to their own agenda. It’s “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” syndrome.
WoW: What was the most interesting interview you conducted, and why?
Mathis: The one with (Dr.) Will Provine of Cornell University. What I can’t say about most of the people I interviewed is that Will Provine is something of a model of what we should be seeing in most of the universities today. He believes that Neo-Darwinism is a fact and there is no God, but he allows people who disagree with him to speak in his classes. It’s very healthy for science, and it forces his students, who think like he does, to sharpen their arguments. That’s what science should do.
WoW: Why did Ben Stein seem a good choice to star in this film?
Mathis: Three reasons: one, Ben Stein is an accomplished person on multiple levels; an author of more than 30 books, a lawyer, an economist, an entertainer, a pitchman. He writes for the New York Times, and he’s a commentator for Fox News. Two, we wanted someone with a name in the culture, so when we talked about Expelled, it wasn’t just a documentary film. Three, we wanted to do a film where people weren’t going to see the film for a science lesson. They want to learn something, yes, but they want to be entertained along the way.
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good lord. i was actually quite proud of world for seemingly distancing themselves from the growing disgrace of B.S. and company and the Expelled debacle. No serious thinking person can give this outfit any credibility.
Adolph Hitler eliminated the teaching of biological evolution in Germany.
Here is a summary of the spin put on the incident where a biologist interviewed by Stein is prevented from attending a screening of the movie that was open to the public. Expelled indeed.
Here is a summary of other reactions to the PZ affair.
Mark Mathis has given mutually contradictory accounts of the reason why PZ Myers was Expelled from the movie. Lying for Jesus, anyone?
Mathis drools “The public is not aware of the materialist, atheistic agenda that is driven by elitists. We know that within the academic elitist institutions across this country, we are going to persuade almost absolutely no one. They’ve stopped looking at the evidence in an unbiased way.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and all that.
This is why they hire Ben Stein to dance on the graves of 6 million jews. What a shower sack.
“Mathis: Our target is the general public.”
Right - unless you happen to be an evilutionist who actually appeared in the movie.
Expelled from “Expelled”
“Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and all that.”
Wouldn’t that be “Vast Left Wing Consiracy”?
Mathis: “Three, we wanted to do a film where people weren’t going to see the film for a science lesson.”
Well there was never any worry about that, eh?!
Actually, Ben Stein is calling attention to a surreal phenomenon in modern life, namely that the Darwinian establishment cannot take serous criticism without at least excoriating its critics. As Stein remarks their rather thin skinned defensiveness is a clue to a weak position. Note that on this thread Erasmus kicks the discussion off with a nasty argumentum ad hominem against Stein.
Serious scholars including Behe, Myer, and Denbski are written off by the Darwinian fundamentalists basically as Satanic expositors of anti-Darwinism.
Contra Erasmus, a cogent historian from the University of California, Richard Weikart, wrote an incisive book, From Darwin to Hitler, explains the matter as follows:
Darwinism by itself did not produce the Holocaust, but without Darwinism, especially in its social Darwinist and eugenics permutations, neither Hitler nor his Nazi followers would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince themselves and their collaborators that one of the world’s greatest atrocities was really morally praiseworthy. Darwinism - or at least some naturalistic interpretation of darwinism - succeeded in turning morality on its head.
Thank heaven that brave men like Ben Stein are standing up to the Darwinian fascists.
Serious scholars including Behe, Myer, and Denbski are written off by the Darwinian fundamentalists basically as Satanic expositors of anti-Darwinism.
I triple-dog-dare-ya to find one example of a scientist who refers to any of these guys as “satanic”.
“brave men like Ben Stein”
ROTFLOL
“the Darwinian establishment cannot take serous criticism without at least excoriating its critics.”
Peter - the ID movement does not constitute serious scientific criticism. It is a movement of politico-religious zealots and - for that reason - it is somewhat scary.
As for Weikert, the notion that German militarism needed “scientific underpinnings” to proceed is a dubious proposition at best.
Spinoza: As for Weikert,[sic] the notion that German militarism needed “scientific underpinnings” to proceed is a dubious proposition at best.
Actually, scholars, including the Harvard historian, Stephen Ozment, have pointed out that the two main intellectual influences on Hitler and his coterie were Darwinism and the nihilism of Nietzsche. Hitler didn’t appear out of intellectual thin air.
Also, Spinoza, you are a typical Darwinian fanatic in claiming that the ID scholars, including Behe, Dembski, and Meyer, are, as you say, [scary] politico-religious zealots.”
“Why did Ben Stein seem a good choice to star in this film?”
Mathis: “… he’s a commentator for Fox News.”
Nuff said
Also, Spinoza, you are a typical Darwinian fanatic in claiming that the ID scholars, including Behe, Dembski, and Meyer, are, as you say, [scary] politico-religious zealots.”
I never thought of myself as a typical Darwinian fanatic, but you’ve convinced me I should be one!
Behe, Dembski, and Meyer’s umbrella organization (Discovery Institute) is nothing if not a right-wing political fanatic organization. This is well documented.
And of course, Mathis is a Nazi (just playing along)…
Spinoza, Casey Luskin of the San Diego Union Tribune recently wrote an article, Academic freedom and evolution, well worth your reflection, including the following:
Darwinists often laud the alleged success of evolutionary science in aiding research, but some scientists believe the theory does not provide much guidance for scientific advance. In 2005, another NAS member, Philip Skell, wrote in The Scientist that, “Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology . . . the claim that it is the cornerstone of modern experimental biology will be met with quiet skepticism from a growing number of scientists in fields where theories actually do serve as cornerstones for tangible breakthroughs.
My guess is that most sensible, advanced biologists have moved well beyond Darwinian evolution, much to the dismay of the troglodytes who cling desparately its “scientific” pieties.
Casey Luskin is a quote-mining idiot lying lawyer - and a Nazi (just kidding). I’ve read quite enough of him to dismiss him out of hand.
My guess is that most sensible, advanced biologists have moved well beyond Darwinian evolution, much to the dismay of the troglodytes who cling desparately its “scientific” pieties.
Your guess is wrong - but if you base your opinions on the mutterings of Casey Luskin, I guess I can understand how you came to such a ridiculous conclusion. How many “sensible, advanced biologists” did you consult to reach this point of view, btw? Luskin is neither sensible, advanced, nor a biologist!
p.s. If “Darwinian evolution” simply means evolution before Mendelian Genetics and reading the genetic code, than yeah - biology has moved on. But there are no “troglodytes” who want to dispense with genetic advances that have solidified acceptance of evolution (mostly only Creationists keep qualifying “evolution” as “Darwinian”). And certainly, “Intelligent design” is not seen anywhere as even a scientific idea, much less a rival theory.
#9 Re: Ozment and blaming Hitler on Darwin - A summary of Ozment’s book shows that he blames both Neitzsche (not Darwin) and Martin Luther
“A great deal of this book (A MIGHTY FORTRESS: A New History of the German People) is devoted to the austere, reforming personality of Martin Luther. … Luther’s virulent anti-semitism was also co-opted by the Third Reich into its racist propaganda. (Jews, in Luther’s opinion, were an “arrogant, vengeful, foreign presence”.) As far back as AD98, Tacitus had warned of the Teuton’s penchant for peril over peace; all subsequent German history may be viewed as a bloody battle for land and national supremacy.”
Luther was a Nazi. He was following Christ, who must also be a Nazi (just kidding)!
Spinoza, whoever wrote that quote on Stephen Ozment’s book hadn’t really read it carefully. Obviously you haven’t read it. Ozment is critical of Luther, including his anti-Semitism, though he cites the cumulative influence of German thinkers of the Enlightenment including Kant, Feurbach, Hegel and Nietzsche along with the many other late Nineteenth Century thinkers influenced by Darwin as the main influences on Twentieth-Century German totalitarianism.
Spinoza - You toss off the term right wing political zealot a if that makes them wrong.
Solon your scholarship is as bad as your heroes. Luskin is a member of the Discovery Institute propaganda machine.
Unable to undermine the scientific theory of evolution, the DI has taken to arguing against their provincially perceived consequences. Their target audience is people like Solon who only need a face for their 2 minute hate.
Luther is the fundamental foundation of the german nazi crusade, not biology.
From a more intelligent forum: “Sparta preceded Darwin with over 2000 years, yet their contemporaries wrote of them practicing eugenics. Did Darwin have a time machine and if so, do you find it plausible that oiled and muscled macho men (and women) would take advice from a victorian gentleman?”
Goebbels: “Then one can say that a person has a worldview—not because he knows a lot or has read a lot—but because he sees all of life from a certain standpoint, and measures everything by a certain standard. I am a Christian when I believe that the meaning of my life is the heavy responsibility to love my neighbor as myself.”
Solon, are you really saying this that is on the Expelled site?
Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany?
Please do tell.
More information refuting the ahistorical garbage being spewed from the propaganda machine, Discover Institute for the Renewal of Science and Culture.
Richard Dawkins’ review of the preview of ‘Expelled’.
Josh Timonen’s take on that same previewing.
<a href=http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2006/08/darwin_and_the_holocaust_whats_1.phpJohn Wilkins’ destroys Solon’s ahistorical garbage.
PT explicitly destroys the pseudoscholarship of Weikart that has Solon so excited.
PT link to Ed Brayton’s discussion of D James Kennedy and the Darwin-Hitler fallacy.
Finally, a hilarious discussion of the hypocrisy inherent in this propaganda piece.
Solon you sure have hitched your wagon to a honey dipper truck this time old pal.
Solon, before you get into your throbbing urge to merge with Darwin to Hitler, can you tell me who has been Expelled? anyone? SRSLY?
#16 - I’m not sure how your summary of Ozment helps your point and hurts mine.
You & Mathis & Stein - Hitler is the result of Darwin
Ozment - Hitler is the result of a lot of things.
Me - The same kind of (mis-)logic that blames Nazism on Darwin could be used equally well to attribute it to the influence of Christ.
And, besides, this is all so beside the point. We evolved, whether Hitler was inspired by it or not!
PZ Says This is Why We Need Academic Freedom
I’m writing this at an altitude of 37,000 feet, 7 miles up in the air. Now I’m not really afraid of flying — I am entirely confident that I’ll be able to post this sometime after I land — but if you think about it, it’s grounds for trepidation. This is insanely high, and I’m in this fragile tin can that is reliant on a constant stream of exploding jet fuel to keep from simply falling out of the sky … an event which I and the other passengers would not survive. I don’t want to dwell on it, of course, but I have put myself in a potentially lethal situation, and I have to do this regularly as part of my job. Why? Who is at fault for creating this culture of risk?
I blame Newton.
Newton was a wild-eyed lunatic, cruel and inconsiderate to his peers (actually, he was so arrogant he seems not to have regarded anyone as his peer), and he documented in excruciating, obsessive detail the behavior of falling objects, which includes the falling of living, breathing, caring people. He plotted mathematically and with complex formulae the rates that objects, including people, would fall, and the force with which they would strike the ground — it’s hard not to imagine him cackling with glee like a psychopathic child pulling the wings off flies as he calculated the trajectories of objects, like people, flying through space. He was a horrible man.
Look back over the worst tragedies of the twentieth century, this period of time when Newtonists have run amuck. We’ve been lofting people into the sky for well over a hundred years, and quite often, they’ve fallen down. How many have died due to the tyranny of the gravity Newton put into the hands of conscienceless materialist scientists? Examine Hitler’s record, for instance. He was an ardent Newtonist who put his Wehrmacht to evil purpose, building machines that used the wicked geometries of Newton to shatter Europe. Nazi artillery and tanks used Newton’s tools to strike at his righteous opponents. Who can forget the V2 rockets lofting into the air on tongues of F=ma (another Newtonist “theory”!) to then fall along Newtonian trajectories, showering death on the good Christians of England. Hitler also dreamed of firing his evil Newtonist weapons on America, and if we’d given him enough time, he would have succeeded…thanks to Newton.
Perhaps you want to argue that Newton is not to blame, that someone would have said the same thing; or perhaps you want to make the claim that the world would have been the same without his work. But that neglects an important fact: Newton killed hope. Once, I might have thought that I could survive falling if I watched my diet and were as light as a feather, but no — Newton’s cold equations dictate that no matter what I weigh, I’d fall just as fast, so in despair I have let myself go, just as, I can see, many of my fellow Midwesterners. We despair because of Newton, and seek forlorn solace in trying to increase our wind resistance.
And those equations! The force of gravity is described as g•M1•M2 / d2, and those little letters don’t stand for God, motherhood, marriage (heterosexual), and devotion. There is no room in Newtonism for the reassuring idea that my airplane is being cradled in the loving, supportive hands of an intelligent anti-gravity agent. Just the idea of opposing gravity is anathema to the intelligentsiac — they think gravity is a great thing, and don’t want to question it.
Try polling university physics departments sometime: you won’t find the faculty questioning Newton at all. Gravity is over and done with those people, with nothing left to learn, and they won’t tolerate even the slightest deviation from Newtonist dogma. An open-minded physicist who suggests even the tiniest revision to the “theory” — for instance, suggesting that maybe Newton got the exponent a little bit wrong, and gravity varies with the cube of the distance, and they laugh at you and refuse to give you tenure. Shouldn’t these questions be discussed? Are they so intolerant that they will allow no dissent at all?
Don’t be fooled. The catastrophic social consequences of falling demand that we question all of Newtonism.
KRM - “Spinoza - You toss off the term right wing political zealot a if that makes them wrong.”
Well I happen to think it does but that’s not the point. It indicates that they (DI and associates) have a political - not scientific - agenda. They are a right-wing think tank supported with lots of religious political dough to influence ideology in America. They care about honest scientific study of Nature not one whit!
And they’re really dumb.
And they’re Nazis too.
To blame Darwin and evolutionary theory for mass murder, racism and tyranny would be amusing if it wasn’t so serious. Anti-semitism, mass murder, race based policies, and despots all existed prior to Darwin and will continue to exist after evolutionary theories have been adapted to new evidence so as to longer resemble Darwin’s original intent.
A quick list of possible influence on Hitler;
- popular antisemitism in Vienna
- Mussolini
- right wing Catholic political theorists who promote the corporatist state as an alternative to democracy or communism. (Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius XI, Adam Muller, Alfred Rocco)
- Bavarian conservatism
- Prussian militarism
- Martin Luther
- Wagner
- the Armenian genocide (I’m quite sure the Turks weren’t reading the Origins of Species when they massacred the Armenians)
A for the connection between Nietzsche and the Nazis, this has been consistently debunked since the 70s. Walter Kaufmann made this his life work and succeeded admirably. His break with Wagner and nis own sister were due to their ties with German nationalism and anti-Semitism. He viewed nationalism as a sickness and was upset that anti-Semites (including his sister) were (mis)using his writings.
In reference to Darwin, Spencer and English economic ideas, Nietszche said;
“As for the famous “struggle for existence,” so far it seems to me to be asserted rather than proved. It occurs, but as an exception; the total appearance of life is not the extremity, not starvation, but rather riches, profusion, even absurd squandering — and where there is struggle, it is a struggle for power. One should not mistake Malthus for nature.
Assuming, however, that there is such a struggle for existence — and, indeed, it occurs — its result is unfortunately the opposite of what Darwin’s school desires, and of what one might perhaps desire with them — namely, in favor of the strong, the privileged, the fortunate exceptions. The species do not grow in perfection: the weak prevail over the strong again and again, for they are the great majority — and they are also more intelligent. Darwin forgot the spirit (that is English!); the weak have more spirit.
LOL. Even the Darwinists and Evolutionists on this very blog want to expel any criticism of their opinions. Pot, meet kettle!
outkast my postmodern friend you are the target audience for expelled. seen it yet?
Well if we’re going to debate what beliefs motivated Hitler, why not ask him to explain it himself?
My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. –Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
Peter Leavitt at #5: Actually, Ben Stein is calling attention to a surreal phenomenon in modern life, namely that the Darwinian establishment cannot take serous criticism without at least excoriating its critics. As Stein remarks their rather thin skinned defensiveness is a clue to a weak position. Note that on this thread Erasmus kicks the discussion off with a nasty argumentum ad hominem against Stein.
False.
If there were serious criticisms to be made of evolutionary theory, scientists would take them seriously. Intelligent design isn’t even science … it’s a matter of looking at something complicated in biology and saying “Huh, I can’t figure that out, so God .. er, I mean, a designer … did it.”
The repeated bleatings that ID is unfairly shut out of scientific debate is a bit like saying the belief that disease is caused by an imbalance of humors needs a fair hearing against the germ theory. Because of course, the idea that germs cause disease is “just” a theory.
Not only is ID not science, it’s not good theology either. It’s just another version of god of the gaps, which has the unfortunate consequence of squeezing God into smaller and smaller places before the gaps close entirely.
And I am mystified why Creationists are so eager to embrace it, since the ID ideas of Behe, Dembski, et al, get you no closer to sudden creation than evolution does.
Steve [28]: What beliefs motivated Hitler to do what, exactly? His evil acts? For those are clearly the very antithesis of Christ and His teachings. Even Hitler’s own words in the above quotation clearly show that he had no true understanding of Christianity. But of course you already know that. So what is your point?
One notes that the Darwin fanatics on this thread, not one of whom has read the book, are dissings Weikart’s important work.
The following is a fairly representative sample of book reviews from scholars not smitten with Darwin:
Richard Weikart’s outstanding book shows in sober and convincing detail how Darwinist thinkers in Germany had developed an amoral attitude to human society by the time of the First World War, in which the supposed good of the race was applied as the sole criterion of public policy and ‘racial hygiene’. Without over-simplifying the lines that connected this body of thought to Hitler, he demonstrates with chilling clarity how policies such as infanticide, assisted suicide, marriage prohibitions and much else were being proposed for those considered racially or eugenically inferior by a variety of Darwinist writers and scientists, providing Hitler and the Nazis with a scientific justification for the policies they pursued once they came to power.
– Dr. Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, and author of The Coming of the Third Reich
Since Richard Evans is one of the foremost social historians of modern Germany, perhaps it would be more appropriate to quote his work on the origins of German ideology. However, his view is not nearly as simplistic to quote. He views the origins of Nazi ideology as the cumulation of romanticism, antisemitism (including Luther), Prussian materialism etc. In other words, a nuanced view.
Finally, Darwinist and Darwinism do not generally refer to Darwin’s theories rather to their implementation in society by other thinkers such as Herbert Spencer. Interestingly Spencer was a Lamarckian and, unlike Darwin, he had a teleological view of history. If one was to give an Englishman credit for Nazis, ( and I wouldn’t) one should look at Spencer not Darwin.
Tychicus at #30: My point? This thread has turned into a discussion about blaming Darwin’s ideas for Hitler’s ability to justify his acts. The quote proves it was Christianity, not Darwin, that he saw as justifying it.
We agree he misunderstood it utterly. So? It still was where he found his rationale.
Interestingly Spencer was a Lamarckian and, unlike Darwin, he had a teleological view of history.
As was Haeckel and most of the key German proponents of evolutionary thought at the turn of the century. Not sure if Hitler even got the natural-selection memo by the time of WWII.
Conclusion a la Mathis? -
Lamarckian evolution is at the root of all evil.
Somebody tell Ben Stein
Amen
#31 So Peter - what is your point exactly? That evolution is not true because of Hitler?Then it follows that Christianity isn’t true because of Torquemada.
Finally got to Erasmus’ links above - I guess I was out of the loop - Weikert is a Discovery Institute associate and ID-supporter? Why didn’t you say so Peter? Or did I just miss it somewhere?
Everything is becoming all too clear…
DI and ID - If you can’t win with scientists on empirical grounds, try a good ol’ fashion Rove-style smear campaign with the ever-gullible American public! Reminds one of another Nazi tactic from Goebbels:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
Yup - Mathis is a Nazi, sure enough!
From Dawkins:
“As I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian. But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical care (very un-Darwinian). It is one of the classic philosophical fallacies to derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. Stein (or whoever wrote his script for him) is implying that Hitler committed that fallacy with respect to Darwinism. If we look at more recent history, the closest representatives you’ll find to Darwinian politics are uncompassionate conservatives like Margaret Thatcher, George W Bush, or Ben Stein’s own hero, Richard Nixon. Maybe all these people, along with the Social Darwinists from Herbert Spencer to John D Rockefeller, committed the is/ought fallacy and justified their unpleasant social views by invoking garbled Darwinism. Anyone who thinks that has any bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsity of Darwin’s theory of evolution is either an unreasoning fool or a cynical manipulator of unreasoning fools.
Well put …
From Nick Matzke on Panda’s Thumb:
“Last month, Robert Richards, a noted historian of science, particularly evolution, at the University of Chicago, gave a talk, ‘The Narrative Structure of Moral Judgments in History: Evolution and Nazi Biology.’
…
Richards concluded that it could only be “tendentious” and “dogmatic” to condemn Darwin for Nazism, although Richards confessed that he still has not made up his mind on Haeckel.
…
In terms of Hitler’s inspiration, the German biologist Ernst Haeckel is certainly much closer to the root of Hitler’s evil than Darwin. Quite a list of factors favor this view:
*Haeckel died in 1919 and was active in the early-20th century German discourse that Hitler read
*Haeckel lived and worked in Germany
*Haeckel was an anti-Semite and campaigning biological racist
*Haeckel was a strong, explicit promoter of eugenics
*Haeckel was a strong, explicit promoter of morally radical atheistic philosophies like monism (Weikart makes much of the alleged overturning of conventional religion and moral standards in Germany)
Darwin, on the other hand,
*died a generation earlier
*lived and worked in England, not Germany
*was racist but basically in a similar fashion to Abraham Lincoln
*was not a promoter of eugenics
*was not pushing atheism or radical moral philosophy, and instead argued that evolutionary theory fit well with the long-established natural law tradition of morality
It seems clear that Haeckel-to-Hitler (whatever the limitations of that view) is far more plausible than Darwin-to-Hitler. Even in the index to From Darwin to Hitler, Weikart mentions Haeckel on about 82 pages, while Darwin gets mentioned on only 49.
So what does Richard Weikart, the author of From Darwin to Hitler, say about the Haeckel-to-Hitler thesis?
“As I reformulated my study on evolutionary ethics to include discussions on the value of human life, another topic became inescapable: the influence of this discourse on Hitler. Hitler was not even on my radar screen when I began my research, and Daniel Gasman’s one-sided attempt to link Haeckel and Hitler made me wary.” Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler, p. x, Preface
To quote Jon Stewart, “Whaaaaa?” Weikart says that Haeckel-to-Hitler is bogus, but then writes a whole book devoted to From Darwin to Hitler? Something doesn’t add up here.
From Ed Brayton: Kennedy, Hitler, Weikart, and the ADL
…one can point to instances of genocide not only justified by Christian theology but explicitly ordered by their Biblical God (according to their scripture, of course; I don’t believe it for a moment). And to go even further, there is a vast history of Christian pogroms against the very group that Hitler’s genocidal zeal was aimed, Jews. And as I showed a few days ago, Hitler cited those anti-Jewish statements by Christian theologians over the centuries to justify the Final Solution.
We know that it was possible for people to target the Jews for oppression and even death based solely on Christian hatred of the Jews because it happened several times throughout the history of Europe. After the Roman Empire converted to Christianity in the 4th century, it instituted a long series of anti-Jewish laws similar to the Third Reich. The Justinian Code, based so heavily on Biblical laws, had an entire section on the rights of Jews, essentially forbidding them from having any. They were forbidden to build synagogues, forbidden to read their scriptures in Hebrew, and even forbidden to gather in public places. Their property was confiscated.
There were many church conferences that passed anti-Jewish laws. The Trulanic Synod in 692 even made it illegal for a Christian to go to a Jewish doctor. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 required Jews to wear distinctive clothing to distinguish themselves from Christians (sound familiar? Remember, this was centuries before Darwin was born). The Council of Basel forbid Jews from attending universities. All of this was perpetrated by Christians long before Darwin lived; so much for the notion that before Darwin undermined Christianity, everyone was valuable.
And do we even have to go into Martin Luther, a man whose vicious anti-Semitism virtually knew no boundaries? It’s not an accident that Luther was Germany’s most influential theologian and Lutheranism the official church of Germany at the time of Hitler’s takeover. It was largely Luther’s virulent anti-Jewish screeds that provided fertile ground for Hitler’s assault on the Jews. It was Luther who encouraged his followers to set Jewish synagogues on fire and declared that “they ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like gypsies, in order that they may realize that they are not masters in our land, as they boast, but miserable captives, as they complain of incessantly before God with bitter wailing.” Sounds a lot like a concentration camp, doesn’t it?
Mathis’ Law - Unless a comparison is made between one’s opponent and Nazi Germany, whoever failed to mentioned the Nazis has automatically “lost” whatever debate was in progress.
BTW, Mathis is a Nazi
Peter Leavitt quoted Casey Luskin as writing “In 2005, another NAS member, Philip Skell, wrote in The Scientist that, “Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology . . .”
And how much attention should we pay to a quantum chemist’s claim about experimental biology when his claim is contradicted by thousands of biologists?
Michael Shermer was interviewed in “Expelled” and wrote a Scientific American review of it that I haven’t seen. But here’s his version of his “Expelled” experience.
“For my part, the moment I sat down with Stein (with Mathis there) and he asked me that question about firing people for expressing dissenting views a dozen times, I realized that I was being manipulated to give certain answers they were looking for me to give. I asked them both, several times, if they had anything else to ask me about evolutionary theory or Intelligent Design. In frustration I finally said something like “Do you have any other questions to ask me or do you keep asking me this question in hopes that I’ll give a different answer?”
That’s when Stein finally changed the subject and asked about social Darwinism. We got into a lengthy discussion about Adam Smith, which he seemed surprised to learn that I seemed to know more about the great economist than he did! For example, he didn’t seem to even realize that Smith’s first book was “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, and that Smith didn’t trust businessmen any more than he trusted government bureaucrats, and that we need a mix of enlightened self-interest and strictly enforced rules of trade. But as I noted in my review of the film for Scientific American, Stein was especially displeased with my linkage of Smith and Darwin, that Darwin read Smith as an undergraduate at Edinburgh, etc. I also pointed out to him that Darwin has been used and abused by ideologues of all stripes, and that in any case that is all separate from whether the science is good or not. That seemed to tax his thinking too much, because shortly after he announced that he had to take a rest break and he just got up and went out to his car for about 20 minutes! Seriously, he just went out to the street next to our office and sat in the rent car they had! I couldn’t believe it. We had only been going for about 30 minutes and he was tired? And this was in the late morning. I joked with Mathis that, this being Hollywood and all, I wondered if Stein was out doing a line of cocaine…. Mathis assured me that Stein doesn’t do drugs, but I found the whole thing to be quite odd. Then Stein came back in and that’s when we walked around the office with the handheld camera to get some B-Roll footage, and they showed him asking me about my books, and that’s where I told him I thought ID was much closer to pseudoscience than science. Then he asked me AGAIN if I thought people should be fired….
The whole experience was a bit surreal, and I found Stein to be a somewhat disagreeable man. He tried to come off like he was a star and that I should have been star-struck, and when I wasn’t that seemed to get under his skin a bit. For example, when he came back into the office from resting in his car, I said something like “gentlemen, I’ve got work to do so I’d like to wrap this thing up now,” he looked at me like “hey, don’t you realize who I am and that you should be grateful to be talking to me?” I let him off the hook a bit in my review about his questionable comment about blacks, but I suspect he has some racist tendencies.”
I think this pretty much proves Stein is a Nazi, since Stein loves Adam Smith who may have influenced Darwin who Stein thinks is the origin of Hitler.
Spinoza So Peter - what is your point exactly? That evolution is not true because of Hitler?Then it follows that Christianity isn’t true because of Torquemada.
The point really goes back to Adam Sedgwick who was Darwin’s scientific mentor at Cambridge. Sedgwick , after Origins was published, famously wrote to Darwin, as follows:
“Passages in your book . . . greatly shocked my moral sense. There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. ’Tis the crown and glory of organic science that it does, thro’ final causes, link material to moral. . . . You have ignored this link; and, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which, thank God, it is not) to break it, humanity, in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it, and sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history.”
The fact is that as Weikart cogently demonstrates Darwinism was used by the German eugenicists and social Darwinists that had a very real influence on Hitler in a way - proving Sedgwick’s point- that damaged and brutalized people, sinking humanity to a shocking level.
I find it striking that you are hiding behind a vicious attack against the Discovery Institute in order not to face what Dr. Evans of Cambridge summarized as follows:
Without over-simplifying the lines that connected this body of thought to Hitler, he demonstrates with chilling clarity how policies such as infanticide, assisted suicide, marriage prohibitions and much else were being proposed for those considered racially or eugenically inferior by a variety of Darwinist writers and scientists, providing Hitler and the Nazis with a scientific justification for the policies they pursued once they came to power.
Note that Evans is saying that Weikart does not over-simplify the lines that connected Darwin’s body of thought to Hitler. Should you read Weikart’s book, you would fing a rather supple and nuanced argument. You might try this rather than juvenile huffing and puffing against the Discovery Institute.
I still don’t get the point, Peter - every body agrees Hitler is a bad man. So what if he “used Darwin” as you say (or Luther or Jesus for that matter)? So what if Sedgwick drew moral conclusions from a scientific work? That has no bearing on whether or not evolution is true.
Right now - all I can conclude from you/Mathis is that you (and DI for that matter) have no substantive scientific rebuttal to the theory of evolution, but you don’t like the moral conclusions some have drawn from it, so you reject it, even though it’s true. I frankly don’t particularly like natural selection either - I hate the whole idea that most creatures have to die with no progeny because of less “fitness,” and that in a physical-causal way (though not in an existential way), I owe my existence to this. But it is the way of things.
If you want to build your ethics on a false representation of reality go ahead, but such a moral system is utterly useless, since it’s based on falsehood. I’m convinced Weikart’s “history” is the hack job of somebody trying to persuade. The title alone is the embodiment of tendentiousness. But even if he’s right, it is of no consequence to me!
Peter Leavitt: Why are you ignoring Hitler’s own words explaining his reasons in #28?
As for your argument from consequence, Spinoza is quite correct: Showing the evolutionary thought can be turned to bad ends in no way negates its truth.
As was said earlier, if Darwin is responsible for Hitler, then Jesus is responsible for Torquemada. The relationship is the same — the former propounds an idea that the latter twists and distorts and turns to evil ends.
If Hitler’s use of Darwin invalidates Darwin, the Torquemada’s use of Jesus invalidates Jesus. (Or you could hold, as I do, that an evil aberration of an idea does not invalidate the idea — in either case.)
Argument from consequence has no logical basis. You can, to the extent you can show that Hitler relied of ideas derived from Darwin, argue against the distorted abuse of Darwin’s ideas. But that doesn’t touch the correct use of them.
SteveG, we’ve been over this ground before. Hitler was unbelieving pagan, not a Christian. That excerpt from a speech that you provided actually proves the point if you analyze it.
According to the Harvard historian, Ozment, Hitler reveled in being a barbarian that would eventually eliminate Christianity as summarized by: Thus while Hitler subjected German Jews to a “final solution,” he singled out “the rotten branch of Christianity” as the “final task of National Socialism.
Spinoza, Prof. Sedgwick had good reason to question Darwin’s naturalistic “truth” that suggested no moral foundation for life. Francis Collins, an eminent contemporary scientist, has written a book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, that demonstrates a synthesis of first-class science with Christian devoutness. Such religious scientists as Sedgwick and Collins have no problem integrating religion with science.
Analyze what? He clearly says he admires Christ for fighting “the Jewish poison” and refers to himself as a Christian four times in that single paragraph.
He evidenced religiosity many times, in fact.
And he sent atheists to the concentration camps, and also gypsies, homosexuals and communists. The Jews were the primary target of his evil, but not the only one.
It is true his version of Christianity replaced the real Jewish, peaceloving Christ with an Aryan “warrior” Christ, perverting the faith. But he wasn’t an atheist or a pagan. The “rotten branch of Christianity” was the traditional church with it’s Jewish Messiah, which he intended to replace with his own rewriting.
So Hitler’s espousal of a Christian faith isn’t the fault of Jesus (and Luther) since its not “real” Christianity. Hence, for consistency’s sake Hitler’s use of evolutionary theories for justification of his “social experiment” isn’t the fault of Darwin since its not the “correct” reading and application of his work.
If you do not wish to grant the latter, than the former cannot should not be accepted and we are back to blaming Christ for the Spanish Inquisition.
Such religious scientists as Sedgwick and Collins have no problem integrating religion with science.
Well aparently Sedgwick did have a problem as you illustrate in your own paragraph in #46! Collins doesn’t have a problem (he accepts evolution), and neither do a lot of scientists. But Mathis has a problem and Ben Stein has a problem and to all appearances, Peter, YOU have a problem.
A central lie of “Expelled” is that evolution necessarily leads to atheism. Millions of believers illustrate this is not true, and yet Stein asserts it over and over and over again in trailers to this movie and on talk shows.
Face it Peter, if you must deny the reality of biological evolution to have faith, you have a big problem integrating science and faith. Evolution is both an established scientific theory and a set of observations referred to by scientists as “facts.”
“Expelled” shows a huge change of strategy by evolution deniers.
1. Explicitly acknowledge the “designer” is God (hence “intelligent design” is religion, pure and simple)
2. Insist on the lie that science is necessarily atheistic, and attack the idea of excluding religion from the scientific sphere as an infringement of “free speech.”
3. Make fallacious leaps of logic that associate evolution solely with an evil dictatorship (poison the well).
4. Give up all efforts to come up with an alternative scientific theory of design, or to put forward cogent arguments that falsify evolution, because you know you can’t!
This will backfire among all but the most uneducated and fanatical fundamentalists - even the scientific layman can see that if you’re harping about evolution influencing Hitler, you must not have any good scientific arguments to refute it.
BTW - “Expelled” will certainly help ensure that the Dover ruling - intelligent design is religion, not science - will stand in other courts. I guess we can thank Mathis/Stein for that!
Peter Leavitt: Why are you ignoring Hitler’s own words explaining his reasons in #28?
A man has his stated reason for his action, and then he has his real reason for his action. You will know him by his fruits, as Jesus said.
Steve — It is true his version of Christianity replaced the real Jewish, peace-loving Christ with an Aryan “warrior” Christ, perverting the faith. But he wasn’t an atheist or a pagan. The “rotten branch of Christianity” was the traditional church with it’s Jewish Messiah, which he intended to replace with his own rewriting.
Roger — It isn’t a question of what people call themselves. The talk concerns the history of ideas and how one idea leads to another in a logical progression.
If you want to argue that Jesus’ teaching was the logical basis for Hitler’s mass murder, then show the progression of ideas, note the similarities between what Jesus taught and what Hitler did, and show how the one is a logial implication of the other.
Roger, Hitler’s words in #28 were given at a public Nuremberg rally. Hitler was always careful to publicly court Christians while privately making his views rather clear as follows:
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death…. When understanding of the universe has become widespread… Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity…. Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity…. And that’s why someday its structure will collapse…. …the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little…. Christianity the liar…. We’ll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State.
19th October, 1941, night:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together…. The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity…. Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)
10th October, 1941, midday:
from Hitler’s Secret Conversations 1941-1944 _Hitler’s Table Talk 1941-1944 from the Oxford University Press.
Spinoza, actually I share Collins’ view of evolution. My problem is more with Darwinism than Darwin, though I do think Sedgwick was prescient in his remarks about the metaphysical implications of Darwin’s theory of evolution, protestations of you and other Darwinian fanatics notwithstanding.
As to Expelled it will have the salutary effect of letting Americans know of the repressive tactics used by the Darwinian thugs in academia and elsewhere.
Roger: I am not arguing that Jesus’s actual teachings were the logical basis for Hitler’s mass murder. I’m arguing that Hitler’s perverted and twisted belief about Jesus was.
I agree fully that Hitler’s actions were completely contrary to the gospel. However, his distorted view of Christ as a “fighter” against the “Jewish poison” was, it seems, at least one of the ways he justified it.
Peter Leavitt, Collins is one of those “Darwinian fanatics.” His “view” of evolution is that it happened and is happening just as scientists say. His argument isn’t that there’s anything wrong with the scientific view of it, only that there’s no necessary conflict between that and faith.
So the “metaphysical implications of Darwin’s theory” are not really anything to do with evolution. There are metaphysical implications in naturalism, but not in evolution per se … as Spinoza has been fruitlessly trying to show you this whole thread.
SteveG So the “metaphysical implications of Darwin’s theory” are not really anything to do with evolution.
Not really, many contemporary metaphysical naturalists, eugenicists, and atheists are soused with the metaphysics of evolution. Dr.Sedgwick after reading Origins was prescient when he wrote that Darwin’s theory could result in a shocking devolution of mankind. One can in fact draw a direct line from Darwin to eugenics, euthanasia, abortion, and modern infanticide, as well as to Hitler, Goebbels, and Rosenberg.
Also, while Collins favors strictly empirical work on evolution, he has a chapter in his book titled Genesis, Gallileo and Darwin in which he explains his view of the essential truth of the created world of Genesis.
Steve,
Thanks for the clarification.
Steve — So the “metaphysical implications of Darwin’s theory” are not really anything to do with evolution. There are metaphysical implications in naturalism, but not in evolution per se … as Spinoza has been fruitlessly trying to show you this whole thread.
Roger — But wouldn’t you agree that Naturalism, became the philosophical basis for the declaration “God is dead”? And doesn’t moral relativism, and moral nihilism follow logically from naturalism? And doesn’t the “Ascent of Man” lead, logically, to the willful “evolution” of man found in Nietzche’s Übermensch? And then, doesn’t this become Hitler’s rationalization for genocide?
Granted, the idea of biological evolution taken alone and out of it’s historical context does not logically lead to thoughts of genocide, but I can see that genocide is a logical implication of “killing” God.
If a man truly believes in the survival of the fittest, he will naturally want to become one of the fittest and perhaps he will find in Naturalism, the justification for eugenics and euthanasia.
To trace ideas as causing other ideas causing other actions and ideas is a huge causal chain of events which are difficult to demonstrate. Instead, one may rely on the climate of opinion in one era leading to a change and perhaps an allowance for actions to follow in an other era. Hence, at best, you can claim that “the death of god”, capitalism, social Darwinism etc. created conditions that made this particular genocide possible. However, you are still blaming Darwinism not evolutionary theory.
Of course you would have to exempt all other general causes that pre-existed — Luther, anti-Semitism, etc. And you would need to explain the genocides committed prior to this climate of opinion or outside the European theatre where these ideas were discussed. Hence, Darwinism cannot be blamed for the Armenian genocide.
A far better idea is to take disparate genocides occurring in different cultures and look for similarities. I’m currently reading Extraordinary Evil which compares the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and Rwanda and attempts to find the origins of genocide. The author, Barbara Coloroso, specializes in school bullying and its not surprise she uses the same model here. What is useful in her book is her ability to think outside the narrow box of western culture for the rationale of killing in large numbers. Its not Darwinism, naturalism, or any philosophical position thats a pet peeve of a commentator. She argues the conditions for genocide are the same as the conditions for bullying: isolation, reducing the victim to less than human, separation, routinuization of cruelty, creating an Other, etc.
Roger — But wouldn’t you agree that Naturalism, became the philosophical basis for the declaration “God is dead”? And doesn’t moral relativism, and moral nihilism follow logically from naturalism? And doesn’t the “Ascent of Man” lead, logically, to the willful “evolution” of man found in Nietzche’s Übermensch? And then, doesn’t this become Hitler’s rationalization for genocide?
The first two sentences, yes. The second two sentences, maybe.
But none of that has anything to do with evolution as a science. From what I’ve heard, here and elsewhere, this film Expelled argues that evolution itself — and not philosophical materialism — has these deleterious effects.
Steve — But none of that has anything to do with evolution as a science. From what I’ve heard, here and elsewhere, this film Expelled argues that evolution itself — and not philosophical materialism — has these deleterious effects.
Roger — I haven’t seen the film myself. I was going on the interview above. But it appeared to me as if the main theme of the movie was the suppression of free thought by those who wish to defend orthodoxy.
I agreed with Peter’s assessment that the initial ad hominum posts in this thread gave proper homage to orthodoxy and voice to the violent means by which devotees are willing defend it.
I agreed with Peter’s assessment that the initial ad hominum posts in this thread gave proper homage to orthodoxy and voice to the violent means by which devotees are willing defend it.
When you know the facts about something and are constantly being harangued by people who don’t understand your field and yet are convinced they know you are wrong about it, you tend to become defensive.
the initial ad hominum posts in this thread
The “initial ad hominem posts” in this thread come from Mathis, who implicitly accuses evolutionary scientists of being like Hitler in the biggest revolt against Godwin’s Law that anybody could ever have imagined.
But it appeared to me as if the main theme of the movie was the suppression of free thought by those who wish to defend orthodoxy.
So it would seem - but the need to expend so much energy in a sidebar associating evolution with Hitler testifies to the huge lack of evidence for any real persecution of IDers. As you can see from Shermer’s account above in #42, the Expelled team manipulated interviews given under false pretenses until they could get answers they could use as support. Even then, they could only find corroborating evidence from a very small number of disgruntled martyrs.
I know about two of the cases in the movie fairly well; they are both the victims of their own lack of scientific judgment. One published a really awful paper by a very unqualified DI author as editor of a biology journal (I have this paper - it’s REALLY awful). He did this against the very strong opposition of all referees - i.e., he simply bypassed the referee process - because he wanted to promote its ID conclusion. He was justly encouraged to resign! The other was denied tenure because he quit producing viable and fundable science. Of course, he was spending all his time running around publishing popular works as a fellow of DI. You don’t get tenure for doing popular science (or pseudo-science in this case). Carl Sagan was denied tenure at Harvard for a similar reason. Maybe Ben Stein shoulda taken up his case!
Stein claims ad nauseum that scientists are run out on a rail for simply believing in God. This is just a big fat lie!
Steve — When you know the facts about something and are constantly being harangued by people who don’t understand your field and yet are convinced they know you are wrong about it, you tend to become defensive.
Roger — I’d like to be sympathetic but you must realize that Spinoza and Erasmus have psychological needs that WOW fulfills. Otherwise they would do something else with their time. I don’t think educating the public is their goal. Do you?
Spinoza — The other was denied tenure because he quit producing viable and fundable science.
Roger — Hey, if it makes sleep better at night.
Roger — Hey, if it makes sleep better at night.
Spinoza - Well I don’t think it did initially, but I’d be the last person to dispute the notion that life could be less stressful outside the tenure track!!
I don’t think educating the public is their goal. Do you?
Well I have been away from WOW all weekend I suppose I was fulfilling some other psychological need perhaps. Wish fulfillment and projection have their own syntax indeed.
2 things.
What adhominem did I engage? I don’t see it.
Who has been expelled? Eeyore Solon has mentioned that thugs are using repressive tactics to enforce some sort of orthodoxy. I would like to know what he is speaking of? I’ve heard the claim often but never seen it substantiated.
This is copied from a post that Allen MacNeill, an instructor in Cornell, made to the creationist weblog ‘Uncommon Descent’ but was Expelled from that same blog for mentioning.
Allen Is Not A Tard
While Hitler uses the word “evolution” in Mein Kampf, it is clear that he is not referring to Darwin’s theory. Indeed, he never mentions Darwin at all. In fact, a look at his writings reveals his sentiments on the subject to be those of an orthodox creationist.
Like a creationist, Hitler asserts fixity of kinds:
“The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger.” - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi
Like a creationist, Hitler claims that God made man:
“For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties.” - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. x
Like a creationist, Hitler affirms that humans existed “from the very beginning”, and could not have evolved from apes:
“From where 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.” - Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier)
Like a creationist, Hitler believes that man was made in God’s image, and in the expulsion from Eden:
“Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against that highest image of God among His creatures would sin against the bountiful Creator of this marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise.” - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol ii, ch. i
Like a creationist, Hitler believes that:
“God … sent [us] into this world with the commission to struggle for our daily bread.” - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol ii, ch. xiv
Like a creationist, Hitler claims Jesus as his inspiration:
“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them.” - Adolf Hitler, speech, April 12 1922, published in My New Order
Like a creationist, Hitler despises secular schooling:
“Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people.” - Adolf Hitler, Speech, April 26, 1933
Like a creationist, Hitler wished to make prayer compulsory in public schools. Unlike American creationists, he succeeded.
Hitler even goes so far as to claim that Creationism is what sets humans apart from the animals:
“The most marvelous proof of the superiority of Man, which puts man ahead of the animals, is the fact that he understands that there must be a Creator.” - Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier)
Hitler does not mention evolution explicitly anywhere in Mein Kampf. However, after declaring the fixity of the fox, goose, and tiger, as quoted above, he goes on to talk of differences within species:
“[T]he various degrees of structural strength and active power, in the intelligence, efficiency, endurance, etc., with which the individual specimens are endowed.” Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi)
So, like a creationist, there is some evolution he is prepared to concede — evolution within species, or “microevolution”, to which people like Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe have no objection. It is on the basis of the one part of evolutionary theory which creationists accept that Hitler tried to find a scientific basis for his racism and his program of eugenics.
Ergo, Hitler did not base his eugenic and genocidal policies on evolutionary theory, but rather on views that are very similar to those held by most creationists and many ID supporters.
Surely you lot can determine who quoted what.