@ Mafia is this the knid of thing you mean (and there is lots more to chose from)

“It appears as if the posterior molar or wisdom-teeth were tending to become rudimentary in the more civilised races of man. These teeth are rather smaller than the other molars, as is likewise the case with the corresponding teeth in the chimpanzee and orang; and they have only two separate fangs. … In the Melanian races, on the other hand, the wisdom-teeth are usually furnished with three separate fangs, and are generally sound; they also differ from the other molars in size, less than in the Caucasian races.

“It is an interesting fact that ancient races, in this and several other cases, more frequently present structures which resemble those of the lower animals than do the modern. One chief cause seems to be that the ancient races stand somewhat nearer in the long line of descent to their remote animal-like progenitors.”

“It has been asserted that the ear of man alone possesses a lobule; but ‘a rudiment of it is found in the gorilla’ and, as I hear from Prof. Preyer, it is not rarely absent in the negro.''

“It has often been said, as Mr. Macnamara remarks, that man can resist with impunity the greatest diversities of climate and other changes; but this is true only of the civilised races. Man in his wild condition seems to be in this respect almost as susceptible as his nearest allies, the anthropoid apes, which have never yet survived long, when removed from their native country.”

And this one is the best of all:

” A certain amount of absorption of mulattoes into negroes must always be in progress; and this would lead to an apparent diminution of the former. The inferior vitality of mulattoes is spoken of in a trustworthy work as a well-known phenomenon; and this, although a different consideration from their lessened fertility, may perhaps be advanced as a proof of the specific distinctness of the parent races.”

Slightly off topic but there is also this little gem (and more where that came from)

“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man’s attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman–whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands…We may also infer, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on ‘Hereditary Genius,’ that if men are capable of a decided pre-eminence over women in many subjects, the average of mental power in man must be above that of woman.”

Page 504 on the internet print. Putin, in all seriosness, have you actuallly read this book which you so stoutly defend?

More or less, but let's not judge Darwin too harshly. He was only a product of his time, and in his time, even the most liberal anti-racists would seem shockingly and appallingly racist by modern standards. And Putin is correct, in that even if he didn't realize the extent of it, Darwinian understandings of evolution really are responsible for laying so-called "scientific racism" to rest in the public consciousness, and is still the most powerful tool we have to argue against it today.

@ Fulham

Yes I've read it. All you do is quote mine from the usual fundie Darwin bashing websites. In virtually every single debate I can point to the exact fundie blog from which you get these quotes. The ellipses are even in the same place since you're too lazy to change them.

Should we proceed with an examination of the wretched record your hero Wilburforce has on race questions? The fraud that you trot out to claim that the religious were the vanguard of the anti-slavery movement.

Or better yet, Wilburforce's wretched record on women, who refused to allow women's signatures on anti-slavery petitions.

Mafia it must appear to any reasonable historian as though Darwin and, even more so his extreme followers, gave a scientific validation to Social Darwinism and thereby eugenics and, to some extent, Nazi racism. Even if we now have differing ideas on race, the ideas given by Darwin expressed in the Descent of Man (examples given above) were accepted long enough for us to come to this conclusion on the history of the first half of the 20th century. I hope that you might agree.

Putin, you are talking about shit you don't even understand. Joel Teitelbaum is the exact rabbi I was speaking of when I said fringe sects believe in devine retriibution. He was a Satmar rabbi and the Satmar Rabbi's believe among other things that Israel should not be built until the messiah, and that the holocaust was devine retribution (mainstream right??). The Shas party is an extreme sect of sephardi jews (unfortunately kingmakers, however, so important) and the controversy, which I remember well, shows how such a view is on the fringe of even orthodox circles. Rabbi Elchonon was speaking at the beginning of the war before the extent of the deathcamps were known. This is as a said a minority of a minority. You neglect (understandably because you have no clue what you are talking about) the Reform Conservative, Modern Orthodox, Hasidic and majority of Haredi (ultra orthodox) jews who find the view reprehensible. Yet "Rabbis" as a whole believe jews were killed for their sins.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Putin is DEAD wrong here, lets see if he has the balls to admit it.

I don't understand why there can't be nuance. Why does Darwin have to have been completely correct about everything? Why can't he have been correct in the general case and wrong when applying his specific beliefs to the idea of race, as a result of the prejudices and beliefs which were common during his lifetime?

Putin, has it occurred to you that maybe he lived in a time where women weren't accorded much attention or power, so if he got women's signatures, he'd have been accused of inflating his petitions with irrelevant signatures? That, therefore, getting women's signatures would have hurt his cause, so that he was being rather practical?

Just a thought. Of course, I don't expect nuanced historical analysis after your earlier shipwreck in that direction.

"Mafia it must appear to any reasonable historian as though Darwin and, even more so his extreme followers, gave a scientific validation to Social Darwinism and thereby eugenics and, to some extent, Nazi racism"

You're such a liar.

"The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.
- Charles Darwin; The Descent of Man, 1871"

So much for the "I'm merely examining Natural Selection as a theory" bullshit you tried to pull. Is there an honest bone in your body?

Darwyns work was used by social darynists as he had no intention of it being. All historians I encounter have supported this

ha I mean Darwin, I believe Darwyn's work has a racial tinge to it

Putin here is a complete page for you (115)

You will note the elegant analogy between mulattos and mules.

Page 115

Our supposed naturalist having proceeded thus far in his investigation, would next enquire whether the races of men, when crossed, were in any degree sterile. He might consult the work (9. 'On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo,' Eng. translat., 1864.) of Professor Broca, a cautious and philosophical observer, and in this he would find good evidence that some races were quite fertile together, but evidence of an opposite nature in regard to other races. Thus it has been asserted that the native women of Australia and Tasmania rarely produce children to European men; the evidence, however, on this head has now been shewn to be almost valueless. The half-castes are killed by the pure blacks: and an account has lately been published of eleven half-caste youths murdered and burnt at the same time, whose remains were found by the police. (10. See the interesting letter by Mr. T.A. Murray, in the 'Anthropological Review,' April 1868, p. liii. In this letter Count Strzelecki's statement that Australian women who have borne children to a white man, are afterwards sterile with their own race, is disproved. M. A. de Quatrefages has also collected (Revue des Cours Scientifiques, March, 1869, p. 239), much evidence that Australians and Europeans are not sterile when crossed.) Again, it has often been said that when mulattoes intermarry, they produce few children; on the other hand, Dr. Bachman, of Charleston (11. 'An Examination of Prof. Agassiz's Sketch of the Nat. Provinces of the Animal World,' Charleston, 1855, p. 44.), positively asserts that he has known mulatto families which have intermarried for several generations, and have continued on an average as fertile as either pure whites or pure blacks. Enquiries formerly made by Sir C. Lyell on this subject led him, as he informs me, to the same conclusion. (12. Dr. Rohlfs writes to me that he found the mixed races in the Great Sahara, derived from Arabs, Berbers, and Negroes of three tribes, extraordinarily fertile. On the other hand, Mr. Winwood Reade informs me that the Negroes on the Gold Coast, though admiring white men and mulattoes, have a maxim that mulattoes should not intermarry, as the children are few and sickly. This belief, as Mr. Reade remarks, deserves attention, as white men have visited and resided on the Gold Coast for four hundred years, so that the natives have had ample time to gain knowledge through experience.) In the United States the census for the year 1854 included, according to Dr. Bachman, 405,751 mulattoes; and this number, considering all the circumstances of the case, seems small; but it may partly be accounted for by the degraded and anomalous position of the class, and by the profligacy of the women. A certain amount of absorption of mulattoes into negroes must always be in progress; and this would lead to an apparent diminution of the former. The inferior vitality of mulattoes is spoken of in a trustworthy work (13. 'Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers,' by B.A. Gould, 1869, p. 319.) as a well-known phenomenon; and this, although a different consideration from their lessened fertility, may perhaps be advanced as a proof of the specific distinctness of the parent races. No doubt both animal and vegetable hybrids, when produced from extremely distinct species, are liable to premature death; but the parents of mulattoes cannot be put under the category of extremely distinct species. The common Mule, so notorious for long life and vigour, and yet so sterile, shews how little necessary connection there is in hybrids between lessened fertility and vitality; other analogous cases could be cited.

Even if it should hereafter be proved that all the races of men were perfectly fertile together, he who was inclined from other reasons to rank them as distinct species, might with justice argue that fertility and sterility are not safe criterions of specific distinctness. We know that these qualities are easily affected by changed conditions of life, or by close inter-breeding, and that they are governed by highly complex laws, for instance, that of the unequal fertility of converse crosses between the same two species.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Putin is DEAD wrong here, lets see if he has the balls to admit it."

Satmar is one of the prominent sects of Hasidics in the US (not to mention Hungary, which has a large Jewish population compared to the rest of east/central Europe). Kinda odd to claim I'm ignoring Hasidic opinion while you claim that the Satmars are irrelevant fringe people.

@ Santa. May I recomend Richard Weikart's From Darwin to Hitler?

http://www.csustan.edu/history/faculty/weikart/fromdarwintohitler.htm

Of course Putin will deny it has any validity, but a list of the historians lending support on the website I quote might just suggest that it is worth a read.

''You're such a liar.''

Putin descends to his usual non-debating tactics when he is in a corner. What an angry sociopath he appears to be.

Did you even read that paragraph you fundamentalist prick? The paragraph disputes the evidence that interbreeding of races leads to infertility. The mule analogy was used to show there is no connection between inferior vitality and fertility, you don't even bother to read these "bombs" you keep throwing.

"it must appear to any reasonable historian as though Darwin and, even more so his extreme followers, gave a scientific validation to Social Darwinism and thereby eugenics and, to some extent, Nazi racism." Ugh....it's not quite that clear cut I don't think. Darwin himself was not an advocate of Social Darwinism and Social Darwinism does not actually follow from Evolution by Natural Selection. All that is based on a severe misunderstanding or distortion of Darwin's works. Darwin himself was/would have been horrified by eugenics movements. That said, yes people have appropriated Darwin so as to lend their horribly racist crap some undeserved measure of credibility or legitimacy. Let's not blame Darwin for the misuse and appropriation of his work. Both fulhamish and Putin are doing the same thing. Either Darwin was an absolute saint who alone was able to see through the fog of racism so prevalent in his time and was more modern and enlightened on race than anyone alive today, or he was basically Hitler without the Charlie Chaplin mustache. Not to invoke the fallacy of the golden mean or anything, but this time I think the truth really does lie somewhere between the two extremes. Yes Darwin thought some races were inherently better than others, as did literally everyone else who lived in Europe at the time. That said, the degree to which he believed this was the case was much lower than most of his contemporaries, and even though he did believe that he still argued vociferously against the worst racist excesses of his time, and was accounted by his peers quite a radical anti-racist.

Most importantly regardless of any of this, it doesn't really matter if people appropriated and distorted Darwin's writing to justify racism. That doesn't change whether or not he's actually right or wrong.

"Putin descends to his usual non-debating tactics when he is in a corner. What an angry sociopath he appears to be."

You initiate these personal attacks and then whine when they're returned in kind. You're a shameless hypocrite. Thanks for fulfilling my prediction that you'd trot out your favorite book from Weikart, which you probably haven't read.

One of several Hasidic Sects, and much less in importance than the Chabad-Lebuvicher (sp.) still, you neglect the vast majority of jews and focus on small off shoots and claim it defines "Rabbis" come on Putin, lets hear it. Are Rabbis Anti-Israel as well? Because its a very similar community. Were you wrong Putin? Its ok, admit it.

No, we can't sit here and do the usual "both sides are the doing the same thing, so it's a wash". There's been a systematic campaign of character assassination by the forces of fanaticism and unreason against Darwin when even their own evidence shows that Darwin was progressive on the issue of race. Meanwhile Hitler's writings are filled to the brim with appeals to Christianity (and zero appeals to Darwin) and these people breathlessly claim that Hitler was an atheist! Unbelievable mendacity.

@ Mafia I tend to agree with your middle ground approach on Darwin and Nazism and wonder why you say otherwise. I hope that you don't mind me pointing out that I wrote this:''Mafia it must appear to any reasonable historian as though Darwin and, even more so his extreme followers, gave a scientific validation to Social Darwinism and thereby eugenics and, to some extent, Nazi racism.''

You will note those important words ''to some extent''. I think Weikart makes the same point and, in that context, the title of his book is a bit unfortunate.

Page 115 Putin???????????

No he doesn't make the same point, if you've ever bothered to hear the buffoon speak you'd know that. He traces Hitler directly to Darwin and claims that without Darwin, there'd be no Hitler. He doesn't make a moderate argument at all.

Hey Putin,

When you said this:

"You hate communists but you appeal to the wisdom of rabbis, the BULK of whom said the Holocaust was God's retribution on Jews. How bizarre."

Were you wrong?

@ fulhamish, because, and please do correct me if I've misinterpreted you, it seems as though you're arguing, as is sometimes argued, that believing Darwinian evolution necessarily leads to racism, and that Darwin himself is in some way actually responsible for or would have approved of eugenics movements and so on. It also seems, as though you're arguing that the racist beliefs which underpin these things actually came from Darwin's work. In actuality of course the beliefs which motivated things like Eugenics movements, and scientific racism existed long before Darwin published The Origin of Species. If anyone involved in one of these movements did invoke Darwin's name they did so only to cloak their bullshit in the mantle of scientific credibility. Not because Darwin's work, (problematic though it could be in places) actually served to support their pseudo scientific claims.

Reform Rabbi Ignaz Maybaum said that the Holocaust was the Jews atoning for the sins of the world. So, terrific, instead of suffering for their own sins, it's the rest of the world's. Much better.

And I guess "mipenei hata'einu" is only a Haredi belief, eh?

"You hate communists but you appeal to the wisdom of rabbis, the BULK of whom said the Holocaust was God's retribution on Jews. How bizarre."

A rabbi here a rabbi there, fringe reform rabbis, fringe orthodox rabbis. Putin does the BULK (meaning majority I assume in Putinese) of the world rabbinate believe this (By the way the wikipedia seach I did to locate the wikipedia article where you got this Maybaum charecter described his view as controversial, ie. not mainstream)

Hell Putin, you don't even need to say you are wrong, you can just say you made an assertion with very little knowledge that turned out to be false.

You also have to understand Darwin's contribution to science was not Evolution, it was Evolution by Natural Selection. The idea of Evolution predates Darwin, it's just that no one had pinned down the mechanism by which evolution actually happened. And even he was missing a crucial point which is particulate inheritance, which was discovered at around the same time by Gregor Mendel, and then promptly ignored by the rest of the world, for quite some time.
People believed genetic inheritance was a blending process, like mixing paint, only instead of blood it's bodily fluids.

This was relevant to the discussion at hand, but I forget how...

Oh right! Even without Darwin it is likely that this sort of fashion towards evolutionary thought in intellectual circles could very easily have led to eugenics and so on, even if Darwin hadn't come up with the idea of evolution by natural selection.