Is anyone watching Ben Stein's "Expelled" on Showtime? Darwinism enabled Nazism is

[Pryderi]

one of the claims he's making.

[DontTreadOnMe]

1. So he admits that it Darwinism exists?

Those Church people are going to be happy with Mr. Stein.

[Orrex]

2. Roger Ebert gave a blistering review of that piece of creationist shit

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.html

[gratuitous]

3. Remember: This is time you are subtracting from your lifespan

No one will make it up to you.

[Pryderi]

5. hmmm...

[DeSwiss]

4. Ben Stein's....

...and ass.

[Mopar151]

10. That's AN ASS!

As in donkey. A male donkey is often called a Jack Ass. A good jackass is far more valuable than Mr. Stein, because, with proper training and persuasion, he can bear enormus weight, on trails that humans have trouble walking on. Ben Stein can't hold up a story standing on level ground.

[NMMNG]

6. We don't get Showtime

But we're not missing much in this case...

[MadHound]

7. Actually the theory is basically sound,

But a bit more complicated than that. Darwin's theories gave rise to Social Darwinism and eugenics, among other such schools of thought. These kind of mindsets contributed greatly to European colonialism, racism, and yes, Nazism.

[SpiralHawk]

12. Is this how the Republicon Bush Family Evil Empire became Nazi supporters?

Or was that through some other occult Republicon-Bush mindf*ck of 'elitist' screwjob reasoning?

I mean, could Hitler and the Nazi have mounted their death and war machine without the financing assistance of the Republicon Bush Family?

Why do the Republicons love the Bush clan, which gave aid and assistance to the Nazis? And why did no one from the corporate-republicon media ever ask any questions of Commander AWOL Bush about it? It was certainly a legitimate line of inquiry...

[MadHound]

15. It's not just the Bush clan,

Brown Bros. Harriman were a key financier, but there were others also. Some other key players were the Dulles brothers, Henry Ford and the Ford Motor company(Henry for his anti-Semitic inspiration, the company for contributing to the Nazi war effort), GMC, Averil Harriman, (scion of the Union Pacific dynasty), Charles Davenport(of US eugenics fame) and IBM, without their help the Holocaust would have been a lot less deadly. Most of these, along with other corporations and rich elite, were into this simply for the Money. Germany was a fertile trading ground post WWI, and bucks were to be made. The real question is which is worse, somebody who aids the Nazis out of true belief or simply for the love of lucre?

[dustbunnie]

13. Eugenics and selective breeding have been around since way before Darwin.

The Spartans practiced eugenics.

[MadHound]

17. That's true, however what I'm talking about is the formally recognized "science" of eugenics

You know, Davenport, Laughlin, all those wonderful folks. The ones who illegally, immorally forcibly sterilized 235,000 people in this country during the latter part of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth.

[joeybee12]

14. Crap...yeah, and that's why slavery came about, because of superiority...

...oh wait, that was before darwinism, and colonialism was before darwinism. Nice try.

[MadHound]

18. Didn't say anything about slavery, nice strawman though

What I was saying was that it contributed to European colonialism, specifically in Africa, and racism. I suggest that you educate yourself on the subject. Things like the Great Scramble in Africa for colonial power, and the reasons behind it. You will find that Social Darwinism played a heavy influence in such areas

[cmkramer]

19. I read about that in a book about the Carrie Buck case

But yes, it is a lot more complicated than saying that it was all Darwin's fault.

[RainDog]

8. From the science blog, Pharyngula

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/a_contest_gets_a_winner_common.php

Was evolution a significant and essential factor in guiding Nazi thought?

No. First of all, as has already been established courtesy of searching through Mein Kampf in detail, Hitler's assorted eructations on nature reproduce well-known creationist canards, including the static species fallacy, and Hitler also asserted that fertile, viable hybrids were inpossible, which is manifestly refuted...

...Also, even an elementary search of Mein Kampf reveals the following statistics. The number of instances of key words are as follows:

"Darwin" : ZERO

"Almighty" : 6

"God" : 37

"Creator" : 8

...Hitler was inspired by the anti-Semitic ravings of one Lanz von Liebenfels, who was a defrocked monk, and whose magnum opus bore the Pythonesque title of Theozoology, Or The Account Of The Sodomite Apelings And The Divine Electron. This was in effect a warped Biblical exegesis, which rewrites the Crucifixion story, and also contains a mediaeval bestiary replete with instances of Liebenfels' florid imagination.

Additionally, the Nazis placed textbooks on evolutionary biology on their list of seditious books to be burned...

[dustbunnie]

16. He was also very much inspired and driven by the teachings of Martin Luther.

Followed them to the letter actually. Kristallnact was organized to occur on Luther's birthday.

[The Traveler]

9. Social Darwinism or Spencerism

was quite popular among the robber barron types of the early 20th Century, many of whom wound up being admirers and/or discrete supporters of Hitler. Bubblegum philosophy based on a half-assed understanding of science is not a new thing, and the financial elites are not immune from seduction of this sort. This may have contributed to Stein's confusion on the matter.

Trav

[Odin2005]

11. That's a common fundy argument.

It may be true at a super-simplistic level, but it basically amounts to a big "argument by consequences" fallacy.