Dawkins and Eugenics
A leading high priest of evolution reveals its ugly side.
by Carl Wieland
1 December 2006
Photo by: Matti Á
Professor Richard Dawkins attacks Christians for ‘atrocities’, but seeks
to revive aspects of Hitler’s thinking from which the West has resiled for
decades.
Fanatically antitheistic Darwinists like the prominent Professor
Richard Dawkins of Oxford are busily convincing millions of people that
everything made itself. Dawkins needs goo-to-you evolution as a crutch for his atheistic
faith, often saying, ‘Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled
atheist.’
From this, it follows that there can be no such thing as good or bad, no standard
outside of human opinion. Dawkins is the author of the recent book ‘The God
Delusion’, in which he blames belief in God for all manner of ‘bad things’
(even though his own philosophy says there can be no objective yardstick for calling
something ‘bad’) [see our devastating review, Atheist
with a Mission].
Those like Dawkins often raise the spectre of religious wars and other ‘fundamentalist
atrocities’, implying that if only humanity were to grow up and face life
without God, we would finally attain some peaceful utopia. It’s important
to note that religion had nothing to do with the vast majority of wars, e.g. Hutu-Tutsi
war in Rwanda, Falklands War, Vietnam and Korean Wars, WW2, WW1, Gran Chaco War
in South America, Russo-Japanese War, Spanish-American War, Prussian-French War,
Crimean War, US Civil War, Napoleonic wars, Wars of the Roses, Mongol wars, Gallic
War, Punic wars, Peloponesian War, Assyrian wars …
Such critics usually overlook the clear link between Hitler’s genocidal atrocities
and the evolutionary (and definitely
antibiblical) fervour that drove them, as well as his
clear intent to exterminate Christianity. Not to mention the fact that
the millions of people killed last century by anti-God régimes are so vast
in number as to cause to pale into comparative insignificance the relative handful
killed in things like Crusades,
Inquisition, etc. (see also Christianity’s Real Record (off-site)).
Also, as many others have pointed out, those who engage in atrocities are denying
the Lord they claim to serve, whereas regimes like Pol Pot and Stalin exhibit not
the slightest inconsistency with their underlying philosophies—the opposite,
in fact. See Evolution and Social Evil.
‘I hate to agree with Hitler, but …’
Hitler’s ideas of a ‘master race’ were driven by Darwinian notions
of favouring the strong over the weak, and humans as a biological commodity.
Today’s cutting-edge evolutionists are seeking to revive aspects of Nazi thought.
Eugenics is the ‘science’ developed by Darwin’s cousin,
Francis Galton (see Eugenics ... death
of the defenceless). Based on the principles of controlled selection, it
advocates the increase of desirable characteristics in a human population. Extreme
applications of this principle, however, have resulted in forced sterilization and
culling of the ‘less fit’.
This philosophy was prominent and popular prior to WW2, and in the United States
it led to the widespread practice of forcibly sterilizing ‘undesirables’.
Many in the US even lauded the Nazi government’s public promotion of such
principles as ‘progressive’. See:
Eugenic ideas fuelled the thinking of the Nazis, including their notorious ‘racial
hygiene’ and ‘breeding superhumans’ program. It progressively led to
worse atrocities, including the pre-war elimination of entire wards full of people
who had serious chronic mental handicaps, for example.
After the gruesome unveiling of the Nazi death camps following Allied liberation,
eugenics and other forms of social Darwinism slunk shamefacedly into the shadows.
(Although most modern evolutionists would seek to dissociate themselves from social
Darwinism, claiming that it is a misapplication of Darwinian theory,
Darwin was definitely a social Darwinist). Yet it is unsurprising that such
principles are now under review, as selection of beneficial traits is logically
consistent with evolution.
Dawkins himself now says that certain ideas of eugenics may not be that bad after
all. In a letter to the editor of the Sunday Herald (Scotland), Dawkins
says that, while one would not want to be seen agreeing with Hitler, eugenics can
be practical and desirable. He writes that, ‘if you can breed cattle for milk
yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should
it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?’1
Dawkins and other prominent evolutionists increasingly apply their strongly held
worldviews to issues such as the genetic improvement of the human species which,
they say, is a logical consequence of wanting to use genetic manipulation to cure
diseases. (This is different from genetic repair of harmful mutations, because Christ’s
healing example shows that ameliorating effects of the curse is a blessing—see
for example:
Breeding and culling humans
Dawkins writes:
I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler’s death, we might at least venture
to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing
a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and
high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good
ones, which would probably end up persuading me.'
His fellow evolutionist Dr Peter Singer, a bioethicist at Princeton University,
would strongly agree. Singer is also a prominent promoter of euthanasia, including
as a moral obligation in the case of certain elderly/disabled people (though not,
incidentally, his own mother when she had Alzheimer’s). (Groups of the disabled
picket his lectures in Germany, since this country knows what eugenics is like in
practice).
In addition, he regularly promotes the idea of infanticide, the right of parents
to dispose of babies, particularly handicapped ones. He readily accepts that babies
in the womb are human. Rather than this being a reason not to kill them, he argues
in reverse. If it is OK to kill a baby
in the womb (abortion)
because it has not yet aspired to the full ‘rights’ of ‘personhood’,
why cannot one give parents the right to decide, say for a few months of a newborn’s
life, whether they want to ‘accept’ the child or dispose of it?
The same is illustrated by a New Scientist report on an abortion task force:2
The task force finds that the new recombinant DNA technologies indisputably prove
that the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that
all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is
a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine.
But since New Scientist, as an evolutionary magazine, is basically anti-Christian,
it added:
The point at which life acquires personhood is not something biology can settle
...3
As a consequence of this anti-life ethic advocated by Dawkins and Singer, some countries
are already well embarked on the eugenic road, permitting genetic screening in IVF
clinics, as well as pre-birth screening to permit undesirable traits to be weeded
out by abortion. Note that in some countries, one common ‘undesirable trait’
is being female, which makes it bizarre that most of today’s feminists
fanatically support abortion for any reason—see China Gender Imbalance Increases as Sex-Selection Abortions Continue.
Rights for apes, wrongs for people
On what basis, apart from the Bible, would you argue against giving a clever
chimp the same ‘rights’ as a severely retarded human being?
Another logical outcome of rejecting Genesis is that humans are no longer regarded
as uniquely created in the image of God. This inevitably causes pressure in two
directions: to demote and devalue humanity, and to promote and elevate the animal
kingdom (well beyond its place in God’s created purpose—see
The Greenness of God).
So it is no coincidence that Singer is perhaps the world’s leading ‘animal
rights’ activist, and Dawkins is a leader of the movement to have great apes
be awarded the same legal rights as people. Such things may still seem bizarre and
unnatural to the reader, but consider how much sense it makes to people steeped
in evolutionism. No Creator, no infallible revelation, no rules. No God, no soul.
On what basis, apart from the Bible, would you argue against giving a clever
chimp the same ‘rights’ as a severely retarded human being?
See also A ‘Bill of Rights’
for apes?
Evolutionists becoming more vocal with atheism
It seems that the Darwinian genie is out of the bottle, thanks in part to the failure
of a unified stand against its foundational philosophy, and 'pro' Genesis history,
by believers en masse.4
Evolution’s promoters are becoming ever bolder in dispensing with the disingenuous
claims that evolution is not threatening
to Christianity, into which far too
many churchians have bought. We see this not only in their increasing
frontal attacks on theistic religion (especially Christianity, and particularly,
and hysterically, on creationism—or its slightest whiff à la
ID)5 but in their social engineering
visions. We Christians should have realized that the evolutionary claims of ‘neutrality’
towards Christianity could not last—see
this section of The Hypocrisy of Intolerant ‘Tolerance’.
Conclusion
As generations continue to have all the facts of nature taught in a framework that
assumes the truth of the broad evolutionary paradigm, and thus will always ‘reinforce’
it, we can expect society to get more ‘evolutionized’ continually, slowed
by the lingering vestiges of the Christian heritage in the West. Now, more than
ever, individual believers need to be spreading quality creation information to
their friends and neighbours, including showing them the consequences of staying
passive on this vital issue.
References
- Cited in Hilary White, Anti-religion extremist Dawkins advocates eugenics: says Nazi regime’s
genocidal project ‘may not be bad’, LifeSiteNews.com, 21
November 2006. Return to text
- Alison Motluk, Science, politics and
morality collide, New Scientist 189(2543):8–9, 18
March 2006. Return to text
- Note that even if that were true that
we don’t know when personhood begins, we should give it the benefit of the
doubt. If you didn’t know whether a body was dead, you would not bury it;
if you didn’t know that a condemned building was empty, you wouldn’t
blow it up; if you didn’t know whether a movement in the bush was a deer or
a man, you would be culpable of shooting in that direction. I.e. the benefit of
the doubt must be given to life; the onus is on the pro-abortionists to prove
that the unborn is not a person. Return to text
- Another one is an American Dawkins
clone called Sam Harris, whose shrill attacks and sloppy understanding of the Bible
and history are refuted in J.P. Holding, Letter to a Maladjusted Misotheist, November 2006.
Return to text
- See for example the favorable article
on a recent conference of antitheistic scientists in La Jolla, CA: Michael Brooks,
In place of God: Can secular science ever oust religious belief—and should
it even try? New Scientist 192(2578):8–11, 18 November
2006. Return to text
(Article also available in Polish)
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