This is a topic that has interested me for a while but I never got around to looking into it. PZ finally gave me a push with a little contest on his website to discuss the role of evolution in Nazi Germany in 500 words or less. Here's mine:
A common criticism of evolution is that it justifies eugenics and is responsible for the holocaust in Nazi Germany. Darwin's theory of evolution contends that descent with modification combined with natural selection results in evolution of new species. The theory of evolution is descriptive not prescriptive and does not tell us how we should act in the future; it only describes what has happened in our evolutionary past.
Eugenics is an extension of the artificial selection practiced on animals for millennia. Artificial selection can often be contrary to the direction of natural selection, decreasing survivability or reproduction potential of the organism. Simplistic forms of eugenics were practised centuries before Darwin. The ancient Spartans would leave sickly newborns outside the city gates, attempting to improve their militaristic population. Hitler praised this practise, calling Sparta the first "Volkish state".
Eugenics, in its modern form, was devised by Francis Galton who coined the term in 1883. As Darwin died in 1882, we do not know his opinion on many of the ideas behind eugenics. However, in The Descent of Man, Darwin states (referring to Galton) "our natural rate of increase, though leading to many obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means." Darwin was not in favour of euthanasia in the pursuit of an improved 'race' of humans and he was sceptical of the ability for even conscious mate selection to improve 'traits' such as intellect and wealth.
The origin of Nazi eugenics can only seriously be traced as far back as the USA where forced sterilisation was first used to artificially select for racial improvements. It was here, in the 1900s, that eugenics was warped from a utopian vision to a pseudoscientific dystopian nightmare. In Blood of a Nation David Jordan proclaimed that talent and wealth were human traits that could be passed on through the bloodline. With ample funding and backing by academics, agencies were founded to push a new race-based eugenics ideology. Under the eugenics program 60,000 US citizens were forcibly sterilised. The German eugenics program was funded by the Rockefeller foundation and close ties were maintained with US eugenicists. The US aim was to produce a blond, blue-eyed 'Nordic' ideal human, similar to what would be referred to as 'Aryan'. In 1911 a US eugenics report discussed euthanasia; suggesting the gas chamber. After WWII, Nazi's at Nuremberg cited the US example in their defence.
What Hitler wanted was an intellectual justification for anti-Semitism. By cloaking it in the pseudoscience of eugenics he was able to add legitimacy to his actions. The artificial selection and breeding of human beings required by eugenics is the direct opposite of evolution by natural selection. Evolution by natural selection that has produced variation in the human race; eugenics seeks to produce homogeneity. Darwin made no contribution to eugenics and believed it would never work in practice. To blame the theory of evolution for the Nazi Holocaust is an unfounded accusation and to refer to eugenics as Social Darwinism is simply false.
A common criticism of evolution is that it justifies eugenics and is responsible for the holocaust in Nazi Germany. Darwin's theory of evolution contends that descent with modification combined with natural selection results in evolution of new species. The theory of evolution is descriptive not prescriptive and does not tell us how we should act in the future; it only describes what has happened in our evolutionary past.
Eugenics is an extension of the artificial selection practiced on animals for millennia. Artificial selection can often be contrary to the direction of natural selection, decreasing survivability or reproduction potential of the organism. Simplistic forms of eugenics were practised centuries before Darwin. The ancient Spartans would leave sickly newborns outside the city gates, attempting to improve their militaristic population. Hitler praised this practise, calling Sparta the first "Volkish state".
Eugenics, in its modern form, was devised by Francis Galton who coined the term in 1883. As Darwin died in 1882, we do not know his opinion on many of the ideas behind eugenics. However, in The Descent of Man, Darwin states (referring to Galton) "our natural rate of increase, though leading to many obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means." Darwin was not in favour of euthanasia in the pursuit of an improved 'race' of humans and he was sceptical of the ability for even conscious mate selection to improve 'traits' such as intellect and wealth.
The origin of Nazi eugenics can only seriously be traced as far back as the USA where forced sterilisation was first used to artificially select for racial improvements. It was here, in the 1900s, that eugenics was warped from a utopian vision to a pseudoscientific dystopian nightmare. In Blood of a Nation David Jordan proclaimed that talent and wealth were human traits that could be passed on through the bloodline. With ample funding and backing by academics, agencies were founded to push a new race-based eugenics ideology. Under the eugenics program 60,000 US citizens were forcibly sterilised. The German eugenics program was funded by the Rockefeller foundation and close ties were maintained with US eugenicists. The US aim was to produce a blond, blue-eyed 'Nordic' ideal human, similar to what would be referred to as 'Aryan'. In 1911 a US eugenics report discussed euthanasia; suggesting the gas chamber. After WWII, Nazi's at Nuremberg cited the US example in their defence.
What Hitler wanted was an intellectual justification for anti-Semitism. By cloaking it in the pseudoscience of eugenics he was able to add legitimacy to his actions. The artificial selection and breeding of human beings required by eugenics is the direct opposite of evolution by natural selection. Evolution by natural selection that has produced variation in the human race; eugenics seeks to produce homogeneity. Darwin made no contribution to eugenics and believed it would never work in practice. To blame the theory of evolution for the Nazi Holocaust is an unfounded accusation and to refer to eugenics as Social Darwinism is simply false.
