Darwin the Racist? Please.

Those wacky short-earth creationists are at it again.  They lost the Intelligent Design fight in court back in 2004, so now they’re going straight to the source in an attempt to discredit the entire scientific body of knowledge supporting evolution by resorting to the oldest and most childish of logical fallacies: the ad hominem attack.  Their claim now?  Darwin’s theories are racist and as such shouldn’t be taught in schools.

I suppose this should be a good sign for those of us who believe in things like the scientific method and rational thought.  The young earth creationists are probably close to the end of their rope if they’ve been reduced to the debate equivalent of claiming their opponent is a big poopy head and is therefore wrong.  But still, it’s an annoyance.

This rubbish is coming from the noted evolutionary biologists Ken Ham and Charles Ware.  Wait, what’s that?  They aren’t evolutionary biologists?  Ken Ham is the founder of the Creation Museum, an institution that based its whole existence on the “scientific” premise that ancient nomads living in the middle of a desert were privy to secret knowledge about the beginnings of the universe that we couldn’t hope to fathom with our modern body of knowledge?  And Charles Ware is the president of a bible college in Indiana?  Neither one of them have any sort of scientific background whatsoever, unless you happen to drink the same Kool-Aid and consider trying to use ancient mythology to discredit modern science to be a scientific pursuit all its own.

So Ken and Chuck have written a book where they manage to make a tenuous link between Darwinian theory and the mass genocides carried out by 20th century heavy-hitters like Hitler and Stalin.  They’ve taken a historical connection that would be laughed at by the dumbest high school World History student and built an entire argument out of the premise in a feeble attempt to discredit the idea by attacking the man.  Enjoy this choice quote from the book:

“Stalin, Hitler and Mao were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions — and it can be shown they did this because of the influence of Darwinian naturalism.”

Let’s be clear about one thing, Ken and Chuck.  Darwin’s ideas have nothing to do with racism.  They deal with gradual changes in species over time that eventually give rise to new species in the animal kingdom, but nowhere in there does Darwin come close to the racially charged rhetoric that you’re putting into his mouth well over a century after the fact.  Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were all megalomaniacs who killed anyone who got in the way of their rise to power or who had resources that they needed, sort of like that Moses guy you all like so much. 

Darwinian naturalism had nothing to do with their rise to power and the eventual mass bloodletting that resulted.  The desire to grab power and hold onto it no matter what the consequences for outside groups had everything to do with it, a theme that I’m sure Ken and Chuck are familiar with from their readings in Genesis and Exodus.  Religious groups were persecuted because they were in direct competition with the state for power, and in the 40s it just so happened that the major religions under these dictators didn’t have as many tanks at their disposal as Stalin.

Despite the inherent flaws in their argument, I’m almost willing to give this one to the creationists.  If Darwin is suddenly going to be held accountable for every secular tinpot dictator that comes along and commits atrocities then that means that we get to hold religion accountable for every mass genocide in the history of the world that has been committed in the name of a supreme being.  Religion has been the ultimate genocidal dictator throughout history, and nothing that supposedly secular dictators have done in modern times can hold a candle to the carnage that has taken place over the years in the name of religion.

Technorati Tags: creationists, Intelligent Design, evolution, Darwin, rational thought, young earth creationists, Ken Ham, Charles Ware, Creation Museum, bible, religion