Re: POTM Re: Social Darwinism; was: So Long Judge Moore, We'll Miss You

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003 16:16:21 +0000 (UTC), [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Huck
Turner) wrote:

[...]

>> I didn't think so but just checking.  I'd then quibble about saying that
>> Darwin supported eugenics on the grounds that "voluntary eugenics" is an
>> oxymoron.  
>
>I think that a social policy or movement that encourages or
>discourages groups to reproduce meets the definition of 'eugenics' as
>I understand the term. I don't think it's just about enforced laws,
>but we're down to a quibble about definitions. 

Yeah.

>We could also question
>whether he actually intended to discourage the weak from reproducing
>in this comment, but if not, why did he say it?
>
>In any event, I think it is unfair to call him a eugenicist although
>it may be technically correct to do so given a broad enough
>definition. It is unfair because it invites comparisons between him
>and the Nazis, which just aren't appropriate. His comments (however
>innocent and misguided) seem to come out of his own personal suffering
>and a noble desire to save others from his own fate. It would be
>perverse to say that Hitler's intentions were likewise.

Well put.

>
>
>> 
>> >Instead it
>> >seems likely that the comments he made about weak people reproducing
>> >were very personal to him given that he sufferred from chronic
>> >ill-health himself, and felt some responsibility for the ill health of
>> >his children. Here's a quote from a biography of Darwin by White and
>> >Gribbin (1996) describing his reaction when he realised his sixth son,
>> >Charles Waring Darwin, was retarded:
>> >
>> >pp.184-5
>> 
>> [snip quote]
>> 
>> >
>> >Reference:
>> >White, M. & Gribbin, J. 1996. Darwin: a life in science. Simon &
>> >Schuster: London.
>> 
>> <book club mode>
>> 
>> How is that?  I've been rather collecting Darwin bios of late.  Is it worth
>> getting?  I have Browne; Desmond & Moore; de Beer; Bowler (semi-bio) and
>> Himmelfarb (off the top of my head).  Any others you recommend?
>> 
>> </book club mode>
>> 
>
>It's the only one I've read so I guess I'm not the best person to ask.
>It seemed pretty thorough and I remember a lot of it, which I guess is
>a good indication that it was well written. Which would you recommend
>of the ones you have read?

Janet Browne's 2 volume bio is probably the best:

_Charles Darwin: Voyaging_ and _Charles Darwin : The Power of Place_.  They
total about 1000 pages but read easily enough.  

Except for the Bowler (_Charles Darwin : The Man and his Influence_), I
haven't read the others yet, though I know something about them.  The
Bowler is not a straight biography but more like a biography of his
theories.  It traces his ideas more than his life.  I think it is
excellent.

The Desmond & Moore (_Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist_) is
highly controversial, reportedly approaching him from a sociological
perspective and asserting that his science reflects the values of his times
as well as his own. Bowler recognizes that there is some truth in that but
seems to strike a reasonable balance.

The de Beer is from the early '60s and is considered (along with Mayr's
work) to be a classic bio of Darwin by a scientist that glosses over any
sciological angle, assuming Darwin gained his inspiration solely from his
factual studies and converted the world because of the convincing
arguments.  It supposedly skimps on the period of the "eclipse of
Darwinism", when natural selection was rejected by most scientists.  It was
the first to use Darwin's notebooks extensively.

The Himmelfarb (_Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution_) finds the theory
ill-conceived and unconvincing and the success of it as due to a pernicious
materialistic philosophy of science (rather like Phillip Johnson and the
IDers).

>
>
>> >H.
>> > 
>> >---
>> >Like-minds don't notice shared mistakes. Talk to someone else.
>> 
>> Good point.  Now if we could only find some anti-evolutionists worth
>> talking to . . .
>> 
>
>I like it because it's a piece of advice with no ideological bias,
>which, if broadly followed, would tend to cause people's beliefs to
>self-organise in such a way that they converge on views consistent
>with evidence. And it's a bottom-up process too so no trust
>necessarily needs be placed in religious or scientific establishments
>to guide it.
>
>There are forces acting against it though, like prejudices against
>marriages of mixed religion, race, class, etc., and governmental
>influences that aim to dehumanize enemies and dissidents to discourage
>any sympathy for their positions. I don't know whether you've noticed
>that the rhetoric is actually quite similar on both sides of this 'war
>on terror' in that both Bush and Bin Laden describe their enemies in
>terms of inherent evil: 'the axis of evil' versus 'the great Satan'.

Oh, yeah.  It's hard not to, though most Americans seem bent on trying.  

>
>And on the issue of Darwin's opponents, I wouldn't be the first to
>credit them for their part in refining his theory. The process
>probably wouldn't be so well understood now if there hadn't been so
>many people so emotionally committed to finding holes in it.

That was certainly true in Darwin's time.  It doesn't apply to "creation
science" and ID, however, IMNSHO.   

---------------
J. Pieret
---------------

Cogito sum, ergo sum, cogito.

                - Robert Carroll -