Feedback archive → Feedback 2013

Staying the course at university

In our feedbacks this week we deal with the challenges young people face when entering university and a question about Hitler and the Origin of Species. The first is answered by Dr Tas Walker and the second by Dr Don Batten.

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Published: 23 June 2013 (GMT+10)

S.H. from Australia writes:

Good Afternoon,
My granddaughter has just begun a biomedical course at the Queensland University.
Evolution is included in one of her subjects.
Could you please put me on to a good article suitable to her course that would outline the facts true and false about evolution.
As a Christian, I have reassured her she has nothing to fear. As evolution is real. Mutations happen within a species.
What I understand has not been proven is transmutation—from one species to another.
Many thanks for your assistance,
Sincerely
S H

CMI’s Dr Tas Walker responds:

Hi SH,

As far as evolution and natural selection are concerned (which you asked about specifically), there are many articles that deal with that:

• The evolution train’s a-comin’ (Sorry, a-goin’—in the wrong direction)
• Time—no friend of evolution
• Speedy species surprise
• Don’t fall for the bait and switch
• The 3 Rs of Evolution: Rearrange, Remove, Ruin—in other words, no evolution!

For a good, big picture treatment of the issue see Where do we come from? Created or Evolved?

However, the key is to realise that everything is presented at the secular universities within a secular, atheistic worldview. That includes medical ethics, evolution, anatomy, law, geology, everything. So, in order to survive your granddaughter needs to have read widely from the creation perspective. I would recommend Creation magazine as it comes in regularly and deals with all sorts of issues that she will face. This will give your granddaughter enough of a background to alert her when things are not correct, and that she needs to do some digging.

One helpful article is How do I do my Assignment about Evolution?

Creation.com has an excellent search facility where your granddaughter can find material on all sorts of topics that could help her.

See also ‘Creating’ a Stir at University which may be encouraging for your granddaughter.

I hope that is of some assistance.

Tas Walker

Did Hitler ban Darwin’s Origin of Species?

Fergus M. from Germany writes:

You are aware that Darwin’s books on evolution were banned by Hitler under Section VI of the 1935 law on forbidden books, right?

This is what it says:

6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).

English translation: 6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel). As one blogger wrote:

“all this says is Haeckel’s works are included, for the crime of promoting what the Nazis considered a false and primitive version of Darwinism. That’s what the German translates as: it doesn’t say Darwinism itself is false and primitive, but that Haeckel’s version of it is, which might actually be an endorsement of whatever the Nazis considered the “right” version of Darwinism.”

So, Darwin’s works were not banned at all, only what the Nazi’s saw as the false version of Darwinism, namely Haeckel’s.

There is no evidence that Darwin’s works were ever banned; quite the contrary.

Note added in proof (24^th November 2016): Richard Weikart, professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus, is the author of Hitler’s Religion (Regnery History, 2016). Having reseached the relationship of Hitler and evolution, Weikart presents multiple clear lines of evidence that Nazi Germany embraced Darwinism, including even Haeckel’s fraudulent ideas. See: Was Darwinism Banned from Nazi Germany?.

As for the myth that ‘Hitler was a Christian’, see The Christian Nazi myth refuted and The Darwinian roots of the Nazi legal system. For a refutation of other myths regarding Nazism not being based on Darwinism, see Refutation of New Scientist’s Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions: The Darwin–Hitler connection.

Note added in proof (24^th November 2016): In his book on Hitler’s religion, Weikart shows that Hitler was a pantheist, ‘worshipping’ Nature, as understood in the light of evolution.

Don Batten