sexism of evolution

[jonathan]

I was reading this article last night I found. I am a Christian and I already knew that Darwinian evolution is rascist. But I had no idea until now that it is sexist too.

It's interesting because many people have this idea like Christianity is sexist, and it's not true at all, but ironicly evolution is extremely sexist against women and if you read this article you will see.

Here is some few interesting quotes from the article:

A review of the most prominent late 19^th century writings by biologists focusing on Charles Darwin reveals that a major plank of evolution theory was the belief that women were intellectually and physically inferior to men. Female inferiority was a logical conclusion of the natural selection worldview because men were exposed to far greater selective pressures than women, especially in war, competition for mates, food and clothing. Conversely, women were protected from evolutionary selection by norms which dictated that men were to provide for and protect women and children. Darwinists taught that as a result of this protection, natural selection operated far more actively on males, producing male superiority in virtually all skill areas. As a result, males evolved more than females. The female inferiority doctrine is an excellent example of the armchair logic that has often been more important in establishing evolutionary theory than fossil and other empirical evidence...

..The intelligence gap that Darwinists believed existed between males and females was not minor, but of a level that caused some evolutionists to classify the sexes as two distinct psychological species, males as homo frontalis and females as homo parietalis...

..The extent of the doctrine’s effect can be gauged by the fact that the inferiority-of-women conclusion has heavily influenced theorists from Sigmund Freud to Havelock Ellis, who have had a major role in shaping our generation.¹² As eloquently argued by Durant, both racism and sexism were central to evolution:

‘Darwin introduced his discussion of psychology in the Descent by reasserting his commitment to the principle of continuity … [and] … Darwin rested his case upon a judicious blend of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic arguments. Savages, who were said to possess smaller brains and more prehensile limbs than the higher races, and whose lives were said to be dominated more by instinct and less by reason … were placed in an intermediate position between nature and man; and Darwin extended this placement by analogy to include not only children and congenital idiots but also women, some of whose powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation were “characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization”’ (Descent 1871:326–327).¹³

..
Darwin’s theory may have reflected his personal attitudes toward women and non-Caucasian races. When Darwin was concerned that his son Erasmus might marry a young lady named Martineau, he wrote that if Erasmus married her he would not be:[indent] ‘… much better than her “******.”—Imagine poor Erasmus a ****** philosophical and energetic a lady … . Martineau had just returned from … America, and was full of married women’s property rights … . Perfect equality of rights is part of her doctrine … . We must pray for our poor “******” … Martineau didn’t become a Darwin.’^14..


...Conflicts that Darwin perceived marriage would cause him included: ‘how should I manage all my business if I were obligated to go every day walking with my wife—Eheu!’ ..

...Darwin’s contemporary anthropologist, Allan McGrigor, concluded that women are less evolved than men and ‘… physically, mentally and morally, woman is a kind of adult child … it is doubtful if women have contributed one profound original idea of the slightest permanent value to the world.’²¹ Carl Vogt, professor of natural history at the University of Geneva, also accepted many of ‘the conclusions of England’s great modern naturalist, Charles Darwin.’
Vogt argued that ‘the child, the female, and the senile White’ all had the intellectual features and personality of the ‘grown up Negro,’ and that in intellect and personality the female was similar to both infants and the ‘lower’ races.²² Vogt concluded that human females were closer to the lower animals than males and had ‘a greater’ resemblance to apes than men.²³ He believed that the gap between males and females became greater as civilizations progressed, and was greatest in the advanced societies of Europe.²⁴ Darwin was ‘impressed by Vogt’s work and proud to number him among his advocates.’^25...

I don't think women are the same or equal in everything as men or have the same roles at all, but It's more than obvious that Darwin was an evil fool who has fueled rascism and sexism and eugenics all over the world. It's because of his evil ideas that gave rise to communism and socialism and other evils that this last century has been so bloody.

It's interesting to note such foolish assumptions were made by supposed "great minds" that were totally false and rediculous. Even his idea of what was the mechanism for evolution, pangenesis was proven wrong a long time ago, which is why they went to neo-darwinism which replaced pangenesis with mutations, which have proven to be total failure.

I think it's really important to recognise the huge unscientific assumptions that were made from the very beginning and realize that those same type of assumtions are made everyday in the field of evolution, and false conclusions based on faulty presuppositions.

I just don't understand how people in general even listened to this idiot.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/females.asp

[Azimuthal]

from the page you linked too:

The central mechanism of Darwinism is natural selection of the fittest, requiring differences in organisms from which nature can select. As a result of natural selection, inferior organisms are more likely to become extinct, and the superior groups are more likely to thrive and leave a greater number of offspring.¹
The biological racism of late 19^th century Darwinism is now both well documented and widely publicized. Especially influential in the development of biological racism was the theory of eugenics developed by Charles Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton.

Hmm, biological racism in place of racism? I like this train of thought..

We shall call evolution 'biological racism', and we all know ALL racism is bad (including the biological, cross special variety). So of course, evolution is very bad!

Oh it goes on, with evidence:

Less widely known is that many evolutionists, including Darwin, taught that women were biologically and intellectually inferior to men. The intelligence gap that Darwinists believed existed between males and females was not minor, but of a level that caused some evolutionists to classify the sexes as two distinct psychological species, males as homo frontalis and females as homo parietalis.⁴

Oh I see, not darwin but 'darwinists'. Darwin actually never used these term did he? Let's examine reference 4:

Love, R., Darwinism and Feminism: The ‘Women Question’ in the Life and Work of Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; in: Oldroyd and Langham, The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought, D. Reidel, Holland,pp. 113–131, 1983.

Ok, so that's clear, darwin was not a sexist(at least I have not seen it demonstrated anywhere), nor a racist (except a 'biological racist', aka a darwinist). Also interesting to note, these terms have not made their way into modern science, surprisingly enough. I suppose some where along the line, this sexism was stamped out. Or are there some remnants left in contemporary evolutionary theory?

And to answer your question, people listened to darwin because his insights were revolutionary regarding our knowledge of the natural world.

[Digit]

who was that other bloke around the same time (or was it earlier?)... the guy whos ideas were far more harsh than darwins actually were...

y'know all those "social darwinists", they dont actually fit the bill for what darwin was actually all about, only what he gets accused of.


Azi, i like the cheeky tone i was reading that with. i hope i interpreted it as intended.

[jonathan]

Saying Darwin himself wasn't sexist ignores the facts in the article I linked. Go read his words for yourself.

He was in support of people in his own day who he knew that supported eugenics, rascism, and sexism.

If you suppose thinking that women are inferior to men merely based on superficial assumptions and unscientific conclusions is not sexist, then that is totally wrong.

Darwin was a sexist and a rascist and believed women children, and everyone who was not a white caucasian was inferior. This was not based on science. One of his contemporary colleages
was in full support of eugenics and Darwin was fully aware and in agreement with all of these things.

Darwin thought that woman was less evolved than man, and was so less intelligent that they were for a time considered two different "psychological" species. There was no basis for this, just like there was no basis for saying Africans were lower forms of man. It's garbage.

Most people don't really pay attention to these facts of evolution. Even women who believe in evolution are largely ignorant of this. But it must be understood that this is an inescapable part of Darwinian evolution, as was pointed out in the third paragraph in the quotes above. People ignore it ,but it's still there, waiting to be unleashed.

azimuthal: <table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td style="border: 1px inset ;" class="alt2"> Less widely known is that many evolutionists, including Darwin, taught that women were biologically and intellectually inferior to men. The intelligence gap that Darwinists believed existed between males and females was not minor, but of a level that caused some evolutionists to classify the sexes as two distinct psychological species, males as *** frontalis and females as *** parietalis.⁴ </td> </tr> </tbody></table>
Oh I see, not darwin but 'darwinists'. Darwin actually never used these term did he? Let's examine reference 4:

Hey if you had paid attention you would see that it includes Darwin:

Less widely known is that many evolutionists, including Darwin

Oh I see, not darwin but 'darwinists'. Darwin actually never used these term did he? Let's examine reference 4:

Love, R., Darwinism and Feminism: The ‘Women Question’ in the Life and Work of Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; in: Oldroyd and Langham, The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought, D. Reidel, Holland,pp. 113–131, 1983.

What are you referring to? You havn't shown or proven anything.

[Azimuthal]

If you compare Darwin to the moral standards of today, he sounds like a monster(especially when you take his words out of context). If you compare him to people from his own time, he was a pretty normal dude, except not interested in getting married or being a christian. There was no civil rights for women and non-whites at all. If you were black, you were either a slave or the son of a slave, by today's standards they were completely sexist and racist. Women were not even considered human by the law.

Let's look at British suffrage history and Darwin here to put it in perspective:
1809: Darwin is born.
1869: Britain grants unmarried women who are householders the right to vote in local elections.
1882: Darwin dies.
1894: The United Kingdom expands women's voting rights to married women in local but not national elections.
1918: The United Kingdom gives a full vote to women of age 30 and older and men age 21 and older.
1928: The United Kingdom grants equal voting rights to women.
Notice that women were not given a full vote until 45 years after Darwin's death, almost as if, the generation that came after Darwin had completely different ideas than the one that preceded it.

Also the Eugenics that Galton worked on (ie nature vs nuture a study of Variation under Domestication, inheritance of abilities, encouraging rich people to marry each other), and the modern use of eugenics (referring to nazi style mass executions) is disingenuous. Articles like this (http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/nazi.asp) which go almost as far as blaming the holocaust on Darwin really show that the people who write this shit should move on, and accept evolution for the working scientific theory it is.

[jonathan]

Azimuthal, I think comparing it to the moral standards of today it is irrelevant. It is just plain wrong.

Also the Eugenics that Galton worked on (ie nature vs nuture a study of Variation under Domestication, inheritance of abilities, encouraging rich people to marry each other), and the modern use of eugenics (referring to nazi style mass executions) is disingenuous. Articles like this (http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/nazi.asp) which go almost as far as blaming the holocaust on Darwin really show that the people who write this *** should move on, and accept evolution for the working scientific theory it is.

I also blame the holocaust on darwin, but not just one him but also martin Luther and everyone who listened to these idiots. That nazi article is by no means disingenuous, It's very accurate.

Evolution is not a working scientific theory, in fact by defenition it's not even a theory. And I won't move on because evolution hasn't moved on.

This rascism, sexism, eugenics are all inseperable parts of Darwinian evolution. People can ignore it ,but it just doesn't make logical sense. If we live in a totally naturalistic world with no Spiritual Truth, protection of the weak, and love and compassion make no logical sense. Kids are shown schildlers list and they go through this numerous times throughout school so they learn from the past and it will "never happen again", but they're not learning from the past, they don't understand that Hitler understood the implications and so do all these communist leaders, and so did all the slaveowners and sexist fools like Darwin.

It's only waiting to become unleashed again, unless people learn and recognise the implications. Sooner or later someones going to come along, someone angry in power, over an angry nation like germany in Hitlers day. They'll understand the implications, and they'll justify it, because when things were going nice, they felt no
motivation to appraoch these moral challanges, but then they're forced to recognise the implications to make serious decisions. Of course it's the wrong decision, but they've chosen that path, and that's where it leads.

[Liquidtruth]

Originally Posted by jonathan

Azimuthal, I think comparing it to the moral standards of today it is irrelevant. It is just plain wrong.

It is not wrong. Darwin's motives were not racial and sexiest. He (to my knowledge) did not set out to prove the superiority of men and the white race. If that was his intention, then he did not prove that at all and came upon one of the greatest discoveries science has made.

Originally Posted by jonathan

I also blame the holocaust on darwin, but not just one him but also martin Luther and everyone who listened to these idiots. That nazi article is by no means disingenuous, It's very accurate.

You blame the Holocaust on Darwin? Funny... I blame it on Hitler, the Nazi's, and the German people. Hitler had his agenda, and he would have found some bullshit reason to do what he wanted. In this case, he jumped on a pseudo science bandwagon, not the fault of Darwin, nor of evolution, and quite simply, one of many in a list of bullshit excuses. Hitler was a Christian you know... Perhaps it was the Bible that encouraged him to these acts? Perhaps Hitler was simply fucked in the head?

http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

Originally Posted by jonathan

Evolution is not a working scientific theory, in fact by defenition it's not even a theory. And I won't move on because evolution hasn't moved on.

You clearly do not understand what a scientific theory is, and you clearly have little to no understanding of evolution.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
In common usage, people often use the word theory to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality. True descriptions of reality are more reflectively understood as statements which would be true independently of what people think about them. In this usage, the word is synonymous with hypothesis.

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behaviour are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and general relativity.

Originally Posted by jonathan

This rascism, sexism, eugenics are all inseperable parts of Darwinian evolution.

Do some reading on Evolution. Oh, and please, stay away from AnswersInGenesis.org if you actually want to learn useful info on evolution, like the truth.

Originally Posted by jonathan

People can ignore it ,but it just doesn't make logical sense. If we live in a totally naturalistic world with no Spiritual Truth, protection of the weak, and love and compassion make no logical sense.

You're obviously not thinking hard enough. Compassion and love make perfect logical sense, because they help bind us to one another. We live in groups, that is how we survive, without compassion, love, and all that jazz, we would have a very hard time getting along in our groups and would not survive for very long. Spock may say that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, I, however, would say that the needs of the many are the needs of the one.

Originally Posted by jonathan

Kids are shown schildlers list and they go through this numerous times throughout school so they learn from the past and it will "never happen again", but they're not learning from the past, they don't understand that Hitler understood the implications and so do all these communist leaders, and so did all the slaveowners and sexist fools like Darwin.

So, Hitler decide to hate Jews simply because of Darwin's theory. Funny, I have never found the section on the imperfection of the Jewish people. Perhaps you could point it out for me?

Originally Posted by jonathan

It's only waiting to become unleashed again, unless people learn and recognise the implications. Sooner or later someones going to come along, someone angry in power, over an angry nation like germany in Hitlers day. They'll understand the implications, and they'll justify it, because when things were going nice, they felt no
motivation to appraoch these moral challanges, but then they're forced to recognise the implications to make serious decisions. Of course it's the wrong decision, but they've chosen that path, and that's where it leads.

By that logic we should round up every Bible on the planet and destroy it, because it is only a matter of time before some nut job happens by and gets all sorts of crazy ideas from it. Hell, we should burn all the books and make reading and passing on knowledge illegal as well. Never know when a nut job might learn something dangerous. Oh my.

Your argument is illogical and built upon fallacy.

[Budder81]

Why is it OK for animals to be racist and sexist, but not humans (who are also a species). I think racism and sexism is natural, it will always occur, no matter what you try. Raise some children on an island with no outside inteference, those kids will start following darwin's rule without any help, BECAUSE IT'S NATURAL. Is it wrong? Sure it feels wrong, but I bet the female lion feels bad when chased from the kill (sexism), but it's NATURAL. Quit complaining about stuff you can't change.

[chronictoker]

Originally Posted by Budder81

Why is it OK for animals to be racist and sexist, but not humans (who are also a species). I think racism and sexism is natural, it will always occur, no matter what you try. Raise some children on an island with no outside inteference, those kids will start following darwin's rule without any help, BECAUSE IT'S NATURAL. Is it wrong? Sure it feels wrong, but I bet the female lion feels bad when chased from the kill (sexism), but it's NATURAL. Quit complaining about stuff you can't change.

Racism and sexism is not natural. It's socially constructed.

Thanks to the mapping of the human genome we have determined that race is not biologically real. It exists solely in our minds. There is actually more genetic variation within a race than between races.

An isolated person will not be racist or sexist. period. It's learned behavior. You have to interact in a group in order to learn how to be racist or sexist.

[Budder81]

So is it OK to hate your own kind? ANYTHING that we do, is natural. If rasicm was socially constructed, THAT is natural.

[Liquidtruth]

Originally Posted by Budder81

So is it OK to hate your own kind? ANYTHING that we do, is natural. If rasicm was socially constructed, THAT is natural.

I would call it a perversion before I would call it natural. Racism and sexism is learned behaviour as far as I can tell. Little boys and little girls on the playground do not treat each other in such manners, unless they have others in their lives who do so. At least, from what I have observed. *shrugs*

[Budder81]

Of course it is learned behavoir, but isn't everything learned? I think racism is not hating someone just because, it's hating someone to protect your food/life/idea/etc. Raise some children on an island, arrange them apart (just like we were) and let them slowly find each other, you're telling me they wouldn't have violent clashes as adults? ALL CHILDREN play when young, elementary schools you'll see races mixed, middle school and high school not so much.

Doesn't it seem odd that we have to try REALLY hard not to be racist? I'm not racist and I don't hate certain races, but I do observe that WE ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.

[Liquidtruth]

Originally Posted by Budder81

Of course it is learned behavoir, but isn't everything learned? I think racism is not hating someone just because, it's hating someone to protect your food/life/idea/etc. Raise some children on an island, arrange them apart (just like we were) and let them slowly find each other, you're telling me they wouldn't have violent clashes as adults? ALL CHILDREN play when young, elementary schools you'll see races mixed, middle school and high school not so much.

Doesn't it seem odd that we have to try REALLY hard not to be racist? I'm not racist and I don't hate certain races, but I do observe that WE ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.

Yes, everything is learned, we have no genetic memory (sadly). What you are talking about is not racism. People are naturally wary of difference, but that does not mean they should respond to that difference by hanging it from a tree. It means we act cautiously until we can determine a threat, and that has nothing to do with race. If white guy A came upon white guy B's tribe and they have never met, they would be wary of him in the same way they would be if white guy A was black guy C. Racism is not what you are describing.

The only reason some people find it hard not to be a racist, is because society contains so much of it, you thus learn to make judgments based upon race. Societal flaws infect society.