Darwin inspired Hitler: Lies they teach in Texas

[cali]

When Joshua Bass, an engineer, sent his son to iSchool High, a Houston charter school, he was expecting a solid college preparation, including the chance to study some college courses before leaving high school. Instead, the Basses were shocked when their son came home from the taxpayer-funded school with apparently religiously motivated anti-science books.

One of these books blamed Darwin’s theory of evolution for the Holocaust:

[Hitler] has written that the Aryan (German) race would be the leader in all human progress. To accomplish that goal, all “lower races” should either be enslaved or eliminated. Apparently the theory of evolution and its “survival of the fittest” philosophy had taken root in Hitler’s warped mind.

For Joshua, attacks on science in the classroom were unacceptable. Joshua began to research ResponsiveEd, the curriculum used at iSchool High. It emerged that ResponsiveEd was founded by Donald R. Howard, former owner of ACE (Accelerated Christian Education). ACE is a fundamentalist curriculum that teaches young-Earth creationism as fact. Last year it hit headlines because one of its high school science books taught that the Loch Ness Monster was real, and that this was evidence against evolution.

<snip>

ResponsiveEd says it has 60 schools in Texas, with an extended charter to open 20 more by 2014. It also has facilities in Arkansas, and plans to open in Indiana. Amazingly, it isn’t the only charter school curriculum based on Accelerated Christian Education’s format.

<snip>

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/25/christian_textbooks_darwin_inspired_hitler/

[oh08dem]

1. Will there ever be a time in the U.S. when we drop the whole "the Earth is 6,000 years old" crap?

Secondly, what in the Sam Hell does Hitler have to do with the theory of evolution, or more importantly science? I really can't see why science books would need to mention Hitler, or Nazi's at all, unless they're talking about some of their scientists we imported ... even then it should be devoted to science, not some fundies political beliefs.

[Decaffeinated]

4. Eugenics...

Forming evolution along terms that they thought were desirable and removing those that weren't...

There is a difference between that and portraying it like Hitler had a little Darwin shrine.

[elehhhhna]

11. It's like blaming Jodie Foster for Lennon's murder

or Jesus for Jonestown.

Ridiculous.

[brush]

2. Looks like they plan to turn out a whole new class . . .

Last edited Sat Oct 26, 2013, 09:07 AM - Edit history (1)

of teabaggers every year.

How in the world is this stuff still being believed and taught in 2013? And it's spreading to another state.

[jakeXT]

3. It's not quite like blaming Lise Meitner for Hiroshima, but there is lot of stuff on Darwin & Hitler

At war’s end Lise received unexpected attention from the press. She was sought out after the atomic bombing of Japan. Called the "mother of the A-bomb", she quite forcefully tried to make it clear that she was completely removed from any weapon research. Rife quotes a friend of hers who recalls that when Lise first heard about Hiroshima, there were "tears - shock - and then silence&quot p.252).

http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/articles/gold_meitn.html

The Dark Side of Darwinism
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-klinghoffer/the-dark-side-of-darwinis_b_630627.html

[FarCenter]

5. The chain of ideas from Darwin to Hitler is a lengthy one

A notable contribution is by Herbert Spencer, who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest". He was a hugely influential late 18th century British philosopher who is connected with the emergence of Social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism, however has roots older than Darwin, since Thomas Malthus published before Darwin.

Social Darwinism was applied to racial politics by others in the late 18th century, largely in Britain, where it bolstered the view that the racially superior English rightly ruled over the lesser races throughout the Empire. Anti-Semitism on the continent came later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

[LuvNewcastle]

6. Yes, Hitler's ideas were rooted in social Darwinism,

the undead stepchild of Darwin's theories. A lot of people don't know the difference; they think social Darwinism is rooted in science. I'm not a bit surprised that the fools who wrote those textbooks didn't know the difference. Or maybe they did, they just wanted to deceive the children. We've got to stop these people from spreading lies about history and science to our children. It really should be criminal.

[HereSince1628]

7. The Eugenics Tract that so inspired Hitler may have been funded by Rockefeller Foundation

Eugenics is clearly an abhorrent concept, mixing concepts of livestock breeding, primitive genetics and anything else that could remotely support it.

As Darwin's sons were late 19th century 'progressive elites' they were involved with eugenics.

So it's a great vehicle to carry other boogie men of the religious right.

But American religious leaders were also part of the eugenics movement...

If anyone has the inclination and time...here's a book that links American religion to promotion of eugenics.


http://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Eugenics-Religious-American-Movement/dp/019515679X#reader_019515679X

[LuvNewcastle]

10. I'd be interested in reading that. I'll check my library system.

Eugenics has had a profound influence on American culture. A lot of people don't even realize that a lot of their thoughts about race and evolution can be directly traced back to eugenics. Here in the South, social Darwinist thinking is very common; it's like many of the people haven't been taught about science beyond 1900.

I blame the preachers for a lot of the ignorance. It's funny that they believe in social Darwinism, while at the same time they take every opportunity to slur Darwin and his theories. It's like they know on a subconscious level that social Darwinism and Darwin's theories aren't compatible, but they don't have the scientific knowledge needed to distinguish between them. It's so convoluted that it's hard to describe.

I'm really sick of the anti-science people who want to teach children their ideas. I think the Dept. of Education should review all textbooks used by accredited schools, public or private, and decide which ones are suitable for teaching. If the schools want to use those books against the advice of the Dept. Ed., they should lose their accreditation. We want our children to learn facts, and facts aren't to be changed at the whim of any particular religion. There are already too many ignorant people in this country. We can't continue to let the private and charter schools continue making more of them.

[Octafish]

8. Kalifornia Über Alles

Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection

Edwin Black
Published 4:00 am, Sunday, November 9, 2003

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a so-called Master Race.

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little-known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the pseudoscience aimed at "improving" the human race. In its extreme, racist form, this meant wiping away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in 27 states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the 20th century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little-known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles Goethe, as well as members of the California state Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

SNIP...

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation's social service agencies and associations.

The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, confinement or forced sterilization.

The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

CONTINUED...

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php

[KamaAina]

16. You knew this was coming...

[Bradical79]

9. Pretty sure Darwin didnt inspire murdering Jews

Wonder where that idea comes from? Sure there's Darwinism in Hitler's world view, but also a unhealthy dose of religious inspiration too by this line of logic.

[Igel]

13. Any ideology mixed with nationalism can become very bad very quick.

Whether it's North Korea, Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, or even the "Islamofascists" for whom the umma is the "natio", the "best nation," and the ideology is Islam.

No point arguing that it's only when something's "taken out of context", because many of the things others do that we decry similarly just "take something out of context".

Problem was that in the 1930s much of the world had no antidote for Hitler's poison any more than it had for Stalin's: Much of the "civilized" world agreed with eugenics, and those who proudly disagreed with it and declared it false had usually been firm adherents just a decade or two earlier, and many "Progressives" turned a blind eye to reports of Stalin's USSR because of their own ideology.

[Archae]

12. Everything the Nazis touched they ruined.

Even what could have been their biggest triumph became nothing more than a terrorist weapon.

The A-4 rocket was far in advance of anything even in the US, it could have been a wonderful research tool.

Instead it was used as a near-random terrorist weapon, the "V-2."

So Darwin's theories were likewise corrupted by Nazis, to "justify" their vicious racial policies.

[MisterP]

14. wait, the RW is *against* Social Darwinism all of a sudden, now?!

[HuckleB]

15. Kick.

[geek tragedy]

17. Do they teach about how Martin Luther, the father of Protestantism, was the

intellectual and theological architect of the Holocaust?

[NickB79]

18. Hitler was inspired by US genocide against Native Americans

Once again, Christian teaching swings, and misses.