Hitler and Stalin used evolution to justify there genocides.
The argument is linked to "evolution is racist" and "evolution makes you immoral" arguments.
The argument is bullshit and it uses that bullshit as a .
Lets start with Hitler: Hitler did accept evolution but not the scientific theory and fact of evolution. As exemplified in his book Mine Kampf[1], when he used the word "evolution" he gets evolution wrong. In fact his views on evolution fit the creationist false ideas of what evolution is.
Example:
Every crossing between two breeds which are not quite equal results in a product which holds an intermediate place between the levels of the two parents. This means that the offspring will indeed be superior to the parent which stands in the biologically lower order of being, but not so high as the higher parent. For this reason it must eventually succumb in any struggle against the higher species. Such mating contradicts the will of Nature towards the selective improvements of life in general. The favourable preliminary to this improvement is not to mate individuals of higher and lower orders of being but rather to allow the complete triumph of the higher order. The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all.
[...]
If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the
stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle
with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout
hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher
stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.
Strength doesn't necessarily make a population or an individual more fit. Intelligence, cooperation, camouflage even altruism can make a population and individuals more fit. Example: Us. We have thin skin, we can't hear as well as many other animals, our night vision is far worse than many other species, our sense of smell is very weak and compared to some animals of the same size we are weak. Yet we dominate the world, we dominate it though intelligence, our ability to learn, to pass knowledge onto others, to make complex tools and cooperation. It was not through being big mean and strong, crushing our enemies beneath out feet, dominating and oppressing those weaker than us that we became the dominant species.
Hitlers and the Nazis idea of ze master race, white skin, blond hair and blue eyes; there has never been a shred of evidence that says that skin color, hair color, eye color or any other superficial trait somehow makes people with those traits more intelligent or stronger than people of different skin tones and hair colors. In fact in parts of the world closer to the equator people with darker skin are very slightly more fit and people further from the equator with who have lighter skin are very slightly more fit. That is why people who's ancestry are from areas closer to or at the equator have darker skin and people from areas further from the equator have lighter skin.
It has to do with the sun; we need some exposure to sun light for vitamin D production[2] however too much sun is bad. Our bodies produce melanin to protect us from the sun. To much melanin and less exposure to sun light and you risk a vitamin D deficiency, too little vitamin D and too much sun and you get skin cancer.
Lets get back on topic. Hitler was a creationist.
Everybody who has the right kind of feeling for his country is solemnly bound, each within his own denomination, to see to it that he is not constantly talking about the Will of God merely from the lips but that in actual fact he fulfils the Will of God and does not allow God's handiwork to be debased. For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His work wages war against God's Creation and God's Will.
[...]
To undermine the existence of human culture by exterminating its
founders and custodians would be an execrable crime in the eyes of those
who believe that the folk-idea lies at the basis of human existence.
Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against that highest image of
God among His creatures would sin against the bountiful Creator of this
marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise.
And here is something that creationists and those who fight for science should recognize.
This urge for the maintenance of the unmixed breed, which is a phenomenon that prevails throughout the whole of the natural world, results not only in the sharply defined outward distinction between one species and another but also in the internal similarity of characteristic qualities which are peculiar to each breed or species. The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger. The only difference that can exist within the species must be in the various degrees of structural strength and active power, in the intelligence, efficiency, endurance, etc., with which the individual specimens are endowed. It would be impossible to find a fox which has a kindly and protective disposition towards geese, just as no cat exists which has a friendly disposition towards mice.
So Hitler misunderstood evolution and was a creationist who used creationist arguments. Do we need more? Maybe one.
In a list of books banned in Germany in 1935 we have this:[3]
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (H�ckel).
Now on to Stalin.
Stalin rejected Darwinian evolution in favor of Lysenkoism. Lysenkoism is a pseudoscience based on Lamarckian evolution (an evolutionary hypothesis that predated Darwin and was falsified long before the publishing of Origin of Species[4][5]).
But lets put the facts aside for a moment. If the creationist bullshit was true, so what? Two evil men used evolution to justify genocide. So what? People have used everything from god(s) to science to justify murder, torture, slavery, genocide, etc. Many despots have used God as a justification for killing people yet these Christan creationists don't think God is evil.
The real cause of genocides like the ones committed by Hitler and Stalin is authoritarianism; the idea that you should do as your told because the preacher, priest, mullah, rabbi, president, prophet, fearless leader, etc told you so and he knows whats right.
© 2009 all rights reserved
sourse
1.
2.
3. Ma href="http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbooks/documents.htm">Lists of Banned Books, 1932-1939
4.
4.
Well they both had black hair, so obviously that’s the reason they killed millions.