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Pretty interesting article by Ben Stein.Darwinism: The Imperialism of Biology?
Darwinism, the notion that the history of organisms was the story of the survival of the fittest and most hardy, and that organisms evolve because they are stronger and more dominant than others, is a perfect example of the age from which it came: the age of Imperialism. When Darwin wrote, it was received wisdom that the white, northern European man was destined to rule the world.
Darwinism is still very much alive, utterly dominating biology. Despite the fact that no one has ever been able to prove the creation of a single distinct species by Darwinist means, Darwinism dominates the academy and the media.
Alas, Darwinism has had a far bloodier life span than Imperialism. Darwinism, perhaps mixed with Imperialism, gave us Social Darwinism, a form of racism so vicious that it countenanced the Holocaust against the Jews and mass murder of many other groups in the name of speeding along the evolutionary process.
A hideous ideology to be sure. Pity man never removes himself from such ideas for very long without revisiting them again in some new more grotesque form.
I think that any connections between Darwinism and imperialism may be swept under the rug, as the former is the symbolic hero of modern-day liberalism, while the latter is its enemy. Or, at least this was the rhetoric of leftists like Hugo Chavez when Bush was president.
I watched the documentary of Ben Stein on evolution (sorry can't remember the name of it) and I have to say that approaching it with an open mind I can see where he is coming from. I don't want to justify whether he's right or wrong nor do I think he intends for the viewer to do so but inevitably folks will do just that and either discredit him or praise him for it, in my opinion.Please bear (bare?) with me a moment. I once heard the anecdote of what Newton was to Einstein, in the sense that Newton forever changed physics and from that point on the general concensus was that classical newtonian physics was the explanation for everything, the mechanical universe as you will, and that was that, no question about it. When Einstein came out at the turn of the century with general relativity I would say that it didn't necessarily disprove Newton, rather it revised it or refined it to what physics would later become. So in a sense Newton was not 'wrong' but his idea was a step up in knowledge and Einstein took another step up from there. The way I see evolution is it being like Newton's theories, a first major step for biology but by no means did we go from A-Z in biology just from evolution (in my opinion again).The danger I see with evolution is that it's a very hot topic and if folks were to come out and say something like this, and they have, then right away people would classify them as being pro-creationism or anti-evolution which I don't think is very fair. Ben Stein interviews many people in his documentary that have taken a great fall in their professional lives because they chose to question. I think we have to be skeptical about it but I think we should also give it credit. I personally believe in evolution but at the same time I also feel we should have open minds and be able to revise or refine it if we learn that it may not explain absolutely everything we know about organisms. However, and this is the main point I would like to make, is that evolution and politics makes for a very volatile combination and people have done horrible things unto others because of such beliefs (racial discrimination for starters).
The only problem for me being a Christian is the account in Genesis. If I didn't have that, I could be way more open minded. I do think Natural Selection takes place, but only as a temporary means of adjusting to environmental changes that are out of the norm. Usually these changes will revert back to the norm when abnormal conditions go away.
