pwe
Posts: 46
Joined: Sep. 2006
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I have started reading Richard Weikart's book From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, and I am posting the review on my blog, as I read along.
Part 1 is here.
Richard Weikart is a fellow of the DI-CSC and besides that a professor of history. He participated in Coral Ridge Ministries' Darwin's Deadly Legacy.
After have read around 100 pages of the book, my impression is that Weikart is rather selective in his quoting and presentation. He also views 'Darwinism' (by which he means Darwin's theory of evolution as presented in The Origin of Species) against the 'Judeo-Christian worldview', a humanist variety of Christiany.
It's not that Weikart blames the holocaust on Darwin or on Darwinism; his claim rather is that Darwinism was part of the intellectual background for the holocaust. On its own, this is a rather uninteresting statement - because, how could it fail to be true?
No, my problem with Weikart is the way in which he contrasts evolution and creation, almost as if this is a clearcut dividing line. Figuring out from Hitler's Mein Kampf whether Hitler was an evolutionist or a creationist is impossible, even meaningless, because he anyway operates with nature as a deity that has endowed each human race with its own purpose.
If it wasn't because of Weikart's participation in Darwin's Deadly Legacy and his fellowship of the DI-CSC, I wouldn't have had all that much against his approach. But as the case is, I find him consciously manipulating
cheers
- pwe
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