Tag: colonialism

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post

Author
John G. West

Date
March 8, 2023

Tagged
Africa, British colonialism, British colonizers, Carl Linnaeus, Charles Darwin, colonialism, Darwin, Darwin Comes to Africa, DarwinComestoAfrica.com, Darwinism, Evolution, genocide, Heinrich Ernst Ziegler, human evolution, John G. West, Natural Selection, Nigeria, Olufemi Oluniyi, racial conflict, racism, Richard Weikart, scientific racism, Scientism, Social Darwinism, survival of the fittest, The Descent of Man, The Origin of Species}

When Darwinian Racism Came to Africa, and the West

_{John G. West

March 8, 2023

Uncategorized}

Today’s ID the Future features another reading from scholar Olufemi Oluniyi’s new book, Darwin Comes to Africa. In this excerpt we learn how Darwin himself laid much of the groundwork for social Darwinist ideas, primarily in his book The Descent of Man, and how those ideas were energetically developed in the ensuing decades by various mainstream scientists. Oluniyi further details how their work fueled pseudo-scientific racism against black Africans and other indigenous peoples outside the West. To learn more about this neglected corner of modern Western history, and for the good news that the flow of evidence has turned against Darwinism and, with it, social Darwinist principles, pick up Oluniyi’s book here.

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post

Author
John G. West

Date
February 27, 2023

Tagged
Africa, British colonialism, British colonizers, chimp-human hybrids, colonialism, Darwin, Darwin Comes to Africa, DarwinComestoAfrica.com, Darwinism, Evolution, human evolution, Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov, John G. West, Natural Selection, Nigeria, Olufemi Oluniyi, pseudoscience, racism, scientific racism, Scientism, Social Darwinism, survival of the fittest}

When Darwinism Came to Africa, Horrors Ensued

_{John G. West

February 27, 2023

Uncategorized}

On today’s ID the Future, hear a Nigerian voice-actor reading from the opening pages of Nigerian scholar Olufemi Oluniyi’s new book, Darwin Comes to Africa. In this section from the preface, Oluniyi explores the relationship of Darwinism to Social Darwinism, and some of the ways Social Darwinism fueled and justified horrific ideas and actions among European thinkers and colonizers. Oluniyi tells the story of Russian scientist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov, who, guided by Social Darwinist thinking, “sought to produce a race of super-soldiers for Stalin’s army by impregnating French Guinea women with the sperm of a dead chimpanzee—black African women, mind you, who were presumed to be less highly evolved and thus closer to chimpanzees than were white European women.” As Oluniyi further notes, this scientist was far from a “lone gunman…. Colonial authorities approved the plan, and the Russian found support amongst both the French and American scientists.” As horrifying as this plan is, it and other horrors make sense under the false and twisted logic of social Darwinism, Oluniyi explains. Buy the eye-opening book here.

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post

Author
John G. West

Date
February 22, 2023

Tagged
Africa, British colonialism, colonialism, COVID-19, Darwin, Darwin Comes to Africa, DarwinComestoAfrica.com, Darwinism, John G. West, Nigeria, Olufemi Oluniyi, racism, Reconciliation in Northern Nigeria, Scientism, Social Darwinism, University of Edinburgh}

Olufemi Oluniyi’s New Book, Darwin Comes to Africa

_{John G. West

February 22, 2023

Uncategorized}

On today’s ID the Future, scholar John West introduces Darwin Comes to Africa, the new book by Nigerian pastor, theologian, journalist, scholar, and human rights activist Olufemi Oluniyi. The work explores the poisonous influence of social Darwinism on British rule in northern Nigeria in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a poisonous influence felt in Oluniyi’s home country down to the present, he argues. The book project grew out of Oluniyi’s intimate knowledge of Nigerian culture as well as his attendance at the 2017 Center for Science & Culture Summer Seminar program in Seattle, Washington. By the end of that nine-day gathering, he had resolved to write a book about the impact of Social Darwinism on his home country and announced that intention to his fellow attendees. He died of Covid-19 four years later, but not before completing in-depth research on the subject of the book and sending Discovery Institute his manuscript. Listen in to learn more about what Oluniyi discovered, and purchase his fascinating book here.

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post

Author
Richard Weikart

Date
November 22, 2021

Tagged
Adolf Hitler, Bioethics, biological determinism, Casey Luskin, Charles Darwin, Charles Davenport, colonialism, Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, Darwinism, embryonic gene editing, Ernst Haeckel, Ernst Rüdin, Eugen Fischer, Eugenics, Euthanasia, evolutionary science, Francis Galton, From Darwin to Hitler, history of science, human-animal chimeras, imago dei, immoral experimentation, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, miscegenation, Natural Selection, Nazi Germany, nihilism, No-True-Scotsman fallacy, Nordic racism, pseudoscience, Richard Weikart, scientific racism, struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, The Death of Humanity, The Origin of Species, Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Universal Human Rights, Yuval Noah Harari}

Richard Weikart on Scientific Racism and the War on Humanity

_{Richard Weikart

November 22, 2021

Uncategorized}

Today’s ID the Future again spotlights The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith. Historian Richard Weikart and host Casey Luskin discuss Weikart’s contribution to the new anthology, his essay “How Evil Has Been Done in the Name of Science.” As Weikart explains, over the past century and a half, science has been misused to fuel racist policies and undermine human rights. Darwinian ideas helped lay the groundwork for Nazi ideology in Germany. And we shouldn’t imagine the problem was restricted to Nazi Germany. Scientific racism also reared its head in the United States, including in the long-running and infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment. More broadly, a marriage of scientism and evolutionary thinking continues to undermine the idea of inherent human worth and dignity, Weikart notes, even among thinkers who likely would reject scientific racism.

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post

Author
Richard Weikart

Date
April 28, 2021

Tagged
Adolf Hitler, Cambridge University Press, Charles Darwin, colonialism, E.O. Wilson, Ernst Haeckel, Eugenics, From Darwin to Hitler, Herbert Spencer, Hitler’s Ethic, Hitler’s Religion, Jeffrey O’Connell, Michael Ruse, Pantheism, racism, Richard Weikart, Social Darwinism, struggle for life, struggle for survival, survival of the fittest, The Death of Humanity, World War I, World War II}

Richard Weikart Reviews New Book on Social Darwinism

_{Richard Weikart

April 28, 2021

Uncategorized}

In today’s ID the Future historian Richard Weikart (Cal State Stanislaus) dissects a new Cambridge University Press book on social Darwinism by Jeffrey O’Connell and Michael Ruse. Weikart, author of Hitler’s Ethic, From Darwin to Hitler, Hitler’s Religion, and The Death of Humanity,* says that a major shortcoming of the new book is the authors’ attempt to put as much distance as possible between Darwin and eugenics thinking, and between Darwin and Hitler. The new book paints Darwin follower Herbert Spencer as the eugenics-championing bad guy and posits that Darwin and Darwinism had little or no influence on Hitler’s warped master race ethic. Weikart patiently highlights some key evidence to the contrary, statements front and center in Hitler’s writing. Did Darwin cause Hitler? No. Would Darwin have approved of Hitler? Almost certainly not. But according to Weikart, Darwin’s own racist and pro-eugenics thinking, combined with some implications of his theory that he himself explicitly surfaced, manifestly did lay the groundwork for Hitler’s diabolical outlook on “the master race,” “the struggle for life,” war, and eugenics. *As an Amazon Associate, Discovery earns from qualifying purchases.