Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The 'Breitbart'ing of Darwin....

Luke: 'What's in there?'
Yoda: 'Only what you take with you...'

It's been a long while since 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' was released and the dust has finally settled and it's clear that not much has changed in the Creationism/ID vs. Darwinism debate. To be sure partisans on each side seem to have hardened their positions ever more. For my part I have seen the documentary and while I don't think it did any serious harm to or in any way undermine the foundation modern biology that is Evolutionary Theory, there were aspects...parts of the film that deeply troubled me... until recently.

'Could he be that inhuman?'

In the documentary Mr. Stein ( or more to the point the producers at Premise Media) attribute the following statement to Charles Darwin's book 'The Descent of Man':

"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

Yikes! Reading this it becomes exceedingly difficult to castigate anyone for linking the work of Mr. Darwin to the eugenics movement, all the worst behaviors of the 19th century robber barons and most ashamedly Hitler and his greatest hits. Naturally this quote bothered me deeply as I am a compassionate human being.

Admittedly, I hadn't read 'The Descent of Man'. This quote is decidedly more ominous and less charitable than anything I'd read in Mr. Darwin's earlier magnum opus 'On the Origin of Species'. Could this really be the same man? The tone of this quote is so different. So I decided to look this quote up. So I wrote down the quote word for word as used in 'Expelled'.

'A funny thing happened at the googling.'

When I searched for the text as quoted from the film, a funny thing happened: I found that the quote doesn't exist in the context offered by the film! What follows is taken from Mr. Darwin's 'The Descent of Man':

(the emboldened text was conveniently redacted)

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

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 social 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.

'Honesty can never take a holiday.'

Now, my purpose is NOT to debate the the truth value of Darwin's insight into the workings of nature and his explanation for biodiversity on Earth. Everyone seems to have made up their respective minds there. What I feel compelled to do is call out the blatant and cynical dishonesty of Premise Media in their representation of Charles Darwin .

Clearly, it was and continues to be the aim of Premise Media and many like them to lay the holocaust, the eugenics movement squarely at the feet of Charles Darwin and his 'Dangerous Idea'. But what these people have done is precisely what the proponents of those inhuman enterprises have done: take Charles Darwin out of context; omitted sections of or twisted his actual words to fit a presupposition they already had brought with them. This constitutes reprehensible dishonesty in extremis. This is a disservice to every person who has ever worked openly and honestly to expand human understanding. The explanation of the natural world is no place for this kind of tactic, something I have in lieu of recent events labeled 'Breitbarting'.

You are free to disagree with Darwin's ideas or any other idea for that matter. However, in that disagreement you must, to the best of your knowledge and ability, be honest in your representation of those you disagree with. In all of our discourse we must, above all else, be honest.

R.