I am not promoting Hitler as having been influenced by Darwin. That is not important to me. That is not what this thread is about. I said Read/Discuss Darwin’s Descent of Man, and that's what we are doing.
I actually did not intend for this thread to turn into a Hitler thread, as if Hitler was the only one Darwin inspired. Darwin also inspired biologists to promote the eugenic movement, which led to the sterilization of tens of thousands of Americans against their will, many of whom would not be considered mentally handicapped today.
Deedee, regardless of my intentions, what's the problem? We are having a discussion. People here are free to discuss the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Luther on the Jews, Darwin, Hitler, Mao, Lenin, The Holocaust, The Red Terror, the Great Leap Forward, etc. Are you saying that I should not have created this thread and that we should not have discussed this topic? I think we all are learning from this thread.
If you knew what evolution by natural selection is (and I've tried to explain it numerous times), you wouldn't be saying stuff like this.
Notice the word "natural" in "natural selection." It doesn't say "artificial selection" or "selection by gas chambers."
And like I said many times before, any natural selection process can only operate on replicators: self-replicating entities with a high copying fidelity, and a low but persistent probability of copying error.
Humans are not self-replicators. You don't make a copy of yourself. Species aren't self-replicators. A species doesn't make a copy of itself either. "Races" and "nations" aren't self-replicators. No group or individual is a self-replicator. Thus, to speak of "natural selection" operating on any of these demonstrates one's ignorance of what natural selection is and how it works.
The replicator is the gene. Natural selection operates on genes. When a gene has two competing alleles, natural selection occurs when one allele makes its way into the bodies of those organisms who become ancestors, while the other allele does not.
Darwin looked at the brutality of animals in the wild, which penalizes the slightest weakness, and asked why this did not, as a rule, happen among homo sapiens. His problem was not knowing at what level natural selection operates, not a surprise given he didn't know what genes were.
There's your answer, Mr Darwin. Individual humans aren't replicators, so it makes no sense of to speak of "natural selection" weeding out or killing off anybody.
