"Social Darwinism:" is it justified by the theory of organic evolution?

[James]

Social Darwinism: this appelation is not an easy categorization, but in general, it refers to any political or social theory that seeks to use excerpts from the theory of organic evolution for self-justification.

The origin of Social Darwinism is usually attributed to the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). Spencer applied Social Darwinism as a vindication of capitalism, saying that those who were rich were the most "socially fit" and that the poor were those who simply couldn't compete. Spencer held that the attempt to provide financial relief to the poor would allow them to survive and pass on their "inferiority" to their children. Spencer's ideas were later abandoned as a wholly genetic phenomenon, but left vestiges in the foundation of modern American conservatism. These ideas were popular up until the time of the Great Depression, when economic conditions forced a re-evaluation of the causes of poverty.

Social Darwinism also meshed well with the racism that was prevalent during this time period, and it was asserted that Anglo-Saxon Protestants represented the fittest group in the Social Darwinist concept of human society. This concept was taken further by some as a justification of Nordic Racism, which was utilized by Nazi philosophers and others who wished to justify slavery. Benjamin Morgan stated in 1864 before the general assembly of South Carolina:

The negro race, for example, has never in any period of history been able to lift itself above its native condition of fetishism and barbarism; and except as it has indirectly contributed by servile labor to human progress, might well be discounted, according to Schlegel's view, in the general estimate of the world's inhabitants. Often as they have been brought in contact with other and superior races, they have never been stimulated to become a self-supporting people, under well regulated institutions and laws; but have invariably relapsed from a partial civilization into their original state of degradation and imbecility. It is moreover notoriously true that the highest type of character, ever developed among them, has been in the condition of servitude; and that, in the fairest portions of the earth, after the advantage of a long discipline to systematic toil, emancipation has converted them instantly from productive laborers into the most indolent and squalid wretches to be found upon the globe. Whilst too, as by the force of a universal law, an inferior race melts away in the presence of a superior civilization, a few thousand Africans have expanded under this system of domestic slavery into four millions of people; constituting, at this moment, the best conditioned, the happiest, and I will add, in the essential import of the word, the freest operative class to be found in christendom. It is also beyond dispute that a larger number of slaves at the South are in the communion of the Church of Christ, and have been made partakers of the blessings of the gospel, than is furnished in the returns of missionary labor by all the branches of the Christian church taken together, over the whole surface of the globe. And last of all, one of the most significant facts in this entire series, is, that whilst slavery has existed in every variety of form through the whole tract of human history, it has been reserved to our times to beat up a crusade against it under precisely that patriarchal form in which it is sanctioned in the word of God, and in which it has never been found since the overthrow of the Hebrew empire, until now. My individual belief is, that servitude, in some one of its forms, is the allotted destiny of this race, and that the form most beneficial to the negro himself is precisely that which obtains with us; where, either as born in the house, or bought with our money, he is a regular member of the household, and is protected alike by the affection and by the interest of the master. (http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/palmdisc/palmdisc.html)

On the whole, early Social Darwinism was advocated primarily by wealthy Anglo-Saxons as a justification for industrialist business practices and racism. It was used along with certain biblical interpretations as a justification for slavery and racism.

Social Darwinism is not just a fallacious extrapolation from scientific theory, but a fundamentally incorrect conception of organic evolution. Historically, groups of people have tended to persecute other groups, usually doing so in order to gain control of limited resources. This isn't a condemnation of evolutionary theory, it is a condemnation of physical reality. This also doesn't mean that it's the "best" course of action, either. The survival of everyone could be better ensured, perhaps, by working together and developing better technology. Social Darwinists wished to use evolutionary theory as a justification for eugenics (elimination of "unfavorable traits"), but evolutionary biology has found that life depends on a diversity of traits to remain viable in changing environmental conditions. "Unfavorable traits" are loosely defined in evolutionary biology to be traits that inhibit survival and reproduction in a given environment. Differing traits among human populations are actually natural variations that usually confer an advantage to survival in a given environment.

For example, skin pigmentation is an advantage in some environments and a disadvantage in others. Skin pigmentation tends to be darker as a defense against harmful UV rays, and those populations which are exposed to the strongest sunlight are traditionally those with the heaviest pigmentation. The human body also requires Vitamin D, which is naturally synthesized in the skin by the action of UV-B rays. Since UV-B rays are blocked by heavy pigmentation (a natural defense against heavy UV exposure that is responsible for tanning), it follows logically that those who are exposed to the least amount of UV-B will have the lightest skin, and vice-versa. One interesting exception to this rule are the Inuit who live in northern Canada and Alaska. Because the people of this population derive a majority of their Vitamin D from a seafood diet, they do not require much Vitamin D from UV-B. Coincidentally, they also have darker skin than most populations at the same latitude.

Social Darwinists also ignored the basic realities of their economic model, which relied on slave labor and a division of wealth. The only way that a certian few could be supplied with enormous wealth was by the exploitation of the wealth and happiness of other groups. If these lower classes were eliminated from the population, the entire economic system would collapse and reform itself due to an inherent need for low-wage labor.

Philosophically, social theories derived from physical and chemical phenomena cannot claim inherent justification. The questions of utmost importance to social theories in a given society are, "What do we wish our society to be like, and what do we need to do to realize that goal?". Social Darwinism is only applicable to a society when that society answers these questions with "an economic and social division between different groups of people" and "systematic financial exploitation and social segregation to the benefit of the minority." Unfortunately, in the 19th century, wealthy Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the socio-economic group with the most power, actually did believe in such answers.

Physical realities need not be actualized as social systems just because they exist in nature (For the purposes of this thread, evolutionary theory is correct as described by biology, as the issue at hand is the application of evolutionary theory and not its scientific validity). There is no inherent commandment in scientific theory that provides a rationalization for extrapolating description (of the natural world) into edict. Saying that Hitler was enacting a fulfillment of evolutionary theory is like saying someone who accepts the law of gravity should push people off buildings in order to fulfill the principles of gravitation. Evolution, like gravity or chemistry, is just a mindless process that is a result of the fundamental laws and organization of matter. It makes no moral claims, it is simply what happens in the natural world. There is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that says evolution must be fulfilled and that it is moral to do so. You could just as well say that Hitler was "consistent with his application of chemical theory (as opposed to evolutionary theory)" by developing nerve gas to use in genocide. Any justifications for extrapolating scientific theory into social policy must be rationalized by worldviews exogenous to the theory itself.

The scientific theory of evolution is not a justification for any moral or societal system. That is not to say that no scientific theories can justify a moral or societal system, as valid scientific studies can be done on the best form of childrearing or reducing crime. However, these theories must be formulated and studied specifically within a social framework to be valid. The theory of organic evolution is simply not one such theory.

[Zeus]

Today @ 04:17 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=114116#post114116)
James:

Saying that Hitler was enacting a fulfillment of evolutionary theory is like saying someone who accepts the law of gravity should push people off buildings in order to fulfill the principles of gravitation. Evolution, like gravity or chemistry, is just a mindless process that is a result of the fundamental laws and organization of matter. It makes no moral claims, it is simply what happens in the natural world. There is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that says evolution must be fulfilled and that it is moral to do so. You could just as well say that Hitler was "consistent with his application of chemical theory (as opposed to evolutionary theory)" by developing nerve gas to use in genocide.

Excellent post which nicely points out the illogic in the arguments claimings that Hitler was simply "following evolutionary theory." You could analogously claim that the United States was just following the teachings of relativity when it decided to anihilate hundreds of thousands of Japanese women and children, twice.

Hitler understood that if he killed off Jewish people, there would be no Jewish people left to contribute genes to the remaining human population. Hitler, as a human who could make choices, thus decided who should be the "fittest". Just because one can apply evolutionary theory does not mean that evolutionary theory "tells you" to apply it in that particular way.

Likewise, the Americans understood that if they brought two uranium masses of the proper size together in the civilian centers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they could indiscriminatly kill an enormous number of people very quickly and efficiently. But just because they applied the theory of relativity to that end does not mean that relativity "told them" to do that.

A further point is that, even if such ridiculous logic is actually correct, it is in no way an argument against the validity of relativity, chemical theory, or evolutionary theory as scientific theories (though it surely has emotional appeal for those swayed by irrationality).

[Captain Ochre]

06-01-2003 @ 04:17 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=114116#post114116)
James:

(removed history of Social Darwinism--C.O.)

Social Darwinism is not just a fallacious extrapolation from scientific theory, but a fundamentally incorrect conception of organic evolution.


The above is the thesis you'll be defending below (just to clarify, I hope).



Historically, groups of people have tended to persecute other groups, usually doing so in order to gain control of limited resources. This isn't a condemnation of evolutionary theory, it is a condemnation of physical reality. This also doesn't mean that it's the "best" course of action, either. The survival of everyone could be better ensured, perhaps, by working together and developing better technology.


Here, you're successfully distinguishing between modern conceptions of Darwinism (we can call it neo-Darwinism, if you like), and the Darwinism that most influenced Social Darwinists, which is closer that that Charles Darwin advocated. Recall that a prediction of Darwin's theory according to Darwin himself was extinction, specifically extinction of weaker (less fit) races.
Modern Darwinism separates itself from values, maintaining that complex results of evolution are no better of more "advanced" ("higher") than simpler ones. The modern Darwinist wouldn't even tell you that survival is preferable to extinction unless he were talking about his own life. :wink:



Social Darwinists wished to use evolutionary theory as a justification for eugenics (elimination of "unfavorable traits"), but evolutionary biology has found that life depends on a diversity of traits to remain viable in changing environmental conditions.


That doesn't do sickle-cell anemia sufferers any good when there's no malaria around, afaics. Humans have a tendency to think in terms of their groups: Family, community, nation--that sort of thing. You expect white-as-a-sheet Irish folk to take solace in the fact that aborigines are well-adapted to sun exposure? On the contrary, the existence of the aborigines is a threat to the white-as-a-sheet Irish population in terms of ultimate survival in a sun-drenched climate. You're trying to hide the practical appeal of Social Darwinism behind the value neutrality of science. Science doesn't care whether or not we use it to achieve better healthcare, or increased food production. Indeed, "science" doesn't care if we live or die as a group.



"Unfavorable traits" are loosely defined in evolutionary biology to be traits that inhibit survival and reproduction in a given environment. Differing traits among human populations are actually natural variations that usually confer an advantage to survival in a given environment.


Survival for whom? The people who don't die from the environmental changes?
:grin:
Here's the thing: Hitler wasn't concerned about envirionmental pressure from a changing environment. He was concerned about the ability of human populations to grow at a rapid rate, and the history of conflict over resources. The short-necked giraffes found that the long-necked giraffes out-competed them for food. I'll bet that they felt just great about the ability of the long-necked giraffes to pass on their genes instead of the short-necked ones, eh-what?
So, Hitler acted on the understanding that a population had outdo the competition in situations where resources are limited in order to ensure its long-term survival. What's the problem with his belief, in terms of science?

removed skin pigmentation bits--C.O.



Social Darwinists also ignored the basic realities of their economic model, which relied on slave labor and a division of wealth. The only way that a certian few could be supplied with enormous wealth was by the exploitation of the wealth and happiness of other groups. If these lower classes were eliminated from the population, the entire economic system would collapse and reform itself due to an inherent need for low-wage labor.


Aren't you carelessly mixing your Social Darwinists? Social Darwinists in the slave-holding US advocated maintaining the slave labor force, did they not (at least as long as it would be needed)? The Nazis did use Jews for slave labor, but their economy was primarily based on the sweat of ordinary paid German workers, afaict.
You can provide references if you wish to develop your point here.



Philosophically, social theories derived from physical and chemical phenomena cannot claim inherent justification. The questions of utmost importance to social theories in a given society are, "What do we wish our society to be like, and what do we need to do to realize that goal?". Social Darwinism is only applicable to a society when that society answers these questions with "an economic and social division between different groups of people" and "systematic financial exploitation and social segregation to the benefit of the minority." Unfortunately, in the 19th century, wealthy Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the socio-economic group with the most power, actually did believe in such answers.


What branch of science (based on physical and chemical phenomena) tells us that it's "unfortunate" that people actually did believe in such answers? Oops--none, right?



Physical realities need not be actualized as social systems just because they exist in nature (For the purposes of this thread, evolutionary theory is correct as described by biology, as the issue at hand is the application of evolutionary theory and not its scientific validity).


I'm sure that the Social Darwinists in Germany understood this well, since extinction of populations occurs in nature and they resolved not to become extinct.



There is no inherent commandment in scientific theory that provides a rationalization for extrapolating description (of the natural world) into edict. Saying that Hitler was enacting a fulfillment of evolutionary theory is like saying someone who accepts the law of gravity should push people off buildings in order to fulfill the principles of gravitation.


If you ignore Charles Darwin's predictions, perhaps.



Evolution, like gravity or chemistry, is just a mindless process that is a result of the fundamental laws and organization of matter. It makes no moral claims, it is simply what happens in the natural world. There is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that says evolution must be fulfilled and that it is moral to do so.


In the same vein, there is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that would prohibit a program such as that run by the Nazis. In fact, evolution would predict that the elimation of one "race" (Jews) by another ("Aryan" Germans) might well increase the likelihood of the survival of the "Aryan" population. Right?



You could just as well say that Hitler was "consistent with his application of chemical theory (as opposed to evolutionary theory)" by developing nerve gas to use in genocide. Any justifications for extrapolating scientific theory into social policy must be rationalized by worldviews exogenous to the theory itself.


Agreed; just like the idea that it's good for humans in general if a given minority population (people with Exceptionally Hairy Feet, or EHF's, for instance) survive while the rest perish.
IOW, Social Darwinism is simply out-of-fashion as a application of a scientific idea. We like using science to ameliorate disease and suffering. Eugenics and war applications are out-of-vogue in the general public consciousness.



The scientific theory of evolution is not a justification for any moral or societal system.


Just as the discovery of the antibacterial properties of penicillin does not justify the medical applications of penicillin.
All applications of science, I suspect, are at the whim of the values held by society.



That is not to say that no scientific theories can justify a moral or societal system, as valid scientific studies can be done on the best form of childrearing or reducing crime.


WHOA!
I simply must challenge you, here. What's the "best" sort of child, that method X is the "best" form of child-rearing? You're at the mercy of a set of values in forming your answer, aren't you?



However, these theories must be formulated and studied specifically within a social framework to be valid. The theory of organic evolution is simply not one such theory.

Evolution is like any other scientific notion. It can be run through the noetic lens and utilized to suit one's taste. Suppose I discover that laughter encourages longevity. So I watch reruns of "Gilligan's Island" to make sure that I live a long time. (Aside from the fact that Gilligan's Island isn't funny) this is a valid application of science even though the mere discovery of the life-sustaining effects of laughter do does not mandate a decision on my part to encourage myself to laugh. That decision on my part is conditioned by my value system: I want to live longer, therefore I try to encourage myself to laugh.
Evolution is the same way. If you want population X to survive and evolution shows you that carving you niche out a little wider will help ensure the survival of that population, you follow that model of evolution that helps your population group outdo the competition.

Btw, I deplore Social Darwinism and racism.
I just think that your attempt to distance Social Darwinism from the science of Darwinism is flawed.
:cheers:

[Dee Dee Warren]

I love you Captain Ochre (in a nonflirtatious way of course). :thumb: Have some pearls.

[Joe Meert]

In the same vein, there is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that would prohibit a program such as that run by the Nazis. In fact, evolution would predict that the elimation of one "race" (Jews) by another ("Aryan" Germans) might well increase the likelihood of the survival of the "Aryan" population. Right?

JM: Wrong! Evolution would not distinguish between Aryan and Jews since they are of the same species. The 'goal' (pure semantics) would be to preserve the species, not the race nor the theological viewpoint of the variation within the species. "Aryan" and "jews" are all homo sapiens; thus evolution would not care what label an organism attached to oneself.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[TheFiveSolas]

Captain Ochre,

Its good to see you posting in a section where I'm reading the posts! (I've had to spend SO MUCH time in the Science section, breaking up fights, babysitting, etc., that I've neglected the other forums) I've missed your insights and input.

Great post by the way!

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 03:52 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115608#post115608)
Joe Meert:

JM: Wrong!


Nice try, Joe. Well, weak try, actually.



Evolution would not distinguish between Aryan and Jews since they are of the same species.


Evolution doesn't even recognize species, Joe. "Species" is an arbitrary designation cooked up by scientists. The definition is blurry/elusive, and many scientists have expressed doubt regarding the value of the term.



The 'goal' (pure semantics) would be to preserve the species, not the race nor the theological viewpoint of the variation within the species.


Again, evolution doesn't know what a species is. The peppered moth (let the historical inaccuracy slide, Socrates) was a peppered moth whether it was light-colored or dark-colored. It is cited as an example of evolution. Your reference to the necessity of an involvement of separate species is wrong-headed.



"Aryan" and "jews" are all homo sapiens; thus evolution would not care what label an organism attached to oneself.


It's worse than you say. Just as my response noted, evolution doesn't care if you or anybody/anything else lives or dies.
The application of evolutionary science by the Nazis remains valid.

Oh, and thanks to the great and powerful DDW and TheFiveSolas for their kind words.

[Jimmy Higgins]

Today @ 11:16 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115629#post115629)
Captain Ochre:
Nice try, Joe. Well, weak try, actually.Nice try, Captain. Well, weak try, actually.

Evolution doesn't even recognize species, Joe. "Species" is an arbitrary designation cooked up by scientists. The definition is blurry/elusive, and many scientists have expressed doubt regarding the value of the term.Evolution down to its very core is about sex. The more a member of a species has sex, the better chance it will have at propagation. So if we look at it in the core, evolution can only be brought about through birth and life, not killing and death! So anything that is promoting evolution, needs to be doing it through birth not killing.

It is cited as an example of evolution. Your reference to the necessity of an involvement of separate species is wrong-headed.What was that evolution? What led to the continuation of the species? A change, an adaptation. A member of species doesn't perpetuate itself successfully by hunting down its own species. To do so would be to make its own gene pool smaller, less sex, which means fewer births, which means a lesser chance at propangation (sp). A member of the species adapts in a manner that will make it more competitive for food or shelter or protection. To think for a moment that evolution would promote inter-species self-destruction would be inane. To do so would be to weaken the species.
Note if evolution was about destruction, the BIG ape would be making with the killing, not the honeys.

It's worse than you say. Just as my response noted, evolution doesn't care if you or anybody/anything else lives or dies.The contrary, evolution only works if there is survival. It gives lenecy to those that can adapt the best to survive.

[Lobstrosity]

Today @ 08:16 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115629#post115629)
Captain Ochre:


Evolution doesn't even recognize species, Joe. "Species" is an arbitrary designation cooked up by scientists. The definition is blurry/elusive, and many scientists have expressed doubt regarding the value of the term.
Actually, this isn't quite right. The term "species" is not arbitrary--it refers to a group of organisms that are capable of producing fertile offspring through interbreeding. This concept is not blurry or elusive.



It's worse than you say. Just as my response noted, evolution doesn't care if you or anybody/anything else lives or dies.
Why is that "worse"? Where do value judgments come into play?



The application of evolutionary science by the Nazis remains valid.
No, it does not. It is just as invalid as the Nazi application of religious doctrine. Your sentence is flawed for quite a few reasons, but one of the main ones is simply that the traits Nazis were trying to promote have no bearing on human behavior/cognition and thus are meaningless. Nazis assumed societal behaviors and ideologies were genetically determined when the simple truth is that they are almost solely the product of environment.

And from an earlier post of yours:

In the same vein, there is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that would prohibit a program such as that run by the Nazis. In fact, evolution would predict that the elimation of one "race" (Jews) by another ("Aryan" Germans) might well increase the likelihood of the survival of the "Aryan" population. Right?
First of all, of course evolution doesn't prohibit this. Evolution is driven by external selection as well as internal selection. Humans will influence the selection pressures on humans. People will find certain features attractive and mate accordingly (sexual selection). People might kill other people, thereby altering the gene pool. In short, sh*t happens...so what? Evolution simply describes why certain things happen, it does not attribute value to those outcomes. Humans are the ones who confer value according to their subjective philosophies.

Second of all, evolution predicts no such thing. The genetic differences between separate races is laughably small--inter-race genetic variance is almost negligibly greater than intra-race genetic variance. As such, the idea that one race threatens the survival of another is on par with the idea that one individual threatens the survival of another. If you think evolution predicts that races should eliminate other races in order to aid their survival, then the isomorphic claim is that evolution predicts that individuals should eliminate other individuals in order to aid in their personal survival. Clearly this rephrasing is ludicrous given the obvious survival advantage social behavior gives humans. Because they're all human, races do not threaten each other any more than individuals threaten each other. Take a white baby and give him to a Japanese mother living in Japan and he will be "Japanese" when he grows up. Now, you could make an argument that different cultures threaten each other since their cultural differences can lead to conflict, however culture is not synonymous with race; there are many different "white" cultures, for example.

In closing, let's just note that the picture is never as simplistic as you would believe. Sure, I guess you could think that getting rid of another race would help your race, but when you look at the details you see a much more complex picture emerge. In order to get rid of another race, you need to go to war, which in turn puts your own "race" in jeopardy. The actions of the Nazis ended up resulting in their own "extinction," so to speak.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 04:36 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115645#post115645)
Jimmy Higgins:

Nice try, Captain. Well, weak try, actually.


On the contrary, and your parroting is made (more) pathetic by the silliness of your attempt at argument.



Evolution down to its very core is about sex. The more a member of a species has sex, the better chance it will have at propagation.


Unless it's sterile or copulating with an inappropriate partner (ask one of your homosexual acquaintances about that one), but don't let me interrupt your train of "thought".



So if we look at it in the core, evolution can only be brought about through birth and life, not killing and death! So anything that is promoting evolution, needs to be doing it through birth not killing.


:hrm:
How could you be more wrong?
Evolution is about changes (genotypic and phenotypic) in populations. Asexual populations evolve. How come you're unaware of this?



What was that evolution? What led to the continuation of the species?


Supposedly the increase in dark coloration perpetuated the species (according to the literature, anyway). More properly, the phenotypic ratios were said to have shifted, which accords indirectly with the standard definition of (micro)evolution.



A change, an adaptation. A member of species doesn't perpetuate itself successfully by hunting down its own species.


Sure it could, particularly if (for example) a male killed off or drove away competing males. It happens frequently in nature.



To do so would be to make its own gene pool smaller, less sex, which means fewer births, which means a lesser chance at propangation (sp).


Not necessarily (see above). Killing competing males of the same species can sometimes be the only way a given animal can perpetuate its genes. Attack/kill your own species or no sex.



A member of the species adapts in a manner that will make it more competitive for food or shelter or protection.


Lamarck isn't dead, I see.



To think for a moment that evolution would promote inter-species self-destruction would be inane. To do so would be to weaken the species.


That explains war, beached whales, and suicidal elephant seals.
Oh, sorry, no it doesn't.
Haven't you ever been confronted with the fact that most species are capable of reproducing in numbers that would cause rapid overpopulation if left unchecked? It's one of the very facts that Darwin took special note of when he published his theory.



Note if evolution was about destruction, the BIG ape would be making with the killing, not the honeys.
The contrary, evolution only works if there is survival. It gives lenecy to those that can adapt the best to survive.

Certainly dead populations don't evolve, so a point there to you if you want it (not that it matters one whit to what I've written).
The fact remains that if the elders of the population don't pass on (that's "die" just so we're clear on that), the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium will tend to hold the gene pool variation in stasis and competition for space and food will become a major issue--something's gotta give.

Here's one for you to chew on. Imagine a planet where there's only one species. Will evolution ever occur on that planet?
According to what you've written the answer must be "no".
Do you realize yet how silly that contention would make you look, especially to folks at, say, Talk.origins?

Oh, I just noticed that it was you, Jimmy. What are they teaching you kids in school these days?
Sorry if my tone was a bit harsh--I had been assuming that I was receiving a percolated response from that other guy.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 05:05 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115678#post115678)
Lobstrosity:


Actually, this isn't quite right. The term "species" is not arbitrary--it refers to a group of organisms that are capable of producing fertile offspring through interbreeding. This concept is not blurry or elusive.


You need to review the breadth of meaning for the term "arbitrary". As for blurry and elusive, here's what an online encyclopedia says:


The vast advance in knowle~Ige of the existing forms of living things that has been acquired and recorded since 1859 has accentuated the difficulty of finding any morphological criteria for species. A few writers have insisted that they are discontinuous, and that real gaps exist between them. Equally great gaps, however, may exist between males and females, between climatic phases or summer and winter forms. The attempt to find a physiological criterion has similarly failed; many forms that have been universally accepted as true species produce fertile hybrids (see HYBRIDJSM). In modern practice (see ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE) systematists no longer regard species as more than as an artificial rank in classification, to be applied chiefly for reasons of convenience, so that the word is reverting to its older logical significance. The word “species” now signifies a grade or rank in classification assigned by systematists to an assemblage of organic forms which they judge to be more closely interrelated by common descent than they are related to forms judged to be outside the species, and of which the known individuals, if they differ amongst themselves, differ less markedly than they do from those outside the species, or, if differing markedly, are linked by intermediate forms.
italicized emphasis added--C.O.
http://50.1911encyclopedia.org/S/SP/SPECIES.htm



Why is that "worse"? Where do value judgments come into play?


Wherever I make a value judgment, among others. Figure of speech, laddie. Don't get your knickers in a twist.



No, it does not. It is just as invalid as the Nazi application of religious doctrine. Your sentence is flawed for quite a few reasons, but one of the main ones is simply that the traits Nazis were trying to promote have no bearing on human behavior/cognition and thus are meaningless. Nazis assumed societal behaviors and ideologies were genetically determined when the simple truth is that they are almost solely the product of environment.


The primary motivation for emphasis on Aryan reproduction in Germany was to merely favor the root "stock" associated with the homeland itself. If you want to nitpick over the finer points, then go ahead, but be aware that Darwin himself tended to believe that culture was heritable. See The Descent of Man



And from an earlier post of yours:
In the same vein, there is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that would prohibit a program such as that run by the Nazis. In fact, evolution would predict that the elimation of one "race" (Jews) by another ("Aryan" Germans) might well increase the likelihood of the survival of the "Aryan" population. Right?

First of all, of course evolution doesn't prohibit this. Evolution is driven by external selection as well as internal selection. Humans will influence the selection pressures on humans. People will find certain features attractive and mate accordingly (sexual selection). People might kill other people, thereby altering the gene pool. In short, sh*t happens...so what? Evolution simply describes why certain things happen, it does not attribute value to those outcomes. Humans are the ones who confer value according to their subjective philosophies.


You're not disagreeing with me, afaics.



Second of all, evolution predicts no such thing.


It does, and Charles Darwin specifically predicted it.



The genetic differences between separate races is laughably small--inter-race genetic variance is almost negligibly greater than intra-race genetic variance. As such, the idea that one race threatens the survival of another is on par with the idea that one individual threatens the survival of another.


As with Mr. Higgins, you need to confront that fact that most animals are able to produce far more offspring than may reasonably expect to survive. Members of a species compete with one another, and where variation occurs an evolutionist (you're an evolutionist, right?) expects selection criteria even if its as simple as favoring more symmetrical individuals for mating.



If you think evolution predicts that races should eliminate other races in order to aid their survival, then the isomorphic claim is that evolution predicts that individuals should eliminate other individuals in order to aid in their personal survival.


I've been careful to separate science from values, and you seem to have carefully inserted that confusion into my view. That makes it a straw man. I don't think that evolution predicts that races should eliminate other races in order to aid their survival. I'm saying that if your goal is for your immediate and closest group to survive and propagate, evolution helps you identify the competition and gives you some hints as to what to do about the competition, such as killing them. Evolution doesn't care if they live or die--but you might care.



Clearly this rephrasing is ludicrous given the obvious survival advantage social behavior gives humans. Because they're all human, races do not threaten each other any more than individuals threaten each other. Take a white baby and give him to a Japanese mother living in Japan and he will be "Japanese" when he grows up. Now, you could make an argument that different cultures threaten each other since their cultural differences can lead to conflict, however culture is not synonymous with race; there are many different "white" cultures, for example.


You said it all with the first sentence: It's ludicrous. :zzz: Let me know when you'll be dealing with what I'm saying instead of your revised version of what I'm saying.



In closing, let's just note that the picture is never as simplistic as you would believe. Sure, I guess you could think that getting rid of another race would help your race, but when you look at the details you see a much more complex picture emerge. In order to get rid of another race, you need to go to war, which in turn puts your own "race" in jeopardy.


Nonsense. You can do what Planned Parenthood tried to do for American Blacks: Encourage them not to reproduce. Regarding the risk of war, Germany put virtually all of their competition in jeopardy prior to making some sensational tactical blunders. In Hitler's eyes, war was part & parcel of the evolutionary struggle for survival.



The actions of the Nazis ended up resulting in their own "extinction," so to speak.

You could say that about a billion different populations. The bottom line is that it could have worked. Falling back on the fact that it didn't work is weak.

[Lobstrosity]

Yesterday @ 11:42 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115804#post115804)
Captain Ochre:


You need to review the breadth of meaning for the term "arbitrary". As for blurry and elusive, here's what an online encyclopedia says:

italicized emphasis added--C.O.
http://50.1911encyclopedia.org/S/SP/SPECIES.htm
When dealing with evolution, the only definition for species that matters are ones like
A taxon referencing organisms that can successfully reproduce with one another, and share common characteristics across the wide range of organisms that may exist in the species (their gene pool). Subspecies can further pin-point unique classifications of species. (from http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary.asp)or

A classification of related organisms that can freely interbreed. (from http://www.angelfire.com/nv/biology/dictionary.html#S)

If you want to nitpick over the finer points, then go ahead, but be aware that Darwin himself tended to believe that culture was heritable. See The Descent of Man
Whoa there, let's not go off committing the fallacy of authority. Sure, Darwin originated the theory of evolution, but he was not by any stretch of the imagination privy to the wealth of experimental data that would come in years to follow. He was not an authority on nature vs nurture with respect to human beings. It's hardly relevant to point out certain speculations he might have made about things he had no actual data for. For example, Einstein believed in a steady-state universe and advocated local realism with regards to quantum mechanics. He was incorrect on both fronts. Does that mean it's valid to now use general relativity to argue in favor of a steady-state universe just because it's what the originator of the theory believed in the absence of empirical data?



It does, and Charles Darwin specifically predicted it.
Once again, you need to watch the fallacies. Evolution != Darwin. Evolution = the current theories we have today based on all of the accrued evidence. Therefore, please note the present tense of my statement: evolution predicts no such thing. So what if Darwin predicted something over a century ago? That in no way means evolution predicts it now--scientific theories are constantly improving, adapting, asymptotically approaching what one hopes is the truth! Remember our Einstein lesson?



As with Mr. Higgins, you need to confront that fact that most animals are able to produce far more offspring than may reasonably expect to survive. Members of a species compete with one another, and where variation occurs an evolutionist (you're an evolutionist, right?) expects selection criteria even if its as simple as favoring more symmetrical individuals for mating.
I agree, however this has nothing to do with what I wrote. I didn't say that individuals don't threaten other individuals' chances of survival, I said that such a threat is on par with the threat one race poses to another. On top of this, clearly it is disadvantageous for social animals to kill members of their society and as such it clearly can be disadvantageous for social animals to kill other races within their society. For social creatures, the survival advantage conveyed by living within a society far outweighs the disadvantage of competetion from other members of that society. In short, the blanket idea that races threaten each other any more than any two same-race individuals threaten each other is asinine and is no way supported by evolution, though I guess one could try to make a naive argument that independent societies potentially threaten each other via competition more than they could potentially help each other via trade.



I'm saying that if your goal is for your immediate and closest group to survive and propagate, evolution helps you identify the competition and gives you some hints as to what to do about the competition, such as killing them. Evolution doesn't care if they live or die--but you might care.
As I said, this demonstrates a naively simplistic view of intraspecies dynamics. In a social setting, killing the competition presents you as a danger to society, which requires that the society expel you or in some other way remove you as a threat. Societies obviously can't function if the people you allow to get so close suddenly decide to steal your resources or kill you. There's a level of trust you must extend in order to reap the benefits society has to offer. Why would you wish to kill a few individuals who only peripherally compete with you when you risk societal expulsion/imprisonment/death? That makes absolutely no sense in any framework.

It's also fairly easy to see why most asocial creatures do not kill their intraspecies competition. Sure, they tend to live solitary lives and aggressively compete for resources, but usually the defeated party concedes and leaves before death or serious injury. Some animals compete merely by staring contests or other unphysical types of interactions. Why? Well any aggressive physical contest risks injury to both parties, and what good is victory if you're too badly injured to survive?

You are commiting a very common fallacy with your simplistic survival strategy. Specifically, you are acting as if the actions one commits will not result in repercussions that are detrimental to his own survival. Sure, wouldn't it be great if you just killed off the competition? Well wait a minute...if everyone followed this survival strategy that would mean that there's a boatload of humans out there who will be trying to kill you and all of your immediate family. Hmm, what if these people are even stronger/smarter than you are? I guess your chances of a nice long life have suddenly gone right out the window, huh?



You said it all with the first sentence: It's ludicrous. :zzz: Let me know when you'll be dealing with what I'm saying instead of your revised version of what I'm saying.
I was dealing with what you were saying as I've argued before and above. Perhaps if you were paying attention instead of sleeping you might have noticed. I said it all with the first sentence as applied to an isomorphic situation. This means it applies to your original claim as well. What you need to do is either let it go or explain how the situation is in reality not isomorphic.



You could say that about a billion different populations. The bottom line is that it could have worked. Falling back on the fact that it didn't work is weak.
Nonsense. It's not weak, it's an illustration of the way things are. War is more detrimental to survival than peace and in general the risk is not worth the reward. Hitler's survival and the survival of his offspring were in no way threatened by the existence of Jews. His attempt to eradicate them only served to put himself at risk. The bottom line is that it was a pointless, futile attempt from the standpoint of genetics (for about a gazillion reasons).

[Dee Dee Warren]

Captain Ochre, I have missed you terribly!!! You have me donning poms poms and saddle shoes.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 09:55 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115848#post115848)
Lobstrosity:


When dealing with evolution, the only definition for species that matters are ones like
A taxon referencing organisms that can successfully reproduce with one another, and share common characteristics across the wide range of organisms that may exist in the species (their gene pool). Subspecies can further pin-point unique classifications of species. (from http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary.asp)or

A classification of related organisms that can freely interbreed. (from http://www.angelfire.com/nv/biology/dictionary.html#S)


That's a handwave.
How do we know that these definitions "matter" and that what I wrote is not correct?
1) Because you say so and
2) because it loosely implied by your presentation.

Deal with the issue. Here's more information substantiating the problem I'm telling you about:
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:ypmNtU7bQ_4J:www.bios.niu.edu/beck/bios406/species.pdf++%22definition+of+species%22+site:.edu&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

http://courses.temple.edu/IH/IH52/Revolutions/Darwin/DarwinFac9.htm

"Attempts to reconcile species definitions: [Typological (Linnean), Recognition, Cohesion, & Phylogenetic (Cladistic) species]"
http://www.bio.calpoly.edu/BioSci/Courses/BIO/BIO414/MacroEvol/Mac01.html

NO definition of species is suitable for all species, indeed applying the concept of "species" to all life forms is problematic!
http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~rhofstet/lectures/235-l4.html



Whoa there, let's not go off committing the fallacy of authority.


Save your talk of committing fallacies for when I actually commit one, mmm-kay?



Sure, Darwin originated the theory of evolution, but he was not by any stretch of the imagination privy to the wealth of experimental data that would come in years to follow. He was not an authority on nature vs nurture with respect to human beings. It's hardly relevant to point out certain speculations he might have made about things he had no actual data for.


That's abundantly clear, I'm afraid. Why was he wrong, apart from a facile "he wasn't as smart as we are today"?



For example, Einstein believed in a steady-state universe and advocated local realism with regards to quantum mechanics. He was incorrect on both fronts. Does that mean it's valid to now use general relativity to argue in favor of a steady-state universe just because it's what the originator of the theory believed in the absence of empirical data?


Einstein recanted his error (at least the former one), as it affected his theories, iirc. Of course, your point is that being the originator of relativity doesn't make Einstein (and Darwin, by extension) immune from criticism. I quite agree. Make a specific criticism of Darwin's prediction regarding human races, please.



Once again, you need to watch the fallacies. Evolution != Darwin.


Okay. You just committed the straw man fallacy. Happy now?
Note that I didn't say that "evolution predicts it because Darwin said so"--if you can.



Evolution = the current theories we have today based on all of the accrued evidence. Therefore, please note the present tense of my statement: evolution predicts no such thing.


That works just great as an argument from your own personal authority. :smile:



So what if Darwin predicted something over a century ago? That in no way means evolution predicts it now--scientific theories are constantly improving, adapting, asymptotically approaching what one hopes is the truth! Remember our Einstein lesson?


What, as if you were teaching me something that a) I didn't already know and b) that is relevant to the discussion?
In the Social Darwinist's day, they were attempting to utilize science as they understood it, and Darwin and Haeckel (the latter was more prominent in Germany) were the scientific authorities, just like whomever you'd quote if you ever tried to substantiate your claims regarding evolution. Speaking of substantiation, why don't you try it sometime?



I agree, however this has nothing to do with what I wrote.


You need it spelled out for you, then? Any genotypic variation between organisms may be sufficient to generate selection pressure, and the mere competition between individuals of the same species is sufficient to support my point. IOW, your poo-pooing is in vain.



I didn't say that individuals don't threaten other individuals' chances of survival, I said that such a threat is on par with the threat one race poses to another.


Fine. See above (doesn't have anything to do with what you wrote, eh?).



On top of this, clearly it is disadvantageous for social animals to kill members of their society


Why? I don't accept "clearly" as a reason.



and as such it clearly can be disadvantageous for social animals to kill other races within their society.


Same question, same reason, sorry for the interruptions.



For social creatures, the survival advantage conveyed by living within a society far outweighs the disadvantage of competetion from other members of that society.


Yeah, tell that to the Iraqi people of 2002, or to the Cambodians in the Seventies. Need I mention Mao's China, or Stalin's Ukraine?



In short, the blanket idea that races threaten each other any more than any two same-race individuals threaten each other is asinine and is no way supported by evolution, though I guess one could try to make a naive argument that independent societies potentially threaten each other via competition more than they could potentially help each other via trade.


Here's your "learning exercise": Find where I advocated the idea that competition between races is more threatening than competition between individuals.
Naturally, your failure would indicate a straw man (or at least a red herring) argument by you, above. Good luck.



As I said, this demonstrates a naively simplistic view of intraspecies dynamics.


Why? Do be specific.



In a social setting, killing the competition presents you as a danger to society, which requires that the society expel you or in some other way remove you as a threat.


Oh, like they did to Saddam Hussein? Of course, this was after he and his progeny had massively infused his genes into the population, wasn't it?



Societies obviously can't function if the people you allow to get so close suddenly decide to steal your resources or kill you.


Societies don't carry genes. Populations do. When human societies fail, populations generally continue.
You're very close to bringing values into it, btw. We'll see if you slip over the edge.



There's a level of trust you must extend in order to reap the benefits society has to offer. Why would you wish to kill a few individuals who only peripherally compete with you when you risk societal expulsion/imprisonment/death? That makes absolutely no sense in any framework.


That's really a devastating argument by assertion. Pardon me while I
:rofl:



It's also fairly easy to see why most asocial creatures do not kill their intraspecies competition. Sure, they tend to live solitary lives and aggressively compete for resources, but usually the defeated party concedes and leaves before death or serious injury.


And then?
To the victor goes the spoils (descendants). The population and society are sustained, and the individuals within have competed in the evolutionary sense.



Some animals compete merely by staring contests or other unphysical types of interactions. Why? Well any aggressive physical contest risks injury to both parties, and what good is victory if you're too badly injured to survive?


Geez, you need to be out there explaining this to all the animals that compete physically for mates! They'll really appreciate it! You can teach them to compete via Tiddly-winks or Scrabble instead. Or maybe with the Tony Hawk game.



You are commiting a very common fallacy with your simplistic survival strategy. Specifically, you are acting as if the actions one commits will not result in repercussions that are detrimental to his own survival.


On the contrary, I'm acting as though the actions one commits may confer a survival advantage. You're just creating a fallacy fantasy. When two lizards fight, there's a good chance that one might lose (even if it's unlikely that your fear that both will be too injured to reproduce would be realized). Therefore the lizards shouldn't fight?
Your argument is essentially that if the advantage isn't guaranteed, then there is no possible advantage to the behavior.
See if you can identify your own fallacy.



Sure, wouldn't it be great if you just killed off the competition? Well wait a minute...if everyone followed this survival strategy that would mean that there's a boatload of humans out there who will be trying to kill you and all of your immediate family. Hmm, what if these people are even stronger/smarter than you are? I guess your chances of a nice long life have suddenly gone right out the window, huh?


So, the idea couldn't work, then (since I'd be taking a big risk)?
:wink:
Thanks for repeating your fallacy for clarity.



I was dealing with what you were saying as I've argued before and above. Perhaps if you were paying attention instead of sleeping you might have noticed. I said it all with the first sentence as applied to an isomorphic situation. This means it applies to your original claim as well. What you need to do is either let it go or explain how the situation is in reality not isomorphic.


:rofl:
Wake up, Dorothy. As I mentioned above, the strategy employed by Social Darwinists requires no more than the competition level between individuals of the same species to be a valid strategy.



Nonsense. It's not weak, it's an illustration of the way things are.


So, Hitler could not possibly have won?



War is more detrimental to survival than peace and in general the risk is not worth the reward. Hitler's survival and the survival of his offspring were in no way threatened by the existence of Jews. His attempt to eradicate them only served to put himself at risk. The bottom line is that it was a pointless, futile attempt from the standpoint of genetics (for about a gazillion reasons).

You're aware that argument by assertion is commonly classified as a fallacy, right?
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~sjreeves/cm/experts.html

The Jews didn't compete with "true" Germans for jobs and resources (including mates)? The Russians didn't occupy land that the Germans could colonize?
Get serious.

[Joe Meert]

Evolution doesn't even recognize species, Joe. "Species" is an arbitrary designation cooked up by scientists. The definition is blurry/elusive, and many scientists have expressed doubt regarding the value of the term.

JM: The theory of evolution does indeed recognize species despite arguments regarding its exact definition. You're merely setting up a strawman by careful word choice.



Again, evolution doesn't know what a species is.

JM: But you are pulling a bait-and-switch here. You claim that Hitler was able to separate the Jews from the Aryans based on evolutionary thought. Although evolutionary biology argues about the exact definition of a species, race or theological viewpoints are not part of any definition I am aware of.




The peppered moth (let the historical inaccuracy slide, Socrates) was a peppered moth whether it was light-colored or dark-colored. It is cited as an example of evolution. Your reference to the necessity of an involvement of separate species is wrong-headed.

JM: The black peppered moths did not exterminate the white peppered moths (or vice-versa) on the basis of their color. Your argument is a red-herring.




It's worse than you say. Just as my response noted, evolution doesn't care if you or anybody/anything else lives or dies.
The application of evolutionary science by the Nazis remains valid.

JM: Interesting bit of 'ord lek', but really not key to the argument. Evolutionary theory proposes that the key to success is preservation of the species (however defined). Therefore, murder and genocide are not particularly effective means of promulgationg the species.
However I am willing to play your game. I'll therefore grant you that evolutionary science can be applied to nazism and Hitler. Are you willing to grant the corollary that evolutionary science can be applied to Christianity, buddhism, islam and every other philosophy of man? If you want to blame evolutionary science for the bad, then it must also be responsible for the good (i.e. if we are indeed products of evolution, then morality, kindness and love are also products of evolution). Artificially separating out 'just the bad' is an illogical argument and useful only for its emotive appeal.
Hitler was a psycho, get over it. This entire "hitler connection to evolution" is nothing more than an emotive argument. I will grant you that as emotional arguments go, this is one of the better ones, but just because an argument has good emotional appeal, it does not validate the grounds of the argument.


Cheers

Joe Meert

[James]

Thanks for your thoughtful criticism, Cap'n.



Yesterday @ 10:34 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115591#post115591)
Captain Ochre:

James:
Social Darwinism is not just a fallacious extrapolation from scientific theory, but a fundamentally incorrect conception of organic evolution.


The above is the thesis you'll be defending below (just to clarify, I hope).

My basic take is this: evolution, like any scientific theory, does not imply a value judgement. However, certian subpopulations or societies (of Social Darwinists) have made value judgements on evolutionary theory and attempted to use it for some goal. Then, I went on to question if the actions of these Social Darwinists actually achieved the biological effect that they were intending to cause (to make an analogy with chemical theory, were the Social Darwinists using the correct reactions to get the chemical results they desired?). There may be cases where Social Darwinists have actually accomplished the effects they set out to accomplish, but this is not a negation of the fact that scientific theories make no inherent value judgements. I advanced the second (and separate) thesis mostly for argument's sake. When I wrote:

Social Darwinists wished to use evolutionary theory as a justification for eugenics (elimination of "unfavorable traits"), but evolutionary biology has found that life depends on a diversity of traits to remain viable in changing environmental conditions. "Unfavorable traits" are loosely defined in evolutionary biology to be traits that inhibit survival and reproduction in a given environment. Differing traits among human populations are actually natural variations that usually confer an advantage to survival in a given environment.

I was assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that one of the desired biological affects of a eugenics program like the one that the Nazis employed was the increased longterm survival of the human species. I then argued that the large-scale genocide of a subpopulation is detrimental to this goal, because it is not based on environmental fitness and adaptability.


Recall that a prediction of Darwin's theory according to Darwin himself was extinction, specifically extinction of weaker (less fit) races.

That may very well be true, though I have not seen this claim substantiated. Do you have a link to his writings? I know that Spencer was a big pusher of "survival of the fittest" rather than simply the "fit" (the latter is actually more correct), but I'm not familiar with Darwin's take.


Modern Darwinism separates itself from values, maintaining that complex results of evolution are no better of more "advanced" ("higher") than simpler ones. The modern Darwinist wouldn't even tell you that survival is preferable to extinction unless he were talking about his own life. :wink:

I'd say that "preference" is solely a value judgement. Extinction is obviously possible, but not necessary, and is not always caused solely by competition. I'm not sure if or how extinction is integrated into modern evolutionary theory, because while it is a possible prediction, it is not a necessary outcome.


That doesn't do sickle-cell anemia sufferers any good when there's no malaria around, afaics. Humans have a tendency to think in terms of their groups: Family, community, nation--that sort of thing.

Agreed, those are all value judgements.


You expect white-as-a-sheet Irish folk to take solace in the fact that aborigines are well-adapted to sun exposure? On the contrary, the existence of the aborigines is a threat to the white-as-a-sheet Irish population in terms of ultimate survival in a sun-drenched climate.

That second statement (that Australian Aborigines constitute a threat to the Irish) is arguable. "Threat" is inherently a value judgement, as I'm sure you know. The fact that the two populations posess slightly differing (evolutionally speaking) groups of traits does not mean that the survival of one would be enhanced by eliminating the other, or that the opportunity cost of genocide is not higher than some other possible solution. That is one of my central points questioning the validity of Social Darwinism as a system of achieving a particular biological goal, value judgements aside.


You're trying to hide the practical appeal of Social Darwinism behind the value neutrality of science.

I'm not overtly trying to hide anything. I realize that Social Darwinism is appealing to many groups. I'm stating that it is a value judgement exogenous to a scientific theory, and I'm questioning whether it represents an effective method of achieving particular goals. Sorry if that wasn't clear :smile:


Science doesn't care whether or not we use it to achieve better healthcare, or increased food production. Indeed, "science" doesn't care if we live or die as a group.

Indeed, those are value judgements as well.


Survival for whom? The people who don't die from the environmental changes?
:grin:
Here's the thing: Hitler wasn't concerned about envirionmental pressure from a changing environment. He was concerned about the ability of human populations to grow at a rapid rate, and the history of conflict over resources. The short-necked giraffes found that the long-necked giraffes out-competed them for food. I'll bet that they felt just great about the ability of the long-necked giraffes to pass on their genes instead of the short-necked ones, eh-what?
So, Hitler acted on the understanding that a population had outdo the competition in situations where resources are limited in order to ensure its long-term survival. What's the problem with his belief, in terms of science?

That would be a good topic for a doctoral thesis. I'd argue that the opportunity cost of genocide for the Nazis was greater than several other solutions, including cooperation and frictional coexistence.


James:
Social Darwinists also ignored the basic realities of their economic model, which relied on slave labor and a division of wealth. The only way that a certian few could be supplied with enormous wealth was by the exploitation of the wealth and happiness of other groups. If these lower classes were eliminated from the population, the entire economic system would collapse and reform itself due to an inherent need for low-wage labor.

Aren't you carelessly mixing your Social Darwinists? Social Darwinists in the slave-holding US advocated maintaining the slave labor force, did they not (at least as long as it would be needed)? The Nazis did use Jews for slave labor, but their economy was primarily based on the sweat of ordinary paid German workers, afaict.
You can provide references if you wish to develop your point here.

I've found in the course of writing these posts that it's tough to keep all the different types of Social Darwinists straight, they were definately not a unified group. I didn't make it very explicit in my original post, but in this example, I was referring to the wealthy industrialists. I tossed in "slave labor" as a device to describe the wages that factory workers were paid and not actual slavery, which probably made the statement a little confusing. I was arguing against a hypothetical wealthy industrialist who advocated the survival of the "wealthy" class to the extinction of the "lower" class. I'm not sure how this represents the writings and thoughts of industrialists as a whole.


What branch of science (based on physical and chemical phenomena) tells us that it's "unfortunate" that people actually did believe in such answers? Oops--none, right?

Right :thumb:


James:
Physical realities need not be actualized as social systems just because they exist in nature.

I'm sure that the Social Darwinists in Germany understood this well, since extinction of populations occurs in nature and they resolved not to become extinct.

They probably did, I was just arguing against a "naturalistic fallacy."


James:
There is no inherent commandment in scientific theory that provides a rationalization for extrapolating description (of the natural world) into edict. Saying that Hitler was enacting a fulfillment of evolutionary theory is like saying someone who accepts the law of gravity should push people off buildings in order to fulfill the principles of gravitation.

If you ignore Charles Darwin's predictions, perhaps.

I'm assuming that you're referring to Charles Darwin's predictions on extinction that you mentioned earlier? I'd still like to see those, if you can produce a link. Anyhow, though extinction is a likely outcome of natural processes, and certainly has happened, it is not a necessary component of evolution. Competition can definately cause extinction, but natural disasters, dynamic environments, and sustainable population size can also cause extinction in the absence of competition. Organisms can also thrive in states of cooperation or frictional coexistence.


In the same vein, there is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that would prohibit a program such as that run by the Nazis. In fact, evolution would predict that the elimation of one "race" (Jews) by another ("Aryan" Germans) might well increase the likelihood of the survival of the "Aryan" population. Right?

It is correct that nothing in a scientific theory like evolution would physically prohibit a program such as the one run by the Nazis. I dispute the second assertion, that the extinction of one genetically similar human subpopulation would be likely to increase the survival of another human subpopulation, especially in this particular case. I feel that this is far from substantiated and that such a view does not take into account the opportunity cost of genocide over other possible solutions, as I mentioned above.


Eugenics and war applications are out-of-vogue in the general public consciousness.

Yes, and I am happy for that.


James:
The scientific theory of evolution is not a justification for any moral or societal system.

Just as the discovery of the antibacterial properties of penicillin does not justify the medical applications of penicillin.
All applications of science, I suspect, are at the whim of the values held by society.

Very true.


WHOA!
I simply must challenge you, here. What's the "best" sort of child, that method X is the "best" form of child-rearing? You're at the mercy of a set of values in forming your answer, aren't you?

You're right, I let a value judgement slip in there carelessly. I was trying to provide examples of scientific theories that are directly related to the soceal arena. What I was trying to show was that, if a given society determines X to be the qualities of a "good" child, a scientific study can be done on the most effective method of achieving X in a child. A study cannot be done to determine the best set of qualities or values, however.


Evolution is like any other scientific notion. It can be run through the noetic lens and utilized to suit one's taste. Suppose I discover that laughter encourages longevity. So I watch reruns of "Gilligan's Island" to make sure that I live a long time. (Aside from the fact that Gilligan's Island isn't funny) this is a valid application of science even though the mere discovery of the life-sustaining effects of laughter do does not mandate a decision on my part to encourage myself to laugh. That decision on my part is conditioned by my value system: I want to live longer, therefore I try to encourage myself to laugh.

Agreed.


Evolution is the same way. If you want population X to survive and evolution shows you that carving you niche out a little wider will help ensure the survival of that population, you follow that model of evolution that helps your population group outdo the competition.

That may be conditionally true. The Europeans who took over the Americas certainly thought so. The key in this statement is found in the words "that model of evolution." There exist countless models of survival that the natural world has produced, and one of these is direct competition. Another is cooperation. There exist no values in evolutionary theory that favor one over the other. Extrapolations of descriptive theory can only be justified through exogenous value judgements.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 03:45 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=116048#post116048)
Joe Meert:

JM: The theory of evolution does indeed recognize species despite arguments regarding its exact definition. You're merely setting up a strawman by careful word choice.


If it's a straw man, please identify it specifically. What is the actual argument that I am altering for purposes of summary destruction?



JM: But you are pulling a bait-and-switch here. You claim that Hitler was able to separate the Jews from the Aryans based on evolutionary thought. Although evolutionary biology argues about the exact definition of a species, race or theological viewpoints are not part of any definition I am aware of.


No, I'm not pulling any bait-and-switch. You're just throwing handfuls of mud at the wall to see if anything sticks.
In Hitler's mind, the Jew was an entirely racial entity. He makes this abundantly clear in Mein Kampf when he criticizes the antisemitism of Luger's party based on doctrinal Jewishness.



JM: The black peppered moths did not exterminate the white peppered moths (or vice-versa) on the basis of their color. Your argument is a red-herring.


On the contrary, your comment above is the red herring (innocently delivered on the basis of your apparent ignorance of the subject matter, if that serves as a mitigant). The point is that evolution isn't limited to speciation per se. The moth is typically presented as "a change in frequency of alleles over time" and if you don't recognize that the elimation of persons with phenotypically semitic features leaving a greater proportion of persons with Aryan features is a change in frequency of alleles over time, then you're better off in the shallow pool.



JM: Interesting bit of 'ord lek', but really not key to the argument. Evolutionary theory proposes that the key to success is preservation of the species (however defined).


You apparently have no idea what you're talking about. How about a citation supporting your claim above, Joe? Meanwhile, here's a(nother) counterexample:
Actually, I'll use an old one.
We've got long-necked giraffes and short-necked giraffes. Over a few generations, competition for food causes the short-necked giraffes to become extinct. Never fear, though! You extinct short-necked giraffes are still a success accoring to Joe Meert! The fact that the long-necked giraffes were able to perpetuate the giraffe "species" makes all of you winners! You have every reason to celebrate, apart from the fact that you died without descendants!

Face it, Joe, you're presenting us a contradictory view. Evolution designates "success" not by species survival, but in terms of the ability of individuals to perpetuate their genes. Your view cuts successful transitional species out of the "success" class in contradiction to logic. Dinosaurs? Why, they're a bunch of losers, says Jim. Who cares if they were the progenitors of modern bird species?



Therefore, murder and genocide are not particularly effective means of promulgationg the species.


Flawed premise leads to flawed conclusion . . .



However I am willing to play your game.


What game would that be?



I'll therefore grant you that evolutionary science can be applied to nazism and Hitler. Are you willing to grant the corollary that evolutionary science can be applied to Christianity, buddhism, islam and every other philosophy of man?


Sure, so long as you remember that this doesn't make it right either morally or in terms of propositional truth.



If you want to blame evolutionary science for the bad, then it must also be responsible for the good (i.e. if we are indeed products of evolution, then morality, kindness and love are also products of evolution).


I don't think that you need to assume that I want to "blame" evolutionary science for anything. James saw my point more clearly than you did, which is a credit to him since his post is the one that I originally responded to.
Whether or not somebody wanted to place blame, if evolution is a mindless process and if evolution is responsible for what we call morality, then it stands to reason that morality is relativistic and illusionary in terms of being an objective truth (for example, murder could not be murder prior to the invention of morality even if everything else were the same).
Heh. You think I'm the one playing a game?



Artificially separating out 'just the bad' is an illogical argument and useful only for its emotive appeal.
Hitler was a psycho, get over it. This entire "hitler connection to evolution" is nothing more than an emotive argument. I will grant you that as emotional arguments go, this is one of the better ones, but just because an argument has good emotional appeal, it does not validate the grounds of the argument.


As a last-ditch effort to bring you up to speed alongside James with regard to what I'm saying, if science permits the invention of a gun, and that gun is used to commit murder, then the murderer is making valid use of science in accomplishing his goal. I do not deplore the existence of guns, I deplore the misuse. The misuse is not misapplication of science, but immoral application of science.

In summary, it is not appropriate, imo, to say that Social Darwinism is unscientific, but instead it should be said that Social Darwinism is simply morally wrong.
James has it in him to argue that Social Darwinism as a social strategy has risks that outweigh the benefits, but I would counter that such a judgment is the purview of the individual, and James can't speak for everybody. We could say the same thing about the Lottery, for example, and the lottery winners might assure us that the risk was well worth it.

[QED]

In summary, it is not appropriate, imo, to say that Social Darwinism is unscientific, but instead it should be said that Social Darwinism is simply morally wrong.

Social Darwinism is unscientific. Like other pseudoscientific ventures it started out with what should have been a simple hypothesis, and an easily testable one: that certain races, classes, or families were genetically inferior to the upper class or the majority race. They then assumed the validity of that hypothesis, looked for data to support it, never looked for data to falsify it, and sold the package as "science."

In my opinion, they did misapply science by trying to derive a moral mandate from the particular natural system of selection - in my opinion. If, as you argue, they were merely using it technologically, their attempted application was quite inept. There is no "race" on the genetic level at which selection could act*, and a larger gene pool with greater variation does promote the passage of the genes of all its members into future generations - giving each individual more or less equal chances to parent an unbroken line of descent far into the future.

To put it in your analogy of someone using science to develop a weapon, then using the weapon to murder - the social darwinists developed a Rube Goldberg machine, and used it to shoot themselves in the foot. Ok, so yours was an analogy and mine was a mixed metaphor, but you get the point.






* Genetically there are no races. While certain races tend to have one or two variant alleles consistently, looking at the larger picture of the entire genome, no race can be identified genetically: there is no more variation between average members of two different races than there is between two members of the same race.

[James]

QED does a good job in elaborating on my "second" thesis, that Social Darwinism as a hypothesis is not an effective extrapolation of the standard theory of descent with modification. I alluded to this in discussing whether Social Darwinism was the most effective methodology for a given set of goals (cost/benefit analysis), but QED pointed out that the assumptions inherent in the Social Darwinist hypothesis are not clearly justified with evidence (the concept of a population as absolute genetic variation and not as a function of biogeography or behavioral patterns).

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 03:29 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=117989#post117989)
James:

QED does a good job in elaborating on my "second" thesis, that Social Darwinism as a hypothesis is not an effective extrapolation of the standard theory of descent with modification.


QED's still on my "ignore" list for some ancient shenanigans, but I saw his post via the e-mail notification system, for better or worse. I disagree with your assessment. I find QED to be all over the place and eloquently making very little sense. His argument shares hardly a thing with yours, afaics.
Of Social Darwinism he says "it started out with what should have been a simple hypothesis, and an easily testable one: that certain races, classes, or families were genetically inferior to the upper class or the majority race."
How do you test genetic inferiority without some arbitrary standard? Should we make our standard the ability to withstand subfreezing temperatures or the ability to add 10 digit numbers in one's head? The Nazis were informed by their nationalistic tradition that their genetics were the best. They simply employed science in an attempt to ensure the evolutionary success of their population.
Other Spencerians apparently used economic prosperity as their benchmark. Who's to say that economic success isn't tied to genetics? Dogs are all of one species. QED, in essence, is arguing that we should be able to test which breed is best but that is beside the point (as well as being arguable), especially with respect to Naziism. The foundation of Naziism is nationalism, not species survivalism. They were interested in having their traditional genetic population outcompete others, and their approach was scientifically sound even if it was risky.



I alluded to this in discussing whether Social Darwinism was the most effective methodology for a given set of goals (cost/benefit analysis), but QED pointed out that the assumptions inherent in the Social Darwinist hypothesis are not clearly justified with evidence (the concept of a population as absolute genetic variation and not as a function of biogeography or behavioral patterns).

QED ignores my point that the supposed foundations of Social Darwinism are not founded on science just as the foundations of medical science are not founded on science: Should we assist organisms medically? The foundations are outside the purview of science in both cases.

[Joe Meert]

[
No, I'm not pulling any bait-and-switch. You're just throwing handfuls of mud at the wall to see if anything sticks.
In Hitler's mind, the Jew was an entirely racial entity. He makes this abundantly clear in Mein Kampf when he criticizes the antisemitism of Luger's party based on doctrinal Jewishness.

JM: The bait and switch is that you are applying organic evolution to a social construct. Who cares what Hitler claimed to use to justify his actions? They have no bearing on the validity of the scientific theory one way or the other. Several of us have pointed out that Hitler actually claimed to be doing the work of the Christian God. However, we have also pointed out that such an action does not automatically provide 'proof' that Christianity leads to murder, slavery or even witch burning. Therefore, entire argument you are making is a straw man.




and if you don't recognize that the elimation of persons with phenotypically semitic features leaving a greater proportion of persons with Aryan features is a change in frequency of alleles over time, then you're better off in the shallow pool.

JM: Ok, I can just as easily argue that the elimination of Jews decreases the number of infidels in the world and is therefore advantageous to Christianity as both Hitler and Luther argued. In this case, I am not eliminating phenotypes, but ideologies that are totally independent of phenotypic variation.


You apparently have no idea what you're talking about.

JM: Neither do you! Now, how far did those statements get either of us?



Face it, Joe, you're presenting us a contradictory view.

JM: Nope, I am merely trying to point out the absurdity of this oft-used and never supported argument against evolution. The point that you are trying to make, in an awkward manner is that evolution and Hitler go hand in hand. The argument is used for emotive purposes and has no basis in either logic or science. If you disagree, then tell me why the Hitler argument (couched under social darwinism) is most often forwarded by fundamentalist christians against evolution?



Evolution designates "success" not by species survival, but in terms of the ability of individuals to perpetuate their genes.

JM: The individuals are part of a larger population and their (the population's) reproductive success or failure is part of evolution.



Your view cuts successful transitional species out of the "success" class in contradiction to logic. Dinosaurs? Why, they're a bunch of losers, says Jim. Who cares if they were the progenitors of modern bird species?

JM: Who is Jim? Where did my view cut out transitional species? I don't believe I discussed transitionals nor do I find the topic particularly relevant to the subject of social darwinism.



Flawed premise leads to flawed conclusion . . .

JM: I agree. There is no better example of a flawed premise than trying to make a connection of Hitler to evolution or social Darwinism to evolutionary biology.



What game would that be?

JM: Equating the negative aspects of social darwinism with evolutionary biology.



I don't think that you need to assume that I want to "blame" evolutionary science for anything.

JM: I didn't assume it, you are arguing the point.


James saw my point more clearly than you did, which is a credit to him since his post is the one that I originally responded to.

JM: Perhaps James had a different take on your post than did I.


Whether or not somebody wanted to place blame, if evolution is a mindless process and if evolution is responsible for what we call morality, then it stands to reason that morality is relativistic and illusionary in terms of being an objective truth (for example, murder could not be murder prior to the invention of morality even if everything else were the same).

JM: Indeed, the Bible and history itself shows us that morality is not absolute. I argue that if evolution can be blamed for ethical systems promoting ruthless and deadly competition in some minds then it should also be given credit for love and harmony. If that view is true (and I am not arguing that it is), then can we say with any confidence that evolution prefers one morality over another? This is more or less what you say above, but you ignore the 'positive' side of the equation. So what is is the point of connecting evolution solely to what most would consider 'evil'?


As a last-ditch effort to bring you up to speed alongside James with regard to what I'm saying, if science permits the invention of a gun, and that gun is used to commit murder, then the murderer is making valid use of science in accomplishing his goal. I do not deplore the existence of guns, I deplore the misuse. The misuse is not misapplication of science, but immoral application of science.

JM: There are too many twisted arguments in that statement for me to even start my engine, let alone bring me up to speed.


In summary, it is not appropriate, imo, to say that Social Darwinism is unscientific, but instead it should be said that Social Darwinism is simply morally wrong.

JM: IMO, it is appropriate to say that Social Darwinism is both unscientific and morally wrong. I suspect you will disagree, but I have not seen a cogent argument here or elsewhere that makes a strong case for the science of social Darwinism.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Captain Ochre]

James had asked about Charles Darwin's view on race extinction, which I referenced earlier in the thread.

Chapter 7 of Darwin's The Descent of Man deals largely with races and the extinction thereof, mostly after the halfway point of the scroll bar.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_07.html

The conclusion of that same work is positively Spencerian, btw.

"Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in
any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian
and will never be even partially realised until the laws of
inheritance are thoroughly known. Everyone does good service, who aids
towards this end. When the principles of breeding and inheritance
are better understood, we shall not hear ignorant members of our
legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining whether or
not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man.
The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate
problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject
poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil,
but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in
marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the
prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless marry, the inferior
members tend to supplant the better members of society. Man, like
every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high
condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid
multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be
feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle."
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_21.html

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 04:42 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=118040#post118040)
Joe Meert:

JM: The bait and switch is that you are applying organic evolution to a social construct.


Science itself is a social construct. Can it be that you have read through the thread this far while continually missing the point?



Who cares what Hitler claimed to use to justify his actions? They have no bearing on the validity of the scientific theory one way or the other.


What scientific theory? Do you disagree that the killing red-haired persons will tend to decrease the number of red-haired persons who are born? Is my conclusion unscientific?



Several of us have pointed out that Hitler actually claimed to be doing the work of the Christian God. However, we have also pointed out that such an action does not automatically provide 'proof' that Christianity leads to murder, slavery or even witch burning. Therefore, entire argument you are making is a straw man.


:rofl:
Thanks, Mr. Logic. May I save the above to serve as an example of an invalid syllogism?



JM: Ok, I can just as easily argue that the elimination of Jews decreases the number of infidels in the world and is therefore advantageous to Christianity as both Hitler and Luther argued. In this case, I am not eliminating phenotypes, but ideologies that are totally independent of phenotypic variation.


Okay. What's your point? :grin:



JM: Neither do you! Now, how far did those statements get either of us?


Your statement pegs you as an IKYABWAI kind of guy. My statement is merely supported by your writings in this thread.



JM: Nope, I am merely trying to point out the absurdity of this oft-used and never supported argument against evolution.


Well, see, that's where the straw man is. I'm not arguing against evolution. I'm arguing that Nazi eugenics were science just like medical care is science. If you had been paying attention . . . nevermind.



The point that you are trying to make, in an awkward manner is that evolution and Hitler go hand in hand.


:rofl:
A very awkward manner, since that's not at all the point I'm making.



The argument is used for emotive purposes and has no basis in either logic or science. If you disagree, then tell me why the Hitler argument (couched under social darwinism) is most often forwarded by fundamentalist christians against evolution?


:zzz:



JM: The individuals are part of a larger population and their (the population's) reproductive success or failure is part of evolution.


Apart from the individual, populations do not have reproductive success. The individual is the repository for the genetic information carried by the population. Unless all individuals within a population reproduce equally (a perfect Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium), some individuals are less evolutionarily successful than others. If individual A survives and reproduces, the population has a future as a mouse. If individual B survives & reproduces, maybe the population has a future as a blue jay.

I've already explained and substantiated the problematic nature of the term "species", and the problems of the term are only magnified by the population dynamic of speciation. When did the population stop being one species to become another?



JM: Who is Jim?


Jim, Joe, Jef--what's the difference? :wink:
Sorry--maybe I mistook you for Jimbo?



Where did my view cut out transitional species?


I don't think that you would understand the explanation. I could be wrong about that. For sure I know that I'm not going to waste time explaining it to you prior to you manifesting a clue.



I don't believe I discussed transitionals nor do I find the topic particularly relevant to the subject of social darwinism.


You didn't, it's just that your view leads to absurdity.



JM: I agree. There is no better example of a flawed premise than trying to make a connection of Hitler to evolution or social Darwinism to evolutionary biology.


Oh? And on what premisses do you base that conclusion?
:poke:



JM: Equating the negative aspects of social darwinism with evolutionary biology.


For example? Quote me.



JM: I didn't assume it, you are arguing the point.


Your imagination is working overtime.



JM: Perhaps James had a different take on your post than did I.


Uh, you think? Are you a PoMo, or what?



JM: Indeed, the Bible and history itself shows us that morality is not absolute. I argue that if evolution can be blamed for ethical systems promoting ruthless and deadly competition in some minds then it should also be given credit for love and harmony. If that view is true (and I am not arguing that it is), then can we say with any confidence that evolution prefers one morality over another? This is more or less what you say above, but you ignore the 'positive' side of the equation. So what is is the point of connecting evolution solely to what most would consider 'evil'?


You are being quite indiscriminate in following the manner in which I connect the Nazis with science.



JM: There are too many twisted arguments in that statement for me to even start my engine, let alone bring me up to speed.


Noted.
I agree that your shell of invincible ignorance might be too tough to crack. Better luck on another topic.



JM: IMO, it is appropriate to say that Social Darwinism is both unscientific and morally wrong. I suspect you will disagree, but I have not seen a cogent argument here or elsewhere that makes a strong case for the science of social Darwinism.


I just got done answering an argument that purported to show Social Darwinism unscientific. I showed that SD is unscientific just like medical care is unscientific (that is, both are "unscientific" in a trivial way).
And where were you? Oh, that's right, you were left thinking that I was connecting evolution with Hitler.
Very nice.

[James]

Yesterday @ 11:08 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=118014#post118014)
Captain Ochre:

The Nazis were informed by their nationalistic tradition that their genetics were the best. They simply employed science in an attempt to ensure the evolutionary success of their population.

That's true, which is why QED wrote that they were being unscientific with their Social Darwinism. They never set out to decide which traits were "best" within the human population and then scientifically study the nature of trait fluctuation between subpopulations.


Other Spencerians apparently used economic prosperity as their benchmark. Who's to say that economic success isn't tied to genetics? Dogs are all of one species. QED, in essence, is arguing that we should be able to test which breed is best but that is beside the point (as well as being arguable), especially with respect to Naziism. The foundation of Naziism is nationalism, not species survivalism. They were interested in having their traditional genetic population outcompete others, and their approach was scientifically sound even if it was risky.

The Social Darwinists have to use value judgements to arrive at a framework of what constitutes the "best" traits, but they did not scientifically test the implications of their claims against population genetics.


QED ignores my point that the supposed foundations of Social Darwinism are not founded on science just as the foundations of medical science are not founded on science: Should we assist organisms medically? The foundations are outside the purview of science in both cases.

Yes, value judgements are always the beginning of Social Darwinism, but that does not mean that certain aspects of Social Darwinist assertions cannot be tested scientifically.

[James]

Yesterday @ 11:57 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=118053#post118053)
Captain Ochre:

James had asked about Charles Darwin's view on race extinction, which I referenced earlier in the thread.

Chapter 7 of Darwin's The Descent of Man deals largely with races and the extinction thereof, mostly after the halfway point of the scroll bar.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_07.html

The conclusion of that same work is positively Spencerian, btw.
Darwin snipped

That is definitely Social Darwinism by the man himself, but I see it as economically/socially so rather than simply racial. It looks as if he was letting the value judgements of his time slip into his book. This doesn't have any affect on the validity of the scientific portion of the theory, which has been expanded far beyond Darwin with the discovery of genetics and further study of natural history.

[Roy]

06-03-2003 @ 03:52 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115608#post115608)
Joe Meert:



JM: Wrong! Evolution would not distinguish between Aryan and Jews since they are of the same species.


Er, Joe, evolution distinguishes between members of the same species all the time. That's what natural selection is.

Roy

[Joe Meert]

Er, Joe, evolution distinguishes between members of the same species all the time. That's what natural selection is.




JM: Let me rephrase. I was referring to Jews as those who follow the Jewish religious tradition and Aryans broadly as those who do not follow the Jewish tradition. Natural selection does not (to the best of my knowledge) care about an individuals theological preference. Thanks for pointing out the error in my wording.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Joe Meert]

Thanks, Mr. Logic. May I save the above to serve as an example of an invalid syllogism?

JM: If you actually think that the above is an invalid syllogism, then by all means save it. Let me simplify my point so that you might grasp it. The fact that someone argues a premise for their actions (e.g. Christianity, Social Darwinism etc) does not mean that the underlying concept actually supports their premise.



Your statement pegs you as an IKYABWAI kind of guy. My statement is merely supported by your writings in this thread.

JM: Your writing pegs you as a IWHGYSPOI kind of guy. Feel better?



Well, see, that's where the straw man is. I'm not arguing against evolution. I'm arguing that Nazi eugenics were science just like medical care is science. If you had been paying attention . . . nevermind.

JM: But you are wrong. Show me the experimental evidence used by the Nazis to show that eugenics would lead to success of homo sapiens? In a sense, you make the argument that evolutionary biology involves some sort of progress or advancement. The Nazi's committed the naturalistic fallacy and nothing more.


:rofl:
A very awkward manner, since that's not at all the point I'm making.

Earlier you said:

In the same vein, there is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that would prohibit a program such as that run by the Nazis

JM: There is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that would logically encourage a program such as that run by the Nazi's. Correct me if I am wrong, but the Nazi movement was promoted and forwarded by Hitler, so the connection you are trying to make IS there even if you deny it.



Apart from the individual, populations do not have reproductive success. The individual is the repository for the genetic information carried by the population. Unless all individuals within a population reproduce equally (a perfect Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium), some individuals are less evolutionarily successful than others. If individual A survives and reproduces, the population has a future as a mouse. If individual B survives & reproduces, maybe the population has a future as a blue jay.

JM: I'm glad we agree that evolution is not goal-oriented. However, the eugenics movement is goal oriented.


I've already explained and substantiated the problematic nature of the term "species", and the problems of the term are only magnified by the population dynamic of speciation. When did the population stop being one species to become another?

JM: You're getting sidetracked. What does that have to do with eugenics?




Jim, Joe, Jef--what's the difference? :wink:
Sorry--maybe I mistook you for Jimbo?

JM: It indicates something about your ability to focus.




I don't think that you would understand the explanation. I could be wrong about that. For sure I know that I'm not going to waste time explaining it to you prior to you manifesting a clue.

JM: You're right, I would not understand your explanation because it's clouded in a false premise.


Oh? And on what premisses do you base that conclusion?
:poke:


JM: The goal of connecting Hitler, Stalin (name your favorite bad guy) to evolutionary biology is one that is oft-made for its emotional appeal.



For example? Quote me.


I don't think that evolution predicts that races should eliminate other races in order to aid their survival. I'm saying that if your goal is for your immediate and closest group to survive and propagate, evolution helps you identify the competition and gives you some hints as to what to do about the competition, such as killing them

JM: Of course, why couldn't you work to cooperate with the competition for the betterment of both? In that case, you double the chances of survival.

and:

Hitler's eyes, war was part & parcel of the evolutionary struggle for survival

JM: Hitler was a wacko. Does the fact that Hitler thought it was part and parcel of the evolutionary struggle mean that it actually was? Was the fact that Hitler argued that he was following biblical truths enounced by Luther mean that the bible actually promotes genocide?


Yeah, tell that to the Iraqi people of 2002, or to the Cambodians in the Seventies. Need I mention Mao's China, or Stalin's Ukraine?


JM: Are you still claiming that you're not trying to connect evolutionary theory to what most people would consider 'bad guys'? Why not discuss the use of the bible for the justification of slavery, witch burning and murder? You can deny making the connection all you want, but you didn't hide it very well.



Your imagination is working overtime.

JM: Thank-you perhaps I can infuse a little of that work ethic into your memory?



Uh, you think? Are you a PoMo, or what?

JM: You think? Are you a FoDo , or what?



You are being quite indiscriminate in following the manner in which I connect the Nazis with science.

JM: Ok, then why don't you tell us why you connected the Nazi's to science in a forum called biology? Why did you choose to connect eugenics to evolution?



Noted.
I agree that your shell of invincible ignorance might be too tough to crack.

JM: Did you think of this little ad-hom during a period of self-reflectance?



I just got done answering an argument that purported to show Social Darwinism unscientific. I showed that SD is unscientific just like medical care is unscientific (that is, both are "unscientific" in a trivial way).

JM: You mean, you thought you did? That's quite a difference between actually showing it.


And where were you? Oh, that's right, you were left thinking that I was connecting evolution with Hitler.
Very nice.

JM: Yes, I forgot to include Stalin, Mao and Hussein. My error.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[The Barbarian]

Joe is quite correct. Science cannot identify a "Jewish race", since European Jews are genetically like other Europeans, and "oriental Jews" are gentetically most like the Arabs and central Asian peoples.

Darwin, was, like most people of European descent, a racist. His views on race were almost exactly like those of Abraham Lincoln (who was born on the same day, BTW). They both believed that whites were superior to other humans, but they believed that this had no bearing on a person's right to freedom.

Because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for "race", evolutionists are rarely racists. You won't find a prominent evolutionist spouting racism.

On the other hand, there are a number of prominent creationists who are racists. Henry Morris, who introducted YE creationism to modern evangelicals, has this to say about "Hamites":

"Often the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have become actual personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they have eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites."

Disgusting. And totally without scientific support. While there are many creationists who are not racists, racism has continued to be a cancer in the creationist movement. And the rot starts at the top, in this case.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Disgusting. And totally without scientific support. While there are many creationists who are not racists, racism has continued to be a cancer in the creationist movement. And the rot starts at the top, in this case.

Oh boy here we go again. I do not agree with Morris' statement and find it offensive, so I will get that out right off the bat. Now... your statement insinuated, if not outright stated, that racism is widespread in the creationist movement. I am demanding (as a poster, though I will ask a moderator to look at your statement if you don't) that you prove that. I have more to say but I will leave it at that for now.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Now if we want to talk about disgusting....


Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in
any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian
and will never be even partially realised until the laws of
inheritance are thoroughly known.

Yeah there you go.

[Captain Ochre]

06-05-2003 @ 03:40 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=118332#post118332)
Joe Meert:



JM: If you actually think that the above is an invalid syllogism, then by all means save it. Let me simplify my point so that you might grasp it. The fact that someone argues a premise for their actions (e.g. Christianity, Social Darwinism etc) does not mean that the underlying concept actually supports their premise.


You have no rational grounds for thinking that I do not grasp that concept.
You do have knee-jerk reaction grounds for doing so, perhaps.
"Just as the discovery of the antibacterial properties of penicillin does not justify the medical applications of penicillin.
All applications of science, I suspect, are at the whim of the values held by society."
-Cap'n Ochre
http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=114116#post114116



JM: Your writing pegs you as a IWHGYSPOI kind of guy. Feel better?


I'm not familiar with your acronym, so it isn't clear that I should feel better.
Your response, fwiw, falls in line with your "I Know You Are, But What Am I?" tendencies.



JM: But you are wrong. Show me the experimental evidence used by the Nazis to show that eugenics would lead to success of homo sapiens?


Maybe you should go back and read what I have written. The Nazis correctly saw competition between various groups of Homo sapiens, and ideologically they believed that the duty of a national government was to serve the interests of the people of the nation. They went further to identify certain phenotypical characterisitics with their nation. Would you deny that the classic "Aryan" traits are not genetically determined?
Thus, the suggestion that I should look for scientific support of eugenics leading to general success of the human species is a red herring of the lowest order (iow, it's a big, fat, and particularly pungent red herring).



In a sense, you make the argument that evolutionary biology involves some sort of progress or advancement. The Nazi's committed the naturalistic fallacy and nothing more.


Wrong. The naturistic fallacy, in essence, says that if it occurs in nature, it's right. Return to the penicillin analogy. We don't think that it is "right" to treat infections with penicillin simply because nature informs us that such treatment is possible. We provide the value system, and then science illuminates applicable technology. In the case of Nazism, eugenics is a viable, if barbaric, technology to employ in securing the ascendency of Aryan traits at the national level.
If you cannot identify an explicit naturalistic fallacy, then your comment is no more than another diversion.



Earlier you said: the same vein, there is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that would prohibit a program such as that run by the Nazis
JM: There is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that would logically encourage a program such as that run by the Nazi's.


Do I not implicitly affirm what you just said by saying "in the same vein" prior to making a comparable claim for comparison?



Correct me if I am wrong, but the Nazi movement was promoted and forwarded by Hitler, so the connection you are trying to make IS there even if you deny it.


If I am "trying" to make a connection between Hitler and evolution, then explain what I have to gain by denying that I am trying to make a connection between Hitler and evolution?
You're chasing shadows.
Hitler did consciously follow the evolutionary thought of his day, as filtered through Haeckel, and I've already provided a portion of the evidence showing that Charles Darwin himself advocated those same Spencerian ideas. The defense from that charge has essentially been "the evolution that they believed in wasn't true evolution".
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skepticism/blfaq_fall_notruescotsman.htm

I've allowed from the first that the modern evolutionist sees evolutionary science (along with all the rest of science) as ultimately value-neutral, as in scientific knowledge making absolutely no recommendations to action. You can only have missed that by willful blindness, imo.



JM: I'm glad we agree that evolution is not goal-oriented.


Okay, so you peeked. :wink:



However, the eugenics movement is goal oriented.


Correct, and so is medical science. Right?
Would you say that medical treatment is not scientific, since it implies values to which science should be indifferent?



JM: You're getting sidetracked. What does that have to do with eugenics?


I'm on-track. I'm dealing with your claim that evolution has only to do with species survival.
[doodly-doop, doodly doop]
"Evolutionary theory proposes that the key to success is preservation of the species (however defined). Therefore, murder and genocide are not particularly effective means of promulgationg the species"
--JM



JM: It indicates something about your ability to focus.


Fallacy of ad hominem circumstantial, then?



JM: You're right, I would not understand your explanation because it's clouded in a false premise.


Name any alleged false premiss and show that I have tried to establish it/them.



JM: The goal of connecting Hitler, Stalin (name your favorite bad guy) to evolutionary biology is one that is oft-made for its emotional appeal.


I agree. Did Hitler evolve? Yes? Are we maintaining this as a fact as an emotional appeal?
Again, you are being very careless, JM, in identifying the connection that I am actually making.



JM: Of course, why couldn't you work to cooperate with the competition for the betterment of both? In that case, you double the chances of survival.


Double the chances of survival for whom? The race, or the species as a whole? Onto that red herring again, are you?
See again the giraffe illustration, so that I do not have to repeat myself interminably.



JM: Hitler was a wacko. Does the fact that Hitler thought it was part and parcel of the evolutionary struggle mean that it actually was? Was the fact that Hitler argued that he was following biblical truths enounced by Luther mean that the bible actually promotes genocide?


The mere fact that Hitler believed X does not make X true. Would you say that war between nations and human competition for food are not part of an evolutionary struggle?



JM: Are you still claiming that you're not trying to connect evolutionary theory to what most people would consider 'bad guys'?


I'm certainly not suggesting that evolutionary theory provides the justification for the value systems that might perpetrate such barbaric acts, which is what your dreams and visions apparently keep telling you in contradiction to what I have been telling you.
If Ukrainian families are killed, are they successful in evolutionary terms? Same question for each of the large groups of dead-without-descendants.
Why do you need every point spelled out letter-by-letter?



Why not discuss the use of the bible for the justification of slavery, witch burning and murder?


We can do that in another thread, if you like.



You can deny making the connection all you want, but you didn't hide it very well.


That depends on what specific connection you're talking about, I guess.



JM: Ok, then why don't you tell us why you connected the Nazi's to science in a forum called biology?


Somebody else started this thread, iirc. I took issue with some of his ideas, and he apparently took my criticisms seriously and seems to have taken at least some of them to heart. Clearly, I'm not referring to you . . .



Why did you choose to connect eugenics to evolution?


Because eugenics has an effect on the frequency of alleles over time in a given population.
Oops, there I go connecting evolution to eugenics again.
What's wrong with that connection, btw?



JM: Did you think of this little ad-hom during a period of self-reflectance?


You mean self-reflection?
"Invincible ignorance" isn't an ad hom, it is the tentative identification of a logical fallacy where one party remains oblivious to an obvious truth despite repeated exposure to his error. In this thread, you have provided evidence of invincible ignorance.



JM: You mean, you thought you did? That's quite a difference between actually showing it.


Would you like to go on record with a claim that science justifies the practice of medical care?

[Captain Ochre]

06-10-2003 @ 12:05 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=118868#post118868)
The Barbarian:

Joe is quite correct.


About what?



Science cannot identify a "Jewish race", since European Jews are genetically like other Europeans, and "oriental Jews" are gentetically most like the Arabs and central Asian peoples.


Can science identify blondes, brunettes and redheads? The course you're setting sends us right back to red herring land. In Germany, there was an archetypical Aryan, and an archetypical Jew who were identified by phenotypical characteristics (which is exactly how science distinguished between species, sub-species, races, and whatever other groupings you'd like to add to the mix).
Would you like to go on record maintaining that blue eyes, blonde hair, and fair skin are not genetically determined characteristics?
When you identify the Jews as a race instead of as a religion, then the blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan "Jew" isn't a Jew at all.



Because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for "race", evolutionists are rarely racists. You won't find a prominent evolutionist spouting racism.


Is that because of evolution or because of societal anti-racist influence?
As I noted earlier, the modern "objective" scientist will scarcely say that living is better than dying, let alone that one race is better than another. To the modern evolutionist, mammals are not "better" than amoebas, even if the scientist thinks that mammals are smarter than amoebas on the average.



On the other hand, there are a number of prominent creationists who are racists. Henry Morris, who introducted YE creationism to modern evangelicals, has this to say about "Hamites":


Does Morris also cheat on his taxes?



Disgusting. And totally without scientific support. While there are many creationists who are not racists, racism has continued to be a cancer in the creationist movement. And the rot starts at the top, in this case.

So, are most creationists racists, iyo (even though "many" are not racist)?
If not, then what's your point?

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian:
Joe is quite correct.


About what?[quote]

About this:

Science cannot identify a "Jewish race", since European Jews are genetically like other Europeans, and "oriental Jews" are gentetically most like the Arabs and central Asian peoples.

[quote]Can science identify blondes, brunettes and redheads?

I can. But neither I nor anyone else can identify who is a Jew or who is not. Since you seem to equate race to hair color, perhaps you couild tell me the skin color and hair color of a Jew.


The course you're setting sends us right back to red herring land. In Germany, there was an archetypical Aryan, and an archetypical Jew who were identified by phenotypical characteristics (which is exactly how science distinguished between species, sub-species, races, and whatever other groupings you'd like to add to the mix).

Science does not distinguish humans into races. Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races. ("races" here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well)


Would you like to go on record maintaining that blue eyes, blonde hair, and fair skin are not genetically determined characteristics?

I'm just observing that they cannot be used to identify "races". The Nazis went through a great deal of foolishness about how to tell a Jew from varous characteristics. But the Germans and German Jews were genetically more like each other than European and Asian Jews were like each other.


When you identify the Jews as a race instead of as a religion, then the blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan "Jew" isn't a Jew at all.

A Jew is the child of a Jewish mother. As far as genes go, you can't do it. No matter what phenotype or genotype you pick, there will be Jews that don't fit.

Because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for "race", evolutionists are rarely racists. You won't find a prominent evolutionist spouting racism.


Is that because of evolution or because of societal anti-racist influence?

It's because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for race. I think that current antiracist thinking was to some degree the result of such findings.


As I noted earlier, the modern "objective" scientist will scarcely say that living is better than dying, let alone that one race is better than another.

I know a lot of scientists. Believe me, they almost to a person, would prefer to go on living.


To the modern evolutionist, mammals are not "better" than amoebas, even if the scientist thinks that mammals are smarter than amoebas on the average.

"Better" is not a scientific term with regard to organisms.. So science can't tell us about that. However scientists do make such judgements by other means. Most of them, for example, have no problem with sacrificing a lab animal, if potentially life-saving information can be gained thereby.

Barbarian observes:
On the other hand, there are a number of prominent creationists who are racists. Henry Morris, who introducted YE creationism to modern evangelicals, has this to say about "Hamites":

(Morris says blacks are intellectually and spritiually inferior)


Does Morris also cheat on his taxes?

Would that make his racism more palatable to you?


Disgusting. And totally without scientific support. While there are many creationists who are not racists, racism has continued to be a cancer in the creationist movement. And the rot starts at the top, in this case.


So, are most creationists racists, iyo (even though "many" are not racist)?

Haven't seen a poll. But when you look at the parts of the nation that most resisted equal rights for racists, and the parts of the nation that least supports evolution, they match up. Bob Jones U, which finally a couple of years ago, ceased to discriminate on the basis of race, is also officially creationist.


If not, then what's your point?

Racism is a pervasive problem in the creationist movment, especially among the leadership.

[Bald Ape]

Biological evolution is defined as a change of allele frequency in a population over time. The most general theory of evolution deals with the manner in which allele frequencies change. Namely, the theory holds that alleles which result in phenotypic attributes most conducive to survival and reproduction of organisms will propagate through the population, replacing those alleles which yield physical characteristics less conducive to survival and reproduction in that environment.

Thus, if a highly contagious virus broke out in the human population which caused blindness in all brown-eyed individuals (but did not affect blue-eyed individuals), the theory of evolution predicts that the alleles coding for blue eyes would eventually replace all brown-eye alleles.

Now, to put this in a new light, let's say a blue-eyed biochemist, Jack, working at the United States CDC (Center for Disease Control), stumbles upon (or creates) the aforementioned virus. Jack knows that he, his wife, and his newborn daughter have blue eyes, and all of his future children will have blue eyes. Jack knows that the theory of evolution predicts that if he releases the virus into the world, he will alter the environment in such a way that the frequency of blue-eye alleles will increase, and the frequency of brown-eye alleles will decrease (ultimately vanishing entirely).

Because he and all of his progeny have blue eyes, Jack decides to release the virus, thinking it will make him an evolutionary success (and reduce the competition his children will face in pursuing their own success).

As one of the few blue-eyed biochemists working with contagious viruses, he is immediately implicated. A quick investigation ties him to the crime, and he is summarily executed. In the meantime, the plague spreads far and wide, and has soon reached the farthest corners of the planet. With 95% of the population greatly disabled, the worldwide economy just plain stops. There are no jobs, no food is being distributed, there is no power outage, no water is being circulated, no waste is being removed, etc., etc. In a short while, the life expectancy and mortality rates plummet for all humans, blue eyed people included (although certainly the blue eyed life expectancy was still much higher than that of brown eyed people).
More locally, soon after Jack's conviction, his wife is killed by an enraged mob for the simple association with the man who caused so much suffering; his daughter, incredibly, is spared and placed in an orphanage. Her "rescue" soon becomes moot... a month after the initial release, the nation of China, with it's entire popluation blinded or becoming blind, declares the disease to be a weapon of mass destruction against the Chinese people, and launches its entire nuclear arsenal at the United States, wiping out every major city in the country, killing hundreds of millions of people ... for what little it's worth, the US retaliation attack, in turn, kills billions on the Asian continent.

In the resulting 2 year nuclear winter, the entire human population dwindles to a society of about 100,000 people located on the European continent.

Fast forward 1000 years ... The human poplution has, perhaps not surprisingly, survived the bottleneck of the "Blind Wars" and has almost bounced back to where it was in the 21st century. And, as no great surprise, every human on the planet has blue eyes.

Capt. Ochre: What is the role of evolution in this story? Was Jack's idea a good one, in terms of evolutionary success? If not, in what ways was it flawed? Was it morally justifiable, in terms of evolutionary theory?

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 06:17 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=121265#post121265)
The Barbarian:

Barbarian:
Joe is quite correct.


You think that Joe is quite correct that science cannot scientifically distinguish the races. Joe's view is contradictory, and here's why:
In the gradualistic evolutionary continuum of life, changes occur in population gradually over time. Thus, all divisions between populations along the line of inheritance are artificial. You could tell that organism A doesn't mate with organism G, but you would find (perhaps) that organism D does mate with organism A, yet not with organism G, yet D is genetically as similar to G as it is to A.
As I pointed out to Joe (with substantiation), the very term "species" on which he earlier tried to rest his case is ultimately as slippery as the term "race". Both are terms of convenience used (at one time or another) by scientists, and both have trouble with differentiation criteria. The same may be said of all biological classifications.



I can. But neither I nor anyone else can identify who is a Jew or who is not.


If I identify Jews on the basis of ideology, no. If I identify Jews on the basis of phenotype, then yes I can, just like I can tell a Maine Coon from a Norwegian Forest Cat even if they're of the same species (and they are).



Since you seem to equate race to hair color, perhaps you couild tell me the skin color and hair color of a Jew.


So you missed the point, then?



Science does not distinguish humans into races. Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races.
("races" here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well)

Your argument above simply undermines the broad categories of race, which is an oversimplification of the issue. Of which traditional race are the Jews?

[QUOTE]
I'm just observing that they cannot be used to identify "races".


That's an assertion, not an observation.



The Nazis went through a great deal of foolishness about how to tell a Jew from varous characteristics. But the Germans and German Jews were genetically more like each other than European and Asian Jews were like each other.


So what? If a black Siamese is more like a Siamese than a black Maine Coon, does that mean that black Siamese cannot be distinguished from non-black Siamese?
What you would have to do is show that the "Jewish" (archetypical) phenotype had no foundation in the German group genotype in order to undermine the relevant scientific view of "race".



A Jew is the child of a Jewish mother. As far as genes go, you can't do it. No matter what phenotype or genotype you pick, there will be Jews that don't fit.


Your argument begs the question by airily dismissing the Nazi view of the Jew (that view is historically ludicrous, I'd admit, but there's nothing wrong with it in terms of scientific classification apart from the fact that it invokes something of an archetype--but the same could be said of animal breeding).



It's because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for race. I think that current antiracist thinking was to some degree the result of such findings.


Antiracism is a value. Are you suggesting that science promotes a particular value?
If so, you're running against the strong thesis of this thread (and if so I predict that I'll end up showing hypocrisy on your part).



I know a lot of scientists. Believe me, they almost to a person, would prefer to go on living.


I took note of that via caveat in my original statement. The scientist has no scientific basis for his value judgement, however. Right?



"Better" is not a scientific term with regard to organisms.. So science can't tell us about that. However scientists do make such judgements by other means. Most of them, for example, have no problem with sacrificing a lab animal, if potentially life-saving information can be gained thereby.


Right, because the practice of science itself is value-driven (science per se doesn't compel us to seek out and organize knowledge), and cannot be justified by science except in brute fashion.



Barbarian observes:
On the other hand, there are a number of prominent creationists who are racists. Henry Morris, who introducted YE creationism to modern evangelicals, has this to say about "Hamites":

(Morris says blacks are intellectually and spritiually inferior)


You had already mentioned Morris, as I recall. Now "a number" of prominent creationists are racists. Is Morris supposed to support that statement all by himself?



Would that make his racism more palatable to you?


I guess you missed the point, again?



Haven't seen a poll. But when you look at the parts of the nation that most resisted equal rights for racists, and the parts of the nation that least supports evolution, they match up.


You're such a scientist! You should publish your findings in a science journal no, really, you should.
Don't forget to include your conclusion prominently:


Racism is a pervasive problem in the creationist movment, especially among the leadership.

[QED]

What you would have to do is show that the "Jewish" (archetypical) phenotype had no foundation in the German group genotype in order to undermine the relevant scientific view of "race".

To show that eugenics is pseudoscientific, one only has to show that there is no "Jewish" phenotype that can be selected upon without selecting against traits common to all Europeans, and significantly decreasing European genetic diversity and general reproductive success. The race studies already mentioned do a decent job of that.

Of course, as Barbarian pointed out, you can easily decrease your own reproductive success by ill-conceived eugenics plans - pseudoscientific charicatures of evolution, for instance - BUT --- a well designed eugenics plan can promote overall reproductive fitness of a breeding population (or even possibly an artificially established political population) - and could promote certain individual traits over others (such as blue eyes over brown, for instance). Now, this is the case whether we are talking about evolution generally (including the parts disputed by creationists), or we are talking only about the simple facts of evolution that even creationists acknowledge - microevolutionary change over time by natural selection.

Now, I have no idea what the purpose of this thread was. I assume that it was to tar evolution by association with bad things. Maybe it was just a chance for one person or another to score some rhetorical points. Maybe it was a defense against one or the other.. I guess my point is that whatever Ochre's point is about evolution and social darwinism would apply equally well to the creationism and social darwinism.

So, I have to ask - "so what?"

[Captain Ochre]

QED


To show that eugenics is pseudoscientific, one only has to show that there is no "Jewish" phenotype that can be selected upon without selecting against traits common to all Europeans, and significantly decreasing European genetic diversity and general reproductive success.


Piffle.
A cat breeder can find traits in one population of cats that he wants to preserve, and those that he wants to eliminate. If you're claiming that (for example) one cannot breed for blue eyes without ending up with the "semitic" rostrum of the archetypical Jew (again, in the mind of a Hitlerite German), then I agree and you just got done agreeing with me while adopting a contrary tone and self-contradictory approach.



The race studies already mentioned do a decent job of that.


How?
Seems like QED is ignoring much of the past discussion, afaics.

[Bald Ape]

Captain Ochre,

First, I'm hoping I am not on your ignore list as well :smile:. Anyway, as I re-read my post, it dawned on me that it might not be clear how it ties into this discussion. Basically, I made my post because the impression I'm getting from you is that you believe the following statement:

If a subpopulation of a given population has an allele which differentiates it from the rest of the population, and one or more members of that subpopulation has/have the means to alter the environment so that the frequency of that allele will increase in the overall population, then (without reference to morality) it is coldly rational for the members to make that alteration.

Before I continue, would you say that statement is true or false?

[QED]

Today @ 08:23 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=121361#post121361)
Captain Ochre:

QED


Piffle.

Translation, please? I'm guessing, "inconvenient."


A cat breeder can find traits in one population of cats that he wants to preserve, and those that he wants to eliminate.

Sure he can. Now, can he find traits in a population of Europeans that he wants to preserve, and those he wants to eliminate, and manage to capture anything like "jewishness" or "aryan-ness"? Studies say "no." Dark hair? Nope: common to Europeans of both "Aryan" and "Semitic" ancestry, unique to neither. Dark eyes?

Nope, same problem as dark hair.

"Yiddish-speakingness"? Nope - not genetically determined.



If you're claiming that (for example) one cannot breed for blue eyes without ending up with the "semitic" rostrum of the archetypical Jew (again, in the mind of a Hitlerite German),

Huh? Of course you can breed for blue eyes. Can you employ a successful program of eugenics, based on the creationist/evolutionist principles of selection? Yes, it is possible.

Were the social darwinists and nazis of the early 20th century engaged in such a program? No. They were engaged in a psuedoscientific program that only the least well biologically trained could have hoped would bring success.


then I agree and you just got done agreeing with me while adopting a contrary tone and self-contradictory approach.

Hmmm.. I'll just let this slide. If you had something important to say, then you'll have plenty of chances to repeat yourself and make a point. Should you choose to, I'm sure you will be able to back up that point.



How?
Seems like QED is ignoring much of the past discussion, afaics.

By showing that "race" is a cultural fiction, not a genetic/phenotypic fact - IOW that there is no more variation between mean representatives of two races than there is within either single race.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 08:46 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=121379#post121379)
Bald Ape:

Captain Ochre,

First, I'm hoping I am not on your ignore list as well :smile:.


I've promised that QED will have it all to himself, and I remain open to taking him out of it if he breaks more thoroughly free from the pattern he established with me initially (I've done a sampling of his posts, and some actually aren't that bad, but don't tell him I said that--:wink:).
Generally speaking, I like contrary opinions, and the better the rationale behind that opinion, the more interesting the conversation is likely to be.



Anyway, as I re-read my post, it dawned on me that it might not be clear how it ties into this discussion. Basically, I made my post because the impression I'm getting from you is that you believe the following statement:

If a subpopulation of a given population has an allele which differentiates it from the rest of the population, and one or more members of that subpopulation has/have the means to alter the environment so that the frequency of that allele will increase in the overall population, then (without reference to morality) it is coldly rational for the members to make that alteration.

Before I continue, would you say that statement is true or false?

I would say that it is true if we also assume (at least for the sake of our meddlers) that it is desirable for the allele to increase (self-interest could be sufficient motivation), and assuming that it (whatever "it" is) is the best method that the meddlers are able to conceive.
Perhaps I'm being too cautious when I should just be saying "yes".
:smile:

[Edit to add]

Message to QED: You need to actually read the thread, I think.

[Bald Ape]

I would say that it is true if we also assume (at least for the sake of our meddlers) that it is desirable for the allele to increase (self-interest could be sufficient motivation), and assuming that it (whatever "it" is) is the best method that the meddlers are able to conceive.
Perhaps I'm being too cautious when I should just be saying "yes".
Ok, now the burning question: why is it better for the meddlers to alter the allele frequency (particularly if the only means to do so involve wars, disease, retaliations, etc., all at great risk to the meddlers themselves)? After all, if the meddlers are human, they'll most share the same attributes all humans have: one assumes they don't want to die in war (self-preservation), they don't want to suffer (self-interest), they don't want to be locked up, they don't want their loved ones to be killed in war, and they don't want others to needlessly suffer. I see no rational reason to risk all of the above (and more), simply to alter allele frequencies... do you? Again, in my example, I'd say that even if he had no moral feelings whatsoever - even if he was a cold, calculating sociopath guided only by self-interest; Jack did not do a rational or intelligent thing. Not for himself, not for his family, not for his friends, not for his fellow Americans, not for all blue-eyed people everywhere. He didn't make life better for anyone, did he? In fact, life for the blue-eyed people 1000 years later wasn't any better either - there was just less variety of eye color. There was still hunger, disease, competition for resources, suffering, and death; in the same quantities as before Jack's decision.

Which brings me to the next point: let's leave the risks aside - let's say the meddlers found a way to change the frequency without any significant backlash... let's even say they found a way to do it without even committing any deeds one might otherwise consider immoral - no killing, no needless suffering, no violations of rights, etc. Once the allele frequency had been altered, in what way will the quality of life/happiness of the meddlers been improved? With specific reference to allele frequency, what benefits would have awaited the Nazis, had their Aryan-allele** frequency campaign been successful? After all was said and done, the remaining Aryans would simply find themselve no longer competing with humans with Jew-alleles; they'd be competing with other Aryans for the same resources.

Depending on how the meddling happened, the size of the population may dip temporarily - causing a temporary abundance of resources, but that's not what this is about. Any population-reduction campaign might work towards the same end... so it's a red herring (we're not discussing the morality of "kill em all and take there gold!", we're discussing whether there is any intrinsic value of altering gene frequencies). What I want to know is, after the population has returned to it's previous size, what has the Nazi campaign accomlished, in terms of anything any humans actually value? How has life become better or easier for the survivors? Will poverty, hunger, or competition have been eliminated (or even reduced)? In fact, I'd bet money on things getting much worse for te survivors... Disease would probably be more rampant (bottlenecks on the gene pool typically leave the survivors much more susceptable to illnesses - see endagered species today, and the efforts being made to expand the amount of genetic variety).

A question that really gets to the heart of the matter: if you had a button that, when pressed, would instantaneously change every human's eye color to match your own (at the genetic level), would you push it? How would it make your life better?

**For the sake of argument, this is in the hypothetical world where there is are mutually exclusive sets of Aryan-alleles and Jewish-alleles.

[QED]

Captain Ochre,

Blame the ADHD if you must, but my attention span is not what it once was. I have read most (if not all) of this thread, but I couldn't hope to read each post in depth and follow each idea through the chain-o-quotes.

Let me just suggest that if the Social Darwinists, Nazi's, and/or eugenecists had wished to give their own geo-political or economic group an evolutionary "push" (for reproductive success - past some competing group, that they believed to hold genetic advantages) - they could have better hoped to accomplish this by marrying their sons and daughters to endowed members of the "competing" groups, than by attempting to kill members of the competing groups.

Social Darwinists, if I remember my history, thought they could apply Darwinian selection to a lassez-faire marketplace. This showed a complete lack of understanding of natural selection on their part.

Is there any aspect of historical Social Darwinism, genocidal Nationalism, etc., that actually corresponds to a correct understanding of evolution? Apparently not.

Thus the answer to the question of the thread title:
""Social Darwinism:" is it justified by the theory of organic evolution?"

- No.

Perhaps another question is whether eugenics might be possible? The answer, from "evolutionists" and "creationists" alike, should be - "most likely."

[Joe Meert]

A question that really gets to the heart of the matter: if you had a button that, when pressed, would instantaneously change every human's eye color to match your own (at the genetic level), would you push it? How would it make your life better?

**For the sake of argument, this is in the hypothetical world where there is are mutually exclusive sets of Aryan-alleles and Jewish-alleles.

JM: Well put! Hitler was a wacko who thought that his form of eugenics would lead to a better world. He had no data to rely on other than his own deluded interpretation of the bible.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Captain Ochre]

06-12-2003 @ 07:08 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=121321#post121321)
Bald Ape:

Thus, if a highly contagious virus broke out in the human population which caused blindness in all brown-eyed individuals (but did not affect blue-eyed individuals), the theory of evolution predicts that the alleles coding for blue eyes would eventually replace all brown-eye alleles.

Now, to put this in a new light, let's say a blue-eyed biochemist, Jack, working at the United States CDC (Center for Disease Control), stumbles upon (or creates) the aforementioned virus. Jack knows that he, his wife, and his newborn daughter have blue eyes, and all of his future children will have blue eyes. Jack knows that the theory of evolution predicts that if he releases the virus into the world, he will alter the environment in such a way that the frequency of blue-eye alleles will increase, and the frequency of brown-eye alleles will decrease (ultimately vanishing entirely).

Because he and all of his progeny have blue eyes, Jack decides to release the virus, thinking it will make him an evolutionary success (and reduce the competition his children will face in pursuing their own success).

As one of the few blue-eyed biochemists working with contagious viruses, he is immediately implicated. A quick investigation ties him to the crime, and he is summarily executed. In the meantime, the plague spreads far and wide, and has soon reached the farthest corners of the planet. With 95% of the population greatly disabled, the worldwide economy just plain stops. There are no jobs, no food is being distributed, there is no power outage, no water is being circulated, no waste is being removed, etc., etc. In a short while, the life expectancy and mortality rates plummet for all humans, blue eyed people included (although certainly the blue eyed life expectancy was still much higher than that of brown eyed people).
More locally, soon after Jack's conviction, his wife is killed by an enraged mob for the simple association with the man who caused so much suffering; his daughter, incredibly, is spared and placed in an orphanage. Her "rescue" soon becomes moot... a month after the initial release, the nation of China, with it's entire popluation blinded or becoming blind, declares the disease to be a weapon of mass destruction against the Chinese people, and launches its entire nuclear arsenal at the United States, wiping out every major city in the country, killing hundreds of millions of people ... for what little it's worth, the US retaliation attack, in turn, kills billions on the Asian continent.

In the resulting 2 year nuclear winter, the entire human population dwindles to a society of about 100,000 people located on the European continent.

Fast forward 1000 years ... The human poplution has, perhaps not surprisingly, survived the bottleneck of the "Blind Wars" and has almost bounced back to where it was in the 21st century. And, as no great surprise, every human on the planet has blue eyes.

Capt. Ochre: What is the role of evolution in this story? Was Jack's idea a good one, in terms of evolutionary success? If not, in what ways was it flawed? Was it morally justifiable, in terms of evolutionary theory?

1) Those creatures who were best adapted to survival in the changing environment were apt to produce more offspring.
2) In retrospect, Jack's idea was a poor one in terms of evolutionary success. He should have had a more sympathetic author tell his story, imo (:wink:). If Jack had planned well enough to escape getting caught, or if he had even instituted an elementary back-up plan, say involving a series of donations to the good ole "Blue-eyed Persons Sperm-Bank (or BEPSB), then his plan could have been an unqualified success in terms of ensuring the propagation of his genes.
3) See answer to #2, above.
4) Evolutionary theory provides no moral justification for anything, unless perhaps one were to account for morality in terms of purposeless evolution, which in turn could result in anything being "justified morally" since morality would be revealed as an artificial construct which may be modified freely by the highly evolved (in terms of morality) individual.

[Socrates]

06-13-2003 @ 09:19 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=121448#post121448)
Joe Meert:

JM: Well put! Hitler was a wacko who thought that his form of eugenics would lead to a better world. He had no data to rely on other than his own deluded interpretation of the bible.

Meert, stick to geology :poke: You talk such tripe about "his own deluded interpretation of the bible". Document this, or find something else to rant about :rant:. And while you're at it, refute the extensive documentation that Donovan compiled at Nuremberg for the Nazis' intent to exterminate Christianity. Not to mention that Hitler was merely applying the Darwinist ideas to society that the German academics of the time were recommending.

[Socrates]

06-13-2003 @ 04:17 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=121265#post121265)
The Barbarian:

I can. But neither I nor anyone else can identify who is a Jew or who is not. Since you seem to equate race to hair color, perhaps you couild tell me the skin color and hair color of a Jew.

There isn't one. But y-chromosome analysis confirms that Jews from around the world come from a single source.


Science does not distinguish humans into races. Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races. ("races" here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well)

Exactly -- science has finally caught up with the Bible, which likewise has no mention of different "races", and teaches that we all came from one (blood) -- Acts 17:26.


I'm just observing that they cannot be used to identify "races". The Nazis went through a great deal of foolishness about how to tell a Jew from varous characteristics. But the Germans and German Jews were genetically more like each other than European and Asian Jews were like each other.

Indeed, many of the German officer characters in Hogan's Heroes were played by Jews.


A Jew is the child of a Jewish mother.

That's a relatively modern view. In the Bible, it was always traced through the father. Just look at the genealogies. And it had nothing to do with religion. Idolatrous Jews were still Jews, and Gentile converts were called proselytes, not Jews.


Because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for "race", evolutionists are rarely racists. You won't find a prominent evolutionist spouting racism.

Not since WW2 anyway.


It's because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for race. I think that current antiracist thinking was to some degree the result of such findings.

But while science can tell us that there is no biological basis for races, it can not provide a moral basis against discrimination.


But when you look at the parts of the nation that most resisted equal rights for racists, and the parts of the nation that least supports evolution, they match up.

Needs to be more specific. This overlooks the strong Christian component to the civil rights movement, just like the slavery abolitionists. And remember the KKK bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, 15 September 1963, which killed four black girls.


Bob Jones U, which finally a couple of years ago, ceased to discriminate on the basis of race, is also officially creationist.

No, it refuses to dissociate from the compromise view known as the Gap Theory. This was often associated with nonsense like pre-Adamites. Alas, Morris relied largely on the anthropology of the leading gappist Custance. He also went beyond the literal meaning of the Genesis text, which restricts the curse to Canaan, not Ham.


Racism is a pervasive problem in the creationist movment, especially among the leadership.

What piffle. Probably the world's leading creationist organization is Answers in Genesis, which has always strongly denounced racism. This includes refuting the view that interracial marriage is unbiblical www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4119.asp , at a time when the BJU compromisers still held that view.

[Mandalorious]

Yesterday @ 05:19 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=122850#post122850)
Socrates:



There isn't one. But y-chromosome analysis confirms that Jews from around the world come from a single source.



Exactly -- science has finally caught up with the Bible, which likewise has no mention of different "races", and teaches that we all came from one (blood) -- Acts 17:26.



Indeed, many of the German officer characters in Hogan's Heroes were played by Jews.



That's a relatively modern view. In the Bible, it was always traced through the father. Just look at the genealogies. And it had nothing to do with religion. Idolatrous Jews were still Jews, and Gentile converts were called proselytes, not Jews.



Not since WW2 anyway.



But while science can tell us that there is no biological basis for races, it can not provide a moral basis against discrimination.



Needs to be more specific. This overlooks the strong Christian component to the civil rights movement, just like the slavery abolitionists. And remember the KKK bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, 15 September 1963, which killed four black girls.



No, it refuses to dissociate from the compromise view known as the Gap Theory. This was often associated with nonsense like pre-Adamites. Alas, Morris relied largely on the anthropology of the leading gappist Custance. He also went beyond the literal meaning of the Genesis text, which restricts the curse to Canaan, not Ham.



What piffle. Probably the world's leading creationist organization is Answers in Genesis, which has always strongly denounced racism. This includes refuting the view that interracial marriage is unbiblical www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4119.asp , at a time when the BJU compromisers still held that view.

Ah, I believe it's been said in this thread (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120865#post120865) that even Darwin did not believe that one could divide humans into distinct races.

BTW, that means that the "evolutionists" were ~100 years ahead of the creationist "mainstream" in repudiating slavery and racism. Darwin renounced both, see below: while the "christian" england seemed to embrace that stuff more than Darwin did, which disgusted him.

Anyway, allow me to quote (again!):
From Darwin's "Descent of Man" published in 1871, a dozen years after "Origin":

"But the most weighty of all the arguments against treating the races of man as distinct species, is that they graduate into each other, independently in many cases, as far as we can judge, of their having intercrossed. Man has been studied more carefully than any other animal, and yet there is the greatest possible diversity amongst capable judges whether he should be classed as a single species or race, or as two (Virey), as three (Jacquinot), as four (Kant), five (Blumenbach), six (Buffon), seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz), eleven (Pickering), fifteen (Bory de St-Vincent), sixteen (Desmoulins), twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawfurd), or as sixty-three, according to Burke. This diversity of judgment does not prove that the races ought not to be ranked as species, but it shews that they graduate into each other, and that it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive characters between them." (you do realize that all people thought like the first part of the last sentence above in Darwin’s time, but it’s Darwin’s observations that led him to say "it is hardly possible to discover distinictive character between them."

If evolution led to racism, why would the "founder" of modern evolutionary thought be going against racist ideas? Even more puzzling, why did other people before evolutionary theory came along believe in racism??

He also at one point referred to the slaves as his "brother" (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/oct02.html).
(something like that):


No it is not. The last remaining scientific creationist, during Darwin's day, Louis Agassiz was definitely a racist, but Darwin, and his family, had opposed slavery well before Darwin developed the theory of evolution, adopting the slogan "Am I [the slave} not a Man and a Brother?" and this did not change after he developed the theories for which he is famous. <~~Have to remember this statement for a reply to Captain Ochre in a different thread:


One thing that has led many to suppose Darwin was a racist is that he was definitely a Eurocentrist. He, like many of his contemporaries, took it as an article of faith that the British, and more specifically the English, civilisation was the very pinnacle of civilisation, and that the indigenous peoples of the colonised world were "savages".

In modern terms, this is "culturist", not racist. However, since the very notion of "race" in the human species is culturally defined, to that extent, and that extent only, one might call Darwin racist. In so doing, one would have to call everyone who thinks their society is better than others to be racist.

It's interesting you seem to have kept ignoring that fact in that thread, and here, you've shown you're still ignoring these kind of statements from Darwin. Why?


Oh, yeah. Organic evolution doesn't justify or go against anything, anymore than chemistry "justifies" blowing things up using the chemical dynamite.

[Bald Ape]

Captain Ochre,

My apologies for not making it more clear in my posts that I am referring to you - I'll work on making that more evident.

I think your position will become much more clear to me if you could differentiate these three statements:

1) Mary put on ten pounds. In doing so, she became more successful than her skinny friend, with respect to gravity.
2) Mary bore 3 children. In doing so, she became more successful than her childless friend, with respect to evolution.
3) Mary took all of the clothes out of her closet, and scattered them all over the floor. In doing so, she became more successful than her organized friend with respect to entropy.

EDITTED:

Basically, it seems like you feel #2 is a statement of more significance than #1 or #3; that success w.r.t. evolution is some sort of holy grail, but I've not seen any reasons WHY you feel that way.

[Joe Meert]

Meert, stick to geology :poke: You talk such tripe about &quot;his own deluded interpretation of the bible&quot;. Document this, or find something else to rant about :rant:. And while you're at it, refute the extensive documentation that Donovan compiled at Nuremberg for the Nazis' intent to exterminate Christianity. Not to mention that Hitler was merely applying the Darwinist ideas to society that the German academics of the time were recommending.

JM: How about you stick to chemistry? You've simply repeated the same nonsense over and over in the hopes that someone will find it important. Yours is nothing more than an unscholarly attempt to link Hitler with evolution. You do this with the hope that even a remote connection to a madman will cause others to think that evolution is crazy. Interesting debate tactic, but about as useful as a lone pawn and a king against a queen, king, two bishops, a knight and two rooks. You might get an amateur opponent to resign the game, but it's not likely anyone with a modicum of chess savvy would resign.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 06:13 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=125577#post125577)
Bald Ape:

Captain Ochre,

My apologies for not making it more clear in my posts that I am referring to you - I'll work on making that more evident.

I think your position will become much more clear to me if you could differentiate these three statements:

1) Mary put on ten pounds. In doing so, she became more successful than her skinny friend, with respect to gravity.
2) Mary bore 3 children. In doing so, she became more successful than her childless friend, with respect to evolution.
3) Mary took all of the clothes out of her closet, and scattered them all over the floor. In doing so, she became more successful than her organized friend with respect to entropy.

EDITTED:

Basically, it seems like you feel #2 is a statement of more significance than #1 or #3; that success w.r.t. evolution is some sort of holy grail, but I've not seen any reasons WHY you feel that way.

If you haven't seen any reasons why I feel that way, then why do you feel that I think that way?

Seems to me that I have been extremely clear on the point that science does not inculcate any sort of values. Let's say that Mary wants to get rid of her extra 10 pounds and she makes use of various applications of physical science to increase her metabolism and lose the weight. Mary provides the values, science points to the technology.
Let's say that Mary become a fing schwing enthusiast (fing schwing=home squalor improves psychological health) and employs some "scientific" method of achieving a simulation of randomness.
Again, Mary provides the values, and science provides the technology.

Explain to me how Hitler's application of population dynamics is less appropriate than the ones above?

[Bald Ape]

If we can agree that Hitler's application of "population dynamics" falls into the same category as the 9-11 terrorists application of aerodynamics, I think we actually have very little to disagree upon. If you are merely defending the fact that Darwin was responsible for the Holocaust in the way the Wright brothers were responsible for the WTC attacks, then I retract myself entirely from the discussion.

[The Barbarian]

You think that Joe is quite correct that science cannot scientifically distinguish the races.

Yes. That's true.



Joe's view is contradictory, and here's why:In the gradualistic evolutionary continuum of life, changes occur in population gradually over time. Thus, all divisions between populations along the line of inheritance are artificial. You could tell that organism A doesn't mate with organism G, but you would find (perhaps) that organism D does mate with organism A, yet not with organism G, yet D is genetically as similar to G as it is to A.

In the real world, there are "fitness peaks" that favor particular assortments of alleles, and the intermediates tend to die out, because they are less fit. It's true that we can, over time, show very gradual changes in organisms, but at any given time, there are few populations that cannot be placed in distinct species.


As I pointed out to Joe (with substantiation), the very term "species" on which he earlier tried to rest his case is ultimately as slippery as the term "race".

Yes, it's one of the best arguments for evolution. Usually, we see distinct species, but there's almost always a few cases where there are half-species and quarter-species, and so on.


Both are terms of convenience used (at one time or another) by scientists, and both have trouble with differentiation criteria. The same may be said of all biological classifications.

That's not the reason scientists know there isn't any biological entity as human races. (races exist, but only as cultural constructs; there are varying numbers of races, depending on the culture that defines them)

And these cultural "races" have more variance within them than they have between them. About 15% of variance is attributable to differences in populations, and about 85% is attributable to differences within populations. In other words, you are as likely to be a close genetic match to a New Guinea highlander as you are to your next door neighbor.

But it doesn't end there. Geneticist Luigi Calvari-Sforza has been studying the differences in alleles between and among human populations for a long time. Depending on what characteristics you chose, you can sort all sorts of diverse people into the same or different "races".

In "The Great Human Diasporas", he shows how Europe can be sorted into gradients of genes in several different directions. One shows differences due to the spread of Neolithic agriculturalists from the Middle East. Another, contradictory gradient shows the spread of Indo-Europeans. Another, the movement of the Uralic peoples, and so on.

Depending on what you chose, you can have any mix you like. For example, Khoi-San from South Africa have genetic similarities to North Asians. Melanesians, some South American tribes, and Africans fit in another scheme. Euopeans and Africans are a single "race" in yet another.

Barbarian observes:
But neither I nor anyone else can identify who is a Jew or who is not.
”

If I identify Jews on the basis of ideology, no. If I identify Jews on the basis of phenotype, then yes I can, just like I can tell a Maine Coon from a Norwegian Forest Cat even if they're of the same species (and they are).

I'm impressed. Tell me about the "Jewish phenotype".

Barbarian asks:
Since you seem to equate race to hair color, perhaps you couild tell me the skin color and hair color of a Jew.


So you missed the point, then?

Those aren't the phenotypes you had in mind? Which ones were you thinking of?

Barbarian:
Science does not distinguish humans into races. Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races.
("races" here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well)

Barbarian:
I'm just observing that they cannot be used to identify "races".


That's an assertion, not an observation.

Nope. An observation. Here's a discussion of the question with regard to Jews:

"At the present time, it is known that Eastern European Jews have a significant Eastern Mediterranean element which manifests itself in a close relationship with Kurdish, Armenian, Palestinian Arab, Lebanese, Syrian, and Anatolian Turkish peoples. At the same time, there are traces of European (including Western Slavic) and Khazar ancestry among European Jews. Ethiopian Jews mostly descend from Ethiopian Africans who converted to Judaism, but may also be related to a lesser extent to Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Jews descend from Arabs and Israelites. North African Jewish and Kurdish Jewish paternal lineages come from Israelites. "

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

So some Jews are closest to Europeans, and some are closest genetically to Arab, Turkish, and Caucasian peoples. And Eithiopian Jews are another story. So are the Jews living in China, who are descended from Israelites, but are genetically indistinguishable from other Chinese.

Barbarian observes:
The Nazis went through a great deal of foolishness about how to tell a Jew from varous characteristics. But the Germans and German Jews were genetically more like each other than European and Asian Jews were like each other.


So what?

So one can't tell a Jew by a "phenotype". They are generally like the people they live among, in that respect.


If a black Siamese is more like a Siamese than a black Maine Coon, does that mean that black Siamese cannot be distinguished from non-black Siamese?

Because they are genetically distinct and have less variation among each breed than between breeds. The opposite situation exists in humans.


What you would have to do is show that the "Jewish" (archetypical) phenotype had no foundation in the German group genotype in order to undermine the relevant scientific view of "race".

Nope. It's merely necessary to show that there is more variation among Jews that there is between Jews and other people. That is the case.


Your argument begs the question by airily dismissing the Nazi view of the Jew (that view is historically ludicrous, I'd admit, but there's nothing wrong with it in terms of scientific classification apart from the fact that it invokes something of an archetype--but the same could be said of animal breeding).

See above. It's based on genetic analysis of Jewish populations. There is nothing scientific at all about the idea of biological human races. They don't exist.

Barbarian observes:
It's because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for race. I think that current antiracist thinking was to some degree the result of such findings.


Antiracism is a value. Are you suggesting that science promotes a particular value?

Careful measurement is a value. So is a reliance on inferences based on evidence. Yep. Science does that. What science doesn't (can't and shouldn't) do is prescribe normative values. The fact that biological races don't exist doesn't in itself tell us anything about what we should do about racism.


If so, you're running against the strong thesis of this thread (and if so I predict that I'll end up showing hypocrisy on your part).

It's the result of not thinking rigorously about "values". And it's a little disheartening to have anyone get frustrated and abusive. Let's not do that in this thread, um?

Barbarian observes, concerning the assertion that science says it's as good to die as to live:
I know a lot of scientists. Believe me, they almost to a person, would prefer to go on living.


I took note of that via caveat in my original statement. The scientist has no scientific basis for his value judgement, however. Right?

It would be foolish to look to science for one's ethics or morals. I don't know of any scientists who does that.

Barbarian observes:
"Better" is not a scientific term with regard to organisms.. So science can't tell us about that. However scientists do make such judgements by other means. Most of them, for example, have no problem with sacrificing a lab animal, if potentially life-saving information can be gained thereby.


Right, because the practice of science itself is value-driven

Not for any scientist I know. It's curiosity. And it's fun.

Barbarian observes:
On the other hand, there are a number of prominent creationists who are racists. Henry Morris, who introducted YE creationism to modern evangelicals, has this to say about "Hamites":

(Morris says blacks are intellectually and spritiually inferior)


You had already mentioned Morris, as I recall. Now "a number" of prominent creationists are racists. Is Morris supposed to support that statement all by himself?

We could include Bob Jones, whose University only recently ended overt and institutionalized racial discrimination. The philosophy at Bob Jones was that God created separate races, and men were obligated to keep them apart.

"We believe that the Lord God created races with distinctions and that races are meant to be separate from one another. We basically accept that there are three races: Caucasians, Negroes and Orientals. Caucasians can't date Orientals. Orientals can't date Caucasians and neither of them can date Negroes." President of Bob Jones U.

Barbarian asks, regarding question about his other failings:
Would that make his racism more palatable to you?


I guess you missed the point, again?

I was wondering why you brought up another moral weakness regarding Morris.

Barbarian observes:
But when you look at the parts of the nation that most resisted equal rights for racists, and the parts of the nation that least supports evolution, they match up.

[quote]You're such a scientist! You should publish your findings in a science journal no, really, you should.
Don't forget to include your conclusion prominently:

Racism is a pervasive problem in the creationist movment, especially among the leadership.

Find me a prominent scientist, in the last 50 years who has called any race morally and spiritually inferior.

But we've digressed. The evidence is that the traditional "races" are merely cultural constructs.

http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/184.html

"The 15 percent is well below the threshold that is used to recognize race in other species," Templeton says. "In many other large mammalian species, we see rates of differentiation two or three times that of humans before the lineages are even recognized as races. Humans are one of the most genetically homogenous species we know of. There's lots of genetic variation in humanity, but it's basically at the individual level. The between-population variation is very, very minor." -Dr. Alan Templeton, who has done extensive genetic studies in human populations.

There's a lot more. Shall we leave off the racism material, and concentrate on the evidence?

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 02:56 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=126003#post126003)
Bald Ape:

If we can agree that Hitler's application of &quot;population dynamics&quot; falls into the same category as the 9-11 terrorists application of aerodynamics, I think we actually have very little to disagree upon.


In this matter I think you're correct to say that we disagree only a very little. However, you downplay the connection a bit too much with your analogy.
It's more the degree of responsibility that the Wright Brothers bear for inspiring aerial warfare, or nuclear scientists' responsibility for Hiroshima.



If you are merely defending the fact that Darwin was responsible for the Holocaust in the way the Wright brothers were responsible for the WTC attacks, then I retract myself entirely from the discussion.

Okay, so I blurted out my reply already.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 04:43 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=126057#post126057)
The Barbarian:

In the real world, there are &quot;fitness peaks&quot; that favor particular assortments of alleles, and the intermediates tend to die out, because they are less fit. It's true that we can, over time, show very gradual changes in organisms, but at any given time, there are few populations that cannot be placed in distinct species.


Will you affirm that you agree with what I wrote, then?



Yes, it's one of the best arguments for evolution. Usually, we see distinct species, but there's almost always a few cases where there are half-species and quarter-species, and so on.


No comment on Joe's misuse of and misunderstanding of evolution? Just the pro-evolutionary plug/red herring?



That's not the reason scientists know there isn't any biological entity as human races. (races exist, but only as cultural constructs; there are varying numbers of races, depending on the culture that defines them)


Your subsequent words fail to support those above.



And these cultural &quot;races&quot; have more variance within them than they have between them. About 15% of variance is attributable to differences in populations, and about 85% is attributable to differences within populations. In other words, you are as likely to be a close genetic match to a New Guinea highlander as you are to your next door neighbor.



But it doesn't end there. Geneticist Luigi Calvari-Sforza has been studying the differences in alleles between and among human populations for a long time. Depending on what characteristics you chose, you can sort all sorts of diverse people into the same or different &quot;races&quot;.


Either you misspelled the poor chap's name, or your notable geneticist labors in lamentable anonymity.
How about a citation? Oh, nevermind, the title mention below helped considerably.
http://dannyreviews.com/h/The_Great_Human_Diasporas.html
The Lewontin link leads to what looks like a better source work, to me.



In &quot;The Great Human Diasporas&quot;, he shows how Europe can be sorted into gradients of genes in several different directions. One shows differences due to the spread of Neolithic agriculturalists from the Middle East. Another, contradictory gradient shows the spread of Indo-Europeans. Another, the movement of the Uralic peoples, and so on.

Depending on what you chose, you can have any mix you like. For example, Khoi-San from South Africa have genetic similarities to North Asians. Melanesians, some South American tribes, and Africans fit in another scheme. Euopeans and Africans are a single &quot;race&quot; in yet another.


What exactly have I written that you think you're disagreeing with via the above?


Barbarian observes:
But neither I nor anyone else can identify who is a Jew or who is not.
”


I'm impressed. Tell me about the &quot;Jewish phenotype&quot;.


Why? Did you intentionally miss the point? Cat breeders sometimes end up with a kitten that has a particular look that is unusual. They can commonly breed to develop and refine that appearance. The same is true in principle of humans. Want to go on record denying it?
It doesn't matter what the archetype of Jewish appearance was in actuality, and correspondence to Jewish cutural practices is entirely irrelevant if the notion of racial purity is taken at face value (no pun intended).
You can amuse yourself with these, if you wish:
http://www.mumi.org/etranger/en/st5.htm
http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Educational_Resources/Curriculum/Broken_Threads/Propaganda/propaganda.html
http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/works/1910s/arejewsarace/ch02.htm




Barbarian asks:
Since you seem to equate race to hair color, perhaps you couild tell me the skin color and hair color of a Jew.

Those aren't the phenotypes you had in mind? Which ones were you thinking of?


The one alluded to by Hitler. Try not to neglect the parallel to domesticated animals.

Here are a few marginally related links:
http://www1.umn.edu/urelate/newsservice/newsreleases/02_03duster.html
http://www.llcc.edu/gtruitt/SCJ%20251%20Fall%202002%20Start%20Page/251/more%20on%20genome.htm
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9172.html

I wonder if cat breeds are genetically indistiguishable as are various human races? Have comparisons been made?



Barbarian:
Science does not distinguish humans into races. Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races.
(&quot;races&quot; here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well)


Science has distinguished races one from another, and may do so yet again.
Science is dynamic that way.



Barbarian:
I'm just observing that they cannot be used to identify &quot;races&quot;.


At least not currently, but genetic uniqueness of races isn't at all necessary to an argument like that of the Nazis since it was based on archetypes that provided a blueprint for selective breeding regardless of genetic groupings.



Nope. An observation. Here's a discussion of the question with regard to Jews:

&quot;At the present time, it is known that Eastern European Jews have a significant Eastern Mediterranean element which manifests itself in a close relationship with Kurdish, Armenian, Palestinian Arab, Lebanese, Syrian, and Anatolian Turkish peoples. At the same time, there are traces of European (including Western Slavic) and Khazar ancestry among European Jews. Ethiopian Jews mostly descend from Ethiopian Africans who converted to Judaism, but may also be related to a lesser extent to Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Jews descend from Arabs and Israelites. North African Jewish and Kurdish Jewish paternal lineages come from Israelites. &quot;

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

So some Jews are closest to Europeans, and some are closest genetically to Arab, Turkish, and Caucasian peoples. And Eithiopian Jews are another story. So are the Jews living in China, who are descended from Israelites, but are genetically indistinguishable from other Chinese.


Haven't you conveniently returned to an ideological/traditional conception of Judaism, which leads you to beg the question with respect to the Nazi conception of the Jew?



Barbarian observes:
The Nazis went through a great deal of foolishness about how to tell a Jew from varous characteristics. But the Germans and German Jews were genetically more like each other than European and Asian Jews were like each other.


And the significance of this is supposed to be (see above)?



So one can't tell a Jew by a &quot;phenotype&quot;. They are generally like the people they live among, in that respect.


Who said you could tell a Jew by phenotype? I've been saying that the Nazis identified Jews according to an archetype, which would be phenotypically expressed. Can you not tell the difference? Drop your ideological/traditional conception of the Jew or you'll never see things from the Nazi perspective (not that you should buy it if you did).



Because they are genetically distinct and have less variation among each breed than between breeds. The opposite situation exists in humans.


You didn't answer the question, and I don't believe that your supposed answer is the product of either research or accumulated knowledge. IOW, citation?



Nope. It's merely necessary to show that there is more variation among Jews that there is between Jews and other people. That is the case.


Bzzt. You're defining Jews according to Jewish custom or according to ideology, right?



See above. It's based on genetic analysis of Jewish populations.


Uh-huh, and how do you know the populations are Jewish to begin with?



There is nothing scientific at all about the idea of biological human races. They don't exist.


Hyperbole.



Barbarian observes:
It's because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for race. I think that current antiracist thinking was to some degree the result of such findings.


I think that it's somewhat more likely that current antiracist thinking was the impetus for such findings, or at least for the significance attributed to them.




Careful measurement is a value.


In the form "measurements should be done with care", yes.



So is a reliance on inferences based on evidence.


In the form "inferences should be based on evidence" yes.
Otherwise, they may be merely brute facts.



Yep. Science does that. What science doesn't (can't and shouldn't) do is prescribe normative values.


Should careful measurement and inference based on evidence be the norm in science?
Like I said, the very practice of science is value-laden.



The fact that biological races don't exist doesn't in itself tell us anything about what we should do about racism.


I'll let that one pass.



It's the result of not thinking rigorously about &quot;values&quot;. And it's a little disheartening to have anyone get frustrated and abusive. Let's not do that in this thread, um?


Projection, much?



Not for any scientist I know. It's curiosity. And it's fun.


"It's good to satisfy my curiosity."
"It's good to have fun by practicing science."

Barbarian observes:
On the other hand, there are a number of prominent creationists who are racists. Henry Morris, who introducted YE creationism to modern evangelicals, has this to say about &quot;Hamites&quot;:

(Morris says blacks are intellectually and spritiually inferior)

We could include Bob Jones, whose University only recently ended overt and institutionalized racial discrimination. The philosophy at Bob Jones was that God created separate races, and men were obligated to keep them apart.
[/QUOTE]

Bob Jones is dead, just like Haeckel is dead, only Haeckel was one who studied and acted on the forefront advocating evolution while Jones, I believe, was merely mildly famous adherent of Creationism. Did you just give me permission to cite racist celebrities who happen to believe in evolution?

"No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man."



Barbarian asks, regarding question about his other failings:
Would that make his racism more palatable to you?

I was wondering why you brought up another moral weakness regarding Morris.


Missed the point, iow? I notice a pattern, fwiw.
You maintain your preconceived notions without apparently noticing when they get challenged. In certain recent instances, anyway.



Find me a prominent scientist, in the last 50 years who has called any race morally and spiritually inferior.


Heh. How did I acquire that burden of proof? Is there even time to challenge each of your assertions?



But we've digressed. The evidence is that the traditional &quot;races&quot; are merely cultural constructs.


Point being? Are Aryans and Jews "traditional" races?




&quot;The 15 percent is well below the threshold that is used to recognize race in other species,&quot;


Suddenly "race" is a scientific notion again, and humans don't meet the scientific threshold used of other animal types. Is it possible to develop specific human breeds as with other animals?



Templeton says. &quot;In many other large mammalian species, we see rates of differentiation two or three times that of humans before the lineages are even recognized as races. Humans are one of the most genetically homogenous species we know of. There's lots of genetic variation in humanity, but it's basically at the individual level. The between-population variation is very, very minor.&quot; -Dr. Alan Templeton, who has done extensive genetic studies in human populations.

There's a lot more. Shall we leave off the racism material, and concentrate on the evidence?

Sure. I'm interested in your evidence that genetic variation of breeds is less than genetic variation between various phenotypic groupings of humans.

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
In the real world, there are "fitness peaks" that favor particular assortments of alleles, and the intermediates tend to die out, because they are less fit. It's true that we can, over time, show very gradual changes in organisms, but at any given time, there are few populations that cannot be placed in distinct species.


Will you affirm that you agree with what I wrote, then?

Depends on what it is you wrote.

Barbarian on the gradual nature of speciation:
Yes, it's one of the best arguments for evolution. Usually, we see distinct species, but there's almost always a few cases where there are half-species and quarter-species, and so on.


No comment on Joe's misuse of and misunderstanding of evolution?

I didn't comment on the color of unicorns, either. For the same reason.


Just the pro-evolutionary plug/red herring?

If you didn't want to know about it, why bring it up?

Barbarian observes:
That's not the reason scientists know there isn't any biological entity as human races. (races exist, but only as cultural constructs; there are varying numbers of races, depending on the culture that defines them)

Barbarian observes:
And these cultural "races" have more variance within them than they have between them. About 15% of variance is attributable to differences in populations, and about 85% is attributable to differences within populations. In other words, you are as likely to be a close genetic match to a New Guinea highlander as you are to your next door neighbor.

But it doesn't end there. Geneticist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza has been studying the differences in alleles between and among human populations for a long time. Depending on what characteristics you chose, you can sort all sorts of diverse people into the same or different "races".


How about a citation?

Ah, typo. Cavalli-Sforza. Here:

"The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise." "The idea of race in the human species serves no purpose." (The History and Geography of Human Genes)

In "The Great Human Diasporas", he shows how Europe can be sorted into gradients of genes in several different directions. One shows differences due to the spread of Neolithic agriculturalists from the Middle East. Another, contradictory gradient shows the spread of Indo-Europeans. Another, the movement of the Uralic peoples, and so on.

Depending on what you chose, you can have any mix you like. For example, Khoi-San from South Africa have genetic similarities to North Asians. Melanesians, some South American tribes, and Africans fit in another scheme. Euopeans and Africans are a single "race" in yet another.


What exactly have I written that you think you're disagreeing with via the above?

If "race" can be whatever you want it to be, by selecting the genes you want, then "race" as a biological entity does not exist. It is merely a cultural construct. If you accept that fact, then we have no disagreement.

Barbarian observes:
But neither I nor anyone else can identify who is a Jew or who is not.

I'm impressed. Tell me about the "Jewish phenotype".


Why?

Because you told me there is such a thing. I'd like to hear about it.


Did you intentionally miss the point?

The point is, I'd like to hear about the Jewish phenotype. You asserted that there is such a thing. What is it?


Cat breeders sometimes end up with a kitten that has a particular look that is unusual. They can commonly breed to develop and refine that appearance. The same is true in principle of humans. Want to go on record denying it?

So there is no phenotype for breeds of cat, because of the occasional mutation or cross-breed? No, that's demonstrably wrong.


It doesn't matter what the archetype of Jewish appearance was in actuality, and correspondence to Jewish cutural practices is entirely irrelevant if the notion of racial purity is taken at face value (no pun intended).

In other words, you can't tell a Jew by a "phenotype" after all. Surprise, surprise.

Barbarian asks:
Since you seem to equate race to hair color, perhaps you couild tell me the skin color and hair color of a Jew.

Those aren't the phenotypes you had in mind? Which ones were you thinking of?


The one alluded to by Hitler.

Hitler knew what the Jewish phenotype is? Tell me about it, and on what evidence besides his endorsement you believe it to be true.

Barbarian:
Science does not distinguish humans into races. Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races.
("races" here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well)


Science has distinguished races one from another, and may do so yet again. Science is dynamic that way.[/wuote]

I have Carlton Coon's work on races in humans. He made some rather egregious errors, because he did not have genetic information at the time. Science now rejects the notion of human races, because there is more variation within any racial scheme than between the "races". Cavalli-Sforza has devoted a lifetime to finding the differences in genes between populations, and he can't find any evidence for biological races in humans.

Barbarian observes:
I'm just observing that they cannot be used to identify "races".

[quote]At least not currently, but genetic uniqueness of races isn't at all necessary to an argument like that of the Nazis since it was based on archetypes that provided a blueprint for selective breeding regardless of genetic groupings.

Nazi racial theories like "archtypes" were complete hooey. There's no evidence that any of their "racial science" had any basis in reality at all.

Barbarian observes:
Nope. An observation. Here's a discussion of the question with regard to Jews:

"At the present time, it is known that Eastern European Jews have a significant Eastern Mediterranean element which manifests itself in a close relationship with Kurdish, Armenian, Palestinian Arab, Lebanese, Syrian, and Anatolian Turkish peoples. At the same time, there are traces of European (including Western Slavic) and Khazar ancestry among European Jews. Ethiopian Jews mostly descend from Ethiopian Africans who converted to Judaism, but may also be related to a lesser extent to Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Jews descend from Arabs and Israelites. North African Jewish and Kurdish Jewish paternal lineages come from Israelites. "

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

So some Jews are closest to Europeans, and some are closest genetically to Arab, Turkish, and Caucasian peoples. And Eithiopian Jews are another story. So are the Jews living in China, who are descended from Israelites, but are genetically indistinguishable from other Chinese.


Haven't you conveniently returned to an ideological/traditional conception of Judaism, which leads you to beg the question with respect to the Nazi conception of the Jew?

Nope. Judaism is a religion. Cultural construct, not a race. As you see, there is no "Jewish phenotype". I'd still like to see what you think it is, though. You said you could tell them by phenotype. Tell me about it.

Barbarian observes:
The Nazis went through a great deal of foolishness about how to tell a Jew from varous characteristics. But the Germans and German Jews were genetically more like each other than European and Asian Jews were like each other.


And the significance of this is supposed to be (see above)?

There is no Jewish phenotype. Like other "races", it's a cultural construct, not a biological entity.

Barbarian observes:
So one can't tell a Jew by a "phenotype". They are generally like the people they live among, in that respect.


Who said you could tell a Jew by phenotype? I've been saying that the Nazis identified Jews according to an archetype, which would be phenotypically expressed.

"Would be." The subjunctive is the proper way to express that idea. Pigs would live in trees, if they would just fly.


Can you not tell the difference? Drop your ideological/traditional conception of the Jew or you'll never see things from the Nazi perspective (not that you should buy it if you did).

There is no such thing as a Jew in a biological sense. They are genetically most like the other people among which they live.

Barbarian on the biological existence of breeds and races in other animals:
Because they are genetically distinct and have less variation among each breed than between breeds. The opposite situation exists in humans.


You didn't answer the question,

I certainly answered the one you asked. Perhaps you'd like to clarify what you wanted?


and I don't believe that your supposed answer is the product of either research or accumulated knowledge. IOW, citation?

Cavalli-Sforza:
"In fact, we find that any population, however small, has enormous genetic variation; on average, one finds 85% of the total human variation is within populations, and only 15% between. We therefore cannot use for the comparison of different human populations the same measure of genetic distance useful for comparing different species."

By comparison, here's an article on dogs, showing rather surprisingly large variation between breeds:

http://www.mnh.si.edu/GeneticsLab/StaffPage/MaldonadoJ/PublicationsCV/Heredity_Dog_Paper_1999.pdf

Barbarian on the notion of a Jewish phenotype:
Nope. It's merely necessary to show that there is more variation among Jews that there is between Jews and other people. That is the case.


Bzzt. You're defining Jews according to Jewish custom or according to ideology, right?

Nope. I'm pointing out that there is no "Jewish phenotype". If you doubt that, show it to me.


See above. It's based on genetic analysis of Jewish populations.


Uh-huh, and how do you know the populations are Jewish to begin with?

They are Jewish. Remember, races are a cultural construct. "Jewish to begin with" has no meaning in science.

Barbarian observes:
There is nothing scientific at all about the idea of biological human races. They don't exist.


Hyperbole.

Nope. Inference from evidence. The people who have spent a lifetime studying the question have concluded that they don't exist.

Barbarian observes:
It's because recent genetic discoveries have shown that there is no biological basis for race. I think that current antiracist thinking was to some degree the result of such findings.


I think that it's somewhat more likely that current antiracist thinking was the impetus for such findings, or at least for the significance attributed to them.

Doesn't seem like it. Before we could do analyses of races in a rigorous way, scientists thought races were biological entities. Then, as genetic analyses came on line, scientists have moved to conclude that they are not biologically real. Seems like good evidence for my understanding.

Barbarian observes that careful measurement is a value.

So is a reliance on inferences based on evidence.


In the form "inferences should be based on evidence" yes.
Otherwise, they may be merely brute facts.

No.

Barbarian notes regarding "values":
Yep. Science does that. What science doesn't (can't and shouldn't) do is prescribe normative values.


Should careful measurement and inference based on evidence be the norm in science?

Because the colloquial uses of "norm" and "value" are so vague, one can confuse produdural values, like careful measurement and inference, with normative values such as honesty.

If you let this happen, you will be constantly misled.


Like I said, the very practice of science is value-laden.

Procedural values, yes. Normative values, no.

Barbarian observes:
The fact that biological races don't exist doesn't in itself tell us anything about what we should do about racism.


I'll let that one pass.

Wise move.

Barbarian on implications of "hypocrisy":
It's the result of not thinking rigorously about "values". And it's a little disheartening to have anyone get frustrated and abusive. Let's not do that in this thread, um?


Projection, much?

Hmmm... I don't think it was me that implied someone was a "hypocrite".... no, it wasn't.

Barbarian on the motivations of scientists:
Not for any scientist I know. It's curiosity. And it's fun.


"It's good to satisfy my curiosity."
"It's good to have fun by practicing science."

I don't know of any scientists who care whether it's good or not. In fact, most of us probably did things as kids that got us in trouble over that curiosity. I know I did.

Barbarian observes:
On the other hand, there are a number of prominent creationists who are racists. Henry Morris, who introducted YE creationism to modern evangelicals, has this to say about "Hamites":

(Morris says blacks are intellectually and spritiually inferior)

We could include Bob Jones, whose University only recently ended overt and institutionalized racial discrimination. The philosophy at Bob Jones was that God created separate races, and men were obligated to keep them apart.


Bob Jones is dead,

Actually, Bob Jones III is still around, and until 2000, still practiced racism at Bob Jones U.


just like Haeckel is dead, only Haeckel was one who studied and acted on the forefront advocating evolution while Jones, I believe, was merely mildly famous adherent of Creationism. Did you just give me permission to cite racist celebrities who happen to believe in evolution?

Haeckle has been dead a long time. As I said, scientists abandoned racism, even the concept of biological race in humans, because the evidence eventually showed that there was no such thing. It's not that scientists are morally superior to other people; it's just that they recognize that there are no biological races.


"No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man."

Science moves on. There's no more talk of phlogiston, either. For the same reason.

Barbarian asks, regarding question about his other failings:
Would that make his racism more palatable to you?

I was wondering why you brought up another moral weakness regarding Morris.


Missed the point, iow? I notice a pattern, fwiw.

So why did you ask about Morris' other possible failings? What does that have to do with his belief that blacks are inferior? What it has to do with his creationism, is that he cannot accept what science has learned.

Barbarian observes:
Find me a prominent scientist, in the last 50 years who has called any race morally and spiritually inferior.


Heh. How did I acquire that burden of proof? Is there even time to challenge each of your assertions?

Feel free to ignore it. I know of one, BTW, although he knew nothing of biology.


But we've digressed. The evidence is that the traditional "races" are merely cultural constructs.


Point being?

Missed the point,um? :D


Are Aryans and Jews "traditional" races?

If you're a Nazi, yes. Depends on the culture you're in.

"The 15 percent is well below the threshold that is used to recognize race in other species,"


Suddenly "race" is a scientific notion again, and humans don't meet the scientific threshold used of other animal types.

No, it's always been that way. There are races in many species. There's just not enough variation in human populations to justify the term.


Is it possible to develop specific human breeds as with other animals?

Not without draconian measures. Humans enjoy sharing genes. But it's perfectly possible in theory. It just hasn't happened recently. There have been, in the past different species of humans. But we are all remarkably homogenous in genes now.

Barbarian observes"
Templeton says. "In many other large mammalian species, we see rates of differentiation two or three times that of humans before the lineages are even recognized as races. Humans are one of the most genetically homogenous species we know of. There's lots of genetic variation in humanity, but it's basically at the individual level. The between-population variation is very, very minor." -Dr. Alan Templeton, who has done extensive genetic studies in human populations.

There's a lot more. Shall we leave off the racism material, and concentrate on the evidence? ”


Sure. I'm interested in your evidence that genetic variation of breeds is less than genetic variation between various phenotypic groupings of humans.

See the link. I gather that the assertion of a "Jewish phenotype" is dead. If not, let me know what it is.

[The Barbarian]

Bump. I'd like to see what the answers are.

[Captain Ochre]

“ Will you affirm that you agree with what I wrote, then? ”

Depends on what it is you wrote.

I wrote the sentence that you replied to. When you reply to what I wrote with apparently the same thing in different words, I begin to wonder what point you’re trying to make.


If you didn't want to know about it, why bring it up?

Firstly, to highlight the fact that the Nazi program was a viable evolutionary strategy; secondly, to respond to Joe’s errors in his response.I doubt that Joe has anything to teach me about evolution, and I’m simply responding to you to explain how you’ve missed the point compared to some others.


Barbarian observes:That's not the reason scientists know there isn't any biological entity as human races. (races exist, but only as cultural constructs; there are varying numbers of races, depending on the culture that defines them)

“Species” suffers the same problem, as I demonstrated early on, and you affirm that “race” is a scientific term with respect to other animal groups.


Barbarian observes:And these cultural "races" have more variance within them than they have between them. About 15% of variance is attributable to differences in populations, and about 85% is attributable to differences within populations. In other words, you are as likely to be a close genetic match to a New Guinea highlander as you are to your next door neighbor.But it doesn't end there. Geneticist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza has been studying the differences in alleles between and among human populations for a long time. Depending on what characteristics you chose, you can sort all sorts of diverse people into the same or different "races".

Your two paragraphs somewhat contradict in terms of responding to what I’ve written. In the former, you’re referring to the major racial groups that are irrelevant with respect to the racial issue vis-à-vis “Aryan” vs. “Jewish”.In the second, you’re affirming that I could genetically group all sorts of diverse people into races (albeit using the term differently than genetic scientists are currently using it, but it happens to be the case that the term has shifted in meaning since the days of WWII and prior).So, you’re bordering on an error of anachronism with your counter-argument while also providing evidentiary support in favor of the Nazi program, since most (of your experts) would affirm that the German population was where we should find “85 percent” of genetic variation, rather than between the Germans and, say, New Zealand Highlanders.


Here:"The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise." "The idea of race in the human species serves no purpose." (The History and Geography of Human Genes)

(T)o argue that race has no basis inbiology can be challenged and therefore, callsfor a real debate, not wishful thinking.
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:TfebOoIgP7oJ:www.nmanet.org/9p0403000309.pdf+human+genome+racial&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-02/sumc-sbe021203.php
http://www.applesforhealth.com/HealthyFeatures/dnsrrd4.html
http://www.llcc.edu/gtruitt/SCJ%20251%20Fall%202002%20Start%20Page/251/more%20on%20genome.htm




If "race" can be whatever you want it to be, by selecting the genes you want, then "race" as a biological entity does not exist.

Poppycock. You’d be saying that if I designated sickle-cell carriers as a race, then there would be no genetic basis for race. That should be obviously false. Race, species, and all the rest of it are categorizations created by the observers, and if I define it according to phenotype (as the Nazis did), then the designation (by definition) exists as a biological entity, albeit possibly only as an ideal (or archetype).


It is merely a cultural construct. If you accept that fact, then we have no disagreement.

Actually, we do have disagreement. I pointed out early on that species is an arbitrary grouping (just as race happens to be) in terms of science. Just because such groupings are arbitrarily chosen doesn’t mean that objective scientific criteria are not used to differentiate those categories.


Barbarian observes:But neither I nor anyone else can identify who is a Jew or who is not.

Your statement above is nonsense. :smile:
You mean to say that Jewishness (cultural) doesn’t correspond to Jewishness (genetic). Again, you’re overlooking the fact that the Nazis regarding Jewishness as a purely genetic phenomenon. Jews were Jews by breeding and nothing more, and the bloodline was regarded as generally impure and polluted, ftm. The Nazi genetic program amounted to “We want (multi-generational) natives who look like X to be preferred for reproductive success over natives who look like Y as well as (especially) immigrants who look like Y (the Jews). Quite simply, if this plan is followed, it will likely result in Germans who look like X whether you like it or not.


I'm impressed. Tell me about the "Jewish phenotype".
I’ve done so already, and do me the kindness of including my insistence on the concept of an archetype when you mention the Jewish phenotype that I recognize (it would also be nice if you would acknowledge the concept of the Jew held by the Nazis). Here’s more evidence of archetypical categorization, via cartoon propaganda.

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/images/diebow/cover.jpg

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/images/sturmer/sturm04.jpg

There are many more such examples. Had to shear away man of htem to get beneath the character limit.



Because you told me there is such a thing. I'd like to hear about it.

How about some drawings?See above.


So there is no phenotype for breeds of cat, because of the occasional mutation or cross-breed? No, that's demonstrably wrong.

Good, then the point I was making is correct, at least according to you.That doesn’t cause you to change your mind about the existence of phenotypic breeds in cats, does it?


“ It doesn't matter what the archetype of Jewish appearance was in actuality, and correspondence to Jewish cutural practices is entirely irrelevant if the notion of racial purity is taken at face value (no pun intended). ”

In other words, you can't tell a Jew by a "phenotype" after all. Surprise, surprise.

“Your skills as a translator” is an oxymoron. If you define Jews according to behaviors and appearance (particularly the latter), then you can have a phenotype even if you can’t find any specimens who have achieved “Grand Champion” ranking.The Nazis defined Jewishness according to physical characteristics (in the broad scientific sense). Your response to this has been to naively and self-righteously scold them: “Now, you can’t do that*.”*paraphrased




Hitler knew what the Jewish phenotype is?

In terms of archetype, most assuredly. He was aware of Nazi propaganda, after all.


Tell me about it, and on what evidence besides his endorsement you believe it to be true.

I’ve told you about it, and you don’t get it.Apparently that leaves you with little choice but to torment me with little straw men, irrelevancies, and contrarian arguments by assertion.


Barbarian:Science does not distinguish humans into races.

Some scientists do, and some scientists do not. “Science” per se issues no value judgments, so science does not distinguish between species, either.


Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races.("races" here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well)

As it is in America today, let it also be in pre-War Germany. :wink:


Nazi racial theories like "archtypes" were complete hooey. There's no evidence that any of their "racial science" had any basis in reality at all.

Isn’t it you who admits that breeding humans for desirable characteristics is most definitely possible in principle?Your claims are in conflict.


http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.htmlSo some Jews are closest to Europeans, and some are closest genetically to Arab, Turkish, and Caucasian peoples. And Eithiopian Jews are another story. So are the Jews living in China, who are descended from Israelites, but are genetically indistinguishable from other Chinese.“


Haven't you conveniently returned to an ideological/traditional conception of Judaism, which leads you to beg the question with respect to the Nazi conception of the Jew? ”



Nope. Judaism is a religion. Cultural construct, not a race.

Once again, you respond to the contrary while agreeing with what I wrote.


As you see, there is no "Jewish phenotype". I'd still like to see what you think it is, though. You said you could tell them by phenotype. Tell me about it.

I said that I can identify them by phenotype if they are phenotypically defined. Weren’t you paying attention? Now you want me to accept a cultural conception of “Jew” and identify that according to phenotype—isn’t that right?If you’re moving those goalposts on purpose, then you should be ashamed of yourself.


There is no Jewish phenotype. Like other "races", it's a cultural construct, not a biological entity.


There is no such thing as a Jew in a biological sense. They are genetically most like the other people among which they live.

You’re never going to realize your error, are you?


Cavalli-Sforza:"In fact, we find that any population, however small, has enormous genetic variation; on average, one finds 85% of the total human variation is within populations, and only 15% between. We therefore cannot use for the comparison of different human populations the same measure of genetic distance useful for comparing different species."By comparison, here's an article on dogs, showing rather surprisingly large variation between breeds:
http://www.mnh.si.edu/GeneticsLab/S..._Paper_1999.pdf

The old “apples and oranges” trick, eh? Cavalli-Sforza is referring to the (current trend of) scientific standards for species, while the other link notes the unusually percentage of genetic variation among dog breeds compared to other species. So, perhaps my example (canines) wasn’t the best choice, but your suggested comparison appears entirely irrelevant in any case.



(Captain Ochre)“Uh-huh, and how do you know the populations are Jewish to begin with? ”

They are Jewish. Remember, races are a cultural construct. "Jewish to begin with" has no meaning in science.

“They are Jewish.” The answer that begs the question.“Remember, races are a cultural construct.” The explanation that disputes the Nazi view by asserting the contrary.“’Jewish to begin with’” has no meaning in science.” The statement that underscores the difficulty of procuring a control group that enables science to show that genetics has no correlation to Jewishness—except that a scientist can observe who claims what sorts of beliefs, but that just send us back to the preceding problem left unresolved by Barbarian.



Nope. Inference from evidence. The people who have spent a lifetime studying the question have concluded that they don't exist.

”Darwin had already recognized the difficulty of a rational classification of races in what is almost a perfect continuum, and noted the futility of racial classifications, given the enormous variety of numbers and definitions of races which different taxonomists have traditionally offered, from two to more than one hundred. The current trend to increased admixture can only make races even less clear.” http://www.balzan.it/english/pb1999/cavalli/paper.htm

If increased admixture can only make races less clear, then what effect would you expect segregation & proscription of admixture to have on the “races”?


“ I think that it's somewhat more likely that current antiracist thinking was the impetus for such findings, or at least for the significance attributed to them. ”

Doesn't seem like it. Before we could do analyses of races in a rigorous way, scientists thought races were biological entities. Then, as genetic analyses came on line, scientists have moved to conclude that they are not biologically real. Seems like good evidence for my understanding.

Think again. Genetic study indicates that a very small portion of your DNA (by percentage) contributes to your appearance. Thus, any variation in appearance dictated by genetics is biologically real. The antiracism pressure causes some scientists to pooh-pooh the biological foundation for race based simply on the fact that such differences are manifested based on a small percentage of the entire genetic picture. I daresay that genetic isolation resulting in speciation could stem from a single mutation constituting a tiny percentage of the entire precursor species genome.

http://quartz.ucdavis.edu/~GEL3/modeofspeciation.html

http://www.biology.lsa.umich.edu/courses/bio162/s03n30.htm


"In the form "inferences should be based on evidence" yes.Otherwise, they may be merely brute facts.”

No.

“No” what?



"Should careful measurement and inference based on evidence be the norm in science?

Because the colloquial uses of "norm" and "value" are so vague, one can confuse produdural values, like careful measurement and inference, with normative values such as honesty. If you let this happen, you will be constantly misled.

I think that you have misled yourself by creating categories that you cannot coherently distinguish from one another. “Careful measurement” is a procedural value, eh? Is “careless measurement” a procedural value also? If scientists should prefer one to the other, then hasn’t a prescriptive norm been established (a moral valuation, in effect)?


“ Like I said, the very practice of science is value-laden. ”

Procedural values, yes. Normative values, no.

I think that you’ve allowed yourself to be confused by the fact that “normative values” can have more than one meaning. I’m using the term consistently, and you appear to be imposing your own interpretation on what I say, in accordance with a different conception of “normative values". Perhaps that’s our conversation in microcosm.


Barbarian on implications of "hypocrisy":It's the result of not thinking rigorously about "values". And it's a little disheartening to have anyone get frustrated and abusive. Let's not do that in this thread, um?"

"Projection, much?"

Hmmm... I don't think it was me that implied someone was a "hypocrite".... no, it wasn't.

So, if I point out that you have an inconsistency between prescription and practice, therefore I am getting "frustrated and abusive"?
Maybe we should call you Doctor Barbarian . . .



I don't know of any scientists who care whether it's good or not. In fact, most of us probably did things as kids that got us in trouble over that curiosity. I know I did.

Why did you do it, then?
No need to answer: It seemed like a good idea at the time, or else you wouldn't have done it.



Barbarian observes:On the other hand, there are a number of prominent creationists who are racists. Henry Morris, who introducted YE creationism to modern evangelicals, has this to say about "Hamites":(Morris says blacks are intellectually and spritiually inferior)We could include Bob Jones, whose University only recently ended overt and institutionalized racial discrimination. The philosophy at Bob Jones was that God created separate races, and men were obligated to keep them apart.

“Bob Jones is dead, ”

Actually, Bob Jones III is still around, and until 2000, still practiced racism at Bob Jones U.

Please provide the citation indicating that Bob Jones III was responsible for maintaining the segregation policy at BJU.


“ just like Haeckel is dead, only Haeckel was one who studied and acted on the forefront advocating evolution while Jones, I believe, was merely mildly famous adherent of Creationism. Did you just give me permission to cite racist celebrities who happen to believe in evolution? ”

Haeckle has been dead a long time.

Exactly. I picked a long-goner to emphasize the irrelevance of morality of dead people to the contemporary debate. Now you can shore up your rationalization via appeal to Bob Jones’ descendant.


As I said, scientists abandoned racism, even the concept of biological race in humans, because the evidence eventually showed that there was no such thing. It's not that scientists are morally superior to other people; it's just that they recognize that there are no biological races.

Except for those scientists who continue to recognize biological races?



So why did you ask about Morris' other possible failings? What does that have to do with his belief that blacks are inferior? What it has to do with his creationism, is that he cannot accept what science has learned.

The point was that Morris’ moral failings are irrelevant to Evolution/YEC.Morris used the Hamite curse to either justify his apparent racism or he based his racism on that text. It doesn’t have anything to do with YEC beyond the fact that Morris seems to hold both views.


Barbarian observes:Find me a prominent scientist, in the last 50 years who has called any race morally and spiritually inferior.


Your inclusion of “spiritually” is disingenuous. Trying to get a free pass for evolutionists who disparage all spirituality, or something?

http://www.jbhe.com/features/39_20thcentury_racists.html



But we've digressed. The evidence is that the traditional "races" are merely cultural constructs. ”

“Point being?”

Missed the point,um? :D

No. See below.


“ Are Aryans and Jews "traditional" races? ”

If you're a Nazi, yes. Depends on the culture you're in.

So, the study of the human genome ruled out all cultural notions of race for all time? That’s quite an accomplishment.Or is it just that you’re moving the goalposts to make the kick look good?


"The 15 percent is well below the threshold that is used to recognize race in other species,"“ Suddenly "race" is a scientific notion again, and humans don't meet the scientific threshold used of other animal types. ”

No, it's always been that way. There are races in many species. There's just not enough variation in human populations to justify the term.

It’s time that you presented evidence that percentages of genetic variation are one of the relevant criteria—otherwise your rationale is a red herring.

http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:7uzKkc8qRhkJ:www.siu.edu/~anthro/welch/Anth104/Human%2520diversity%2520and%2520race.pdf+race+classification+criteria+site:.edu&hl=en&start=8&ie=UTF-8
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:4VR7VHXgCncJ:www.cbu.edu/~esalgado/BIOL111/chapter22.doc+sub-species+classification+criteria+site:.edu&hl=en&start=37&ie=UTF-8
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:SF1HzyuNYswJ:aardvark.ucsd.edu/grad_conference/borghini.pdf+sub-species+classification+criteria+site:.edu&hl=en&start=39&ie=UTF-8
http://www.saintmarys.edu/~rjensen/race.html

Subspecies are similar to species, except that distinguishing differences are neither as numerous nor of the magnitude that separate species. In Arceuthobium, there is typically no gradation of characters between species or subspecies, as is typical of seed plants in general. Ultimately distinctions between species and subspecies is judgmental.
http://www.rmrs.nau.edu/publications/ah_709/ch14.html

Because of differences in pathogenicity or the necessity to characterize a disease outbreak, strains of medical interest are often classified below the species level by serotyping, enzyme typing, identification of toxins or other virulence factors, or characterization of plasmids, protein patterns, or nucleic acids. (link below)

http://gsbs.utmb.edu/microbook/ch003.htm


"Is it possible to develop specific human breeds as with other animals?”

Not without draconian measures. Humans enjoy sharing genes. But it's perfectly possible in theory. It just hasn't happened recently. There have been, in the past different species of humans. But we are all remarkably homogenous in genes now.

It’s great to see such a reasonable response from you.
Seriously. However, one of the “Draconian measures” could simply be isolation of a breeding population, no? And if a government run by, say, National Socialists came to power they could conceivably breed for true subspecies using “draconian” measures like eugenics.



Barbarian observes"Templeton says. "In many other large mammalian species, we see rates of differentiation two or three times that of humans before the lineages are even recognized as races. Humans are one of the most genetically homogenous species we know of. There's lots of genetic variation in humanity, but it's basically at the individual level. The between-population variation is very, very minor." -Dr. Alan Templeton, who has done extensive genetic studies in human populations.

The following quotation appears to explain the spin provided by Dr. Templeton:
"I'm not saying these results don't recognize genetic differences among human populations," he cautioned. "There are differences, but they don't define historical lineages that have persisted for a long time."
http://record.wustl.edu/archive/1998/10-15-98/articles/races.html



"I'm interested in your evidence that genetic variation of breeds is less than genetic variation between various phenotypic groupings of humans." ”

See the link.

Grumble, grumble (no link available on Word document).
http://www.mnh.si.edu/GeneticsLab/StaffPage/MaldonadoJ/PublicationsCV/Heredity_Dog_Paper_1999.pdf

These links, while voluminous, do not appear to address my question.


I gather that the assertion of a "Jewish phenotype" is dead. If not, let me know what it is.

http://www.noontidepress.com/books/streicher/Mushroom-02.html
http://www.wawdt.com/Holocaust%20Project/Day2.htm

Here's a modern one:
http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/000519/study.shtml

Rather like many at the collection of papers you cited, actually.


And here’s one that’s slightly off-topic, but affords us a fascinating view of the dominance of racial thinking over religious considerations in Hitler’s Germany.

http://www.calvin.edu/cas/gpa/rassenpo.htm

[Joe Meert]

Firstly, to highlight the fact that the Nazi program was a viable evolutionary strategy; secondly, to respond to Joe’s errors in his response.I doubt that Joe has anything to teach me about evolution, and I’m simply responding to you to explain how you’ve missed the point compared to some others.

JM: Except you were never able to show that the Nazi's program was a viable evolutionary strategy. I expect you are correct that I could not teach you much about evolution since your misunderstandings are a tough nut to crack. However, with some remedial work, you might be teachable. I don't give up on my tough students.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[The Barbarian]

“ Barbarian observes:And these cultural "races" have more variance within them than they have between them. About 15% of variance is attributable to differences in populations, and about 85% is attributable to differences within populations. In other words, you are as likely to be a close genetic match to a New Guinea highlander as you are to your next door neighbor.But it doesn't end there. Geneticist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza has been studying the differences in alleles between and among human populations for a long time. Depending on what characteristics you chose, you can sort all sorts of diverse people into the same or different "races". ”


In the former, you’re referring to the major racial groups that are irrelevant with respect to the racial issue vis-à-vis “Aryan” vs. “Jewish”.

No. I'm just noting that they are merely cultural, not biological.


In the second, you’re affirming that I could genetically group all sorts of diverse people into races (albeit using the term differently than genetic scientists are currently using it, but it happens to be the case that the term has shifted in meaning since the days of WWII and prior).

You could, but it wouldn't have any biological validity, since you would have produced "races" that don't even feature common descent with regard to the rest of mankind.


So, you’re bordering on an error of anachronism

I don't think you know what "anachronism" means.


most (of your experts) would affirm that the German population was where we should find “85 percent” of genetic variation, rather than between the Germans and, say, New Zealand Highlanders.

Right. But that would completely rule out Hitler's notion of a jewish race, since there was more variation among "Aryans", than between "Aryans" and Jews.

Here:"The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise." "The idea of race in the human species serves no purpose." (The History and Geography of Human Genes) ”


(T)o argue that race has no basis inbiology can be challenged and therefore, callsfor a real debate, not wishful
thinking.

Scientists would never separate such populations into races, giving that the populations have fewer differences among them, than is found between them. Jews from Europe look like Europeans. Jews from the Arab lands, look like Arabs. Jews in China look Chinese.

Barbarian observes:
If "race" can be whatever you want it to be, by selecting the genes you want, then "race" as a biological entity does not exist.


Poppycock. You’d be saying that if I designated sickle-cell carriers as a race, then there would be no genetic basis for race. That should be obviously false.

That's manifestly true. Since sickle cell is found in all "races" represented in West Africa, including Arab (Caucasian) Bantu (black) and Pygmies. A racial classification that put all these together is absurd.

“ It is merely a cultural construct. If you accept that fact, then we have no disagreement. ”


Actually, we do have disagreement. I pointed out early on that species is an arbitrary grouping (just as race happens to be) in terms of science.

Nope. A species is an interbreeding population of organisms. We can certainly find some species in the process of splitting off, but humans aren't remotely close to having the genetic variability necessary to have races, much less species.

Barbarian asks:
I'm impressed. Tell me about the "Jewish phenotype".

(cites Nazi ideas of what a Jew looks like)

You think Jews look like that? Do you not know any Jews?


That doesn’t cause you to change your mind about the existence of phenotypic breeds in cats, does it?

No, because cats actually have definable genetic races.

Barbarian observes:
In other words, you can't tell a Jew by a "phenotype" after all. Surprise, surprise. ”


If you define Jews according to behaviors and appearance (particularly the latter), then you can have a phenotype even if you can’t find any specimens who have achieved “Grand Champion” ranking.

If you have Jews who appear to be black Africans, Han Chinese, and Nordic Europeans, exactly what common "behaviors and appearance" (other than cultural ones) mark them as Jews?

Barbarian observes:
Nazi racial theories like "archtypes" were complete hooey. There's no evidence that any of their "racial science" had any basis in reality at all.


Isn’t it you who admits that breeding humans for desirable characteristics is most definitely possible in principle?

What's possible in principle, and what is, are two different things.

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.htmlSo some Jews are closest to Europeans, and some are closest genetically to Arab, Turkish, and Caucasian peoples. And Eithiopian Jews are another story. So are the Jews living in China, who are descended from Israelites, but are genetically indistinguishable from other Chinese.“


Haven't you conveniently returned to an ideological/traditional conception of Judaism, which leads you to beg the question with respect to the Nazi conception of the Jew? ”

Genes are what they are. The Nazi conception of a Jew was laughable.

As you see, there is no "Jewish phenotype". I'd still like to see what you think it is, though. You said you could tell them by phenotype. Tell me about it. ”

(excuses and accusations)

Barbarian observes:
There is no such thing as a Jew in a biological sense. They are genetically most like the other people among which they live. ”


You’re never going to realize your error, are you?

Barbarian observes:
Cavalli-Sforza:"In fact, we find that any population, however small, has enormous genetic variation; on average, one finds 85% of the total human variation is within populations, and only 15% between. We therefore cannot use for the comparison of different human populations the same measure of genetic distance useful for comparing different species.

By comparison, here's an article on dogs, showing rather surprisingly large variation between breeds:
http://www.mnh.si.edu/GeneticsLab/S..._Paper_1999.pdf

(complains that Cavalli-Sfoza said "species")

Yes, he did, but he also denies that biological races exist in humans, citing the same data. Notice that there is more variation between dog breeds than between any "races" of humans.


"Darwin had already recognized the difficulty of a rational classification of races in what is almost a perfect continuum, and noted the futility of racial classifications, given the enormous variety of numbers and definitions of races which different taxonomists have traditionally offered, from two to more than one hundred. The current trend to increased admixture can only make races even less clear.” http://www.balzan.it/english/pb1999/cavalli/paper.htm


If increased admixture can only make races less clear, then what effect would you expect segregation & proscription of admixture to have on the “races”?

Very little, given the historical record. Human like to swap genes around, regardless of laws and taboos.


I think that it's somewhat more likely that current antiracist thinking was the impetus for such findings, or at least for the significance attributed to them.

Barbarian observes:
Doesn't seem like it. Before we could rigorously anlayze races, scientists thought otherwise. As we learned more, scientists have moved to conclude that they are not biologically real. Seems like good evidence for my understanding. ”


Think again. Genetic study indicates that a very small portion of your DNA (by percentage) contributes to your appearance. Thus, any variation in appearance dictated by genetics is biologically real.

So Africans and Melanesians are the same race? Khoi-san and Chinese are in another race? That's daffy.

(says scientists are afraid of public reaction)

So when they announced that it appears homosexuality was not a choice, they believed everyone would welcome that?


Barbarian on implications of "hypocrisy":It's the result of not thinking rigorously about "values". And it's a little disheartening to have anyone get frustrated and abusive. Let's not do that in this thread, um?"


Projection, much?

Hmmm... I don't think it was me that implied someone was a "hypocrite".... no, it was you. Yeah, I guess that qualifies for "projection".


So, if I point out that you have an inconsistency between prescription and practice, therefore I am getting "frustrated and abusive"?

Nope. It's you calling me names that's the tip-off.

Barbarian observes:
I don't know of any scientists who care whether it's good or not. In fact, most of us probably did things as kids that got us in trouble over that curiosity. I know I did. ”


Why did you do it, then?

Knowing was worth the risk, or so we figured.

Barbarian observes creationist leaders who are/were racists in recent times.


Please provide the citation indicating that Bob Jones III was responsible for maintaining the segregation policy at BJU.

Sure. Bob Jones III has unilateral power to make such policies. Here's a link to the day that he decided to put an end to racial discrimination of interracial couples:

http://racerelations.about.com/library/weekly/aa030600a.htm

(cites a long-dead scientist to compare to today's creationist racists)

Barbarian observes:
As I said, scientists abandoned racism, even the concept of biological race in humans, because the evidence eventually showed that there was no such thing. It's not that scientists are morally superior to other people; it's just that they recognize that there are no biological races. ”


Except for those scientists who continue to recognize biological races?

Well, you can find a few people who believe anything. As many as 2% of scientists are creationists. Not nearly that many biologists, of course.


The point was that Morris’ moral failings are irrelevant to Evolution/YEC.Morris used the Hamite curse to either justify his apparent racism or he based his racism on that text. It doesn’t have anything to do with YEC beyond the fact that Morris seems to hold both views.

Root causes are the same. He rejects modern science, and so embraces creationism and racism.

Barbarian observes:Find me a prominent scientist, in the last 50 years who has called any race morally and spiritually inferior.

(objects to holding them to Morris' standards)

O.K. we'll relax it a bit. Find me a prominent scientist in the last 50 years who has called any race morally inferior.

http://www.jbhe.com/features/39_20t...ry_racists.html


“ But we've digressed. The evidence is that the traditional "races" are merely cultural constructs. ”


So, the study of the human genome ruled out all cultural notions of race for all time?

Nope. I pointed out that race exists only as a cultural construct.

Barbarian observes:
The 15 percent is well below the threshold that is used to recognize race in other species,


Suddenly "race" is a scientific notion again, and humans don't meet the scientific threshold used of other animal types.

Race has always been a valid notion. But humans don't have enough variation between cultural "races" to qualify.


It’s time that you presented evidence that percentages of genetic variation are one of the relevant criteria—otherwise your rationale is a red herring.

That's what scientists who classify them use. If you want to find another way, show me.


Is it possible to develop specific human breeds as with other animals


Not without draconian measures. Humans enjoy sharing genes. But it's perfectly possible in theory. It just hasn't happened recently. There have been, in the past different species of humans. But we are all remarkably homogenous in genes now.


It’s great to see such a reasonable response from you.

Likewise, it's nice that you didn't call me names that time.

Barbarian observes:
"Templeton says. "In many other large mammalian species, we see rates of differentiation two or three times that of humans before the lineages are even recognized as races. Humans are one of the most genetically homogenous species we know of. There's lots of genetic variation in humanity, but it's basically at the individual level. The between-population variation is very, very minor." -Dr. Alan Templeton, who has done extensive genetic studies in human populations. ”



The following quotation appears to explain the spin provided by Dr. Templeton:
"I'm not saying these results don't recognize genetic differences among human populations," he cautioned. "There are differences, but they don't define historical lineages that have persisted for a long time."
http://record.wustl.edu/archive/199...cles/races.html

It's what I'm telling you. Genetic differences among populations is greater than between populations.

(Nazi "theories" on what a Jew looks like)

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 11:38 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=136204#post136204)
Joe Meert:


JM: Except you were never able to show that the Nazi's program was a viable evolutionary strategy.


You don't think that killing off the competition would increase the percentage of a number of various German alleles in the world population?



I expect you are correct that I could not teach you much about evolution since your misunderstandings are a tough nut to crack.


Maybe you can start by teaching me grammar, then.
Could you give an example of one of my alleged misunderstandings?



However, with some remedial work, you might be teachable. I don't give up on my tough students.

OH!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you.

:joy:

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 12:47 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=136273#post136273)
The Barbarian:

No. I'm just noting that they are merely cultural, not biological.


"Species" has the same problem, despite your apparent later denial.
http://www.bact.wisc.edu/microtextbook/ClassAndPhylo/natural.html



You could, but it wouldn't have any biological validity, since you would have produced &quot;races&quot; that don't even feature common descent with regard to the rest of mankind.


Hmmm. The Nazis weren't intent on creating human beings from scratch so far as I know. You'll have to explain your comment.



I don't think you know what &quot;anachronism&quot; means.


Is there foundation for your skepticism or are you just exercising rhetorical license?
If the former, please be specific regarding the details.



Right. But that would completely rule out Hitler's notion of a jewish race, since there was more variation among &quot;Aryans&quot;, than between &quot;Aryans&quot; and Jews.


Apparently you forgot that the Aryan ideal was an archetype just as was the conception of a pure Jewish race.



Here:&quot;The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise.&quot; &quot;The idea of race in the human species serves no purpose.&quot; (The History and Geography of Human Genes) ”


Yes, and you dutifully ignored and/or removed the evidence that I collected contrary to your repeated citation.



Scientists would never separate such populations into races, giving that the populations have fewer differences among them, than is found between them.


You mean "never in the last fifty years, except for those scientists who do recognize legitimate racial distinctions"--right?
Exaggeration for emphasis?



Jews from Europe look like Europeans. Jews from the Arab lands, look like Arabs. Jews in China look Chinese.


And again you apparently allow the issue to whiz well over your head since you steadfastly refuse to countenance the Nazi view of the Jew. A Jew in China who looks Chinese is not going to run afoul of Nazi laws against Jews unless 3/4 of his grandparents were Jewish in practice (unless he's disloyal to their government, but that's another story). Thus, each of your examples is irrelevant to the racial concept of Jews held in Nazi Germany.



That's manifestly true. Since sickle cell is found in all &quot;races&quot; represented in West Africa, including Arab (Caucasian) Bantu (black) and Pygmies. A racial classification that put all these together is absurd.


You're missing the point again (deliberately)?
You claimed that there would be no genetic justification for race even if I picked freely what a race would be. Do you deny that sicle-cell anemia is a genetic condition?
Have your returned to arguing without evidence that percentage of genetic variation serves as a racial criterion despite the links that I provided last post that indicate otherwise?



Nope. A species is an interbreeding population of organisms.


Who decided that? Nature? Or scientists?
Mother Nature: "I decree that interbreeding populations of organisms shall be "species".
(Mother Nature bows and exits the stage)

The organization of the hierarchical classification system (groups within groups) is not arbitrary (though taxonomic categories are arbitrarily applied)
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/fitch/courses/evolution/html/classification.html



We can certainly find some species in the process of splitting off, but humans aren't remotely close to having the genetic variability necessary to have races, much less species.


I'll remind you that you have yet to substantiate "genetic variability" as a criterion for races.




(cites Nazi ideas of what a Jew looks like)

You think Jews look like that? Do you not know any Jews?


I know that religious Jews did not necessarily qualify as racial Jews in Nazi Germany. Would you like for me to type that over and again 3,000 times so that it has a chance to sink into your brain?
This explains why you cannot reason against the position of the Nazis: You do not comprehend it.



No, because cats actually have definable genetic races.


Evidence, citation--something beyond your say-so?



If you have Jews who appear to be black Africans, Han Chinese, and Nordic Europeans, exactly what common &quot;behaviors and appearance&quot; (other than cultural ones) mark them as Jews?


I provided links summarizing the Nazi view of the Jewish racial archetype: Receding forehead, short arms and legs, hooked nose. They expected Jews to exhibit cerain cultural behaviors as extensions of their bloodline, also, but this no more refutes the general racial planning of the Nazis than does the idea that Siamese cats are the ones who suck babies' breath.

http://www.hmh.org/education/education-faq.htm#Who%20did%20the%20Nazis%20define%20as%20Jews?



What's possible in principle, and what is, are two different things.


Uh-huh, and you realize that an archtype existed even without a flesh and blood example, right?
Again you illustrate an apparent lack of comprehension of the issues relevant to the Nazi view of race.



Genes are what they are. The Nazi conception of a Jew was laughable.


If you can come up with an objection to the Nazi view of race that doesn't rely on redefining it in accordance with a chronologically later version of "race" then we can classify your comment as other than a fallacious appeal to ridicule.



As you see, there is no &quot;Jewish phenotype&quot;. I'd still like to see what you think it is, though. You said you could tell them by phenotype. Tell me about it. ”

(excuses and accusations)


If you look straight upward while spinning, you can produce an unusual variety of dizziness.
I've provided ample evidence of the phenotypical Jewish archetype. As you could take a wild cat population and choose the characteristics that give you a Persian (using a Persian archetype imagined from normal variation) so can you do with a human population based on physical characteristics.



(complains that Cavalli-Sfoza said &quot;species&quot;)


From my previous post:
The old “apples and oranges” trick, eh? Cavalli-Sforza is referring to the (current trend of) scientific standards for species, while the other link notes the unusually percentage of genetic variation among dog breeds compared to other species. So, perhaps my example (canines) wasn’t the best choice, but your suggested comparison appears entirely irrelevant in any case.

You think that your synopsis of what I said is accurate in any way?



Yes, he did, but he also denies that biological races exist in humans, citing the same data. Notice that there is more variation between dog breeds than between any &quot;races&quot; of humans.


Cavalli-Svorza imputes his own definition of race on Darwin just as you do on the Germans.
Here's a clue (bear in mind that the common dictionary convention is to order words according to the chronology of the meanings associated with that word):
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=race

The Nazis were settled right between definitions 2 and 3. The national population was regarded as carrying the "true" German bloodline that represented (to them) the best of humanity. The Jews were regarded as foreign invaders, of a different national bloodline. The Germans recognized the reality that the bloodlines had--and would again if permitted--mix, and their program was designed to somewhat "conservatively" push the national average phenotype toward the Aryan archetypical phenotype. By "conservatively" I mean that certain percentages of "Jewish blood" were acceptable in terms of German citizenship.



&quot;Darwin had already recognized the difficulty of a rational classification of races in what is almost a perfect continuum, and noted the futility of racial classifications, given the enormous variety of numbers and definitions of races which different taxonomists have traditionally offered, from two to more than one hundred. The current trend to increased admixture can only make races even less clear.” http://www.balzan.it/english/pb1999/cavalli/paper.htm


Darwin used "race" virtually interchangeably with "species" when he wrote.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_07.html

Through the means just specified, aided perhaps by others as yet
undiscovered, man has been raised to his present state. But since he
attained to the rank of manhood, he has diverged into distinct
races, or as they may be more fitly called, sub-species. Some of
these, such as the Negro and European, are so distinct that, if
specimens had been brought to a naturalist without any further
information, they would undoubtedly have been considered by him as good and true species.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_21.html



Very little, given the historical record. Human like to swap genes around, regardless of laws and taboos.


Dogs and cats do that, too. The correct answer (the one you sought to avoid giving by begging the question) is that avoidance of admixture will tend to make the races more distinct.
That was the Nazi plan in a nutshell.



So Africans and Melanesians are the same race? Khoi-san and Chinese are in another race? That's daffy.


The daffy idea is your attempt to make it seem that genetic differences below the (alleged--we're waiting on your proof) level of sub-species are not biologically real.



(says scientists are afraid of public reaction)


No, I didn't say that. Scientists are the product of their culture today just as scientists in Germany were a product of their culture. It's cultural bias that would reasonably lead to the downplaying of race, not fear of public reaction.



So when they announced that it appears homosexuality was not a choice, they believed everyone would welcome that?


Such ideas have so far been advanced primarily by homosexual scientists apparently intent on advancing an agenda (I've noted the existence of some more recent studies that I have not yet evaluated, however).
Irrelevant in any case. Societal pressure today is more in the direction of political correctness and "tolerance".



Barbarian on implications of &quot;hypocrisy&quot;:It's the result of not thinking rigorously about &quot;values&quot;. And it's a little disheartening to have anyone get frustrated and abusive. Let's not do that in this thread, um?&quot;

Hmmm... I don't think it was me that implied someone was a &quot;hypocrite&quot;.... no, it was you. Yeah, I guess that qualifies for &quot;projection&quot;.


At least you admit it. Here's what I said that you apparently took as an accusation of racism:

If so, you're running against the strong thesis of this thread (and if so I predict that I'll end up showing hypocrisy on your part).

Pretty plainly a expression of the expectation that your stated position will force you into inconsistency, unless perhaps the reader projected, say, frustration or an abusive tone onto the sentence.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hypocrisy



Nope. It's you calling me names that's the tip-off.


"Poppycock"? "Doctor Barbarian"?
I'm vicious, I tell you.
Are you whining about name-calling in order to divert attention from the issues?



Knowing was worth the risk, or so we figured.


Budda-bing.



Barbarian observes creationist leaders who are/were racists in recent times.


But Barbarian (may I call you Barbarian?) continues to provide only enough evidence to verify one such leader.



Sure. Bob Jones III has unilateral power to make such policies. Here's a link to the day that he decided to put an end to racial discrimination of interracial couples:

http://racerelations.about.com/library/weekly/aa030600a.htm


Your link fails to answer my questions. Where's the evidence that BJIII is a racist, a creationist, and the mover/sustainer of BJU racist policy?



(cites a long-dead scientist to compare to today's creationist racists)


For purposes of spin, Barbarian (may I call you Barbarian?) omits the fact that he had seemingly tabbed long-dead Bob Jones as a creationist/racist figure, and similarly ignores my explicit explanation for the comparison.
Dizzy, B?



Well, you can find a few people who believe anything. As many as 2% of scientists are creationists. Not nearly that many biologists, of course.


So from now on you'll qualify your sweeping statements and support what you say with appropriate evidence?




Root causes are the same. He rejects modern science, and so embraces creationism and racism.


Non sequitur. The root cause is the skewed interpretation of the curse against Ham. Were you aware that BJU doesn't care if whites mix with Easterns, such as Japanese and Chinese? If Einstein, Gould, and Dawkins each bought the curse against Ham and otherwise maintained their science, they'd all be racists on the order of (apparently) Morris.



Barbarian observes:Find me a prominent scientist, in the last 50 years who has called any race morally and spiritually inferior.

(objects to holding them to Morris' standards)


Hmmm--more spin.
First of all, I don't recall you producing evidence of "spiritual" inferiority on the part of the Hamites. Secondly, the standard is more properly the same if each one holds the idea of inferiority in each sphere that he personally recognizes. If a racist doesn't believe in magic he's not less racist because he doesn't think that Eskimos aren't as good at casting spells as are the Whiteys.



O.K. we'll relax it a bit. Find me a prominent scientist in the last 50 years who has called any race morally inferior.

http://www.jbhe.com/features/39_20t...ry_racists.html



Prominent and within 50 years (most of 'em, anyway).
What do I win? The Hamilton-Beach electric knife?




Nope. I pointed out that race exists only as a cultural construct.

Barbarian observes:
The 15 percent is well below the threshold that is used to recognize race in other species,

Race has always been a valid notion. But humans don't have enough variation between cultural &quot;races&quot; to qualify.


The clarion call for evidence has gone forth.
Hop to it.



That's what scientists who classify them use. If you want to find another way, show me.


Not so fast. I provided links suggesting that population dynamics serve as the primary criterion, and none of my citations mentions a genetic criterion based on percentage of variance.
You bear the burden of proof for supporting your claim.



Likewise, it's nice that you didn't call me names that time.


I haven't called you names, so dispense with the passive-aggressivity.



Barbarian observes:
&quot;Templeton says. &quot;In many other large mammalian species, we see rates of differentiation two or three times that of humans before the lineages are even recognized as races.
Humans are one of the most genetically homogenous species we know of. There's lots of genetic variation in humanity, but it's basically at the individual level. The between-population variation is very, very minor.&quot; -Dr. Alan Templeton, who has done extensive genetic studies in human populations. ”


Is Templeton describing the exceptions that prove the rule?
Do I need to explain to you why the Templeton quotation does not serve to support your claim?



It's what I'm telling you. Genetic differences among populations is greater than between populations.


That's either irrelevant (as I've shown) or it's an equivocation (which also would render it irrelevant, ftm).
Remember that "populations" in the classification sense is an interbreeding group. OTOH, it's possible to pick out populations within an interbreeding population based on whatever criteria we choose.

[Joe Meert]

You don't think that killing off the competition would increase the percentage of a number of various German alleles in the world population?

JM: You're dodging the real question. What scientific strategy was Hitler employing to do this? How did he (and his scientists) genetically define 'jewness' and/or 'germaness'. Blonde hair, blue eyes? Height? Other 'traits' Hitler lacked? If a jew had blonde hair and blue eyes, would he/she be killed?



Maybe you can start by teaching me grammar

JM: No need. You seem to have a reasonable grasp of the English language. As a rule, I usually don't nitpick on spelling and grammar errors on bulletin boards. We all get in a hurry sometimes.



Could you give an example of one of my alleged misunderstandings?

JM: See above!




OH!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you.


JM: You're very welcome. Now all you have to do is sign up for classes once you finish high school!

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Sher]

:ahem:

[The Barbarian]

(Barbarian observes that "race" in humans is only a cultural construct)


"Species" has the same problem

Nonsense. No biologist would say that "species" are cultural constructs. Let's take two species that are closely related, so that in artificial circumstances, they can interbreed. Brown bears and polar bears separated into two species perhaps 10,000 years ago. In zoos, they can still be persuaded to interbreed and produce viable offspring.

But, like all separate species, they have much greater genetic diversity than humans. If the mitochondrial DNA tests are correct, they are much more diverse than modern humans and Neandertals.

Barbarian observes:
You could, but it wouldn't have any biological validity, since you would have produced "races" that don't even feature common descent with regard to the rest of mankind.


So, you’re bordering on an error of anachronism

Barbarian suggests:
I don't think you know what "anachronism" means.


Is there foundation for your skepticism

Your apparent misuse of the word.

Barbarian on the fact that Germans and German Jews are more closely related than German and Middle Eastern Jews:
Right. But that would completely rule out Hitler's notion of a jewish race, since there was more variation among "Aryans", than between "Aryans" and Jews.


Apparently you forgot that the Aryan ideal was an archetype just as was the conception of a pure Jewish race.

Maybe you should show us that an "archtype" is a biological entity. It's a cultural entity, but I've never seen anyone even suggest that reflects any biological fact.

Cavalli-Sforza observes:
The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise." "The idea of race in the human species serves no purpose." (The History and Geography of Human Genes) ”


Yes, and you dutifully ignored and/or removed the evidence that I collected contrary to your repeated citation.

Endorsements aren't evidence.

Barbarian observes:
Scientists would never separate such populations into races, giving that the populations have fewer differences among them, than is found between them.


You mean "never in the last fifty years, except for those scientists who do recognize legitimate racial distinctions"--right?

I have in my library, a first edition of a book by Carleton Coon who thought that races were actual subspecies. He did not, of course, have genetic information that shows that humans don't even form biological races, much less subspecies. It's been perhaps 40 years since "The Meaning of Race".

Barbarian observes:
Jews from Europe look like Europeans. Jews from the Arab lands, look like Arabs. Jews in China look Chinese.


And again you apparently allow the issue to whiz well over your head since you steadfastly refuse to countenance the Nazi view of the Jew.

View are cultural constructs. That could be anything. As you probably realized, there are more non-jews than jews who look the way Nazis imagined Jews to look.

(cites Wannsee Protocol as defining Jews)


Thus, each of your examples is irrelevant to the racial concept of Jews held in Nazi Germany.

Really, really warped social constructs are still social constructs. They have no biological validity.

Barbarian observes:
Since sickle cell is found in all "races" represented in West Africa, including Arab (Caucasian) Bantu (black) and Pygmies. A racial classification that put all these together is absurd.


You claimed that there would be no genetic justification for race even if I picked freely what a race would be. Do you deny that sicle-cell anemia is a genetic condition?

I'm just pointing out that using sickle-cell genes as a marker would not give you a biological race. Perhaps you don't know what a biological race is?


Have your returned to arguing without evidence that percentage of genetic variation serves as a racial criterion despite the links that I provided last post that indicate otherwise?

Sorry, you failed to provide any evidence of that.

Barbarian observes:
A species is an interbreeding population of organisms.


Who decided that?[quote]

Nature.

[quote] Or scientists?

Nature does. Scientists merely observe.

Barbarian observes:
We can certainly find some species in the process of splitting off, but humans aren't remotely close to having the genetic variability necessary to have races, much less species.


I'll remind you that you have yet to substantiate "genetic variability" as a criterion for races.

Sigh... he didn't read the links, again...

http://www.siu.edu/~anthro/welch/Anth104/Human%20diversity%20and%20race.pdf

Please read it this time.

(Capt. O. cites Nazi ideas of what a Jew looks like)

Barbarian asks:
You think Jews look like that? Do you not know any Jews?


I know that religious Jews did not necessarily qualify as racial Jews in Nazi Germany.

I asked if you thought that Jews look like that. Do you not know?


This explains why you cannot reason against the position of the Nazis: You do not comprehend it.

What the Nazis thought is immaterial, since it's already been pointed out that race is a cultural construct, not a biological reality in humans.


No, because cats actually have definable genetic races.


Evidence, citation--something beyond your say-so?

Since you brought it up, I assumed you knew something about it.

Dr. Leslie Lyons, a geneticist at School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California(Davis) , studied Havana brown cats, and discovered that they had much less genetic diversity than expected. As her studies broadened, it became clear that the differences between breeds was much greater than the differences within a breed.

The Feline Genome Project is now attempting to collect analyses on every breed of cat. Some have been shown to have less genetic variability than the threatened Florida Panther.

Barbarian asks:
If you have Jews who appear to be black Africans, Han Chinese, and Nordic Europeans, exactly what common "behaviors and appearance" (other than cultural ones) mark them as Jews?


I provided links summarizing the Nazi view of the Jewish racial archetype:forehead, short arms and legs, hooked nose. [quote]

Again, do you think Jews look like that? What does that have to do with race as a biological fact?

Barbarian on the possibility of breeding different human races:
What's possible in principle, and what is, are two different things.

[quote]Uh-huh, and you realize that an archtype existed even without a flesh and blood example, right?

Yep. That's why I pointed out that race is a cultural construct, not a biological reality.


If you can come up with an objection to the Nazi view of race that doesn't rely on redefining it in accordance with a chronologically later version of "race" then we can classify your comment as other than a fallacious appeal to ridicule.

Most Jews don't look like the Nazi's said they do.

Barbarian asks:
As you see, there is no "Jewish phenotype". I'd still like to see what you think it is, though. You said you could tell them by phenotype. Tell me about it. ”

(excuses and accusations)


If you look straight upward while spinning, you can produce an unusual variety of dizziness.

Are you feeling a little dizzy, now?


I've provided ample evidence of the phenotypical Jewish archetype.

What you haven't done is show that it's a biological reality.

(complains that Cavalli-Sfoza said "species")

Barbarian observes:
Yes, he did, but he also denies that biological races exist in humans, citing the same data. Notice that there is more variation between dog breeds than between any "races" of humans.




"Recent classifications point to anywhere from three to sixty 'races'. We could count many more if we wanted, but there doesn't seem to be much purpose. Every classification is equally arbitrary." - Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

[quote]Here's a clue...

Lord help us, he's found a dictionary!


Darwin used "race" virtually interchangeably with "species" when he wrote...“

Yep. That's not how it's used 150 years later. "Race", in biology, refers to something like "subspecies".

Barbarian on trying to classify "races" by phenotype:
So Africans and Melanesians are the same race? Khoi-san and Chinese are in another race? That's daffy.


The daffy idea is your attempt to make it seem that genetic differences below the (alleged--we're waiting on your proof) level of sub-species are not biologically real.

Given the fact that there's more variation within any classification of "races" than there is within the "races", that's pretty much settled.


So when they announced that it appears homosexuality was not a choice, they believed everyone would welcome that?


Such ideas have so far been advanced primarily by homosexual scientists apparently intent on advancing an agenda

Hmm... evidence that they are all homosexual can be found...?
“
Barbarian on implications of "hypocrisy":It's the result of not thinking rigorously about "values". And it's a little disheartening to have anyone get frustrated and abusive. Let's not do that in this thread, um?"

(Capt. O accuses Barbarian of projection)

Hmmm... I don't think it was me that implied someone was a "hypocrite".... no, it was you. Yeah, I guess that qualifies for "projection".

Here's what I said:
If so, you're running against the strong thesis of this thread (and if so I predict that I'll end up showing hypocrisy on your part).


Nope. It's you calling me names that's the tip-off.

(denial)

Barbarian on taking risks to learn things as a kid:
Knowing was worth the risk, or so we figured.

Barbarian observes creationist leaders who are/were racists in recent times.


But Barbarian (may I call you Barbarian?) continues to provide only enough evidence to verify one such leader.[/quote}

I mentioned two.

Sure. Bob Jones III has unilateral power to make such policies. Here's a link to the day that he decided to put an end to racial discrimination of interracial couples:

http://racerelations.about.com/libr...y/aa030600a.htm

(denial)

No problem. Let everyone read it and figure it out for themselves.

(cites a long-dead scientist to compare to today's creationist racists)

(cites Bob Jones of Bob Jones U as dead)

Actually he's alive. The current Bob Jones (a Junior since Bob Jones the first died in 1970 or thereabouts) argued that interracial couples violated God's plan until 2000. Pretty recent by my accouinting.

Barbarian observes:
Well, you can find a few people who believe anything. As many as 2% of scientists are creationists. Not nearly that many biologists, of course.

[quote]So from now on you'll qualify your sweeping statements and support what you say with appropriate evidence?

Sure. Project Steve lists the number of known people named "Steve" (or a derivation like Stephany) with doctorates who accept evolution. There are something like..um.. 383 "Steves" on the list. I perused one list offered by the ICR, and came up with something less than the percentage I mentioned to you. Try it yourself.

Barbarian observes:
Root causes are the same. He rejects modern science, and so embraces creationism and racism.


The root cause is the skewed interpretation of the curse against Ham. Were you aware that BJU doesn't care if whites mix with Easterns, such as Japanese and Chinese?

Not since 2000. Bob Jones III, in a remarkable coincidence, realized that racism was not Biblical at the precise same time that the media focused on the racist policies at BJU, and abolished the rules.

Before that, it was "God's Plan".

Barbarian observes:Find me a prominent scientist, in the last 50 years who has called any race morally and spiritually inferior.

(objects to holding them to Morris' standards)

Barbarian offers:
O.K. I'll drop the "spritiually inferior", and let you slide with just "intellectually inferior". How many modern scientists say that blacks are intellectually inferior as the head of the Institute for Creation Research has?


I don't recall you producing evidence of "spiritual" inferiority on the part of the Hamites.

I didn't. Morris made the allegation, not I. Are you denying he did it?


Secondly, the standard is more properly the same if each one holds the idea of inferiority in each sphere that he personally recognizes.

Boy, howdy! That's a creative excuse! Sorry. I'm not going to let you have that one.


If a racist doesn't believe in magic he's not less racist because he doesn't think that Eskimos aren't as good at casting spells as are the Whiteys.

So explain why creationists don't thing blacks can use their intelligence as well as whites. :D

http://www.jbhe.com/features/39_20t...ry_racists.html

Link is dead. Check it and try again.

Barbarian observes:
I pointed out that race exists only as a cultural construct.

Barbarian observes:
The 15 percent is well below the threshold that is used to recognize race in other species,

Race has always been a valid notion. But humans don't have enough variation between cultural "races" to qualify.


The clarion call for evidence has gone forth.
Hop to it.


Not so fast. I provided links suggesting that population dynamics serve as the primary criterion, and none of my citations mentions a genetic criterion based on percentage of variance.
You bear the burden of proof for supporting your claim.

http://record.wustl.edu/archive/1998/10-15-98/articles/races.html
And your link didn't say what you claimed it did.

Barbarian observes:
Likewise, it's nice that you didn't call me names that time.

(denial)

Who was it who called me a "hypcrite"? Why it was Captain O! Imagine that.

Barbarian observes:
"Templeton says. "In many other large mammalian species, we see rates of differentiation two or three times that of humans before the lineages are even recognized as races.
Humans are one of the most genetically homogenous species we know of. There's lots of genetic variation in humanity, but it's basically at the individual level. The between-population variation is very, very minor." -Dr. Alan Templeton, who has done extensive genetic studies in human populations. ”


Is Templeton describing the exceptions that prove the rule?

Nope. He's saying that variation between human groups is once considered races is about one-half to one-third that required to consider them biological races.


Do I need to explain to you why the Templeton quotation does not serve to support your claim?

Nope. I know why. Because Capt. O doesn't agree with it.


Remember that "populations" in the classification sense is an interbreeding group.

So when we talk about the population of Tulsa, that means that they don't breed with anyone else?

Are you very sure?

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 12:44 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=136622#post136622)
Joe Meert:



JM: You're dodging the real question. What scientific strategy was Hitler employing to do this? How did he (and his scientists) genetically define 'jewness' and/or 'germaness'. Blonde hair, blue eyes? Height? Other 'traits' Hitler lacked? If a jew had blonde hair and blue eyes, would he/she be killed?


Read the thread, Joe, and if you find any of the questions above unanswered after that, then ask them again.



JM: See above!


See what above? How does your series of questions (along with the unsubstantiated charge that I'm dodging the question) to which answers have already been provided identify any misunderstanding of evolution on my part?
Seems to me that you would have to know what my answer was to at least one of the questions in order to give me a specific example of such a misunderstanding.

What's the matter, Joe? Couldn't you locate a specific example?

[Joe Meert]

Read the thread, Joe, and if you find any of the questions above unanswered after that, then ask them again.

JM: That is precisely why I asked them.




See what above?

JM: Your absurd claims about race, Hitler and evolution


How does your series of questions (along with the unsubstantiated charge that I'm dodging the question) to which answers have already been provided identify any misunderstanding of evolution on my part?

JM: Well, if you think you've provided answers, then I don't really know if there is a point in proceeding.



Seems to me that you would have to know what my answer was to at least one of the questions in order to give me a specific example of such a misunderstanding.
What's the matter, Joe? Couldn't you locate a specific example?

JM: This entire thread is based on a specific example. Apparently, that has not sunk in.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Roy]

Today @ 08:28 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=136902#post136902)
The Barbarian:

[definition of 'race']

Yep. That's not how it's used 150 years later. &quot;Race&quot;, in biology, refers to something like &quot;subspecies&quot;.


Do you mean 'nope'? If you reread the quote provided, you'll see that Darwin defines 'race' as meaning something akin to 'sub-species' as well.

Roy

[The Barbarian]

Actually, Darwin seems to have used the 19th century convention of comparing it to species.

Hence the title of his book:

On The Origin of Species. by Means of Natural Selection,. or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 11:01 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=137014#post137014)
Joe Meert:



JM: That is precisely why I asked them.


Oh, so that you could be evasive concerning whatever problem you had with my answers?

It worked.



JM: Your absurd claims about race, Hitler and evolution


And what is it you find absurd about them?



JM: Well, if you think you've provided answers, then I don't really know if there is a point in proceeding.


Uh-huh, because you can't figure out any logical problem with the answers I gave?
That's what I thought.:thumb:




JM: This entire thread is based on a specific example. Apparently, that has not sunk in.


So, just like Barbarian, you don't accept that human beings are responsible for defining "species" according to various observable phenomena, analogous to what the Germans did?

[The Barbarian]

So, just like Barbarian, you don't accept that human beings are responsible for defining "species" according to various observable phenomena, analogous to what the Germans did?

Capt. O seems to have a vigorous and active imagination. I would never have expected that the the universe would get old enough that someone would suggest that the Nazi classification of "Jewish" would remotely correspond to the idea of "species".

Some things, like Capt. O's "archtypes", are merely cultural constructs. Others, like species and diamonds, are simply recognized by sufficiently intelligent humans.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 08:28 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=136902#post136902)
The Barbarian:

No biologist would say that &quot;species&quot; are cultural constructs.


If you could prove it, then it would still be irrelevant.
Did you read what Darwin wrote on the races of man? Do you consider him to be a biologist?



Let's take two species that are closely related, so that in artificial circumstances, they can interbreed. Brown bears and polar bears separated into two species perhaps 10,000 years ago. In zoos, they can still be persuaded to interbreed and produce viable offspring.

But, like all separate species, they have much greater genetic diversity than humans. If the mitochondrial DNA tests are correct, they are much more diverse than modern humans and Neandertals.


That's a mighty red herring.
Let's look at people who are missing palmaris longus bilaterally. Are we not able to group such persons irrespective of their native populations and group them under the heading "species" (ignoring for now the competing definitions of the term--we could call chocolate icing "species" if we want--that's how language works)? Is there a biological justification for our new use of "species"? Of course there is: bilateral absence of palmaris longus.
The case of German archetypes is analogous.



Barbarian observes:
You could, but it wouldn't have any biological validity, since you would have produced &quot;races&quot; that don't even feature common descent with regard to the rest of mankind.


It's a simple matter to puncture that hot air balloon of an excuse.
Imagine coincidental evolution on a distant planet. Most of the lifeforms differ significantly from ours, but there has evolved a mammal indistinguishable phenotypically and genotypically from our African elephant, and they are called "flummoxes".
Are the flummox and the African elephant of the same species?
Do "flummoxes" feature common descent with the African elephant?



Barbarian suggests:
I don't think you know what &quot;anachronism&quot; means.

Your apparent misuse of the word.


That doesn't appear to be the specific justification that I asked for.
Nice editing, B.



Barbarian on the fact that Germans and German Jews are more closely related than German and Middle Eastern Jews:
Right. But that would completely rule out Hitler's notion of a jewish race, since there was more variation among &quot;Aryans&quot;, than between &quot;Aryans&quot; and Jews.


It would do no such thing, since the Germans couldn't care less what Jews elsewhere looked like. They were concerned with the persons within their borders for purposes of genetic planning. Those outside their borders were relevant mainly as competition for resources.



Maybe you should show us that an &quot;archtype&quot; is a biological entity. It's a cultural entity, but I've never seen anyone even suggest that reflects any biological fact.


That's a diversionary challenge, whether you realize it or not. Nobody had seen a mouse with a "human" ear growing out of its back prior to the meddling of scientists, and that doesn't mean that the actions of people cannot bring that state of affairs to reality.
Likewise, I can imagine humans with hands big enough to palm a Volkswagon Beetle. Does the fact that no such humans currently exist make my dream an impossibility?
In the case of the German and Jewish archetypes, of course, all of the phenotypical characters existed in the German population. As I explained to you before, they simply chose to favor one (archetypical) phenotype over another, just like I could theoretically choose to sterilize small-handed persons and encourage reproduction of large-handed persons in order to make my Volkswagon-palming archetype to fruition.



Endorsements aren't evidence.


So your citations of Cavalli-Sforza and others are irrelevant?



Barbarian observes:
Scientists would never separate such populations into races, giving that the populations have fewer differences among them, than is found between them.


Again, you're presupposing the current definition of race, which begs the question.



I have in my library, a first edition of a book by Carleton Coon who thought that races were actual subspecies. He did not, of course, have genetic information that shows that humans don't even form biological races, much less subspecies. It's been perhaps 40 years since &quot;The Meaning of Race&quot;.


Do you think that Coon had any genetic standard to meet in the first place with regard to distinguishing subspecies?
Let me do you another favor:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=anachronism

This invitation includes some warnings: first, be careful about the fallacy of anachronism -- the mistake of attributing present-day values and information to the past; second, keep in mind that historical research is not for the faint-hearted.
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:LLccCtoazPkJ:www.uky.edu/Education/EPE/epe686f01jrt.doc+%22fallacy+of+anachronism%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8



Barbarian observes:
Jews from Europe look like Europeans. Jews from the Arab lands, look like Arabs. Jews in China look Chinese.

View are cultural constructs. That could be anything.


You want to tell about the "scientific" view of "race" again?



As you probably realized, there are more non-jews than jews who look the way Nazis imagined Jews to look.


Correct, although I don't follow you in impressing my own view of what consititutes a Jew on the Nazis, since that would be a fallacy. Understand?



(cites Wannsee Protocol as defining Jews)

Really, really warped social constructs are still social constructs. They have no biological validity.


Arguments by assertion are arguments by assertion . . .



Barbarian observes:
Since sickle cell is found in all &quot;races&quot; represented in West Africa, including Arab (Caucasian) Bantu (black) and Pygmies. A racial classification that put all these together is absurd.


Why? You think that the racial classifications that you try to use to undermine my new racial classification are biologically unreal to begin with, so how could your complaint be relevant?
You're hilarious. Tell me that my criterion isn't based on biological observation. I double-dog-dare-ya.



I'm just pointing out that using sickle-cell genes as a marker would not give you a biological race. Perhaps you don't know what a biological race is?


It's a distinct interbreeding population that is a phenotypically distinct subdivision of a species. You didn't fail to notice my reference to defining the limits of the race for my own purposes?



Sorry, you failed to provide any evidence of that.


Here it is again.


http://www.saintmarys.edu/~rjensen/race.html

Subspecies are similar to species, except that distinguishing differences are neither as numerous nor of the magnitude that separate species. In Arceuthobium, there is typically no gradation of characters between species or subspecies, as is typical of seed plants in general. Ultimately distinctions between species and subspecies is judgmental.
http://www.rmrs.nau.edu/publications/ah_709/ch14.html

Because of differences in pathogenicity or the necessity to characterize a disease outbreak, strains of medical interest are often classified below the species level by serotyping, enzyme typing, identification of toxins or other virulence factors, or characterization of plasmids, protein patterns, or nucleic acids. (link below)

http://gsbs.utmb.edu/microbook/ch003.htm


I provided evidence against, and you have provided no evidence for.
Again: It's time you brought forth some evidence for a criterion based on percentage of genetic variation.



Barbarian observes:
A species is an interbreeding population of organisms.


That looks suspiciously like the concept that you ridicule elsewhere.



Nature does. Scientists merely observe.


Must be hard to come up with classifications and theories when all they do is observe.
:rofl:



Sigh... he didn't read the links, again...

http://www.siu.edu/~anthro/welch/Anth104/Human%20diversity%20and%20race.pdf

Please read it this time.


I've read the link. There's absolutely nothing there to support your claim of a criterion for race based on percentage of genetic variation.
Have you read the link?



(Capt. O. cites Nazi ideas of what a Jew looks like)


Not quite. I presented the Nazi definition of a Jew according to phenotype. The difference is significant.



Barbarian asks:
You think Jews look like that? Do you not know any Jews?


I think that if Jews look like that by definition, then that's what Jews look like. Why do you keep begging the question regarding the Nazi concept of the Jew?



I asked if you thought that Jews look like that. Do you not know?


I know people who resemble the Nazi phenotypical concept of the Jew. Those persons would be Jews according to the Nazi definition.
I also know persons who practice the religion of Judaism who do not resemble that phenotype.
Do you see the distinction yet?



What the Nazis thought is immaterial, since it's already been pointed out that race is a cultural construct, not a biological reality in humans.


What the Nazis thought is crucial, since it is a fallacy to dismiss the Nazi view according to definitions that differ from those used by the Nazis.
The Nazi view of the Jew was a biological reality by definition, since it was phenotypically based and undergirded by legal standards grounded in observable facts. You can't make that go away with your smoke and mirrors.



Since you brought it up, I assumed you knew something about it.

Dr. Leslie Lyons, a geneticist at School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California(Davis) , studied Havana brown cats, and discovered that they had much less genetic diversity than expected. As her studies broadened, it became clear that the differences between breeds was much greater than the differences within a breed.

The Feline Genome Project is now attempting to collect analyses on every breed of cat. Some have been shown to have less genetic variability than the threatened Florida Panther.


The same guy who cites claims that humanity hasn't had time to diversify into races now cites a claim that cat breeds have the very genetic homogeneousness that prevents humans from being so classified?
I'll set my calendar so that I can measure how long it takes for you to realize that you're contradicting yourself via your use of citation.



Yep. That's why I pointed out that race is a cultural construct, not a biological reality.


If you'd been there to advise the earliest dog breeders, perhaps we'd have only one type of dog even today.
:smile:



Most Jews don't look like the Nazi's said they do.


Fallacy of equivocation. The Nazi defines the Jew differently than you do.



Barbarian asks:
As you see, there is no &quot;Jewish phenotype&quot;. I'd still like to see what you think it is, though. You said you could tell them by phenotype. Tell me about it. ”

(excuses and accusations)

Are you feeling a little dizzy, now?


No, but I figure that you must be what with all the spinning you're engaged in.



What you haven't done is show that it's a biological reality.


I've shown that it's a biological reality by definition even if a perfect example of the archetype doesn't exist.
That's your cue to start spinning again (if you had stopped).




Cavalli-Svorza imputes his own definition of race on Darwin just as you do on the Germans.

&quot;Recent classifications point to anywhere from three to sixty 'races'. We could count many more if we wanted, but there doesn't seem to be much purpose. Every classification is equally arbitrary.&quot; - Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza


When it comes time to vote for the King of the Irrelevant Citation, I'll keep you in mind.



Yep. That's not how it's used 150 years later. &quot;Race&quot;, in biology, refers to something like &quot;subspecies&quot;.


Write Cavalli-Sforza and inform him?
Consider refraining from fallacies of anachronism?



Given the fact that there's more variation within any classification of &quot;races&quot; than there is within the &quot;races&quot;, that's pretty much settled.


If the variation between races exists in any amount whatsoever, then how can you claim that the variation isn't "biologically real"?
:poke:



Hmm... evidence that they are all homosexual can be found...?


Trying to smear me with straw man? I said nothing about "all". The studies that initially received popular attention were conducted by gay men.

Dean Hamer:
"Hamer went on record as proposing to patent the gene when it was finally identified, so as to prevent it being used for prenatal diagnosis. When his study ran into technical criticism, he came out himself as gay and questioned the right of straights to comment."
http://www.sbu.ac.uk/stafflag/deanhamer.html

Simon LeVay:
http://www.sbu.ac.uk/stafflag/people.html



(Capt. O accuses Barbarian of projection)

Hmmm... I don't think it was me that implied someone was a &quot;hypocrite&quot;.... no, it was you. Yeah, I guess that qualifies for &quot;projection&quot;.

C.O.:
Here's what I said:
If so, you're running against the strong thesis of this thread (and if so I predict that I'll end up showing hypocrisy on your part).

B:
Nope. It's you calling me names that's the tip-off.


By your standard, a doctor who states that if you are 5'10" and 375 lbs then you are probably obese is actually calling you "Fatty". Get serious, and stop whining.



Barbarian on taking risks to learn things as a kid:
Knowing was worth the risk, or so we figured.


Exactly. You reasoned that it was good to satisfy your curiousity despite the risk.



I mentioned two.


You mentioned two and provided evidence for one.
We've been over this. No need for review.



Sure. Bob Jones III has unilateral power to make such policies. Here's a link to the day that he decided to put an end to racial discrimination of interracial couples:

http://racerelations.about.com/libr...y/aa030600a.htm

(denial)

No problem. Let everyone read it and figure it out for themselves.


Let any reader who thinks there's a shred of evidence there supporting claims I've asked you to substantiate post that evidence to this thread.
The most that will happen is argument by assertion. There's no evidence there.

In fact, I think that your link was corrupted via abbreviation, much as mine appeared to be last post.



(cites a long-dead scientist to compare to today's creationist racists)

(cites Bob Jones of Bob Jones U as dead)

Actually he's alive. The current Bob Jones (a Junior since Bob Jones the first died in 1970 or thereabouts) argued that interracial couples violated God's plan until 2000. Pretty recent by my accouinting.


1) Bob Jones U is named for its founder, Bob Jones Sr.
2) Bob Jones Jr. is deceased, also.
http://www.bjumg.org/pages/drbob.htm
3) Arguing against interracial couples isn't innately racist.

Each of your conclusions regarding Bob Jones III (except for the allegation that he is alive) lacks for support.




Not since 2000. Bob Jones III, in a remarkable coincidence, realized that racism was not Biblical at the precise same time that the media focused on the racist policies at BJU, and abolished the rules.

Before that, it was &quot;God's Plan&quot;.


Turns out I was wrong about the dating policy (my report was based on the report of an acquaintance who attended BJU).
This link contradicts a number of your assertions, otoh.
http://www.bju.edu/aboutbju/special_articles/response/index.xml



Barbarian observes:Find me a prominent scientist, in the last 50 years who has called any race morally and spiritually inferior.

(objects to holding them to Morris' standards)

Barbarian offers:
O.K. I'll drop the &quot;spritiually inferior&quot;, and let you slide with just &quot;intellectually inferior&quot;. How many modern scientists say that blacks are intellectually inferior as the head of the Institute for Creation Research has?


"The Bell Curve"?
http://www.carf.demon.co.uk/feat01.html

If I come up with only one, then we're tied, right?



I didn't. Morris made the allegation, not I. Are you denying he did it?


No, I'm saying (minus a few key words!) that you haven't produced evidence that Morris thinks blacks (or other non-whites) spiritually inferior.




Boy, howdy! That's a creative excuse! Sorry. I'm not going to let you have that one.

So explain why creationists don't thing blacks can use their intelligence as well as whites. :D


It's illegitimate to flatly deny my rationale without refuting it. All you've done is change the subject. If both evolutionist and creationist persons believe in intelligence and both believe that a race is less intelligent (innately), then both are equally racist. Suppose an evolutionist is also a determinist and doesn't see any room for significance of human thought: How can he believe that blacks are less intelligent without a coherent concept of "intelligence"?



http://www.jbhe.com/features/39_20t...ry_racists.html

Link is dead. Check it and try again.


Okay. You do the same with yours.
http://www.jbhe.com/features/39_20thcentury_racists.html



Race has always been a valid notion. But humans don't have enough variation between cultural &quot;races&quot; to qualify.


Support your claim that the variation is insufficient.
In fact, the significant criterion seems to be the population grouping as indicated by the links I provided.



http://record.wustl.edu/archive/1998/10-15-98/articles/races.html
And your link didn't say what you claimed it did.


I provided a number of links that all said essentially the same thing. Which one are you referring to?
Your Templeton refers to an anonymous threshold for demarcation of race, and then refers to "many other large mammalian species" where the demarcation line is 2-3 time higher than for humans. Is Templeton measuring the genetic differences after race has been demarcated? It certainly appears possible (probable, imo) in the absence of evidence that genetic percentages are used as a criterion in and of themselves.
Let's see that evidence someday, hmmm?



Barbarian observes:
Likewise, it's nice that you didn't call me names that time.


I haven't called you names at all, unless you count "Doctor Barbarian", "Barbarian" or "B".



(denial)

Who was it who called me a &quot;hypcrite&quot;? Why it was Captain O! Imagine that.


Apparently that's what you did (imagine it).
I stated that, depending on a particular position you may have taken, that I expected to be able to demonstrate hyocrisy (that's inconsistency between word and deed) on your part.
That's not name-calling. Nor would it be name-calling if I surmised that your reasoning that leads to you thinking that you were being called names is stupid reasoning, based on evaluation of your reasoning process.



Nope. He's saying that variation between human groups is once considered races is about one-half to one-third that required to consider them biological races.


You're reading into the text. He refers to "some" of the larger mammalian groups. What about the others? Are they 10x more diverse, or only 10% more diverse? Where's the objectively established cutoff point that you imagine he's referring to?



Nope. I know why. Because Capt. O doesn't agree with it.


I have good reasons for questioning your use of the Templeton quotations.
Deal with it.




So when we talk about the population of Tulsa, that means that they don't breed with anyone else?

Are you very sure?

I'll let you answer:
"Barbarian observes:
A species is an interbreeding population of organisms."

And just to forestall any tendency on your part to weasel:
http://helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/bto/glossary/p.htm
(look up "population")
http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/Endangered/glossary.html
http://iufro.boku.ac.at/silvavoc/glossary/af20_11en.html
http://www.jbpub.com/oceanlink/interactive_glossary_showterm.cfm?term=Population

I'm sure that you have a tendency to argue disingenuously.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 04:46 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=137257#post137257)
The Barbarian:



Capt. O seems to have a vigorous and active imagination. I would never have expected that the the universe would get old enough that someone would suggest that the Nazi classification of &quot;Jewish&quot; would remotely correspond to the idea of &quot;species&quot;.


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=analogous
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=analogy

No, don't thank me; just clean up your act.



Some things, like Capt. O's &quot;archtypes&quot;, are merely cultural constructs. Others, like species and diamonds, are simply recognized by sufficiently intelligent humans.

"If you wish to study a granfalloon, remove the skin of a toy balloon."
--Vonnegut

[Joe Meert]

No, don't thank me; just clean up your act.



JM: This discussion is really going nowhere and fast. Maybe if we switch the question around to a more basic level. I am willing (for a brief moment) to continue the line of argument by agreeing to Ochre's thesis that Hitler's actions were 'evolutionarily sound'. Remember my agreement is only to move this on to the next level. So, here is my next question. So What? Does this invalidate evolutionary biology as a science? Does evolutionary biology stand or fall on the basis of its misuse by a madman? In the context of a discussion over the scientific merits of evolutionary biology versus creationism, what scientific point is being made here? If no scientific point is being made, then the argument appears to be nothing more than an emotional appeal.....if I can equate evolutionary biology with the holocaust, I can make the idea less palatable to the general public. Furthermore, let me ask; "If evolutionary theory had not been proposed, would the Holocaust still have occurred"? I suspect, on the basis of what Hitler wrote in "Mein Kampf" that evolutionary biology had very little (if any) influence on his feelings toward the jews. The persecution, hatred and ridicule of Judaism extends much farther back in time than does evolutionary biology. Lastly, would Hitler have exterminated a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jew?

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Dee Dee Warren]

Captain Ochre - FYI - thank you for your attentionto this thread. I am going to be downloading and saving this conversation.... it is a keeper.

[Vorkosigan]

Why Dee Dee? A thread about Social Darwinism and Hitler which fails to mention people like Fichte, Gobineau, or Chamberlain (the major influences on Hitler's thinking about race and society) is a thread that hasn't really explored the issue at all. The original OP is the thing you should download; it is a nice summary of the scientific issues.

Ochre's posts were full of extremely funny errors, basically summed up here:

The Nazis were informed by their nationalistic tradition that their genetics were the best. They simply employed science in an attempt to ensure the evolutionary success of their population.

Nazi racial profiles were not scientifically constructed, they were arbitrarily constructed in a series of nutty books by Chamberlain and Rosenberg (didn't anyone do any historical research for this thread?). Here's a URL giving a thumbnail description:

The Chamberlain Connection (http://www.intelinet.org/swastika/swasti06.htm)

Another powerful influence on Hitler was the french racist Gobineau:
The Great Aryans (http://www.adolfhitler.ws/lib/books/making/aryans.htm)

Hitler's racial theories were not scientific and had little to with Darwin, but grew from a matrix of 19th century nationalistic folk theorizing that had nothing to do with the science of the day, although many scientists subscribed to them (of course you could get killed in later years in Nazi Germany for not!). Two other major influences on Hitler's social and racial theorizing were Fichte and Hegel. Those two, along with Gobineau, predate Darwin. For a good accessible, broad, overview of Hitler's thinking in the context of the war and his social and racial aims, see William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Ochre's position was essentially annihilated by this simple observation:

Were the social darwinists and nazis of the early 20th century engaged in such a program? No. They were engaged in a psuedoscientific program that only the least well biologically trained could have hoped would bring success.

Bingo. As the famous anthropologist Franz Boas noted in this famous speech in 1931 (http://www.southwestern.edu/~greenmue/boas.htm), the whole idea of breeding people for specific traits is highly problematic. And that was two years before Hitler came to power.

Vorkosigan

[Joe Meert]

Why Dee Dee? A thread about Social Darwinism and Hitler which fails to mention people like Fichte, Gobineau, or Chamberlain (the major influences on Hitler's thinking about race and society) is a thread that hasn't really explored the issue at all. The original OP is the thing you should download; it is a nice summary of the scientific issues.


JM: Don't forget the influence of Martin Luther.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Dee Dee Warren]

Vork, is it just me or have you not been around lately? I was just wondering about you yesterday when I saw your name fly by as I was sending out the newsletter.

As to your question, we have to agree to disagree for I am getting a lot out of CO's posts. I simply wanted to offer him a word of encouragement and let him know that there were hit and miss lurkers who were stopping by. I have not read the thread in total detail yet, but have read points here and there, and am impressed by CO. When the threads reaches a halt I will download and keep it. If you think his points are refuted then you should be happy I am keeping it and that in the future I will "see the light" and agree with you. I keep quite a few threads for future use for I admire the debating skills of a few posters here and CO is definitely one of them.

[Roy]

Today @ 04:15 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=137246#post137246)
The Barbarian:

Actually, Darwin seems to have used the 19th century convention of comparing it to species.

Hence the title of his book:

On The Origin of Species. by Means of Natural Selection,. or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

'Races' in that title could equally well mean 'subspecies'. Darwin actually defines 'races' as subspecies', and uses it accordingly. The following quotes from the first chapter of Origin demonstrate this:

"Indefinite variability is a much more common result of changed conditions than definite variability, and has probably played a more important part in the formation of our domestic races. "

"Hence it has been argued that no deductions can be drawn from domestic races to species in a state of nature."

"the several races, for instance, of the cabbage"

"When we look to the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants"

"domestic races of the same species differ from each other"

"In attempting to estimate the amount of structural difference between allied domestic races, we are soon involved in doubt, from not knowing whether they are descended from one or several parent species"

'In the case of strongly marked races of some other domesticated species"

'period of less advanced civilisation, during which the domesticated animals, kept by different tribes in different districts, might have varied and given rise to distinct races"

"I am doubtfully inclined to believe, in opposition to several authors, that all the races belong to the same species"

"all our races of dogs"

" the rock-pigeon (Columba livia), including under this term several geographical races or sub-species"

"many of our domestic races are descended from the same parents"

"regulations for the Goodwood Races"

"whether or not two or more species or races have become blended together by crossing"

"many races may be improved and kept true, though mingled in the same aviary;"

I can't help wondering if you've only read the title, and not the actual book.

Roy

[Joe Meert]

'Races' in that title could equally well mean 'subspecies'. Darwin actually defines 'races' as subspecies', and uses it accordingly. The following quotes from the first chapter of Origin demonstrate this:

Umm, Roy... the Barbarian has made this exact point elsewhere in the thread. Trust me, I am fairly confident the barbarian has read the book and likely more than one time.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Roy]

Today @ 01:30 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=137414#post137414)
Joe Meert:



Umm, Roy... the Barbarian has made this exact point elsewhere in the thread. Trust me, I am fairly confident the barbarian has read the book and likely more than one time.

Maybe he's forgotten it then - why else would he agree with CO's statement that "Darwin used "race" virtually interchangeably with "species" when he wrote..." :huh:

[Vorkosigan]

Vork, is it just me or have you not been around lately? I was just wondering about you yesterday when I saw your name fly by as I was sending out the newsletter.

We went to the beach for five days. What a madhouse! First weekend after the school semester ends. But lots of fun. I threw up some pix for my family at homehere (http://users2.ev1.net/~turton/fampix/fampix.html). We had to cut it short when I got some translation work. The price of a client-based business. <sigh>

But here I am. Internet addiction at its worst. :uneasy:


When the threads reaches a halt I will download and keep it. If you think his points are refuted then you should be happy I am keeping it and that in the future I will &quot;see the light&quot; and agree with you. I keep quite a few threads for future use for I admire the debating skills of a few posters here and CO is definitely one of them.

I agree that Ochre is a very impressive debater. Do you think that this skill of his is based on his ability to master a complex topic with reference to appropriate ideas, sources and information, or is this impression due to his mastery of rhetorical tips and tricks? I am definitely going with B on that one.....

Vorkosigan

[Dee Dee Warren]

Today @ 09:25 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=137451#post137451)
Vorkosigan:



We went to the beach for five days. What a madhouse! First weekend after the school semester ends. But lots of fun. I threw up some pix for my family at homehere (http://users2.ev1.net/~turton/fampix/fampix.html). We had to cut it short when I got some translation work. The price of a client-based business. &lt;sigh&gt;

You translate? What language? I will check out the pics later (at work now)



But here I am. Internet addiction at its worst. :uneasy:

Well at least you know the best site to come to.




I agree that Ochre is a very impressive debater. Do you think that this skill of his is based on his ability to master a complex topic with reference to appropriate ideas, sources and information, or is this impression due to his mastery of rhetorical tips and tricks? I am definitely going with B on that one.....

Vorkosigan

I believe it is both. It takes a lot to earn my continued admiration which CO has done. He has IMHO both mastered many complex topics and has mastered the art of debate. He is one of my favorite posters here at TWeb for all of the above. He also generally has the respect of his opposition as has been expressed to me by others. I have told him that if he ever left TWeb I would hunt him down and drag him back :ddw:

[The Barbarian]

Why would Darwin use "race" and "species" interchangably, as he did in his title?

And yes, he also used it for species in his book. "Species" isn't really defined in "The Origin of Species".

I'm beginning to think Capt. O thinks that "archtypes" are some kind of biological classification.

But he has so many misconceptions about the meaning of various words that it's hard to say.

[Joe Meert]

I agree that Ochre is a very impressive debater. Do you think that this skill of his is based on his ability to master a complex topic with reference to appropriate ideas, sources and information, or is this impression due to his mastery of rhetorical tips and tricks? I am definitely going with B on that one.....


JM: I agree with you on choice B. This thread is a good example of a debate gone wild. It's quite clear that Ochre will steadfastly maintain his viewpoint on Hitler/Race. It is also quite clear that the rest of us will continue to try and correct his factual errors and the thread could go on until we are all exhausted. That is why I've tried to move beyond the factual arguments and simply accept Ochre's thesis. This way maybe I can get some answers to the following questions:

So What? Does this invalidate evolutionary biology as a science? Does evolutionary biology stand or fall on the basis of its misuse by a madman? In the context of a discussion over the scientific merits of evolutionary biology versus creationism, what scientific point is being made here? If no scientific point is being made, then the argument appears to be nothing more than an emotional appeal.....if I can equate evolutionary biology with the holocaust, I can make the idea less palatable to the general public. Furthermore, let me ask; "If evolutionary theory had not been proposed, would the Holocaust still have occurred"? I suspect, on the basis of what Hitler wrote in "Mein Kampf" that evolutionary biology had very little (if any) influence on his feelings toward the jews. The persecution, hatred and ridicule of Judaism extends much farther back in time than does evolutionary biology. Lastly, would Hitler have exterminated a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jew?

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Roy]

Today @ 04:29 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=137562#post137562)
The Barbarian:

Why would Darwin use &quot;race&quot; and &quot;species&quot; interchangably, as he did in his title?

I'm not sure that he did. 'Favoured races' could equally well refer to subspecies that are the precursors of later species.



And yes, he also used it for species in his book.


Example please?

Note that many of the quotes I provided make no sense if 'race' means 'species', or even 'species or subspecies', but do make sense if it means 'subspecies'. Particularly the last one.

Roy

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 11:42 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=137385#post137385)
Joe Meert:

JM: This discussion is really going nowhere and fast.


With respect to your own contribution, I cannot disagree.



Maybe if we switch the question around to a more basic level. I am willing (for a brief moment) to continue the line of argument by agreeing to Ochre's thesis that Hitler's actions were 'evolutionarily sound'. Remember my agreement is only to move this on to the next level. So, here is my next question. So What?


The image-polishing of evolutionary apologists is put into perspective.



Does this invalidate evolutionary biology as a science?


No, not per se. Why would you even ask that question?



Does evolutionary biology stand or fall on the basis of its misuse by a madman?


Yes.
Only kidding. Of course not. Will all of your questions be so silly?



In the context of a discussion over the scientific merits of evolutionary biology versus creationism, what scientific point is being made here?


None. How do you figure that we're in the context of discussing the scientific merits of evolutionary biology versus creationism? Did the Barbarian's red herring throw you astray?
Okay, probably my fault for bothering to treat his digressions/asides.



If no scientific point is being made, then the argument appears to be nothing more than an emotional appeal.....if I can equate evolutionary biology with the holocaust, I can make the idea less palatable to the general public.


Yes! And if Bush conspires to blow up the WTC, then he can start a war that will make him politically popular.
You caught me.
:ahem:



Furthermore, let me ask; &quot;If evolutionary theory had not been proposed, would the Holocaust still have occurred&quot;?


Probably not. It was the marriage of antisemitism with scientific ideas of human control of heritable traits that led to the holocaust. I see no other reason to justify such a program if it hadn't occurred previously.



I suspect, on the basis of what Hitler wrote in &quot;Mein Kampf&quot; that evolutionary biology had very little (if any) influence on his feelings toward the jews.


Did you read that work, or are you merely familiar with the out-of-context snippets that get peddled commonly at the worst websites that promote atheism?



The persecution, hatred and ridicule of Judaism extends much farther back in time than does evolutionary biology.


Correct. So what?



Lastly, would Hitler have exterminated a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jew?


Have you read this thread, Joe? Support the Reich and keep your nose clean and it probably doesn't matter what you look like or who you worship (so long as the "Leader" garners your allegiance in day-to-day activities).
If you're a tall, blonde, blue-eyed Jew who has two religiously Jewish grandparents and your support of the Reich appears questionable, expect a holiday behind barbed wire.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 12:45 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=137391#post137391)
Vorkosigan:

Why Dee Dee? A thread about Social Darwinism and Hitler which fails to mention people like Fichte, Gobineau, or Chamberlain (the major influences on Hitler's thinking about race and society) is a thread that hasn't really explored the issue at all.


The issue is the relationship of science to the Nazi program, specifically the eugenic measures (as implemented corresponding to the Nazi view of race).
Don't leave out Nietszche and Haeckel, btw.

Oops, almost forgot to add the "word for Dee Dee": Supposing that Vorko's apparent suspicion is correct, and you take my argument as an analysis of Social Darwinism on the whole, I would advise against taking it that way.
I take you to be a very intelligent person, however, so I'm confident that you're taking my posts in mol their intended spirit.



Ochre's posts were full of extremely funny errors, basically summed up here:

The Nazis were informed by their nationalistic tradition that their genetics were the best. They simply employed science in an attempt to ensure the evolutionary success of their population.


I don't suppose that you'd care to actually identify the supposed error(s)?

Otherwise, your post resembles the following satire:
Vorkosigan's post are filled with hilarious errors, of which the following is representative:
A thread about Social Darwinism and Hitler which fails to mention people like Fichte, Gobineau, or Chamberlain (the major influences on Hitler's thinking about race and society) is a thread that hasn't really explored the issue at all.

See the question mark in the thought-balloon overhead?



Nazi racial profiles were not scientifically constructed,


So what? Who said otherwise?



they were arbitrarily constructed in a series of nutty books by Chamberlain and Rosenberg (didn't anyone do any historical research for this thread?). Here's a URL giving a thumbnail description:

The Chamberlain Connection (http://www.intelinet.org/swastika/swasti06.htm)


"Another possible link between the swastika and the Nazis may be . . ."
"Some authors claim that, early in his political career, Adolph Hitler came under the philosophical influence of Houston Stewart Chamberlain . . ."

Certainly sounds authoritative.



Another powerful influence on Hitler was the french racist Gobineau:
The Great Aryans (http://www.adolfhitler.ws/lib/books/making/aryans.htm)


Since you're Vorkosigan, it comes as no surprise to me that your link does not directly connect Gobineau to Hitler at all. Forgive me for not hiring you as my research assistant.
I'm really not trying to be nasty to you, Vorko, but I do find it amazing that you your links so consistently fail to support the claims to which they are attached.



Hitler's racial theories were not scientific and had little to with Darwin, but grew from a matrix of 19th century nationalistic folk theorizing that had nothing to do with the science of the day, although many scientists subscribed to them (of course you could get killed in later years in Nazi Germany for not!).


In Descent of Man Darwin made statements that unmistakably align with Social Darwinist thinking. That's been covered in another thread. Hitler was well-read, so it's likely that he was familiar with Darwin's own writings on the topic, though it's quite possible that Hitler's homie, Ernst Haeckel, was the greater influence from the scientific realm. It's worth noting that Hitler was no science junkie, of course.



Ochre's position was essentially annihilated by this simple observation:

Were the social darwinists and nazis of the early 20th century engaged in such a program? No. They were engaged in a psuedoscientific program that only the least well biologically trained could have hoped would bring success.


You rather skimped on the context. What type of program is he talking about, specifically?

The attempt to improve the human species biologically is known as eugenics, and was the basis of a popular movement in Europe and North America during the first half of this century. Eugenics was advocated by prominent scientists across the entire political spectrum, who represented it as the logical consequence of the most advanced biological thinking of the period. In the U.S., eugenic thinking resulted in social policies that called for forced sterilization of individuals regarded as inferior because they were 'feeble minded or paupers.' In Europe, the Nazis took up these ideas, and their attempts at implementation led to widespread revulsion against the concept of eugenics.
http://research.mednet.ucla.edu/pmts/germline/Historical%20Echoes/hecrg1.htm

However, the eugenics movement was taken out to its logical endpoint during the course of the Nazi dictatorship.
http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/craig.pepin/nazi_eugenics.htm



Bingo. As the famous anthropologist Franz Boas noted in this famous speech in 1931 (http://www.southwestern.edu/~greenmue/boas.htm), the whole idea of breeding people for specific traits is highly problematic. And that was two years before Hitler came to power.


I find it difficult to correlate your conclusion regarding Boas' speech with the text you provided. Would you quote what you think is a relevant portion (unless the idea was to provide a substantial volume of material in order to discourage investigation)?

In the final section looked at here, Boas strikes out against the notion of eugenics, which for its proponents held promise as a way to increase the strength, stature, intelligence, and fertility of the human race. Boas states that, while the goal of eugenics is to reduce the suffering of humanity, through the “suppression of the progeny of the defective classes,” efforts should instead be focussed on improving the social conditions that have created a “poverty- and disease-stricken proletariat” which will be “reborn from even the best stock” so long as the economic conditions exist that will inflict misery upon them (p. 119). For Boas, the only place for eugenics is to suppress the “defective classes” whose shortcomings can definitely attributed to heredity. However, for him eugenics is not a cure for all of society’s ills—rather, it is a “dangerous sword” that may turn against those who rely upon it too much (p. 121).
http://classes.yale.edu/anth500a/projects/project_sites/01_Clark/Annotatedbiblio.html

An attempt to put Boas in context:
http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/craig.pepin/nazi_eugenics.htm

[Captain Ochre]

07-01-2003 @ 06:53 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=136500#post136500)
Captain Ochre:




Darwin used &quot;race&quot; virtually interchangeably with &quot;species&quot; when he wrote.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_07.html



What I wrote above produced an unproductive (in terms of our primary subject matter) sub-debate, so I'll take the opportunity to provide examples better expressing my intent.

During an early stage in the divergence of the races of man from a
common stock, the differences between the races and their number
must have been small; consequently as far as their distinguishing
characters are concerned, they then had less claim to rank as distinct
species than the existing so-called races. Nevertheless, so
arbitrary is the term of species, that such early races would
perhaps have been ranked by some naturalists as distinct species, if
their differences, although extremely slight, had been more constant
than they are at present, and had not graduated into each other.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_07.html

The point was that Cavalli-Sforza's claim that Darwin found difficulty distinguishing race (as sub-species) in humans isn't particularly true; Darwin had no trouble calling races sub-species, but questioned whether the various races of humans could be distinct species.

My apologies for not protecting my writing from the misunderstandings that result from the progressive loss of context inherent with the incremental aspect of forum posting.

[Joe Meert]

The image-polishing of evolutionary apologists is put into perspective.

JM: Nope, I am asking a question.


No, not per se. Why would you even ask that question?

JM: Because it's an issue that's almost always raised on creation-evolution boards and nowhere else. I am merely trying to show that it is irrelevant as to whether or not evolutionary biology is correct or incorrect. So, the question is why bring it up? The motive is apparent to me.


Yes.
Only kidding. Of course not. Will all of your questions be so silly?

JM: I try to target my questions to the audience that will be answering them, why?




None. How do you figure that we're in the context of discussing the scientific merits of evolutionary biology versus creationism?

JM: I'll note that you are amazed that someone might ask the question.


Did the Barbarian's red herring throw you astray?

JM: I have to tell you, I was getting tired. A man can only deal with so many nets full of fish.


Okay, probably my fault for bothering to treat his digressions/asides.

JM: I think we would be happy if you simply dealt with the main points. However, I understand that both sides have said about all they can say and you will maintain that you are correct and we will maintain that we are correct. That can go on a long time. Personally, I see no point in wasting bandwidth trying to demonstrate your basic misunderstandings.



Yes! And if Bush conspires to blow up the WTC, then he can start a war that will make him politically popular.


JM: Irrelevant.


Probably not. It was the marriage of antisemitism with scientific ideas of human control of heritable traits that led to the holocaust. I see no other reason to justify such a program if it hadn't occurred previously.

JM: Thank-you!



Did you read that work, or are you merely familiar with the out-of-context snippets that get peddled commonly at the worst websites that promote atheism?

JM: I read the work and I am familiar with the out-of-context snippets used by creationists and their apologists (many of them right here on this board!). I also understand that Hitler's actions are pretty much irrelevant in the evolution-creation discussion other than for emotional appeal.



Have you read this thread, Joe?

JM: Interesting question, but one of those questions that is not asked in the spirit of discovery.


Support the Reich and keep your nose clean and it probably doesn't matter what you look like or who you worship (so long as the &quot;Leader&quot; garners your allegiance in day-to-day activities).If you're a tall, blonde, blue-eyed Jew who has two religiously Jewish grandparents and your support of the Reich appears questionable, expect a holiday behind barbed wire

JM: So according to you neither 'race' (as you define it) nor religion were all that important. That pretty much does it for me.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[The Barbarian]

I guess Capt. O has completely abandoned his attempt to show that races have a biological reality.

Or maybe it was "archtypes"; he seemed to use them interchangably.

It should also be pointed out that even in the context of Capt. O's version of Darwinism, that Hitler did not have a sound evolutionary approach; extinction is the ultimate arbiter.

The Nazis had a much better grasp of other scientific theories, such as chemistry and aeronautics, but for some reason, that doesn't seem to be significant to many people.

I think I know why.

[Vorkosigan]

The issue is the relationship of science to the Nazi program,

Precisely. And as everyone has pointed out, "science" had nothing to do with it. The Nazis were psuedoscientists, borrowing caricatures of science for their own purposes, like New Agers, Cult Archaeologists, or Creationists. The major influences on them were people like Chamberlain, who got his ideas from Nietszche and Wagner, and through 19th century thinking, people like Gobineau, and of course, the folk thinking of cheap German nationalism.

specifically the eugenic measures (as implemented corresponding to the Nazi view of race). Don't leave out Nietszche and Haeckel, btw.

Didn't.

I don't suppose that you'd care to actually identify the supposed error(s)?

Your error was neatly summed up in that quote of yours. There isn't any science in the Nazi program. It is all nonsense, even by the standards of its day.

"By the mid-1930s, eugenics research came under increasing scrutiny, and independent analysis revealed that most eugenic data were useless. A committee of the American Neurological Association reported that "[The definitional problem] invalidates, we believe, the earlier work which comes from Davenport, Rosanoff and the American Eugenics School with its headquarters at Cold Spring Harbor." According to an external visiting committee assembled by the Carnegie Institution of Washington: "Some traits such as 'personality' or 'character' lack precise definition or quantitative methods of measurement; some traits such as 'sense of humor,' 'self respect', 'loyalty' or 'holding a grudge' could seldom be known outside an individual's close friends and associates¡KEven more objective characteristics, such as hair form or eye color, become relatively worthless items of genetic data when recorded by an untrained observer."
Eugenics (http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay5text.html)

So what? Who said otherwise?

<sigh>

Some authors claim that, early in his political career, Adolph Hitler came under the philosophical influence of Houston Stewart Chamberlain . . .

Certainly sounds authoritative.

Hitler's admiration of Chamberlain is well known; he maintained a close relationship with Eva Wagner, Chamberlain's wife. Maybe you should check out one of the standard biographies.

Since you're Vorkosigan, it comes as no surprise to me that your link does not directly connect Gobineau to Hitler at all.
Forgive me for not hiring you as my research assistant.

I see. In the future I'll have to use words of one syllable and chalk drawings. Gobineau was a direct and indirect influence on Hitler through the whole racist garbage of the 19th century race thinkers. I thought that would be obvious, but I see I overestimated your fund of general knowledge. Or perhaps your willingness to discuss in good faith.

Encyclopedia (http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/NatlSoci_Ideology.asp)

I'm really not trying to be nasty to you, Vorko, but I do find it amazing that you your links so consistently fail to support the claims to which they are attached.

Well, yes, if you are look for a line from Hitler that says "Gobineau is great!" you'd be right. But the world doesn't work that way. In the real world complex events have complex causes. First you have to trace out the development of the racial thinking and German nationalism and anti-Semitism, which has many roots, all older than Darwin. Darwin was not inventing Social Darwinism, he was reacting to an already extant program that predated him by at least a century.

In Descent of Man Darwin made statements that unmistakably align with Social Darwinist thinking. That's been covered in another thread. Hitler was well-read, so it's likely that he was familiar with Darwin's own writings on the topic,

LOL. Excuse me. "It is likely....????" Since you're Ochre, it comes as no surprise to me that you cannot directly connect Darwin to Hitler at all. Can you show me that Hitler drew directly on The Descent of Man in formulating racist policy, that he understood evolution and Darwin correctly, and that he correctly applied Darwin's ideas? Not that it matters, since the science had moved beyond Darwin anyway by Hitler's time.

Hitler drew his racial ideas from 18th and 19th century racist thinking that long preceded Darwin, and from beer hall nationalist and racist ideas that had nothing to do with science at all.

You rather skimped on the context. What type of program is he talking about, specifically?

The one you so thoughtfully displayed below....

The attempt to improve the human species biologically is known as eugenics, and was the basis of a popular movement in Europe and North America during the first half of this century. Eugenics was advocated by prominent scientists across the entire political spectrum, who represented it as the logical consequence of the most advanced biological thinking of the period. In the U.S., eugenic thinking resulted in social policies that called for forced sterilization of individuals regarded as inferior because they were 'feeble minded or paupers.' In Europe, the Nazis took up these ideas, and their attempts at implementation led to widespread revulsion against the concept of eugenics.
http://research.mednet.ucla.edu/pmts/germline/Historical%20Echoes/hecrg1.htm

However, the eugenics movement was taken out to its logical endpoint during the course of the Nazi dictatorship.
http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/craig.pepin/nazi_eugenics.htm

I find it difficult to correlate your conclusion regarding Boas' speech with the text you provided. Would you quote what you think is a relevant portion (unless the idea was to provide a substantial volume of material in order to discourage investigation)?

Sorry. I understand you are too busy flinging up snide remarks to actually read and think about his position.

You could look at this

The essential question to be answered is whether we have any evidence that would indicate that matings between individuals of different descent and different type would result in a progeny less vigorous than that of their ancestors. We have not had any opportunity to observe any degeneracy in man as clearly due to this cause. The high nobility of all parts of Europe can be shown to be of very mixed origin. French, German and Italian urban populations are derived from all the distinct European types. It would be difficult to show that any degeneracy that may exist among them is due to an evil effect of intermating.

One of things the Nazis claimed was that the Jews were a degenerate race, and interbreeding between races lead to degeneracy. Boas decisively refuted this. Other Nazi claims are debunked in there as well.

Thanks for the notes that put Boas in perspective. As you saw, they support what I was saying: that Hitler's ideas were psuedoscience behind the leading science even of his own time. By 1930 Eugenics had been dismissed by most scientists, and had simply declined into an absurd pseudoscience like the Nazis advocated. By the late 1930s major scientists were putting the smack down on it as well.

The Eugenics Archive (http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/) has a collection of wonderful articles. In fact, if you read the article on scientific origins, you'll soon find that it dates back to the 1700s. In fact, its origins in the 19th century lay with those who believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics -- the anti-Darwinians -- and came of age in the second half of the 19th century, when Darwin was in eclipse in many places (in the US NeoLamarckians ruled the roost). Not until Mendel was rediscovered would this change. It was Mendelian genetics that eliminated the positive eugenics (improving through breeding) of the Neo-Lamarckians, and replaced it with the negative ones of the US, Scandanivia and Germany (improvement through culling). Many of the great Enguenics supporters came out of ag research programs (like Davenport, for example). Geneticists like Morgan for the most part shunned eugenics.

BTW, I am glad you noticed the influence of Haeckel. You are aware that although he championed evolution, he was a Neo-Lamarckian in the development of both species and societies (see the discussion in Bowler Evolution: The History of an Idea, and thus, an anti-Darwinian in certain key ways. In fact, far from the shallow interpretation you make of Darwin, his views are controversial and interpretations run the gamut from promotion of individualism and lassez-faire to complete denial that Darwin ever supported those ideas. It is very difficult to really link Darwin to the eugenics movement in the simplistic way you seem to be attempting. The scholarly debate on it has not yet resolved the issue.

So: here it is in a nutshell. (1) Darwin's own ideas had little to do with the Social Darwinist movement, it precedes him by a long time. (2) The major influences on Hitler's/Nazi thinking were 19th century racist ideas that were fermenting in beer halls and bars among people who had never read Darwin or evolution, and writers like Chamberlain, and directly and indirectly, other 19th century writers on race who were unconnected to Darwin (3) Nazi eugenics was psuedoscience even by the low standards of that movement. (4)The major scientific and social advocates of eugenics in the 19th century and early 20th century were Neo-lamarckians and anti-Darwin for the most part until the re-discovery of Mendel. (5) You have presented no evidence to solidly link Hitler, Darwin, and Nazi behavior. I assume your next post will do so.

Vorkosigan

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 03:12 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=138578#post138578)
The Barbarian:

I guess Capt. O has completely abandoned his attempt to show that races have a biological reality.


I guess that Barbarian has turned tail and run rather than publicly admit the fact that he cannot support his claims regarding a supposed definition of sub-species that is based on percentages of genetic variation.
In the same vein, he has steadfastly refused to abandon his error of equivocation with respect to the Nazi definition of "race".



Or maybe it was &quot;archtypes&quot;; he seemed to use them interchangably.


Yeah, if you ignore the explanation that I gave.



It should also be pointed out that even in the context of Capt. O's version of Darwinism, that Hitler did not have a sound evolutionary approach; extinction is the ultimate arbiter.


In that case, there is no such thing as a sound evolutionary approach since all populations in this universe are probably bound for extinction (according to naturalistic models).

Or, Apollo 13 wasn't a sound scientific approach to space exploration . . .

Not much of a dodge, Barbarian.



The Nazis had a much better grasp of other scientific theories, such as chemistry and aeronautics, but for some reason, that doesn't seem to be significant to many people.

I think I know why.

So that's the whimper you're signing off with?

Toodles.

[Roy]

Today @ 03:12 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=138578#post138578)
The Barbarian:

The Nazis had a much better grasp of other scientific theories, such as chemistry


Apart from Himmler, who thought airfuel could be extracted from geraniums,


and aeronautics,

Which is probably why some German naval officers and rocket scientists experimented with the theory that the Earth is hollow and we live on the inside.

Oh, and they scorned the BV-141, too.

Roy

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 05:17 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=138671#post138671)
Vorkosigan:

The issue is the relationship of science to the Nazi program,

Precisely. And as everyone has pointed out, &quot;science&quot; had nothing to do with it.


That was the point of the original post, which was refuted.* Did you miss that part?
Science provides no "oughts" at all. Directing behaviors is beyond the purview of science. The contribution of science was to provide the understanding of population dynamics that the Nazis used (legitimately) to increase the "Aryan" aspect of their population.
That's my point--we'll see if you can deal with it directly without a bunch of lateral hops and/or dancing.

*To be fair to the thread originator, that point was hinted at in his post rather than stressed. He apparently agreed in principle with my point that the motivations for action are separate from science while the methods employed may be scientific.



The Nazis were psuedoscientists, borrowing caricatures of science for their own purposes, like New Agers, Cult Archaeologists, or Creationists. The major influences on them were people like Chamberlain, who got his ideas from Nietszche and Wagner, and through 19th century thinking, people like Gobineau, and of course, the folk thinking of cheap German nationalism.


Okay, now explain what any of that has to do with my point, described for you in simple language above.



specifically the eugenic measures (as implemented corresponding to the Nazi view of race). Don't leave out Nietszche and Haeckel, btw.

Didn't.


You were thinking of them while you wrote of others, I suppose. Fine.



I don't suppose that you'd care to actually identify the supposed error(s)?

Your error was neatly summed up in that quote of yours. There isn't any science in the Nazi program. It is all nonsense, even by the standards of its day.


That will stand as a fallacious argument by assertion unless what follows may be construed as support.



&quot;By the mid-1930s, eugenics research came under increasing scrutiny, and independent analysis revealed that most eugenic data were useless. A committee of the American Neurological Association reported that &quot;[The definitional problem] invalidates, we believe, the earlier work which comes from Davenport, Rosanoff and the American Eugenics School with its headquarters at Cold Spring Harbor.&quot; According to an external visiting committee assembled by the Carnegie Institution of Washington: &quot;Some traits such as 'personality' or 'character' lack precise definition or quantitative methods of measurement; some traits such as 'sense of humor,' 'self respect', 'loyalty' or 'holding a grudge' could seldom be known outside an individual's close friends and associates¡KEven more objective characteristics, such as hair form or eye color, become relatively worthless items of genetic data when recorded by an untrained observer.&quot;
Eugenics (http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay5text.html)


I haven't claimed that the notion that culture and various other traits were heritable (when the evidence was scant) were legitimate. On the contrary, I was specific in describing the foundation for the supposed superiority of the "Aryan" Germans rested on their cultural nationalism. It's in the quotation that you ridicule, iirc.



So what? Who said otherwise?

&lt;sigh&gt;


Don't worry, lad, I'm sure that you can come up with more straw men.



Some authors claim that, early in his political career, Adolph Hitler came under the philosophical influence of Houston Stewart Chamberlain . . .

Certainly sounds authoritative.

Hitler's admiration of Chamberlain is well known; he maintained a close relationship with Eva Wagner, Chamberlain's wife. Maybe you should check out one of the standard biographies.


Maybe so--but the point is that your link doesn't support your unequivocal statement.



Since you're Vorkosigan, it comes as no surprise to me that your link does not directly connect Gobineau to Hitler at all.
Forgive me for not hiring you as my research assistant.

I see. In the future I'll have to use words of one syllable and chalk drawings.


It will suffice if your links actually support your statements, thanks.



Gobineau was a direct and indirect influence on Hitler through the whole racist garbage of the 19th century race thinkers. I thought that would be obvious, but I see I overestimated your fund of general knowledge. Or perhaps your willingness to discuss in good faith.

Encyclopedia (http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/NatlSoci_Ideology.asp)


You torpedoed "good faith" by establishing a pattern of citation that doesn't support what you say.



I'm really not trying to be nasty to you, Vorko, but I do find it amazing that you your links so consistently fail to support the claims to which they are attached.

Well, yes, if you are look for a line from Hitler that says &quot;Gobineau is great!&quot; you'd be right. But the world doesn't work that way. In the real world complex events have complex causes. First you have to trace out the development of the racial thinking and German nationalism and anti-Semitism, which has many roots, all older than Darwin. Darwin was not inventing Social Darwinism, he was reacting to an already extant program that predated him by at least a century.


Likewise, biological evolution itself preceded Darwin as an idea. He was simply (mol) the first to propose a mechanism. So, Darwin is irrelevant to evolution and Social Darwinism apart from that contribution?



In Descent of Man Darwin made statements that unmistakably align with Social Darwinist thinking. That's been covered in another thread. Hitler was well-read, so it's likely that he was familiar with Darwin's own writings on the topic,

LOL. Excuse me. &quot;It is likely....????&quot; Since you're Ochre, it comes as no surprise to me that you cannot directly connect Darwin to Hitler at all.


I don't need to connect Hitler directly to Darwin. My claims do not rest on that idea. I'm just dealing with your spit & polish attempts.



Can you show me that Hitler drew directly on The Descent of Man in formulating racist policy, that he understood evolution and Darwin correctly, and that he correctly applied Darwin's ideas? Not that it matters, since the science had moved beyond Darwin anyway by Hitler's time.


You're right--it doesn't matter, and not just because science had progressed beyond Darwin.



Hitler drew his racial ideas from 18th and 19th century racist thinking that long preceded Darwin, and from beer hall nationalist and racist ideas that had nothing to do with science at all.


Yup, and in what way does that conflict with the thesis that I sketched for you above; moreover how does it relate to the sentence of mine that you have lauded as a hilarious error?



You rather skimped on the context. What type of program is he talking about, specifically?

The one you so thoughtfully displayed below....

The attempt to improve the human species biologically is known as eugenics, and was the basis of a popular movement in Europe and North America during the first half of this century. Eugenics was advocated by prominent scientists across the entire political spectrum, who represented it as the logical consequence of the most advanced biological thinking of the period. In the U.S., eugenic thinking resulted in social policies that called for forced sterilization of individuals regarded as inferior because they were 'feeble minded or paupers.' In Europe, the Nazis took up these ideas, and their attempts at implementation led to widespread revulsion against the concept of eugenics.
http://research.mednet.ucla.edu/pmts/germline/Historical%20Echoes/hecrg1.htm


Uh-huh? And how does any of that conflict with my thesis (described for you above)?



However, the eugenics movement was taken out to its logical endpoint during the course of the Nazi dictatorship.
http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/craig.pepin/nazi_eugenics.htm

I find it difficult to correlate your conclusion regarding Boas' speech with the text you provided. Would you quote what you think is a relevant portion (unless the idea was to provide a substantial volume of material in order to discourage investigation)?

Sorry. I understand you are too busy flinging up snide remarks to actually read and think about his position.


If only I could be above such things--like you?



You could look at this

The essential question to be answered is whether we have any evidence that would indicate that matings between individuals of different descent and different type would result in a progeny less vigorous than that of their ancestors. We have not had any opportunity to observe any degeneracy in man as clearly due to this cause. The high nobility of all parts of Europe can be shown to be of very mixed origin. French, German and Italian urban populations are derived from all the distinct European types. It would be difficult to show that any degeneracy that may exist among them is due to an evil effect of intermating.

One of things the Nazis claimed was that the Jews were a degenerate race, and interbreeding between races lead to degeneracy. Boas decisively refuted this. Other Nazi claims are debunked in there as well.


How is that claim relevant to my thesis (describe for you above)?

Explain how you reached your apparent conclusion that I think that everything the Nazis believed was based on science?



Thanks for the notes that put Boas in perspective. As you saw, they support what I was saying: that Hitler's ideas were psuedoscience behind the leading science even of his own time.


The Nazi idea that is relevant to my thesis, that eugenics and extermination of competing populations may result in a change in the frequency of alleles over time in a given population, is completely unchallenged by your citation of Boas. When I check the claims of Boas, it becomes clear that you citation doesn't challenge my thesis, and it becomes correpondingly clear that you have gone through the trouble of providing me with yet another irrelevant link.
:joy:



By 1930 Eugenics had been dismissed by most scientists, and had simply declined into an absurd pseudoscience like the Nazis advocated. By the late 1930s major scientists were putting the smack down on it as well.


You're painting with too broad a brush. Eugenics has never been smacked down entirely on a scientific basis. What you're referring to is the mounting evidence that many of the supposedly heritable traits either weren't heritable at all or at least were so poorly understood that no coherent program of eugenics could account for them.
The Human Genome Project is likely to play a part in the renaissance of eugenics.



BTW, I am glad you noticed the influence of Haeckel. You are aware that although he championed evolution, he was a Neo-Lamarckian in the development of both species and societies (see the discussion in Bowler Evolution: The History of an Idea, and thus, an anti-Darwinian in certain key ways.


Darwin himself retained such Lamarkian ideas. He's such a icon to evolutionists that this fact tends to be ignored.



In fact, far from the shallow interpretation you make of Darwin, his views are controversial and interpretations run the gamut from promotion of individualism and lassez-faire to complete denial that Darwin ever supported those ideas. It is very difficult to really link Darwin to the eugenics movement in the simplistic way you seem to be attempting.


On the contrary, it is difficult to separate Darwin from eugenics in the simplistic way you seem to be attempting.
Read the conclusion of Descent of Man and tell me that Darwin didn't advocate a general idea of eugenics. Or else provide the evidence that the conclusion was ghostwritten by Gobineau. :wink:



The scholarly debate on it has not yet resolved the issue.

So: here it is in a nutshell. (1) Darwin's own ideas had little to do with the Social Darwinist movement, it precedes him by a long time.


As does evolution itself. Moot point #1.



(2) The major influences on Hitler's/Nazi thinking were 19th century racist ideas that were fermenting in beer halls and bars among people who had never read Darwin or evolution, and writers like Chamberlain, and directly and indirectly, other 19th century writers on race who were unconnected to Darwin


None of which has to do with my thesis. Moot point #2.



(3) Nazi eugenics was psuedoscience even by the low standards of that movement.


Elements of Nazi belief surrounding eugenics were pseudoscience. That doesn't affect my thesis, afaics, so moot point #3.



(4)The major scientific and social advocates of eugenics in the 19th century and early 20th century were Neo-lamarckians and anti-Darwin for the most part until the re-discovery of Mendel.


False dichotomy of Neo-lamarkaian and Darwinist, unless it's just a fallacy of anachronism. This objection is also relatively indistinguishable from #3 in importance. Thus, point #4 is moot.



(5) You have presented no evidence to solidly link Hitler, Darwin, and Nazi behavior. I assume your next post will do so.


Nope, since my thesis doesn't rely on a connection between Darwin and Nazi behavior, apart from the fact that Haeckel was a proponent of a Darwinism very similar (with particular respect to Neo-lamarckianism) to that advocated by Charles Darwin.
Moot point #5.
Oh-for-five.

I won't make any rash predictions such as supposing that you will get the point of my thesis by the time you post next, or that your next link will be relevant to the claim that you're trying to support.

[Bald Ape]

Captian Ochre:
The contribution of science was to provide the understanding of population dynamics that the Nazis used (legitimately) to increase the "Aryan" aspect of their population.

That's it? In your own words, that's your thesis? If Darwinian evolution was responsible for providing the understanding of population dynamics that the Nazis used (legitimately) to increase the "Aryan" aspect of their population, then how was it possible for dog breeders to increase desireable phenotypic aspects of dog populations prior to Darwinian evolution, without this understanding of population dynamics?

Dog breeder 5,000 years ago: let's mate the ones that sniff better. Seems to give us better sniffers.

Nazis: let's kill the ones that aren't white. Seems we'll get more whites that way. Oh, and Darwin would agree.

Thus we see the truth... Darwinian evolution led to the Holocaust.

Honestly, I think the length and complexities of the thread (and C.O.'s continued [legitimate?] accusations of red herrings and straw men), have been because nobody has appreciated how shallow a point C.O. was trying to defend to begin with - and thus blew right past it.

[Joe Meert]

Today @ 02:08 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=138739#post138739)
Bald Ape:



That's it? In your own words, that's your thesis? If Darwinian evolution was responsible for providing the understanding of population dynamics that the Nazis used (legitimately) to increase the &quot;Aryan&quot; aspect of their population, then how was it possible for dog breeders to increase desireable phenotypic aspects of dog populations prior to Darwinian evolution, without this understanding of population dynamics?

Dog breeder 5,000 years ago: let's mate the ones that sniff better. Seems to give us better sniffers.

Nazis: let's kill the ones that aren't white. Seems we'll get more whites that way. Oh, and Darwin would agree.

Thus we see the truth... Darwinian evolution led to the Holocaust.

Honestly, I think the length and complexities of the thread (and C.O.'s continued [legitimate?] accusations of red herrings and straw men), have been because nobody has appreciated how shallow a point C.O. was trying to defend to begin with - and thus blew right past it.

JM: But apparently traits were not all that important either since...according to CO:


Support the Reich and keep your nose clean and it probably doesn't matter what you look like or who you worship (so long as the "Leader" garners your allegiance in day-to-day activities).If you're a tall, blonde, blue-eyed Jew who has two religiously Jewish grandparents and your support of the Reich appears questionable, expect a holiday behind barbed wire

So basically the main 'trait' that the Nazi's wanted was allegiance to the party. Eugenics based on loyalty....Hmm I must say this changes the discussion.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 12:18 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=138510#post138510)
Joe Meert:


I'll let Joe talk in a sec, but I have to dredge up the context so that it's clear how bizarre his response is.




Maybe if we switch the question around to a more basic level. I am willing (for a brief moment) to continue the line of argument by agreeing to Ochre's thesis that Hitler's actions were 'evolutionarily sound'. Remember my agreement is only to move this on to the next level. So, here is my next question. So What?

C.O.:
The image-polishing of evolutionary apologists is put into perspective.


JM: Nope, I am asking a question.


And I answered it. Now what will you do?



JM: Because it's an issue that's almost always raised on creation-evolution boards and nowhere else.


Our topic isn't creation-evolution. It's science/eugenics in a historical perspective. Join us, won't you?



I am merely trying to show that it is irrelevant as to whether or not evolutionary biology is correct or incorrect. So, the question is why bring it up? The motive is apparent to me.


You may be referring to a comment I made to something like "if evolution is correct" or something like that. I make that comment (if I made it) because the audience at TWeb is mixed between those who accept evolution and those who do not.
Apart from that, I wouldn't have any idea what you're referring to. I haven't fixed any focus on discrediting evolution in this thread.



JM: I try to target my questions to the audience that will be answering them, why?

Just bear in mind that you (along with Vorkosigan) have the potential to be reasonably ignored if your comments either depart markedly from the subject matter, or if they betray such a poor understanding of the conversation that reply would be an utter waste of time.
I'm still giving both of you the benefit of the doubt, for now (except that V-man's links are automatically suspect).




None. How do you figure that we're in the context of discussing the scientific merits of evolutionary biology versus creationism?

JM: I'll note that you are amazed that someone might ask the question.


I'm amazed that you could note such a thing in response to what I wrote, even having observed the content of your other posts



JM: I think we would be happy if you simply dealt with the main points.


What are the main points as you see them, and why? Don't forget to use the initial post to justify your answer.



However, I understand that both sides have said about all they can say and you will maintain that you are correct and we will maintain that we are correct.


So you don't think that Barbarian can support his claim regarding a genetic percentage criterion for sub-species, either?
:wink:



Personally, I see no point in wasting bandwidth trying to demonstrate your basic misunderstandings.


I agree. It is unlikely that you could identify any misunderstandings, let along correct any.



JM: Irrelevant.


Exactly. It's a perfect analogy for your conspiracy theory that has me trying to appeal to emotion in order to discourage belief in evolution.



JM: Thank-you!


Had you intended to edit all save the portion that you put in bold italicized type? Or do you agree that the holocaust would not have happened save for the rise of evolutionary thinking in the context of cultural Scientism?



JM: I read the work and I am familiar with the out-of-context snippets used by creationists and their apologists (many of them right here on this board!).


It's pointless to ask you to substantiate your claims, right?



I also understand that Hitler's actions are pretty much irrelevant in the evolution-creation discussion other than for emotional appeal.


That's nice, except that you fail to understand that the emotional appeal to Hitler's actions in the evolution-creation debate are irrelvevant to this thread.



JM: Interesting question, but one of those questions that is not asked in the spirit of discovery.


So much for me being able to discover whether or not you actually read the thread, I guess.



JM: So according to you neither 'race' (as you define it) nor religion were all that important. That pretty much does it for me.


:rofl:

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 07:08 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=138739#post138739)
Bald Ape:



That's it? In your own words, that's your thesis? If Darwinian evolution was responsible for providing the understanding of population dynamics that the Nazis used (legitimately) to increase the &quot;Aryan&quot; aspect of their population, then how was it possible for dog breeders to increase desireable phenotypic aspects of dog populations prior to Darwinian evolution, without this understanding of population dynamics?


Read the thesis again, Champ.
I don't say anything about Darwinian evolution being responsible for their understanding of population dynamics with respect to eugenics. I've been saying that the program had a scientific core, therefore a claim that the Nazi program had nothing to do with science is not correct.



Dog breeder 5,000 years ago: let's mate the ones that sniff better. Seems to give us better sniffers.


Not with Barbarian there.
"No! Don't do that! Dogs are all one breed, and survival is better served on the whole if dog traits are spread throughout the population!"



Nazis: let's kill the ones that aren't white. Seems we'll get more whites that way. Oh, and Darwin would agree.


You betcha.



Thus we see the truth... Darwinian evolution led to the Holocaust.


Thus we see you putting words into my mouth. Darwin was key to the Holocaust because his theory (mechanism) added strength to the movement of scientism which was in turn a key to the eugenics/Social Darwinism movements.



Honestly, I think the length and complexities of the thread (and C.O.'s continued [legitimate?] accusations of red herrings and straw men), have been because nobody has appreciated how shallow a point C.O. was trying to defend to begin with - and thus blew right past it.

Was that supposed to be an apology?

[Joe Meert]

Apart from that, I wouldn't have any idea what you're referring to. I haven't fixed any focus on discrediting evolution in this thread.

JM: It's clear enough what the intent is when linking Hitler to evolution. Pretending there is no ulterior motive might be good rhetorical fun, but it's been obvious to me for years why people try to link Hitler to evolution and/or Christianity. Some examples of this (note the clear links to 'creation' or Christianity as the alternative). So, no I'm not really going to buy into your 'innocence' claim.

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/nazis.htm
http://www.fixedearth.com/hlsm.html
http://www.evolutionisfalse.org/MORALS.html
http://www.crownrights.com/books/evolution_naziism.htm
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/hit.htm
http://www.bible.ca/tracks/b-evolution-causes-evil-in-society.htm
http://www.cstnews.com/Code/BasisForRacism.html




Just bear in mind that you (along with Vorkosigan) have the potential to be reasonably ignored if your comments either depart markedly from the subject matter

JM: So then, ignore me. Do you think that my day is made or broken depending on whether or not you respond? How arrogant.




, or if they betray such a poor understanding of the conversation that reply would be an utter waste of time.

JM: That's pretty much how I feel about most of your posts, but I try anyway.


I'm still giving both of you the benefit of the doubt, for now (except that V-man's links are automatically suspect).

JM: How sweet of you.



What are the main points as you see them, and why?

JM: Well, I'd like to know the loyalty phenotype.


Don't forget to use the initial post to justify your answer.


JM: The initial post was excellent.


I agree. It is unlikely that you could identify any misunderstandings, let along correct any.

JM: We already have. What is the loyalty phenotype and how do you choose for it?



Exactly. It's a perfect analogy for your conspiracy theory that has me trying to appeal to emotion in order to discourage belief in evolution.

JM: You just thought "Hey, I'll spitball this out in a creation-evolution forum"? Hmm, pardon me if I continue to doubt your sincerity on the issue. I've seen the same thing happen on other boards (roughly once or twice a month).




Had you intended to edit all save the portion that you put in bold italicized type? Or do you agree that the holocaust would not have happened save for the rise of evolutionary thinking in the context of cultural Scientism?

JM: Nope, the holocaust happened because Hitler was a madman. Neither evolution nor Christianity can be blamed for such silly actions.



It's pointless to ask you to substantiate your claims, right?

JM: I'm merely keeping up with you.



That's nice, except that you fail to understand that the emotional appeal to Hitler's actions in the evolution-creation debate are irrelvevant to this thread.

JM: Then why bring it up here?



So much for me being able to discover whether or not you actually read the thread, I guess.


JM: Then I suspect we are birds of a feather.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Vorkosigan]

You translate? What language? I will check out the pics later (at work now)

I do Chinese-to-English, everything but law (can't write it in English) and advertising (very pompous in Chinese, impossible to reproduce in English). I mostly do work for large companies and institutions, smaller clients tend to rip you off too much. I also teach simultaneous translation at the university (not that I can actually do it very well:smile: ) and I got funding for the fall to set up a machine translation center there. Should be lots of fun.

Vorkosigan

[The Barbarian]

Cap'n O:
[qupte]Not with Barbarian there.
"No! Don't do that! Dogs are all one breed, and survival is better served on the whole if dog traits are spread throughout the population!"[/quote]

I can't remenber when I've been misrepresented so well. After repeatedly pointing out that breeds, races, and subspecies exist in other animals, the Cap'n "quotes" me saying the opposite.

Of course, when we see feral animals of any sort, the populations tend to evolve toward a median.

And yes, a great deal of genetic diversity.

But I'm still wondering if the Cap'n is still thinking that "archtypes" have a biological reality, or if he's finally conceded that human races do not.

How about it, Cap'n?

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 02:36 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=139097#post139097)
The Barbarian:

Cap'n O:

Not with Barbarian there.
&quot;No! Don't do that! Dogs are all one breed, and survival is better served on the whole if dog traits are spread throughout the population!&quot;

I can't remenber when I've been misrepresented so well. After repeatedly pointing out that breeds, races, and subspecies exist in other animals, the Cap'n &quot;quotes&quot; me saying the opposite.


You're slow on the uptake, B.
The above parody supposes you referring to the ancestral population of dogs. Or would you (with your vast knowledge of evolution) suppose that dogs do not share common ancestry?



Of course, when we see feral animals of any sort, the populations tend to evolve toward a median.

And yes, a great deal of genetic diversity.


All quite in keeping with my point, thanks.



But I'm still wondering if the Cap'n is still thinking that &quot;archtypes&quot; have a biological reality, or if he's finally conceded that human races do not.

How about it, Cap'n?

I never claimed that archetypes necessarily have a biological reality as it's unimportant to the point that I reaffirmed for you in the earlier post (in fact I have specifically argued at some length that it wouldn't at all be necessary).
So, once again we find B trying to wring rhetorical advantage out of nothing; blood from a turnip, as it were.

I'll concede that my right and left femurs aren't perfectly equal in length also, if that makes you happy. The concessions are equally relevant to my thesis.

[The Barbarian]

(Barbarian points out that Cap'n O falsely attributed opinions to him)


You're slow on the uptake, B.

Could be. But not that slow. Or maybe you aren't as clever as you thought you were. Whatever, you presented as my opinion, something you knew was precisely the opposite of what I told you.


The above parody supposes you referring to the ancestral population of dogs.

I don't think that's what "parody" means. At least it didn't the last time I looked it up. You see, "parody" would be taking an opinion one has, and carrying it to rediculous extremes. Presenting something you knew one diametrically opposed is normally called... well, you know.


Or would you (with your vast knowledge of evolution) suppose that dogs do not share common ancestry?

You aren't as quick at tapdancing, as you should be, either. You attributed an opinion to me you knew I don't hold. In fact, you knew I held the opposite. And you are well aware that it has nothing to do with common ancestry of dogs. I repeat; you aren't as clever as you think and we aren't as dumb as you hoped.

Barbarian observes:
Of course, when we see feral animals of any sort, the populations tend to evolve toward a median.

And yes, a great deal of genetic diversity.


All quite in keeping with my point, thanks.

Nope. Your point was to attribute to me something you knew I did not believe. You're not a very honest person.

Barbarian wonders:
But I'm still wondering if the Cap'n is still thinking that "archtypes" have a biological reality, or if he's finally conceded that human races do not.

How about it, Cap'n? ”


I never claimed that archetypes necessarily have a biological reality

Boy, howdy, you were up in arms when I told you that they didn't a while back. Hard to hit a moving target, eh, Cap'n?


So, once again we find B trying to wring rhetorical advantage out of nothing; blood from a turnip, as it were.

I would think your integrity would be more important than that to you.


'll concede that my right and left femurs aren't perfectly equal in length also, if that makes you happy.

It is not my intent to show that you are physically crooked.


The concessions are equally relevant to my thesis.

Since it seems to change from post to post, I can believe any concession you make would eventually be relevant to it.

[Bald Ape]

CO:
Thus we see you putting words into my mouth. Darwin was key to the Holocaust because his theory (mechanism) added strength to the movement of scientism which was in turn a key to the eugenics/Social Darwinism movements.
I must ask - how is this different from saying that Darwin's parents sex-life was key to the Holocaust, because it was key to Darwin's birth, which was key to... etc... which was key to the Holocaust?

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 09:39 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=139590#post139590)
Bald Ape:


I must ask - how is this different from saying that Darwin's parents sex-life was key to the Holocaust, because it was key to Darwin's birth, which was key to... etc... which was key to the Holocaust?

Not much different at all, nor is it intended to be.
That's why the statement to the effect that I blame Darwin for the holocaust is so silly.
See the context in which my comment occurred.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 06:18 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=139152#post139152)
The Barbarian:

(Barbarian points out that Cap'n O falsely attributed opinions to him)


IOW, Bar "Spin-o-matic" barian accuses C.O. of falsely attributing opinions to Barbarian while conveniently omitting any valid evidence that his accusation is true.



Could be. But not that slow. Or maybe you aren't as clever as you thought you were. Whatever, you presented as my opinion, something you knew was precisely the opposite of what I told you.


Baloney. With reference to the human population, you regard it as free of subspecies. The common ancestors of dogs may well have been of that same character, thus we have the perfect foundation for an analogy. Barbarian says that eugenics for humans isn't scientific since "races" (sub-species) do not exist as biological entities. In our analogy, the canine common ancestor doesn't have sub-species, either. Thus, since B denies the legitimacy of eugenics in the unsubdivided human species, it stands to reason that he would deny the legitimacy of eugenics in the unsubdivided dog species.
It's funny that I'd even have to explain that to you, imo.



I don't think that's what &quot;parody&quot; means. At least it didn't the last time I looked it up. You see, &quot;parody&quot; would be taking an opinion one has, and carrying it to rediculous extremes. Presenting something you knew one diametrically opposed is normally called... well, you know.


Case in point, with you being the perpetrator. Well, giving you the benefit of the doubt you might just be confused.



You aren't as quick at tapdancing, as you should be, either. You attributed an opinion to me you knew I don't hold.


Incorrect. I attributed an opinion to you that you do hold, and made use of it in terms of your own (actually Bald Ape's) analogy. You apparently didn't like the way it made you look, so you launched an illogical and ill-considered attack.



In fact, you knew I held the opposite. And you are well aware that it has nothing to do with common ancestry of dogs. I repeat; you aren't as clever as you think and we aren't as dumb as you hoped.


Present-day humanity, for all you know, could be the common ancestor of a dozen (or more) subsequent species or many times that many sub-species--according to evolution. That's the fact that undergirds my point regarding the scientific legitimacy of the Nazi program, and the fact is that you dare not acknowledge in that context without tossing a few red herrings about.



Barbarian observes:
Of course, when we see feral animals of any sort, the populations tend to evolve toward a median.

And yes, a great deal of genetic diversity.


However, "a great deal of genetic diversity" isn't essential to breeding for outcomes nor for the potential for speciation--unless you intend to equivocate--but once again I'll grant you benefit of the doubt. :smile:



Nope. Your point was to attribute to me something you knew I did not believe. You're not a very honest person.


Your accusation is baseless (just like your claim of a criterion for sub-species classification based on percentages of genetic variation).



Barbarian wonders:
But I'm still wondering if the Cap'n is still thinking that &quot;archtypes&quot; have a biological reality, or if he's finally conceded that human races do not.

How about it, Cap'n? ”



Boy, howdy, you were up in arms when I told you that they didn't a while back. Hard to hit a moving target, eh, Cap'n?


You would know. We wonder why you didn't c&p the example you're referring to? I'll do it for you. :smile:

Introduction of the idea of the phenotyptical archetype:




"A Jew is the child of a Jewish mother. As far as genes go, you can't do it. No matter what phenotype or genotype you pick, there will be Jews that don't fit. "

Your argument begs the question by airily dismissing the Nazi view of the Jew (that view is historically ludicrous, I'd admit, but there's nothing wrong with it in terms of scientific classification apart from the fact that it invokes something of an archetype--but the same could be said of animal breeding).

http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=121322#post121322

Apologies if the link doesn't work. It's post #36 in this thread, but the "link" feature seems to be disabled.

Next mentioned in post #55:


"I'm impressed. Tell me about the "Jewish phenotype".

Why? Did you intentionally miss the point? Cat breeders sometimes end up with a kitten that has a particular look that is unusual. They can commonly breed to develop and refine that appearance. The same is true in principle of humans. Want to go on record denying it?
It doesn't matter what the archetype of Jewish appearance was in actuality, and correspondence to Jewish cutural practices is entirely irrelevant if the notion of racial purity is taken at face value (no pun intended).


From post #62


“As you see, there is no "Jewish phenotype". I'd still like to see what you think it is, though. You said you could tell them by phenotype. Tell me about it. ”


If you look straight upward while spinning, you can produce an unusual variety of dizziness.
I've provided ample evidence of the phenotypical Jewish archetype. As you could take a wild cat population and choose the characteristics that give you a Persian (using a Persian archetype imagined from normal variation) so can you do with a human population based on physical characteristics.


I'm especially "up in arms" in this one (sarcasm) (post #65):



Barbarian on the possibility of breeding different human races:
What's possible in principle, and what is, are two different things.

Uh-huh, and you realize that an archtype existed even without a flesh and blood example, right?

I also said (post #72)


In the case of the German and Jewish archetypes, of course, all of the phenotypical characters existed in the German population. As I explained to you before, they simply chose to favor one (archetypical) phenotype over another, just like I could theoretically choose to sterilize small-handed persons and encourage reproduction of large-handed persons in order to make my Volkswagon-palming archetype to fruition.

In summary, I've never been "up in arms" over the assertion that the racial archetypes of the Nazis did not see expression in the German population. On the contrary, I have repeatedly explained that the phenotypical characteristics were instead scattered amongst the populace such that it would take a eugenics program to approach the archetype in terms of biological reality.

That point seems to zip back and forth through Barbarian's ears like so much mental floss.



I would think your integrity would be more important than that to you.


My integrity is important enough to me that I'll bother to defend myself against your baseless charges.
I know what effect repetition can have despite a lack of evidence.



Since it seems to change from post to post, I can believe any concession you make would eventually be relevant to it.

No doubt you have a great deal of evidence that my position drifts, and the reason that you cannot share that evidence is _______________?

[The Barbarian]

(Cap'n O does what he does best...)

IOW, Bar "Spin-o-matic" barian

Yer an excitable little guy. Calm down. Remember what happened the last time you called me names?


accuses C.O. of falsely attributing opinions to Barbarian while conveniently omitting any valid evidence that his accusation is true.

Nonsense. You attributed an opinion to me (dogs have no breeds) than you knew I did not hold. Are you going to deny that, too?

Barbarian, regarding Cap'n O calling him names (currently, "slow")
Could be. But not that slow. Or maybe you aren't as clever as you thought you were. Whatever, you presented as my opinion, something you knew was precisely the opposite of what I told you.


Baloney.

Let's take a look...

Cap'n O:

Not with Barbarian there.
"No! Don't do that! Dogs are all one breed, and survival is better served on the whole if dog traits are spread throughout the population!"

Right after I told you that biological races exist in other species, but not in man. You wimped out and at first claimed it was a "parody". But parody is not falsely attributing opinions to people.

You aren't a very honest person.

(spinning and excuses deleted)

Barbarian observes:
You see, "parody" would be taking an opinion one has, and carrying it to rediculous extremes. Presenting something you knew one diametrically opposed is normally called... well, you know.


Case in point, with you being the perpetrator.

I falsely attributed that to you? Let me see... Nope. It was you attributing it to me. Right after I told you otherwise. You aren't a very honest person.


Incorrect. I attributed an opinion to you that you do hold, and made use of it in terms of your own analogy.

Nope. I told you that there are biological races in other animals, and you pretended that I held the opposite opinion. There's a name for that behavior...

(Cap'n O attempts to chance the subject)

Barbarian observes:
Nope. Your point was to attribute to me something you knew I did not believe. You're not a very honest person.


Your accusation is baseless

Let's take a look... You attributed to me an opinion that there are no breeds of dogs, right after I told you that other animals do have biological races. Nope. One of the proplems of starting stuff like that, is you have to keep on doing it in an attempt to cover up, after you get caught. It would have been smarter to fess up and go on.

I'll get to the rest in another post. I have no idea why you did what you did. Even the people who defend you will remember that one.

And they won't entirely trust you after this.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 04:39 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=139809#post139809)
The Barbarian:

(Cap'n O does what he does best...)


Yer an excitable little guy. Calm down.


I'm ice. Cannot be flapped (unflappable!).



Remember what happened the last time you called me names?


I haven't called you names. but I remember you whining about it anyway, and I've seen you ignore my refutation of your claim that I've called you names.
Now here you are whining again, and even bragging about your previous whine attack.
Maybe you'll treat an issue or two in the course of your post . . .



Nonsense. You attributed an opinion to me (dogs have no breeds) than you knew I did not hold. Are you going to deny that, too?


In the ambiguous manner in which you phrased it, of course I deny it.
Bald Ape talked about an apparently breedless dog population which a prospective dog breeder might look at for dogs who sniff better than others.
I said nothing that could reasonably be taken as a claim that you deny the existence of modern breeds of dogs.



Barbarian, regarding Cap'n O calling him names (currently, &quot;slow&quot;)


:rofl:

It's time to mimic the Barbarian:
"Your calling me names! (currently "name-caller")."
You've become very funny since you abandoned your claims in the content portions of the thread.



Let's take a look...


That's amazing the way you make the context disappear! You could open for David Copperfield!



Right after I told you that biological races exist in other species, but not in man. You wimped out and at first claimed it was a &quot;parody&quot;. But parody is not falsely attributing opinions to people.

You aren't a very honest person.

(spinning and excuses deleted)

Barbarian observes:
You see, &quot;parody&quot; would be taking an opinion one has, and carrying it to rediculous extremes. Presenting something you knew one diametrically opposed is normally called... well, you know.



I falsely attributed that to you? Let me see... Nope. It was you attributing it to me. Right after I told you otherwise. You aren't a very honest person.



Nope. I told you that there are biological races in other animals, and you pretended that I held the opposite opinion. There's a name for that behavior...

(Cap'n O attempts to chance the subject)

Barbarian observes:
Nope. Your point was to attribute to me something you knew I did not believe. You're not a very honest person.


Unfortunately for you and your latest round of unsubstantiated accusations, other readers will understand the context and therefore view your current tirade for exactly what it is.
Bummer for you.



Let's take a look... You attributed to me an opinion that there are no breeds of dogs, right after I told you that other animals do have biological races. Nope. One of the proplems of starting stuff like that, is you have to keep on doing it in an attempt to cover up, after you get caught. It would have been smarter to fess up and go on.

I'll get to the rest in another post. I have no idea why you did what you did. Even the people who defend you will remember that one.

And they won't entirely trust you after this.

It's not impossible that some people could be stupid enough to buy your current accusations, but there's no way to reasonably justify those accusations. Your attempt in this post simply ignores the points that I made in my earlier post, and ignores the context of the Barbarian-as-dog-breeder-thousands-of-years-ago.
In the eyes of reasonable people, there's only one reputation that's receiving damage, and that is yours.

[The Barbarian]

Cap'n O declares:

I'm ice. Cannot be flapped (unflappable!).

I read what you typed. But your behavior is more eloquent.

Barbarian observes:
Remember what happened the last time you called me names?


I haven't called you names. but I remember you whining about it anyway, and I've seen you ignore my refutation of your claim that I've called you names.

Let's see.... most recently:


Bar "Spin-o-matic" barian

It's never good to deny what you've done. But it's particularly unwise to do it in the same thread.

Barbarian observes:
Nonsense. You attributed an opinion to me (dogs have no breeds) than you knew I did not hold. Are you going to deny that, too?


In the ambiguous manner in which you phrased it, of course I deny it.

And yet you said it in this thread. You aren't a very honest person.

Barbarian, regarding Cap'n O calling him names (currently, "slow")

(accuses Barbarian of "out of context")

Fine. Post what you said in context. Then explain why you attributed something to me that you knew I did not believe.


Unfortunately for you and your latest round of unsubstantiated accusations, other readers will understand the context and therefore view your current tirade for exactly what it is.

Sorry Cap'n. Anyone can read what you typed. You weren't honest. And then, when you got caught, you tried to dance your way out of it. When your first story fell apart, you tried simple denial. Now you're claiming "out of context". You can't keep your story straight.

You aren't a very honest person.

I have no idea why you did what you did. Even the people who defend you will remember that one.

And they won't entirely trust you after this.


It's not impossible that some people could be stupid enough to buy your current accusations, but there's no way to reasonably justify those accusations.

They could just go look up what you said. It wasn't true, and you knew it when you did it.


In the eyes of reasonable people, there's only one reputation that's receiving damage, and that is yours.

Let's see... was it Barbarian or Cap'n O who misrepresented what they other said, and then went though a series of contradictory explanations... ah, it was...

Cap'n O.

You aren't a very honest person. And everyone knows, even if they won't tell you.

[Joe Meert]

You aren't a very honest person. And everyone knows, even if they won't tell you.

JM: He is ice and unflappable when it comes to admitting victory (regardless of whether or not the claim is justified)......However, I still want him to tell me about how the Nazi's program (supposedly built on evolution) selects the loyalty gene.


Cheers

Joe Meert

[Joe Meert]

You aren't a very honest person. And everyone knows, even if they won't tell you.

JM: He is ice and unflappable when it comes to admitting victory (regardless of whether or not the claim is justified)......However, I still want him to tell me about how the Nazi's program (supposedly built on evolution) selects the loyalty gene.


Cheers

Joe Meert

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 06:47 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=139843#post139843)
The Barbarian:

Cap'n O declares:


I read what you typed. But your behavior is more eloquent.


That's right, and it agrees with what I wrote.
In your case, we see your posts growing more and more distant from the issue.
Everyone will forget that you haven't provided any acceptable corroboration for your claim that sub-species are determined on the basis of percentages of genetic variation . . . or so you apparently hope.



Barbarian observes:
Remember what happened the last time you called me names?


I remember the last time you whined about being called names . . .
It was very funny!



Let's see.... most recently:


I'll grant you that one.
Do you deny that you spin your editorial comments in the course of your editing? Do you deny calling me a name-caller?
:rofl:



It's never good to deny what you've done. But it's particularly unwise to do it in the same thread.


What's worse is to imagine that somebody's done something that they haven't and try to make a federal issue out of it--especially when you completely abandon all of the points of debate associated with the conversation up through that time.



Barbarian observes:
Nonsense. You attributed an opinion to me (dogs have no breeds) than you knew I did not hold. Are you going to deny that, too?


Of course I deny it. Do you deny reading my complete and thoroughly reasonable explanation? Why is it that it ends up on the editing-room floor repeatedly (C.O. imagines that he has now called Barbarian a name along the lines of "post-editor)?



And yet you said it in this thread. You aren't a very honest person.

Barbarian, regarding Cap'n O calling him names (currently, &quot;slow&quot;)

(accuses Barbarian of &quot;out of context&quot;)

Fine. Post what you said in context.


Again? Well, I guess it will be necessary to keep repeating it so long as the moderators allow you to keep posting baseless accusations:


Bald Ape:
"Dog breeder 5,000 years ago: let's mate the ones that sniff better. Seems to give us better sniffers."

C.O.
Not with Barbarian there.
"No! Don't do that! Dogs are all one breed, and survival is better served on the whole if dog traits are spread throughout the population!"




Then explain why you attributed something to me that you knew I did not believe.


Huh? Explain why you think that I attributed something to you that you do not believe.
Careful, though, because if you do that it would resemble somebody trying to substantiate his accusation.



Sorry Cap'n. Anyone can read what you typed. You weren't honest. And then, when you got caught, you tried to dance your way out of it. When your first story fell apart, you tried simple denial. Now you're claiming &quot;out of context&quot;. You can't keep your story straight.


:ahem:



You aren't a very honest person.


One day you'll try to provide evidence in support of that claim.
Or maybe not.
Either way, I'm not worried.



I have no idea why you did what you did. Even the people who defend you will remember that one.


Fine with me if they remember what I did. If they can tell me why it was untruthful, then they will have done far more than what you've done in this thread.



And they won't entirely trust you after this.


Fortunately I don't need for anybody to loan me money at the moment.
You're really in repetition mode currently, aren't you?
Oops, did I just call you another name?



They could just go look up what you said. It wasn't true, and you knew it when you did it.


Nah, they'll look at it and say "Why is the Barbarian ignoring the context of what C.O. said, even when it's pointed out to him."
And some of them will add:
"I can't help but notice that the Barbarian has entirely dropped any pretense of defending the earlier claims that Captain Ochre asked him to support. Is it possible that this pointless round of baseless accusations is a blatant red herring?"



Let's see... was it Barbarian or Cap'n O who misrepresented what they other said, and then went though a series of contradictory explanations... ah, it was...

Cap'n O.


Proof through irony. Thanks.
I'll let you have the last word, and I'll let the reader judge whether or not you've made your case(s).



You aren't a very honest person. And everyone knows, even if they won't tell you.

[The Barbarian]

You probably would be more convincing in your denial that you said it, if you hadn't first tried the story that you did it, but it was a "parody".

Changing stories is a pretty good tip-off.

If you were smart, you would have said. "Oh, right. You don't have that opinon."

And it would have been over.

But you tried to talk your way out of it. With different stories. Big mistake.

Hopefully, you learned something from it.

Now, let's get back to the debate. What is it you still don't understand, that you wanted me to explain?

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 06:09 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140119#post140119)
Bar "Food Eater" barian:

You probably would be more convincing in your denial that you said it, if you hadn't first tried the story that you did it, but it was a &quot;parody&quot;.

Changing stories is a pretty good tip-off.


Claiming that the story has changed without providing specifics is an even bigger tip-off.



If you were smart, you would have said. &quot;Oh, right. You don't have that opinon.&quot;


If you had lived when dogs were only one breed you would have thought that dogs were of more than one breed?



And it would have been over.


I doubt it. I think that you would have whined about something else.



But you tried to talk your way out of it. With different stories. Big mistake.


Do tell. Quote the two supposed versions of my "story" and specify why they are incompatible with one another.



Hopefully, you learned something from it.


I did. I learned something about your character.



Now, let's get back to the debate. What is it you still don't understand, that you wanted me to explain?

You need for me to repeat it yet again? That tells us even more about you.
I want you to substantiate your repeated claim that percentage of genetic variation is used as a differential criterion for identifying sub-species.
I skewered your uncritical use of one scientist's comments, and you haven't yet mustered a reply to those points.
I provided university links that discuss sub-species criteria which do not make a peep about genetic variation percentages and you denied that I had provided evidence for my challenge to your claim.

Produce your evidence, Food-Eater.

[Sher]

Okay ya'll .... this is getting out of hand and some babysi ... er ... reviewing needs to be done, it appears ...

... I'm temporarily closing this thread until I finish looking it over ....

Go take a breather ... do some jumping jacks or something ...

==============
Follow-up:

Okay, after reviewing the last 5 :shocked: pages ... and wishing I'd followed this thread more closely ... this is my judgment on the events that have transpired.

Barbarian, you appear to be taking Captain Ochre's verb usages as personal (ad hominem) attacks. Do you really view someone saying they will point out hypocrisy, that you are slow on the uptake (meaning that you missed the point), etc. as personal attacks? (Or perhaps you were offended by being called a &quot;food-eater&quot;?)

What I have personally seen is a bit of creative editing on your part ... where you have a couple of times inserted in parentheses what you thought Captain Ochre meant when he said something ... instead of using an exact quote that shows what he really said. It is common in debate to point out hypocrisy in the opposition's words, if they are found ... and I don't frankly see anything gratuitously offensive there at all.

OTOH, you have said &quot;You're not a very honest person&quot; (twice!) ... &quot;You weren't honest&quot; ... &quot;It wasn't true, and you knew it when you did it&quot; ... which is calling C.O. a liar. Is that what you meant to portray? I would strongly ask at this point, per TWeb rules, that you either prove dishonesty on C.O.'s part ... or retract the comment with an apology. If you cannot do that, then please simply drop those accusations and move on

... then everyone can go back to the sandbox and play nice again :juggle:

[The Barbarian]

No, I will not drop those assertions. Captain Ochre attributed to me something he knew I did not believe.

To wit:


Not with Barbarian there.
"No! Don't do that! Dogs are all one breed, and survival is better served on the whole if dog traits are spread throughout the population!"

When called on it, he first asserted that it was a "parody". Obviously, "parody" is not the word for attributing to one, views diametrically opposed to that one actually believes. If you think I did some "creative editing" there, please point it out to me.

Then he denied he did the attribution cited above.

Then he attempted to argue that I believed that dogs were at one time of only one breed (false, BTW, but also irrelevant to whether or not I think they exist today)

Finally, he went on a name-calling hissy fit, which seems to have incurred your intervention. Yes, saying that I'm "slow" on the uptake, likely to be a hypocrite, and the like is certainly name calling. You can find more, if you look.

No, it's not O.K. for him to do any of that, and no, I will not say that it was honest or decent of him.

I'm aware you've expressed fondness for him; he might have some qualities beyond the ones he's shown us in this thread. I'm certainly done with him. I do assume you expect at some point to ask him to retract the mischaracterization of my opinions.

You will, won't you?

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 11:05 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140319#post140319)
Bar "Air-Breather" barian:

No, I will not drop those assertions.


Get a clue, Ground-Walker. When you make assertions like you're making, the rules require you to back them up.



Captain Ochre attributed to me something he knew I did not believe.

To wit:


Not with Barbarian there.
"No! Don't do that! Dogs are all one breed, and survival is better served on the whole if dog traits are spread throughout the population!"

Okay, what did you do with the context? When I say "Not with Barbarian there" where is "there"?



When called on it, he first asserted that it was a &quot;parody&quot;. Obviously, &quot;parody&quot; is not the word for attributing to one, views diametrically opposed to that one actually believes. If you think I did some &quot;creative editing&quot; there, please point it out to me.


It's a parody because it take your apparent idea of an unsubdivided species being unsuitable for eugenics and places it at the head of the canine genealogy (where that idea appears ridiculous), supposing an unsubdivided ancestral canine population.
You've had this explanation prior to now, and you seem to ignore it.



Then he denied he did the attribution cited above.


It's not clear what you're talking about, here. Did you forget how to quote me and cite the source document?



Then he attempted to argue that I believed that dogs were at one time of only one breed (false, BTW, but also irrelevant to whether or not I think they exist today)


You appear to have again misrepresented the facts. Why don't you quote me there, Food-Eater?



Finally, he went on a name-calling hissy fit, which seems to have incurred your intervention. Yes, saying that I'm &quot;slow&quot; on the uptake, likely to be a hypocrite, and the like is certainly name calling. You can find more, if you look.


Here's one: Barbarian is a food-eater.



No, it's not O.K. for him to do any of that,


Is there a rule against calling you a food-eater?



and no, I will not say that it was honest or decent of him.


You don't need to. You just need to back up your accusation that I'm lying without basing it on exaggeration and gesticulation. IOW, you need to make a real case based on quotations, considering the original context.

Done with me, are you? Does that mean that you intend to keep running away from the reasonable requirement that you support your claim that percentage of genetic variation is used as a differential criterion for sub-species?

Food-Eater.

[Vorkosigan]

delete

[Sher]

Barbarian ...

I am up to my elbows in raw chicken right now (cooking a pot of homemade Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo Florentine :yummy:) ... so this is going to be short and sweet

(A) Prove your assertion means just that. Show proof that there was intentional misrepresentation by Captain Ochre ... and back up with proof your assertion that C.O. is "not a very honest person"

(B) Personal issues with me are to be taken to PM, email, or if you must belly-ache to the Locker Room ... I strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with the rules (linked from my sig line) that you had to agree with to start your membership here.

(C) Since you have decided to post your complaint publically in this thread ... I will respond in kind ... once .... after which time any further complaints about me or my decision here that don't follow those rules will be re/moved.

I admire many people ... and I seldom hide that fact ... that is the person I am. However, I strive to remain objective when it comes to moderating on this forum ... and I do not appreciate you alluding to the contrary.

Three quick, recent examples: (1) I am not a Mormon, do not agree with their doctrine/practices at all ... yet I removed two posts that were inappropriate against Mormonism; (2) I am not a Catholic, yet I asked that an inappropriate sig line with a Catholic "joke" be removed; (3) I am not an atheistic evolutionist, yet I moderated a comment that could be taken as a gratuitous insult toward one. So, uninformed comments such as the one you made are both out-of-line, and insulting ...

... and this 'lack of objectivity card' is noted as being an obvious distraction technique designed to move away from the original point of your accusations against C.O. that still need to be proven.

[The Barbarian]

By now, I think everyone has figured out what you did and what it was. Unless you have one more new explanation, it's over.

And since you need one more reminder that I showed you that genetic variation is used as a critierion for subspecies...

"Many species are divided into subspecies based on a limited number of morphological characteristics. According to Van Wagner and Baker (1990), Merilä et al. (1997), Mundy et al. (1997), Lucchini and Randi (1998), Barrowclough et al. (1999), and Holder et al. (2000) subspecies may also be distinguished by genetic variation, but the morphological classification and genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable (Avise et al. 1992, Ball & Avise 1992, Seutin et al. 1995, Fry & Zink 1998, Questiau et al. 1998, Bensch et al. 1999)."

http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514259904/html/x829.html

"How to assess gene flow and reproductive isolation?1. Fixation indices or F-statistics (Sewall Wright 1922), particularly FSTF statistics describe how genetic variation (measured by heterozygosity, H) is fixed ateach level of organization in a structured population (or subspecies, or species - thesame logic can be applied at various levels)F stats are based on H. H is a good measure of genetic variability*increases with more alleles*increases with more even distribution of alleles.

http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:bQr0-sVD2xEJ:www.montana.edu/~wwwbi/staff/creel/bio480/fstats.pdf+genetic+variation+subspecies&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

I appreciate that you ceased calling me names like "hypocrite" (yes, you only said that I was a potential hypocrite) "slow on the uptake" and so on.

I'm sure everyone is amused that you are now reduced to calling The Barbarian "food eater"; it reminds me of a child in the backseat, trying to pick a fight, and saying "I'm just touching him".

If you want to play, you'll have to do that one by yourself.

[Dee Dee Warren]

This is just plain ridiculous. There has been no "name calling" that is outside the bounds of what is permitted here, so get over it. This is a debate board. No one is guaranteed never to be offended or called a name.

Barbarian, you will either provide with quotes and links to the pertinent posts clear substantiation of your charge of deliberate lying or you will cease those accusations. If you do not cease, further unsubstantiated allegations will be edited out. If you do not wish to cease, you are given ONE post to prove these allegations and CO will be given ONE post to rebut. I will review just THOSE TWO posts and make a determination..... if I do not hear further I will assume you both are simply moving on.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 12:30 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140400#post140400)
The Barbarian:

By now, I think everyone has figured out what you did and what it was. Unless you have one more new explanation, it's over.


:rockon:



And since you need one more reminder that I showed you that genetic variation is used as a critierion for subspecies...

&quot;Many species are divided into subspecies based on a limited number of morphological characteristics. According to Van Wagner and Baker (1990), Merilä et al. (1997), Mundy et al. (1997), Lucchini and Randi (1998), Barrowclough et al. (1999), and Holder et al. (2000) subspecies may also be distinguished by genetic variation, but the morphological classification and genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable (Avise et al. 1992, Ball &amp; Avise 1992, Seutin et al. 1995, Fry &amp; Zink 1998, Questiau et al. 1998, Bensch et al. 1999).&quot;

http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514259904/html/x829.html


How is this a "reminder"? The link looks new to me. Did you use it before? Yes or no, please.

Oh, and by the way . . .
The above link presents genetic variation as an optional criterion, and says nothing about percentages as an aspect of demarcation. Apart from your quotation, the link mentions a relatively high amount of genetic variation (80%!), but still associated this with plumage color, which brings into question the whole argument of using a given percentage across-the-board for distinguishing sub-species (why, because morphology itself is determined by varying percentages of the total genetic package).
So, your link doesn't support your claim. Better luck on your next try.



&quot;How to assess gene flow and reproductive isolation?1. Fixation indices or F-statistics (Sewall Wright 1922), particularly FSTF statistics describe how genetic variation (measured by heterozygosity, H) is fixed ateach level of organization in a structured population (or subspecies, or species - thesame logic can be applied at various levels)F stats are based on H. H is a good measure of genetic variability*increases with more alleles*increases with more even distribution of alleles.

http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:bQr0-sVD2xEJ:www.montana.edu/~wwwbi/staff/creel/bio480/fstats.pdf+genetic+variation+subspecies&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8


This link also fails to support your claim. Maybe you forgot what you had claimed? Percentages of genetic variation are a criterion for designation of sub-species. Moreover, the manner in which you have used that claim makes it a mandatory consideration. The links you have provided argue against that conclusion.
I can explain that for you in more detail if you don't understand why it is so.



I appreciate that you ceased calling me names like &quot;hypocrite&quot; (yes, you only said that I was a potential hypocrite) &quot;slow on the uptake&quot; and so on.


:zzz:
You said "it's over"--what were you referring to?



I'm sure everyone is amused that you are now reduced to calling The Barbarian &quot;food eater&quot;;


That's only one of many, so why would you call it a reduction?



it reminds me of a child in the backseat, trying to pick a fight, and saying &quot;I'm just touching him&quot;.


If you announce loudly where your hot buttons are located, I'm liable to press them to see just how well they work. So you mol maintained self-control for an entire post . . . we'll see how long you can last.

So, where were we? Oh, that's right: You need to provide documentation for your claim that percentage of genetic variation is a criterion for distinguishing sub-species.
It doesn't adequately serve your purpose to show that it's an optional criterion, either, unless you can show that it isn't merely optional with respect to Homo sapiens. For the record, you haven't done either.

[geochron]

Today @ 01:33 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140431#post140431)
Captain Ochre:


If you announce loudly where your hot buttons are located, I'm liable to press them to see just how well they work.


That's exactly how children (more precisely, young teenagers) behave.

I wonder if anyone cares who said what to whom on this thread any more? Apart from the combatants, that is.

[QED]

I'm kind of hoping this thread will return to topic as well.

I've seen atheists make themselves look silly trying to tie Christianity to Hitler and I've seen Creationists make themselves look sill trying to tie evolution to Hitler. Of course both cases represent the most infantile thinking from those two camps and cannot be used to impeach atheists and creationists generally -- but its nice to have on record what amounts to an admission from individual opponents that they are willing to resort to just any old ridiculous argument to prop up their case with the concommitant implication that they have no case of substance to present.

I'm also hoping to get a chance to ask why Hitler didn't save himself the time and expense of the concentration camps if he accepted Darwinian evolution. After all, if Darwin was right, the Aryan race, being the most "fit", would be the ultimate winner naturally with no extra help from Hitler's genocidal campaign.

I like this thread...

[geochron]

Yes, that answer to the question posed in the thread seems clearly to be "No". Social Darwinism is not justified by the theory of organic evolution any more than saturation bombing is justified by the theory of gravity.

I think we should rename the equally spurious arguments on each side in honour of Sylvio Berlusconi, who has recently shown how widely they can be misapplied.

[QED]

Do tell?

[The Barbarian]

(Barbarian posts two more links showing that degree of genetic difference is used to distinguish supspecies)


How is this a "reminder"?

It reinforces the other ones I showed you.

(decides that additional links cannot be reminders)

Sigh.....


The above link presents genetic variation as an optional criterion, and says nothing about percentages as an aspect of demarcation.

How would degree of difference be expressed in your opinion? You aren't a former president from Arkansas, are you?


Apart from your quotation, the link mentions a relatively high amount of genetic variation (80%!), but still associated this with plumage color, which brings into question the whole argument of using a given percentage across-the-board for distinguishing sub-species (why, because morphology itself is determined by varying percentages of the total genetic package).

Ah, in birds, reproductive isolation is usually on color and marking of plumage. It's critical.


So, your link doesn't support your claim.

Wrong again. Would you like to learn about incipient speciation in birds?


This link also fails to support your claim. Maybe you forgot what you had claimed? Percentages of genetic variation are a criterion for designation of sub-species.

Actually, if you go back and look you will see that I said it was evidence for subspecies.

(denies that the links say what they do)

Barbarian notes improvement in behavior on the part of Captain O:
I appreciate that you ceased calling me names like "hypocrite" (yes, you only said that I was a potential hypocrite) "slow on the uptake" and so on.


You said "it's over"--what were you referring to?

I commend you on your improvement.

Barbarian observes:
I'm sure everyone is amused that you are now reduced to calling The Barbarian "food eater";it reminds me of a child in the backseat, trying to pick a fight, and saying "I'm just touching him".



That's only one of many, so why would you call it a reduction?

Trying to be annoying is an improvement on trying to be offensive, in my book.


If you announce loudly where your hot buttons are located, I'm liable to press them to see just how well they work.

Judging by your hissy fit, I'd say that they didn't quite work the way you wanted.

[qipte]So, where were we? Oh, that's right: You need to provide documentation for your claim that percentage of genetic variation is a criterion for distinguishing sub-species.[/quote]

I know you don't agree with the links, but that's what they say.


It doesn't adequately serve your purpose to show that it's an optional criterion, either, unless you can show that it isn't merely optional with respect to Homo sapiens. For the record, you haven't done either.

In fact, as you learned earlier, geneticists like Cavalli-Sforza have shown that there are no biological human races, based on the percentage of variation within races, compared to variation among races. Races exist only as cultural constructs.

I don't see what you find so infuriating in that, but it does no good to deny what scientists have found.

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian, you will either provide with quotes and links to the pertinent posts clear substantiation of your charge of deliberate lying or you will cease those accusations.

I have already done so. Several times. Whether or not you consider it to be false, it clearly shows that Captain O attributed to me an opinion he knew I did not hold. In fact, I had told him otherwise. Would you like me to post it again?


If you do not cease, further unsubstantiated allegations will be edited out.

I have made no unsubstantiated allegations. Look again. Captain O prepares a "quote" he attributes to me:


Not with Barbarian there.
"No! Don't do that! Dogs are all one breed, and survival is better served on the whole if dog traits are spread throughout the population!"

So, are you saying he's not referring to me here, or are you saying that I'm lying when I tell you that is the precise opposite of what I believe. I would honestly like to know.


If you do not wish to cease, you are given ONE post to prove these allegations and CO will be given ONE post to rebut. I will review just THOSE TWO posts and make a determination..... if I do not hear further I will assume you both are simply moving on.

As far as I'm concerned, it's already over. Whatever damage or credit it does to anyone is already done. I suppose that Captain O would be more than happy to get that statement and my response to it, off the board. If that's what you want to do, you don't need my permission.

I'll have to admit, I can sympathize with your position. If I was moderator, and (for example) Joe Meert acted as Capt. O did, I'd be deeply conflicted between my friendship for Joe, and my responsibility to be fair. You aren't a bad person if you try to help him; it's only bad if you do something to take sides.

I can only appeal to your sense of fairness and honesty on that issue.

Act accordingly.

[Dee Dee Warren]

You didn't follow my instructions. I asked for quotes with links and a full presentation of your case for deliberate deceit. I gave you that opportunity. You didn't give me what I asked for in order to make a decision. Please cease from those accusations. Thank you.

[Joe Meert]

Today @ 10:16 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140469#post140469)
Dee Dee Warren:



JM: Not to nitpick, but he did give a quote. See the last post.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Dee Dee Warren]

He did not provide a LINK with a QUOTE with a detailed EXPLANATION of the DELIBERATE LIE. He did not follow my instructions, and I respectfully ask you at this point to please mind your own business.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 01:54 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140436#post140436)
geochron:



That's exactly how children (more precisely, young teenagers) behave.


Except that teenagers don't typically try to reason several times first.
The Barbarian literally had a ludicrously low standard for feeling that he was being called names. Or would you disagree?



I wonder if anyone cares who said what to whom on this thread any more? Apart from the combatants, that is.

Why do you ask? It's not as though you care, right?

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 02:04 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140441#post140441)
QED:

I'm kind of hoping this thread will return to topic as well.

I've seen atheists make themselves look silly trying to tie Christianity to Hitler and I've seen Creationists make themselves look sill trying to tie evolution to Hitler. Of course both cases represent the most infantile thinking from those two camps and cannot be used to impeach atheists and creationists generally -- but its nice to have on record what amounts to an admission from individual opponents that they are willing to resort to just any old ridiculous argument to prop up their case with the concommitant implication that they have no case of substance to present.


On the contrary, I have continued to bring the nuts & bolts of the issues into the Barbarian's digression, specifically his phantom genetic criterion for sub-species differentiation. I'm willing to go over whatever points we've covered that he abandoned in his zeal to focus on imagined personal attacks. If you check the past exchanges, the tendency was for issues to disappear from his end of the reply.



I'm also hoping to get a chance to ask why Hitler didn't save himself the time and expense of the concentration camps if he accepted Darwinian evolution. After all, if Darwin was right, the Aryan race, being the most &quot;fit&quot;, would be the ultimate winner naturally with no extra help from Hitler's genocidal campaign.


Consider it asked. What is unnatural about killing your competition? To the naturalist, killing is as natural as giving your neighbor a nice fruit basket.
What worldview are you working from QED? It's not a scientific framework, afaics.



I like this thread...

Whatever. Congratulations on being set free from my "Ignore" list. Thank Joe.
Unfortunately, based on the posts that I've read from you recently, you still deserve to be ignored as though you were still on my "Ignore" list.
Let's see how you handle the question above, though.
Maybe you'll surprise.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 02:11 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140445#post140445)
geochron:

Yes, that answer to the question posed in the thread seems clearly to be &quot;No&quot;. Social Darwinism is not justified by the theory of organic evolution any more than saturation bombing is justified by the theory of gravity.


It looks like you're judging the content of the thread based on the thread title.
Am I mistaken?
We covered early on the fact that science provides no "oughts" to social practice, and Social Darwinism is unquestionably a social practice. On the other hand, baking birthday cakes is also a social practice, and baking is essentially chemistry, which is a branch of hard science.
I intentionally narrowed the focus on James initial post from the "ought" aspects of Social Darwinism to the technological aspect. Granting the aim of achieving a more "Aryan" population, you can't fault the methods on the basis of science except for the fact that it didn't ultimately work. But we could say that about many of the early attempts at building a flying machine that carried human(s), right? That doesn't make failed attempts unscientific.



I think we should rename the equally spurious arguments on each side in honour of Sylvio Berlusconi, who has recently shown how widely they can be misapplied.

Seems to me that you've missed my point in this thread.

[Vorkosigan]

Consider it asked. What is unnatural about killing your competition? To the naturalist, killing is as natural as giving your neighbor a nice fruit basket.

Nope, this view is a hopelessly naive caricature of evolution and natural selection. One often finds it among Creationists; it demonstrates conclusively that they have no idea what they are talking about. The rewards from cooperation, both in and between species, are so great that only a fool would go around killing his fellows. The massive rewards from cooperation are why so many animals, from spiders and ants to gazelles and humans, live in groups, and why so many of those groups are composed of different species working together. Evolution is about cooperation as much as competition; the shallow thinkers focus on the competition, and, missing the cooperation, think that they understand what is going on. That is why Social Darwinism is so obviously psuedoscience, Ochre.

Vorkosigan

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 02:48 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140461#post140461)
The Barbarian:

(Barbarian posts two more links showing that degree of genetic difference is used to distinguish supspecies)

It reinforces the other ones I showed you.


Your use of Templeton was refuted, as were these two latest. Rather than deal with the content of my counter to your links, you simply imperiously proclam the links immune to whatever attack I made on them--without any apparent justification.
In terms of logic, you are employing a fallacy sometimes known as "argument by assertion".



(decides that additional links cannot be reminders)

Sigh.....


Additional links could be reminders if they referred to something that hadn't already been refuted, hence my question as to whether these links had been used previously in this thread or not. Curiously, you failed to answer my direct question as to that point.



How would degree of difference be expressed in your opinion? You aren't a former president from Arkansas, are you?


You had said you were done, right?
I'll spell it out for you: An off-the-cuff mention that the genetic differential between two varieties is 80% (causing me to wonder what exactly is being measured with respect to the genetic package) does not provide any information regarding a demarcation criterion based on percentages. Your claim requires a demarcation criterion for sub-species based on percentage. Your link does not provide that. Not even close.



Ah, in birds, reproductive isolation is usually on color and marking of plumage. It's critical.


No question, but if it doesn't relate directly to a differential criterion for subspecies based on percentage of genetic variation, it's irrelevant, which makes it just another in a string of barbaric red herrings.



Wrong again. Would you like to learn about incipient speciation in birds?


No, unless it relates directly to a differential criterion for subspecies based on percentage of genetic variation.



Actually, if you go back and look you will see that I said it was evidence for subspecies.


Granted, and if you go back and look you will see that I said that your evidence was inapplicable unless the genetic percentage demarcation wasn't merely optional unless you also provided evidence that in the special case of Homo sapiens genetic percentages are mandatory (of course I'm setting you up for special pleading with the latter).
So, do you think you'll ever deal with my replies to you instead of simply ignoring what I say so that you can continue to insist that you've made your case?



(denies that the links say what they do)


I told you that if you don't understand the rationale that I would explain it to you. So, either you understand the rationale and choose to ignore it for purposes of your reply, or you don't understand the rationale but you don't ask me to explain it nonetheless.
You're really into this discussion, right?



Barbarian notes improvement in behavior on the part of Captain O:
I appreciate that you ceased calling me names like &quot;hypocrite&quot; (yes, you only said that I was a potential hypocrite) &quot;slow on the uptake&quot; and so on.


You had said you were finished, or words to that effect, right?



I commend you on your improvement.


Thanks. You done?



Barbarian observes:
I'm sure everyone is amused that you are now reduced to calling The Barbarian &quot;food eater&quot;;it reminds me of a child in the backseat, trying to pick a fight, and saying &quot;I'm just touching him&quot;.


Are you sure you're finished?



Trying to be annoying is an improvement on trying to be offensive, in my book.


Okay. You're done now, right?



Judging by your hissy fit, I'd say that they didn't quite work the way you wanted.


So that's the last we'll hear of it?




So, where were we? Oh, that's right: You need to provide documentation for your claim that percentage of genetic variation is a criterion for distinguishing sub-species.

I know you don't agree with the links, but that's what they say.


I provided a rationale for disagreement with the first one, which you didn't touch with a seventeen-and-a-half-foot pole. The second one I explained in brief, with a pledge to explain it to you if necessary. Is it necessary, or not?



In fact, as you learned earlier, geneticists like Cavalli-Sforza have shown that there are no biological human races, based on the percentage of variation within races, compared to variation among races. Races exist only as cultural constructs.


As I explained to you earlier, your use of Cavalli-Sforza constitutes a fallacy of equivocation since the Nazis used a different definition of "race" than is used by Cavalli-Sforza. Additionally, Cavalli-Sforza's reference to genetic variation percentages simply emphasizes the relative genetic variance between various groupings of Homo sapiens. He affords you no evidence of a differential criterion for distinguishing sub-species and this should be expected since one of the key criteria for sub-species differentiation is mere geographic separation/genetic isolation, layered on (potentially) mere morphological novelty (such as skin or plumage color).



I don't see what you find so infuriating in that, but it does no good to deny what scientists have found.

I don't see why you imagine that I'm infuriated. I'm simply amused by your inability to put together any semblance of a counter-argument. Your links resemble hastily-grasped straws, and you betray an apparent inability to detect the manner in which you were refuted earlier in the thread.

Would you like to try again?

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 04:38 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140496#post140496)
Vorkosigan:


Nope, this view is a hopelessly naive caricature of evolution and natural selection.


It's has nothing to do with evolution and natural selection, nor is it supposed to.
It's about what's "natural" and what isn't. To the thorough-going naturalist (that means a "scientific" view), there is no such thing as artificial selection pressure. Human action and endeavor is as natural as volcanic action. Species that adapt over time by a change in frequency of alleles over time in response to human presence are evolving.
I'm getting weary of explaining obvious stuff to you.



One often finds it among Creationists; it demonstrates conclusively that they have no idea what they are talking about.


That's some powerful irony-mojo you've got working there, my friend.



The rewards from cooperation, both in and between species, are so great that only a fool would go around killing his fellows.


Warning to army ants and polar bears: Vorkosigan says (i guess) that your strategy for survival is invalid. Cease and desist at once. Let's all be friends, so that we can all survive.

Dude, evolution doesn't care if one organism survives or a million. It's utterly dispassionate. If every creature that ever lived did so by trying to kill and dominate its competition, that would still be an evolutionary survival strategy whether you like it or not.



The massive rewards from cooperation are why so many animals, from spiders and ants to gazelles and humans, live in groups, and why so many of those groups are composed of different species working together.


And we might as well ignore solitary spiders and insects 'cause, I dunno, they don't count?
http://www.museums.org.za/bio/spiderweb/eresidae.htm
http://newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/600-699/nb680.htm



Evolution is about cooperation as much as competition; the shallow thinkers focus on the competition, and, missing the cooperation, think that they understand what is going on. That is why Social Darwinism is so obviously psuedoscience, Ochre.


Solitary species of the Earth, take note: Vorkosigan has spoken.

[Vorkosigan]

That was the point of the original post, which was refuted.* Did you miss that part?
Science provides no &quot;oughts&quot; at all. Directing behaviors is beyond the purview of science. The contribution of science was to provide the understanding of population dynamics that the Nazis used (legitimately) to increase the &quot;Aryan&quot; aspect of their population.
That's my point--we'll see if you can deal with it directly without a bunch of lateral hops and/or dancing.

But that's just it. Science did not "provide" this. Arguing that, as several posters have pointed out, is like saying that gravity provides the necessary rationale for carpet bombing of cities. All Mendelian genetics talked about was how traits are inherited, and that not very well. By Hitler's time negative eugenics had been refuted. This is a point you keep ignoring (no wonder, since it blows away your thesis).

Nazi racial science had no more to do with science than Pyramidology has to do with archaeology. It borrowed jargon from biology, but it did not use it properly. The great basic scientists like Hunt Morgan shunned eugenics as vulgar nonsense, just as serious cognitive scientists laugh at Roger Penrose's nutty ideas about quantum physics and cognition (another good example of science abuse).

The fact is that Hitler's idea derive from ideas that long predate Darwin and natural selection. Don't get confused. People were talking about evolution long before Darwin (the earliest use of the word in this sense dates from 1826). Darwin didn't invent evolution, he discovered the mechanism by which it takes place.

Like I said, and as any book on Hitler will discuss (see one of the standard biographies, or Shirer's monumental study of the Third Reich The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich), Nazi social and racial ideas do not come from Darwin, but from a host of 19th century thinkers who predate him (Spencer, Gobineau, etc). In point of fact no one knows why Hitler developed such a virulent hatred of Jews; it is one of the many mysteries of his tortured life.

Lucy Dawidowicz, one of the leading historians of the Holocaust, notes that:

"Hitler's concepts about the basis of a state's physical existence and about population growth in relation to available agricultural land and food supply were derived from geopolitical ideas with which he became familiar in Landsberg [Vork: prison where he wrote Mein Kampf]. The basic idea was that of population pressure. While population grows, the amount of soil remains constant. increase soil productivity is not a satisfactory or long-range solution to relieve the pressure of population growth... Nor could population control be a solution, for that would contravene the very purpose of the Volkist racial state......The only satisfactory and fundamental way of eliminating the "intolerable" relation between population and territory was war: "The bread of freedom grows from the hardships of war." {1}

Furthermore -- and here is where you really go wrong -- as Davidowicz points out, war and the extermination campaign were one and the same thing to Hitler. The Nazi racial program was built on the idea of war as the lifeblood of the State -- going back deep into the 19th century -- and its racial policies were completely interrelated. The Nazis were not even doing "scientific eugenics" -- scientists who advocated negative eugenics advocated sterilization, not murder (Sweden was still sterilizing into the 1970s!). For Hitler, war, the Jews, and the racial utopia were all the same thing to Hitler, three sides of the same object. The problem with your point of view is that it not only does not understand Eugenics as it stood at the beginning of the last century, it also does not understand Hitler or his programs and ideas. No advocate of "scientific" eugenics advocated wholesale extermination or war. That was something that arrived out of 19th century mystical racialist thinking.

These Volkish state ideas are old, they go back to the 18th and early 19th century and people like Fichte, Erhman, Arndt, Herder and so forth. See, for example, these lecture notes on the ideological roots of Hitler's thinking (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~shaked/Holocaust/lectures/lec4.html). Note that has little or nothing to do with evolution by natural selection, or with the Neo-Lamarckian version of evolution that was popular among end of the century Eugenics advocates.

That is of course, ANOTHER mistake you are making. Darwin is not a synonym for evolution (evolution predates Darwin). Darwin advocated evolution by natural selection. The eugenics movement in the second half of the 19th century was led by people who supported evolution by Larmackian methods, not natural selection. This is a vital distinction. Darwin's ideas cannot support a eugenics movement. When Mendel was rediscovered and the interplay of heredity and selection was learned, there was a lag of two decades when eugenics advocates supported negative eugenics. But the science just wasn't there, and the whole thing was abandoned by 1930.


*To be fair to the thread originator, that point was hinted at in his post rather than stressed. He apparently agreed in principle with my point that the motivations for action are separate from science while the methods employed may be scientific.

Certainly. But the Nazis did not have any scientific definitions, methods, or goals in their programs. It was sheer nonsense.


Okay, now explain what any of that has to do with my point, described for you in simple language above.

Because, the Nazis did not use an understanding of population dynamics derived from science, but a folk idea of race derived from 18th and 19th century German nationalism. Hitler learned his racial thinking in the Beer Halls of Austria, and from nuts like Houston Chamberlain. He didn't learn it from studying science. Like Cult Archaeologists, Creationists, New Agers and other psuedoscientists, the Nazis simply appropriated the language and trappings of science, and used them for their own ends. Your point that the Nazis used scientific ideas of population dynamics to make their racial policies is nonsense. Racial policy was set by a variety of factors -- Hitler's nuttiness, Himmler's brutality, the dynamics of a party structure that encouraged radicalism, the need for constant revolution and thus, targets, German nationalist thinking, anti-Semitism that has old roots in Christianity and in 18th century German volkish thinking, and so on. Science was, like everything else, debased.

But why don't you substantiate your claim that the Nazis used scientific ideas of population dynamics? I am sure that would very interesting.


That will stand as a fallacious argument by assertion unless what follows may be construed as support. I haven't claimed that the notion that culture and various other traits were heritable (when the evidence was scant) were legitimate. On the contrary, I was specific in describing the foundation for the supposed superiority of the &quot;Aryan&quot; Germans rested on their cultural nationalism. It's in the quotation that you ridicule, iirc.

Then there is nothing to argue about. We both agree that cultural nationalism, not science, was behind Hitler, and there is no causative connection between Darwin's ideas and Hitler's policies.


Maybe so--but the point is that your link doesn't support your unequivocal statement.

The link defined Gobineau. It was never meant to support any statements. I assumed that you knew some of the history, and knew that Hitler had drawn on those 19th century racialist ideas for his own thinking. I was wrong. I didn't realize how little you knew about the history of eugenics, Hitler and evolution.


You torpedoed &quot;good faith&quot; by establishing a pattern of citation that doesn't support what you say.

Alas, you do not understand the history, so you cannot see how it supports it. I have clarified it above.


Likewise, biological evolution itself preceded Darwin as an idea. He was simply (mol) the first to propose a mechanism. So, Darwin is irrelevant to evolution and Social Darwinism apart from that contribution?

Incorrect. Darwin was not the first to propose mechanisms for biological evolution. He was simply the one that was right. Darwinism is relevant to Social Darwinism in the same way that Quantum Physics and Chaos Theory is relevant to New Age thinking and Postmodernism; psuedoscience always seizes on new intellectual trends to support itself. Even if Darwin had never been born, Hitler still would have murdered 12-16 million "undesirables" in his extermination campaigns.


I don't need to connect Hitler directly to Darwin. My claims do not rest on that idea. I'm just dealing with your spit &amp; polish attempts.

Actually, in this whole reply there is no discussion at all of any of my points. You have not, for example, attempted to refute the connection between Hitler and the 18th and 19th century racialists which does not go through Social Darwinism, let alone Darwinism. You have not provided any evidence for your claims about Nazism.


You're right--it doesn't matter, and not just because science had progressed beyond Darwin.

Still no counterargument in sight. Are you going to deal with 19th century German volkish theory or not?


Yup, and in what way does that conflict with the thesis that I sketched for you above; moreover how does it relate to the sentence of mine that you have lauded as a hilarious error?

Let's see -- for the nth time, there was no science in Hitler, it wasn't even related to the eugenics of its time (but had other roots) and had nothing at all to do with evolution by natural selection. Negative eugenics stemmed from the rediscovery of Mendel, not Darwin's ideas. And no negative eugenicist argued for wholesale murder. That was a particular evil of Hitler and the other nazis that had diverse origins, none of them in science.


Uh-huh? And how does any of that conflict with my thesis (described for you above)?

Explained above. Several times. Still no counterargument in sight.


Explain how you reached your apparent conclusion that I think that everything the Nazis believed was based on science?

Didn't say that. Lacking any argument, review of history, or understanding of the issues, you are now sticking words in my mouth.


The Nazi idea that is relevant to my thesis, that eugenics and extermination of competing populations may result in a change in the frequency of alleles over time in a given population, is completely unchallenged by your citation of Boas.

Please show where this is the Nazi thesis. Give relevant quotes from party directives, Mein Kampf, etc. Please show that Hitler thought of his goal in scientific terms, and not in terms of the 18th and 19th century philosophies that actually gave him birth.


When I check the claims of Boas, it becomes clear that you citation doesn't challenge my thesis, and it becomes correpondingly clear that you have gone through the trouble of providing me with yet another irrelevant link.

I see that you didn't actually read it. Boas showed decisively that Nazi racial thinking was wrong, and the Nazis could not succeed in their goals.


You're painting with too broad a brush. Eugenics has never been smacked down entirely on a scientific basis. What you're referring to is the mounting evidence that many of the supposedly heritable traits either weren't heritable at all or at least were so poorly understood that no coherent program of eugenics could account for them.

Eugenics is entirely smacked down on a scientific basis. "Improvement" is not a scientific value, and the kinds of changes advocated by eugenics today have nothing to do with "fitness" or any other scientific criterion.


The Human Genome Project is likely to play a part in the renaissance of eugenics.

No doubt, since pseudoscience always seizes on the latest trendy science to advance itself.


Darwin himself retained such Lamarkian ideas. He's such a icon to evolutionists that this fact tends to be ignored.

You appear totally ignorant of modern writing on Darwin. Larmackian ideas in Darwin are well-known among modern historians of science and modern biologists, discussed in major works on Darwin by most writers. Where do you get this nonsense? Just pick up a major review work, like Bowler's or Mayr's, and you'll find it mentioned.


On the contrary, it is difficult to separate Darwin from eugenics in the simplistic way you seem to be attempting. Read the conclusion of Descent of Man and tell me that Darwin didn't advocate a general idea of eugenics. Or else provide the evidence that the conclusion was ghostwritten by Gobineau. :wink:

Well, let's see. (1) Eugenics predates Darwin (2) The Eugenics movement was led largely by Neo-Lamarckians who were anti-Darwin, and later, by people who were working off Mendel, not Darwin. (3) The scholarly debate on Darwin's position has not been resolved, and the conclusion of Descent of Man is not considered conclusive by serious scholars. (4) Social Darwinism is far more complex than you think; Wallace used it to argue for socialism, for example. (5) Social Darwinism was actually Spencerism "owing little or nothing to the analogy with natural selection" as Bowler put it {2}

As Bowler put it (p273) "Apart from the bare concept of progress through struggle, there was little in German ideology that depended on a real analogy with the selection mechanism." End of discussion.


As does evolution itself. Moot point #1.
None of which has to do with my thesis. Moot point #2.
Elements of Nazi belief surrounding eugenics were pseudoscience. That doesn't affect my thesis, afaics, so moot point #3.
False dichotomy of Neo-lamarkaian and Darwinist, unless it's just a fallacy of anachronism. This objection is also relatively indistinguishable from #3 in importance. Thus, point #4 is moot.

Once again, the stunning lack of argument. The fact is the Nazis were not doing anything scientific, nor did they draw their ideas from science, nor were they contemplating their goals in scientific terms.


Nope, since my thesis doesn't rely on a connection between Darwin and Nazi behavior, apart from the fact that Haeckel was a proponent of a Darwinism very similar (with particular respect to Neo-lamarckianism) to that advocated by Charles Darwin.

LOL. Like I said, you need read some serious history. Haeckel was a nut who advocated a Neo-Larmackian position combined with a quasi-religious philosophy called "monism" based on the unity of spirit and matter. None of this owed anything to Darwin, who was an atheist and certainly did not believe in combining spirit and matter! Nor was Darwin a German supremicist or white supremicist like Haeckel. Again, Haeckel simply drew on the terminology of science to support his own ideas, which were rooted in late 19th century German nationalist thinking.


Moot point #5.
Oh-for-five.

Yes, I can see you ran from every one. Oh-for-five on the counterargument front.


I won't make any rash predictions such as supposing that you will get the point of my thesis by the time you post next, or that your next link will be relevant to the claim that you're trying to support.

I won't make any rash predictions, like you actually providing supporting evidence for your nonsensical assertions about Nazi racial thinking. I hope to see the quotes, cites and data in your next post showing that the Nazis hoped to achieve a change in alleles over time, and thought about their goal in scientific, and not psuedoscientific terms.

Vorkosigan

{1}Davidowicz, World War II and the Holocaust, in Eubank, ed, World War II: Roots and Causes Second Edition, DC Heath, NY. p288.
{2} Bowler, P. Evolution: The History of an Idea. (p272)

[Vorkosigan]

It's has nothing to do with evolution and natural selection, nor is it suppose to.
It's about what's &quot;natural&quot; and what isn't. To the thorough-going naturalist (that means a &quot;scientific&quot; view), there is no such thing as artificial selection pressure. Human action and endeavor is as natural as volcanic action. Species that adapt over time by a change in frequency of alleles over time in response to human presence are evolving.
I'm getting weary of explaining obvious stuff to you.


This is a total non-sequitur.

[quote]That's some powerful irony-mojo you've got working there, my friend.

This is a total non-sequitur.


Warning to army ants and polar bears: Vorkosigan says (i guess) that your strategy for survival is invalid. Cease and desist at once. Let's all be friends, so that we can all survive.

This is a total non-sequitur.


Dude, evolution doesn't care if one organism survives or a million. It's utterly dispassionate. If every creature that ever lived did so by trying to kill and dominate its competition, that would still be an evolutionary survival strategy whether you like it or not.

This is a total non-sequitur.

[qute]And we might as well ignore solitary spiders and insects 'cause, I dunno, they don't count?

This is a total non-sequitur.


Solitary species of the Earth, take note: Vorkosigan has spoken.

This is a total non-sequitur.

Not bad, Ochre. Your response contains no reply at all. Never did I say killing was not a viable strategy. The naturalist need not take any position on killing or competition, since nature supplies an infinite variety of strategies. Even assuming that the naturalist is dumb enough to derive "ought" from "is" in the first place.

Vorkosigan

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 05:57 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140538#post140538)
Vorkosigan:



But that's just it. Science did not &quot;provide&quot; this. Arguing that, as several posters have pointed out, is like saying that gravity provides the necessary rationale for carpet bombing of cities.


No, it's like saying that science provided the know-how to make the plane, the bomb and the associate means for getting the bomb to hit the target.



All Mendelian genetics talked about was how traits are inherited, and that not very well. By Hitler's time negative eugenics had been refuted. This is a point you keep ignoring (no wonder, since it blows away your thesis).


I've already explained why you're incorrect on that point. Let's see if you deal with that, below.



Nazi racial science had no more to do with science than Pyramidology has to do with archaeology.


Where the measurements of the pyramids were correct (at least in spots), you're correct.
Will you realize that this accords with my thesis? I'm predicting "no".



It borrowed jargon from biology, but it did not use it properly.


And what relevance do you propose for that? If I drop a "nucular" bomb on you and it results in a fission explosion, what's the difference?



The great basic scientists like Hunt Morgan shunned eugenics as vulgar nonsense, just as serious cognitive scientists laugh at Roger Penrose's nutty ideas about quantum physics and cognition (another good example of science abuse).


Vulgarity isn't a scientific criterion, is it?
Is this the quotation to which your applied your spin?
"Most basic scientists – including William Bateson in Great Britain, and Thomas Hunt Morgan in the United States – shunned eugenics as vulgar and an unproductive field for research."
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay2text.html
"Unproductive" becomes "nonsense". Is that how it works?

"In fact, the first critiques by biologists of the eugenics movement would not come until nearly a decade later. Some, of course, simply agreed with its aims. Others, notably Thomas Hunt Morgan of Columbia, had become disenchanted but refused to challenge it publicly until about 1924 -- and even then, no names or specifics -- just a few polite barbs.
http://www.uncc.edu/jmarks/interests/RIO.html

Thanks for not providing the link--seriously. It would have been too much to follow yet another link that didn't support your claim.



The fact is that Hitler's idea derive from ideas that long predate Darwin and natural selection. Don't get confused. People were talking about evolution long before Darwin (the earliest use of the word in this sense dates from 1826). Darwin didn't invent evolution, he discovered the mechanism by which it takes place.


Why would I be confused, since that's what I had already said?
There's an echo in here, goes by "Vorkosigan".



Like I said, and as any book on Hitler will discuss (see one of the standard biographies, or Shirer's monumental study of the Third Reich The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich), Nazi social and racial ideas do not come from Darwin, but from a host of 19th century thinkers who predate him (Spencer, Gobineau, etc). In point of fact no one knows why Hitler developed such a virulent hatred of Jews; it is one of the many mysteries of his tortured life.


Like I said: What does any of that have to do with my thesis?



Furthermore -- and here is where you really go wrong -- as Davidowicz points out, war and the extermination campaign were one and the same thing to Hitler.


So what? I haven't attempted to distinguish one from the other, and whether or not scientists participated in combat is irrelevant. The point is that war fits a legitimate survival strategy within a Darwinist understanding.
Is Bald Ape correct?
Is this just too simple for you to understand?



The Nazi racial program was built on the idea of war as the lifeblood of the State -- going back deep into the 19th century -- and its racial policies were completely interrelated.


War was the lifeblood of the state because of the position into which Germany had been placed at the end of WWI. Once they controlled Europe and Russia, they would have been able to spend considerable time consolidating. They could have gone without "lifeblood" for decades or longer.



That is of course, ANOTHER mistake you are making.


Why don't you start quoting the alleged mistakes I'm making, and then we'll talk.

I've got no time to read the rest of your irrelevant nonsense. If you're going to charge me with error, be specific without simply using your imagination.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 06:03 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140539#post140539)
Vorkosigan:



This is a total non-sequitur.



This is a total non-sequitur.



This is a total non-sequitur.

[qute]And we might as well ignore solitary spiders and insects 'cause, I dunno, they don't count?

This is a total non-sequitur.



This is a total non-sequitur.

Not bad, Ochre. Your response contains no reply at all. Never did I say killing was not a viable strategy. The naturalist need not take any position on killing or competition, since nature supplies an infinite variety of strategies. Even assuming that the naturalist is dumb enough to derive &quot;ought&quot; from &quot;is&quot; in the first place.


What reply should I need, in consideration of the fact that all of your comments appear to hit well wide of any relevant mark? You've marked my entire reply as non sequitur. Yet you are replying to my series of posts, are you not? If I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, as your post would seem to hint, then shouldn't you be making some specific charges of error instead of writing various comments to which all of my replies are non sequiturs?

Think about it, V-man.

[Captain Ochre]

One worth treating, anyway.



Nope, since my thesis doesn't rely on a connection between Darwin and Nazi behavior, apart from the fact that Haeckel was a proponent of a Darwinism very similar (with particular respect to Neo-lamarckianism) to that advocated by Charles Darwin.

LOL. Like I said, you need read some serious history. Haeckel was a nut who advocated a Neo-Larmackian position combined with a quasi-religious philosophy called "monism" based on the unity of spirit and matter. None of this owed anything to Darwin, who was an atheist and certainly did not believe in combining spirit and matter!


Haeckel was a true Darwinist in the tradition of Darwin.
http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Haeckel%20for%20Berlin.doc
http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/nathist/darwin/darwin10.html

Monism is essentially a repudiation of the dualism inherent in the major European religions of the time.
Seems like most atheists would have liked it.
http://www.ferris.edu/isar/arcade/origins.htm



Nor was Darwin a German supremicist or white supremicist like Haeckel.


German supremacist, no; white supremacist possibly, based on Darwin's writings (in that Darwin apparently regarding the white European society as the "fittest" and expected it to eradicate other populations as a matter of course).



Again, Haeckel simply drew on the terminology of science to support his own ideas, which were rooted in late 19th century German nationalist thinking.


Influenced by late 19th Century German nationalist thinking, yes. "Rooted" is probably too strong a term since it fails to explain Haeckel's dislike for traditional religions.

I'm eager to hear how your authorities explain away Darwin's fairly explicit statements sympathetic to Lamarkianism and Social Darwinism. Can I count on an appeal to authority, or are you conversant regarding the topic?

[The Barbarian]

Your use of Templeton was refuted, as were these two latest.

Well, no. You refused to believe what the links said. Sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming is not a refutation.


Rather than deal with the content of my counter to your links, you simply imperiously proclam the links immune to whatever attack I made on them--without any apparent justification.

Sorry. Those were explanations by scientists of the role of genetic variation in defining subspecies. Whether you think that they should define them thusly is irrelevant.


In terms of logic, you are employing a fallacy sometimes known as "argument by assertion".

Let's review. Barbarian points out that genetic variation is evidence for subspecies. Cap'n O objects. Barbarian provides several links showing that is what scientists say. Cap'n O says they are wrong.

You messed up. You got angry. Learn from it and go on.

[Joe Meert]

Nope, this view is a hopelessly naive caricature of evolution and natural selection. One often finds it among Creationists; it demonstrates conclusively that they have no idea what they are talking about. The rewards from cooperation, both in and between species, are so great that only a fool would go around killing his fellows. The massive rewards from cooperation are why so many animals, from spiders and ants to gazelles and humans, live in groups, and why so many of those groups are composed of different species working together. Evolution is about cooperation as much as competition; the shallow thinkers focus on the competition, and, missing the cooperation, think that they understand what is going on. That is why Social Darwinism is so obviously psuedoscience, Ochre.

Vorkosigan


JM: Actually, in his own special way, Ochre has argued that Nazi eugenics movement depended largely on non-cooperation. When I asked him the question about the tall blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jew, his reply was that none of that mattered to the Nazis if you followed the party line. The only rhetorical way out of that corner is to argue that this applies only to blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jews (and even this excuse has its own set of issues). However, Ochre has refused to indicate exactly how he thinks the Nazi's defined the 'jewish race'...so that makes it difficult to ask the followup question. History does provide us with the answer to the followup question. I will post it anyway for those who want to take a stab. Question 1: Explain the Nazi's scientific/genetic definition of 'jewness'. Followup: How many people with that genetic makeup were imprisoned and or executed in the Nazi prison camps that were of a non-Jewish faith?
Finally, the excuse that this conversation has nothing to do with the validity of evolution or creationism is a ridiculous argument. History (and a quick google search) tells us that these types of arguments pop up on a weekly basis at creation-evolution websites. You can also go to AIG/ICR and find the same 'articles' linking evolution to Hitler. The denials are humorous, but not exactly forthright.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[geochron]

Today @ 04:33 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140495#post140495)
Captain Ochre:



It looks like you're judging the content of the thread based on the thread title... [waffles on].


I was responding to the post before mine which wished that the thread return to topic.

I was also agreeing with that poster that the Berlusconi argument is ridiculous on both sides, and that it would be nice if this was widely recognised.




Seems to me that you've missed my point in this thread.

What a dreadful loss that would be! No, but I lost interest in your discussion and insult trading with the Barbarian some time back, since I don't see anything of any consequence following from your point even were it correct.

Do they have a word for 'light-hearted' where you come from?
:wink:

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 09:53 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140590#post140590)
The Barbarian:

Well, no. You refused to believe what the links said.


On the contrary, I take the links at face value and in the one case showed that it doesn't support your case and in the other promised to do so if you didn't follow the rationale.
You have no textual support for claiming that I disbelieve the links.



Sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming is not a refutation.


Agreed. Would that you could avoid that brand of hypocrisy.



Sorry. Those were explanations by scientists of the role of genetic variation in defining subspecies. Whether you think that they should define them thusly is irrelevant.


Of course they were explanations of criteria for subspecies. As I pointed out, your former link made the genetic criterion optional, and did not specify any demarcation percentage baseline.
Both of those things are reasonably required by your earlier argument. Stop stalling and obfuscating, please.



Let's review. Barbarian points out that genetic variation is evidence for subspecies. Cap'n O objects. Barbarian provides several links showing that is what scientists say. Cap'n O says they are wrong.


No, I didn't say they were wrong, I said the information didn't help your case and I explained why in the former instance and offered to explain why in the other.



You messed up. You got angry. Learn from it and go on.

:rofl:
Allow me to quote you:



Sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming is not a refutation.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 01:37 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140616#post140616)
geochron:



I was responding to the post before mine which wished that the thread return to topic.

I was also agreeing with that poster that the Berlusconi argument is ridiculous on both sides, and that it would be nice if this was widely recognised.



Does anyone participating in this thread think otherwise?
IOW, why would you bother to make the comment? Jacking up your #/posts stats?



What a dreadful loss that would be! No, but I lost interest in your discussion and insult trading with the Barbarian some time back, since I don't see anything of any consequence following from your point even were it correct.


"I'll take that as a big 'yes'"
--Doctor Peter Venkman

[QED]

Today @ 04:24 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140490#post140490)
Captain Ochre:

On the contrary, I have continued to bring the nuts & bolts of the issues into the Barbarian's digression, specifically his phantom genetic criterion for sub-species differentiation. I'm willing to go over whatever points we've covered that he abandoned in his zeal to focus on imagined personal attacks. If you check the past exchanges, the tendency was for issues to disappear from his end of the reply.

On the contrary to what? When I said that people often try to tie their opponents views to Hitler and thereby show that they have no substantive argument, I meant that they had no argument that addressed the actual issues of disagreement - i.e. the accuracy of a scientific theory, or the desirability of a certain religious view.

I did not mean to imply that their attempt to tie their opposition to Hitler could not be approached in a relatively substantive way. I can make the argument substantively that protestantism was founded by an antisemite, but doing so will still indicate that I lack a substantive argument against protestantism and that I must be fairly desperate to resort to such specious arguments.


Consider it asked. What is unnatural about killing your competition?

The question is far too generic. There are species of organisms where (for instance) two males will compete for mating priveleges or what not, and fight or even kill one another. I don't know of any instances where genocide is undertaken naturally, though.

I am, therefore, still waiting on a decent answer to my question about why Hitler didn't just use his understanding of Natural Selection and his assumption that Aryans were a superior race to conclude that nature would take care of the job he wanted done for him. He might have been wrong on that point, but it would likely have been because Aryans are not a superior race after all. Still, he and his kin might have at least survived, and he might have had a better chance of his genes being represented in future generations if he had taken the scientific approach.


To the naturalist, killing is as natural as giving your neighbor a nice fruit basket.

I would think many naturalists have a somewhat deeper understanding of nature, but some of them may make this oversimplification. Are there any trends that you are aware of where it concerns naturalists' views of the ethics of killing?


What worldview are you working from QED? It's not a scientific framework, afaics.

I'm not sure if my "worldview" has a name. Could you be more specific?

I do give the methods of science quite a lot of epistemological weight for discovering things about nature.

On an unrelated note, I hold a faith (of the sort that comes "without seeing") in the truths of Christianity, and hold the Bible completely authoritative on issues of salvation, morality, and man's relation to God (although you might guess I have not always held this faith).


Whatever. Congratulations on being set free from my "Ignore" list.

I'm deeply honored.


Thank Joe.

I'm not sure I understand the reference, so I'll reply in the same spirit as you did above with a "whatever."


Unfortunately, based on the posts that I've read from you recently, you still deserve to be ignored as though you were still on my "Ignore" list.

Now that's a slap in the face. I'll try to be brave.


Let's see how you handle the question above, though.
Maybe you'll surprise.

Who knows.

[The Barbarian]

I think Cap'n O's difficulties stem from trying to apply science to ethical and moral problems. If you fail to make a distinction between biologically real things and "archtypes", suddenly, Hitler's misunderstanding of biology becomes "scientifically valid", and "To the naturalist, killing is as natural as giving your neighbor a nice fruit basket. ”

I don't think he's trying to be dishonest this time; he seems to really believe it.

In his world, "racial science" is valid, and Hitler was just being a good scientist.

[Roy]

Today @ 04:24 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140490#post140490)
Captain Ochre:

Consider it asked. What is unnatural about killing your competition?

It reduces an organism's chances of reproductive success.

(i) it uses resources (time, energy) that may be better used in another way
(ii) it encourages your competition to try to kill you, rather than just ignoring you or trying to drive you away
(iii) while you and your competition are trying to kill each other, all the other members of your species are doing better than you
(iv) if you're too successful, you could reduce your species population below the threshold of viability.

Oh, and there aren't any examples of deliberate genocide in the animal world.

Roy

(didn't I answer this same point last week?)

[The Barbarian]

Possibly, the example of the Gombe chimps observed by Jane Goodall would be one.

The Gombe troop systematically exterminated a neighboring troop over several year's time.

However, since chimps are very close to humans, this would be an exception that would support your argument.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 10:47 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=141532#post141532)
rthearle:

It reduces an organism's chances of reproductive success.


So does the beaching of whales and the cliff-diving of elephant seals. Are those unnatural?



(i) it uses resources (time, energy) that may be better used in another way


Ever heard of the bower bird? Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?



(ii) it encourages your competition to try to kill you, rather than just ignoring you or trying to drive you away


If I'm attacking, I probably figured on the first anyway.
If I'm ignored, my attack might have greater success than otherwise. Drive me away? I think that could easily turn into one or both of the other two options, don't you think?



(iii) while you and your competition are trying to kill each other, all the other members of your species are doing better than you


Not necessarily, but assuming that they do better for a time, their competition will be from my population's genes rather than another population's.
It's kind of like winning the first round of the playoffs that way.



(iv) if you're too successful, you could reduce your species population below the threshold of viability.


I take it you mean successful at killing rather than successful at propagation. I was going to try to avoid killing of members of the population with whom I'm not competing.



Oh, and there aren't any examples of deliberate genocide in the animal world.


How specifically are you tailoring the definition of "genocide"?

http://ar.vegnews.org/cannibalism.html

http://agnews.tamu.edu/graphics/fireants/antwars.htm
With respect to the above link, would the native Texas fire ants increase their opportunity for survival if they were smart enough to attack and kill the competitor ant?




(didn't I answer this same point last week?)

Not satisfactorily if at all, iirc.

[edit to add]
I guess I skipped the key question last time through:
Do you consider humans to be animals?

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 06:29 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140893#post140893)
QED:

On the contrary to what?


On the contrary to the following, inasmuch as the current thread does not serve as an example (well, I won't speak for Barbarian):



its nice to have on record what amounts to an admission from individual opponents that they are willing to resort to just any old ridiculous argument to prop up their case with the concommitant implication that they have no case of substance to present.




When I said that people often try to tie their opponents views to Hitler and thereby show that they have no substantive argument, I meant that they had no argument that addressed the actual issues of disagreement - i.e. the accuracy of a scientific theory, or the desirability of a certain religious view.


I've got no problem with that portion of your statement. The latter portion tends toward insinuation or outright accusation.



I did not mean to imply that their attempt to tie their opposition to Hitler could not be approached in a relatively substantive way. I can make the argument substantively that protestantism was founded by an antisemite, but doing so will still indicate that I lack a substantive argument against protestantism and that I must be fairly desperate to resort to such specious arguments.


Perhaps you should specify what it is you perceive to be on record (referred to in the latter portion of your paragraph) with respect to particular individuals. Do you refer to participants in this thread, or no?



The question is far too generic. There are species of organisms where (for instance) two males will compete for mating priveleges or what not, and fight or even kill one another. I don't know of any instances where genocide is undertaken naturally, though.


I'm getting at the importance of a definition of "natural" and "unnatural". Most scientists consider human beings and human actions part of the natural world, afaics. To do otherwise would place humans above scientific observation in some sense, wouldn't it?
If you define "natural" as being "other man man-induced" then mankind cannot act naturally at all, afaics. He could mimic what he sees in the "natural" world, I guess.
If you don't pin down what you mean, QED, any argument which might be discerned concerning that term will be terminally ambiguous.



I am, therefore, still waiting on a decent answer to my question about why Hitler didn't just use his understanding of Natural Selection and his assumption that Aryans were a superior race to conclude that nature would take care of the job he wanted done for him.


And I'm asking you what should make us place "man" outside of "nature". If mankind is part of nature, then man is free to act in (or out of) his own best interests, and "nature" is taking care of business.
Other organisms don't let "nature" outside of themselves ensure their evolutionary success. They feed, procreate, and protect themselves and their young from harm (variously).



He might have been wrong on that point, but it would likely have been because Aryans are not a superior race after all.


Then again, their "superiority" may have been based on not waiting around for nature outside of the Aryan race to take care of business.
Your point, if any, is mired firmly in ambiguity. Please specify your intended usage of "natural" (and "unnatural" too, if necessary).



Still, he and his kin might have at least survived, and he might have had a better chance of his genes being represented in future generations if he had taken the scientific approach.


"The scientific approach" could have been anything up to and including being the first to perfect working atomic bombs.
Define your terms, please.



I would think many naturalists have a somewhat deeper understanding of nature,


Such as (specificity encouraged)?



but some of them may make this oversimplification.


There's no "oversimplification". There are different ways of using the term "natural".
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=natural

It isn't clear what nuance of the term you intend, and it's conceivable that one of the strongest possibilities is absurd.



Are there any trends that you are aware of where it concerns naturalists' views of the ethics of killing?


The philosphical naturalist explains all things, including ethics, in terms of matter and physical law. "Killing" would be including under the broad heading of "all things" afaics.



I'm not sure if my &quot;worldview&quot; has a name. Could you be more specific?


The scientific worldview is methodological naturalism, and for purposes of our discussion, methodological naturalism would be indistinguishable from philosphical naturalism. Man, in the philosophically naturalistic sense, is natural in every way from his toenails to his ethics to his Amana freezer.



On an unrelated note, I hold a faith (of the sort that comes &quot;without seeing&quot;) in the truths of Christianity, and hold the Bible completely authoritative on issues of salvation, morality, and man's relation to God (although you might guess I have not always held this faith).


Okay.



Now that's a slap in the face. I'll try to be brave.


You can discount the comment as reflective merely of my personal tastes, if you like. I don't see the relevance in many of your comments, and I find communicating with you (so far) to be more work than it's worth.
Perhaps it will not always be so. Maybe we just need to develop a better understanding of what the other person is up to with his rhetoric.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 06:55 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140927#post140927)
The Barbarian:

I think Cap'n O's difficulties stem from trying to apply science to ethical and moral problems.


If you'll check the beginning portions (and some of the latter portions) you'll see that I have firmly and consistently placed morals/ethics outside the purview of science.
Your conjecture above is free of evidential foundation, afaics, and you were careful not to provide any.



If you fail to make a distinction between biologically real things and &quot;archtypes&quot;, suddenly, Hitler's misunderstanding of biology becomes &quot;scientifically valid&quot;, and &quot;To the naturalist, killing is as natural as giving your neighbor a nice fruit basket. ”


1) As I've already pointed out, "human" ears on the dorsum of mice were not "biologically real" until somebody got the idea to do it. You're immune to discerning the application of the analogy, I suspect (based on past performance), but I've no reason to doubt that others can see it.
2) What specific "misunderstanding of biology" on Hitler's part am I saying is "scientifically valid"? What was the inspiration for your attack via insinuation?



In his world, &quot;racial science&quot; is valid, and Hitler was just being a good scientist.

To correct you, the general eugenic approach in terms of approaching one archetypical phenotype and diminishing another archetypical phenotype was valid. As noted, the term "race" doesn't mean to you and me what it meant to the Nazis. Your comment above seems to neglect that fact that I have sought to continually reinforce (go figure).
Hitler wasn't a scientist at all. He was an ideologue who made valid use of scientific technology to achieve various of his nefarious ends. He put science to "good" (good=effective) use, and his ends were morally bad, generally.

Still searching for links proving the existence of a standard for distinguishing sub-species on the basis of percentages of genetic variation?
Keep at it.

[Roy]

Today @ 02:22 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=141630#post141630)
Captain Ochre:

So does the beaching of whales and the cliff-diving of elephant seals. Are those unnatural?


Don't know about the seals. If the whales are doing it deliberately, then yes. Do they?



Ever heard of the bower bird? Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?


Yup, trying to attract a mate does often leads to reproductive success.



If I'm attacking, I probably figured on the first anyway.
If I'm ignored, my attack might have greater success than otherwise. Drive me away? I think that could easily turn into one or both of the other two options, don't you think?


In the wild it usually doesn't. Lots of animals have evolved non-fatal ways of establishing superiority - probably because animals that do this tend to survive better than ones that don't. If every clash between rivals leads to a fatality, species go extinct really quickly.



Not necessarily, but assuming that they do better for a time, their competition will be from my population's genes rather than another population's.
It's kind of like winning the first round of the playoffs that way.


Except that while you were competing in the playoffs, everyone else was breeding. You've reduced your reproductive success w.r.t. the rest of the competition. If you want a sporting analogy, try a grand melee where you charge in and attack the first opponent you see, while everyone else is warming up, taking steroids, sharpening their weapons, and waiting for you to tire yourself out.



I take it you mean successful at killing rather than successful at propagation. I was going to try to avoid killing of members of the population with whom I'm not competing.


There aren't any.*



How specifically are you tailoring the definition of &quot;genocide&quot;?

http://ar.vegnews.org/cannibalism.html


Yup, male cats kill their predecessors cubs. They do this because it directly increases their reproductive success - they can't reproduce while the female cats are raising young. They do not seek out and destroy other male cats once they have a pride.



http://agnews.tamu.edu/graphics/fireants/antwars.htm
With respect to the above link, would the native Texas fire ants increase their opportunity for survival if they were smart enough to attack and kill the competitor ant?


These aren't the same species.

If they tried, and were able to win more individual conflicts than they lost,** they might still find their reduced population being overrun by a third species.



[edit to add]
I guess I skipped the key question last time through:
Do you consider humans to be animals?

We ain't vegetables or minerals (with a few exceptions).

Roy

*Of the same sex, at least.

**unlikely, or they probably wouldn't be losing at the moment.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 03:45 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=141678#post141678)
rthearle:



Don't know about the seals. If the whales are doing it deliberately, then yes. Do they?


Apparently, but who knows? Why would that have any bearing on whether or not it was natural?
:huh:



Yup, trying to attract a mate does often leads to reproductive success.


Chicks dig murderers.
Supposedly, anyway.



In the wild it usually doesn't. Lots of animals have evolved non-fatal ways of establishing superiority - probably because animals that do this tend to survive better than ones that don't. If every clash between rivals leads to a fatality, species go extinct really quickly.


In the case of the Nazis, we're looking at a social animal. An analogy could be built in their framework that would compare non-Nazis to useless drones or to invaders from a competing colony.



Except that while you were competing in the playoffs, everyone else was breeding. You've reduced your reproductive success w.r.t. the rest of the competition.


In this case, the Nazis had set up legislation that strongly encouraged breeding of the population with the exception of the some rules designed to discourage the phenotype that they wished to excise from the population. Had other countries done this, also? I doubt it.
The earliest campaigns of the Nazis incurred relatively few casualties, also.



If you want a sporting analogy, try a grand melee where you charge in and attack the first opponent you see, while everyone else is warming up, taking steroids, sharpening their weapons, and waiting for you to tire yourself out.


Nonsense. The only nearby competition is busy turning their milk money over to the Nazis (remember appeasement?).



There aren't any.*


We're talking societies.



Yup, male cats kill their predecessors cubs. They do this because it directly increases their reproductive success - they can't reproduce while the female cats are raising young. They do not seek out and destroy other male cats once they have a pride.


It's just a matter of degree.



These aren't the same species.

If they tried, and were able to win more individual conflicts than they lost,** they might still find their reduced population being overrun by a third species.


True, but the Germans had plans intended to cover such contingencies.



We ain't vegetables or minerals (with a few exceptions).




Oh, and there aren't any examples of deliberate genocide in the animal world.


It seems that there are examples of deliberate genocide in the animal world.
You meant other examples, I guess.

[QED]

Today @ 03:12 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=141663#post141663)
Captain Ochre:

I've got no problem with that portion of your statement. The latter portion tends toward insinuation or outright accusation.

"I did not mean to imply that their attempt to tie their opposition to Hitler could not be approached in a relatively substantive way. I can make the argument substantively that protestantism was founded by an antisemite, but doing so will still indicate that I lack a substantive argument against protestantism and that I must be fairly desperate to resort to such specious arguments."

Perhaps you should specify what it is you perceive to be on record (referred to in the latter portion of your paragraph) with respect to particular individuals. Do you refer to participants in this thread, or no?

I don't know about accusation or insuation, but yes I do mean it with respect to some specific individuals. There seems to be a class of individuals who are willing to resort to the horribly specious tactic of attempting to associate their opponent in some way with Hitler. Generally, this is equivalent to an announcement that either:
a) they have no rational argument against their opponent's view or
b) they don't know the difference.

For those with the intelligence to know the difference, the desperation is obvious.

Now, are there creationists who are this desperate (or alternatively, this unintelligent?) Sure there are:


Instead, as documented in the current CEN Technical Journal,3 Nazis eagerly made use of the evolutionary concepts already entrenched in German academia. Note that the subtitle of Darwin’s The Origin of Species by means of natural selection was: The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. Evolutionary teachings were simply carried to their logical conclusion by the Nazis who tried to exterminate the ‘inferior’ races like the Jews, Gypsies and Slavs, as well as the ‘unfit’ (e.g. the handicapped).
Jonathan Sarfati at Answers in Genesis (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4184cen_d1999.asp)

Also, Jerry Bergman on evolution and facsism, (http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v08n3p24.htm) and many more. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=evolution+nazi&btnG=Google+Search)

Interestingly, Bergman contradicts the premise that Hitler was using evolution pragmatically to inform his decisions on how to further his nationalistic goals in the same way he was using rocket science pragmatically to further his goal of conquering Europe. The relevant quote:


Hitler noted that one would not let a 2 million Mark thoroughbred horse breed with a nag. He likewise felt that to advance the human race we must "direct evolution" instead of letting natural forces and chance blindly produce-5 His view on race and evolution made the fatal combination which produced the holocaust.

If Bergman is correct in his summary it is obvious that Hitler felt natural selection to be inadequate to the task of producing the Aryan super-race he hoped for, and therefore used other means to work out his solution. I wouldn't necessarily expect Bergman to be correct on this point, though.

So there you have it --- but you have asked another question. You have asked specifically about this thread's participants.

Well, if memory serves (and I admit, the old noggin gets rusty from time to time), Socrates has, in this thread or elsewhere, suggested a connection between evolution and Hitler's campaign somewhere on this board. If he is one of this thread's participants, then yes my comments would apply to him, unless I have incorrectly remembered his remarks.

What I like is that this doesn't require any effort on my part. I cannot legitimately track down usage and say "This proves that X has no substantive argument against evolution". However, if John Doe happens upon AiG (or Socrates' comments on this forum, for instance) and sees the specious evolution-promotes-nazism argument, he will likely say to himself "aha! A crackpot!" and waste no more time on such drivel. For this reason, I love to see creationists attack evolution on this basis, and I love to see atheists attack Christianity using the same type arguments.

So that should answer your question... No? It's personal, eh? You wanted to know whether I think Ochre has tarred himself with the evolution=Hitler brush? I get the impression that you are trying to insulate yourself by hiding behind a smokescreen of irrelevancy. I may be wrong about that, though.

If I am correct, I think that people who happen upon this thread will wonder, along with me, why you seem to be so adamant in making sure everybody thinks that Hitler's program was in some respect "Darwinistic" - when all you really mean (upon analyzing your claims) is that Hitler's program employed technology borrowed from Darwinism, so that Darwinism comes off no worse than rocket science for its attempted fascist application. I think they will see this as an attempt to make a psychological connection between Darwinism and Hitler, and will most likely view it as propaganda for that reason. I think that they will discount the creationist viewpoint more readily on that basis.

And I am pleased to see creationism get no more attention than it deserves.


I'm getting at the importance of a definition of "natural" and "unnatural". Most scientists consider human beings and human actions part of the natural world, afaics. To do otherwise would place humans above scientific observation in some sense, wouldn't it?
If you define "natural" as being "other man man-induced" then mankind cannot act naturally at all, afaics. He could mimic what he sees in the "natural" world, I guess.
If you don't pin down what you mean, QED, any argument which might be discerned concerning that term will be terminally ambiguous.

I think both of us have been using the term in more than one way. On the one hand, natural can mean anything that is observeable by the ordinary senses. This would include mankind and the set of behaviors that man engages in.

Another meaning concerns whether a behavior is "normal" for a particular type of organism. I may have mistakenly assumed that you were asking specifically about this when you asked whether "killing" is natural. After all, it is quite obvious that killing can be observed with the normal senses, so I wouldn't expect you to mean that.

But now I think you did not mean either of these things.

I think that you meant to ask whether genocide as perpetrated by Hitler could have qualified as an agent of "natural selection". The answer, as I see it, would be a no. It is a somewhat arbitrary distinction, but Hitler was making a very poor attempt at what is normally characterized as "artificial selection", i.e. taking out the element of normal behaviors in an environtment determined without intelligent manipulation and substituting a program devised to produce a specific outcome. Obviously, his attempt at artificial selection was a horrible failure, in part because he failed to select for selectable traits (i.e. blue eyes, blonde hair) and chose unselectable "race" instead.

In the end, his efforts did not result in much (if any) shift in the gene frequencies in later generations, and they certainly did not shift in any predictable way.


And I'm asking you what should make us place "man" outside of "nature". If mankind is part of nature, then man is free to act in (or out of) his own best interests, and "nature" is taking care of business.
Other organisms don't let "nature" outside of themselves ensure their evolutionary success. They feed, procreate, and protect themselves and their young from harm (variously).

Mankind does many of the same things that other organisms do. This we think of as natural. Humans feed, procreate, protect young from harm, fight their competition, etc, (variously). In addition, we have the unique ability to manipulate our environment to produce expected results. When we do this, although it is also a part of nature, we think of it as "artificial" - because it employs a style and level of cognizance available only to us, and because it produces results so far removed from what would be available without said cognizance. Of course even this "artificial" behavior may still be obseved naturalistically, but that doesn't seem to be interesting to the point of the conversation.



Then again, their "superiority" may have been based on not waiting around for nature outside of the Aryan race to take care of business.
Your point, if any, is mired firmly in ambiguity. Please specify your intended usage of "natural" (and "unnatural" too, if necessary).

See above. The Aryan "superiority" apparently consisted of a poor understanding of "artificial selection". Hitler could have learned a thing or two from your average pig farmer, no doubt.


"The scientific approach" could have been anything up to and including being the first to perfect working atomic bombs.
Define your terms, please.

My comments were directed to the matter of selection. The scientific approach would have been to
a) Let nature run its course under a Darwinistic program or,
b) use Agricultural science, and especially artificial selection, to breed for selectable traits.



"[i]I would think many naturalists have a somewhat deeper understanding of nature,”

Such as (specificity encouraged)?

Most naturalists would likely recognize that there were situations where killing is a natural (normal) behavior, but for many organisms and under many circumstances killing is not the natural behavior, and that all of these diverse behaviors are important to understanding the organism. I don't think they would ever reduce the phenomenological diversity of nature to "killing = natural".


There's no "oversimplification".There are different ways of using the term "natural".
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=natural

It isn't clear what nuance of the term you intend, and it's conceivable that one of the strongest possibilities is absurd.

Whether oversimplification or mere irrelevancy, it doesn't seem to help answer my question - about why Hitler did not save the resources he spent on concentration camps and take a more scientifically enlightened approach to creating his Aryan "super-race".


The philosphical naturalist explains all things, including ethics, in terms of matter and physical law. "Killing" would be including under the broad heading of "all things" afaics.

I don't remember bringing up philosophical naturalism, but leaving that aside, you have not given me much more information. I asked if you knew the ethical thinking of naturalists on "killing", and you supplied nothing more than a mere categorization that one subset of them might make.


The scientific worldview is methodological naturalism, and for purposes of our discussion, methodological naturalism would be indistinguishable from philosphical naturalism.

Really? Why? I think you are badly mistaken on this point.


Man, in the philosophically naturalistic sense, is natural in every way from his toenails to his ethics to his Amana freezer.

Quite, though the relevance still escapes.


Maybe we just need to develop a better understanding of what the other person is up to with his rhetoric.

Maybe. I hope I have cleared up any ambiguities remaining in my previous post. If you still have questions, though, I'll be glad to try to sort it out further.

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
I think Cap'n O's difficulties stem from trying to apply science to ethical and moral problems.


If you'll check the beginning portions (and some of the latter portions) you'll see that I have firmly and consistently placed morals/ethics outside the purview of science.

Then it seems odd that you made such a thing about applying it to Hitler's misuse of science. You aren't a very consistent person.

Barbarian observes:
If you fail to make a distinction between biologically real things and "archtypes", suddenly, Hitler's misunderstanding of biology becomes "scientifically valid", and "To the naturalist, killing is as natural as giving your neighbor a nice fruit basket. ”


As I've already pointed out, "human" ears on the dorsum of mice were not "biologically real" until somebody got the idea to do it.

And as soon as someone thought up "racial science", it became real science? No, I'm sorry, you're making no sense here.


2) What specific "misunderstanding of biology"

Your attempt to refute my observation that human races have no biological reality, by asserting that there are "archtypes".


Hitler's part am I saying is "scientifically valid"? What was the inspiration for your attack via insinuation?

Once you assume that "archtypes" or other cultural constructs of race have a biological reality, then Hitler's "racial science" seems defensible.

Barbarian observes:
In his world, "racial science" is valid, and Hitler was just being a good scientist. ”


To correct you, the general eugenic approach in terms of approaching one archetypical phenotype and diminishing another archetypical phenotype was valid.

Hitler had a plainer phrase; "the final solution". My thinking is that if you can't say it plainly, you don't understand it. Or you're trying to obfuscate.


As noted, the term "race" doesn't mean to you and me what it meant to the Nazis.

Well, it doesn't to me. But your objection to the fact that human races are not biologically real is in alignment with "racial science".


Still searching for links proving the existence of a standard for distinguishing sub-species on the basis of percentages of genetic variation?

Actually, I told you that degree of genetic variation was evidence for supspecies. When I realized that you simply denied what they said, I gave up at three or four or whatever number I gave you.

I would certainly like your clarification of your opinion. Do you still have a problem with the observation that human races are only cultural constructs?

[Roy]

Today @ 04:34 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=141705#post141705)
Captain Ochre:


Nazi references deleted, since I don't want to get back on that argument, and they aren't really relevant to the original question anyway.



Chicks dig murderers.
Supposedly, anyway.


Evidence?



We're talking societies.


No, we weren't. At least, I wasn't, and you were using the first person singular pronoun.



It's just a matter of degree.


It isn't. It's the difference between increasing your own reproductive success and decreasing someone elses.



It seems that there are examples of deliberate genocide in the animal world.
You meant other examples, I guess.

Where? Neither of the two examples you provided involved genocide.

[The Barbarian]

With respect to the above link, would the native Texas fire ants increase their opportunity for survival if they were smart enough to attack and kill the competitor ant?

Better strategy than that exists...
"The fire ants are a different story. Twice this century they have been beaten back by native ants which are more agressive. But this time, the fire ants have a new social structure, sets of communal hills. Instead of one hill per 300 m^2, they now have ten times that density - since fire ants no longer fight each other, but cooperate or ignore fire ants from other nests. The result is am much higher carrying capacity and a " quantity has a quality" problem for the native ants. There is a lot of complaining that insecticides have hurt the fire ant's ant enemies, but pesticides have been used before. The culprit is the emergence of e new social structure for the ants. It's like Greek national identity vs city-states."

Used to be, you could fight the little devils by introducing them to other mounds, after which they'd fight to the death. No more.

Cooperation. Whoda thunk? Certainly not Hitler with his "archtypes".

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 12:02 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=141809#post141809)
QED:

I don't know about accusation or insuation, but yes I do mean it with respect to some specific individuals.


(blah, blah, blah)



So there you have it --- but you have asked another question. You have asked specifically about this thread's participants.


From there, QED mused that perhaps Socrates could qualify.
At least he's in the ballpark with respect to answering the question.

Removed another hunk of qed's
(blah, blah, blah)



So that should answer your question... No?


And that, in a Mothra-sized nutshell of your own words, is why you'll be fully restored to manual "ignore" status once I send my reply. Lines and lines of response beating around the bush to a question when you appear to have known that you weren't answering what I had asked.



It's personal, eh? You wanted to know whether I think Ochre has tarred himself with the evolution=Hitler brush? I get the impression that you are trying to insulate yourself by hiding behind a smokescreen of irrelevancy. I may be wrong about that, though.


Is that as close as you're going to come to answering the question?



If I am correct, I think that people who happen upon this thread will wonder, along with me, why you seem to be so adamant in making sure everybody thinks that Hitler's program was in some respect &quot;Darwinistic&quot; - when all you really mean (upon analyzing your claims) is that Hitler's program employed technology borrowed from Darwinism, so that Darwinism comes off no worse than rocket science for its attempted fascist application. I think they will see this as an attempt to make a psychological connection between Darwinism and Hitler, and will most likely view it as propaganda for that reason. I think that they will discount the creationist viewpoint more readily on that basis.


If someone chooses to do so, that's their prerogative, however, I haven't taken a stance on creationism in this thread (or others at TWeb, iirc.
I decline to feel guilty over supposedly forcing otherwise intelligent persons to dispense with logic when it comes to assessing the creationist viewpoint (which literally has nothing to do with this thread apart from the imaginative conspiracy theories advances by Joe Meert and echoed by QED above).

So, I guess that you did all that writing without ever answering the question, and it looks like that was your intent.
And I should bother to read what you write?



I think both of us have been using the term in more than one way.


Your usage is the one at issue. How many paragraphs will it take you to specify what you meant? If you point to any specific usage on my part, I guarantee that the answer won't take me more than two sentences.
Not that I guarantee an answer if the context makes it obvious.



On the one hand, natural can mean anything that is observeable by the ordinary senses. This would include mankind and the set of behaviors that man engages in.

Another meaning concerns whether a behavior is &quot;normal&quot; for a particular type of organism. I may have mistakenly assumed that you were asking specifically about this when you asked whether &quot;killing&quot; is natural. After all, it is quite obvious that killing can be observed with the normal senses, so I wouldn't expect you to mean that.

But now I think you did not mean either of these things.

I think that you meant to ask whether genocide as perpetrated by Hitler could have qualified as an agent of &quot;natural selection&quot;. The answer, as I see it, would be a no.


That's the absurd state of affairs that I referred to earlier. This view forces you to assume, afaics, that humans are the only being who serve as exceptions to natural selection, when in fact all manner of organisms have criteria for choosing mates. Do all such criteria invalidate "natural" selection? Do some such criteria invalidate "natural" selection?



Mankind does many of the same things that other organisms do. This we think of as natural. Humans feed, procreate, protect young from harm, fight their competition, etc, (variously). In addition, we have the unique ability to manipulate our environment to produce expected results. When we do this, although it is also a part of nature, we think of it as &quot;artificial&quot; - because it employs a style and level of cognizance available only to us, and because it produces results so far removed from what would be available without said cognizance. Of course even this &quot;artificial&quot; behavior may still be obseved naturalistically, but that doesn't seem to be interesting to the point of the conversation.


You can say that again (in fewer words).
What do you think "eugenics" means in the first place?





See above. The Aryan &quot;superiority&quot; apparently consisted of a poor understanding of &quot;artificial selection&quot;. Hitler could have learned a thing or two from your average pig farmer, no doubt.


For a guy who can write a novel where a sentence or two would do, you're surprisingly devoid of specifics.




My comments were directed to the matter of selection. The scientific approach would have been to
a) Let nature run its course under a Darwinistic program or,


Ironically, your "scientific" approach requires absolutely no understanding of science. In fact, the "scientific" approach that you recommend would be more certainly achieved in the greater absence of scientific knowledge.



b) use Agricultural science, and especially artificial selection, to breed for selectable traits.


Were any of the traits that the Germans were trying to favor heritable traits, in fact?



Most naturalists would likely recognize that there were situations where killing is a natural (normal) behavior, but for many organisms and under many circumstances killing is not the natural behavior, and that all of these diverse behaviors are important to understanding the organism. I don't think they would ever reduce the phenomenological diversity of nature to &quot;killing = natural&quot;.


When you make "natural" mean "normal", since when is it not normal for humans to meddle in their own reproduction and make war on their neighbors for economic reasons?
Thanks for defining your term!



Whether oversimplification or mere irrelevancy, it doesn't seem to help answer my question - about why Hitler did not save the resources he spent on concentration camps and take a more scientifically enlightened approach to creating his Aryan &quot;super-race&quot;.

Sure, and why didn't the Wright Brothers just build an SR-71 without all that fiddling around?
I'm leaving that BoP where it belongs: Right with you. Taking into account all of the relevant factors at the time, come up with a plan better than Hitlers.
Have fun. I can see this work of yours reaching epic proportions in terms of the sheer number of words.



I don't remember bringing up philosophical naturalism,


I did that, since it's the most appropriate way to understand "natural" in terms of science, if scientists are to be believed, anyway. You can take that as a clue as to why I asked what worldview you were working from early on.



but leaving that aside, you have not given me much more information. I asked if you knew the ethical thinking of naturalists on &quot;killing&quot;, and you supplied nothing more than a mere categorization that one subset of them might make.


Correct, because individual sets of moral categorizations by naturalists are irrelevant, as you probably realized when you posed the question. Thus, I provided an answer that is germane to our subject rather than veering down the proffered rabbit-trail.



Really? Why? I think you are badly mistaken on this point.


Yes, really.
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=science+&num=10&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=methodological+naturalism&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=.edu&safe=images
Why would you think me mistaken?

If man can only behave "naturally" (apart from human intervention) by acting as though he has no understanding of science, then in what sense is acting naturally for purposes of selection "scientific"?
If man himself is natural, the his actions planned or unplanned are all part of the naturalistic Darwinian framework for evolution. That is how most scientists would see the situation, imo. Thus, it is a distraction from the issue of whether or not the actions of the Nazis were "best" or not.

But I've been over that before with you, if memory serves.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 03:51 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=141932#post141932)
The Barbarian:

Then it seems odd that you made such a thing about applying it to Hitler's misuse of science. You aren't a very consistent person.


C&P the alleged inconsistency, if you can.



And as soon as someone thought up &quot;racial science&quot;, it became real science?


No. Apparently you missed the point of the analogy.



No, I'm sorry, you're making no sense here.


I'll spell it out for you (again).
Getting the ear on the mouse's back required a technological application that relied on science. Similarly, eliminating certain features from the gene pool of Germany required technological applications that relied on science.



Your attempt to refute my observation that human races have no biological reality, by asserting that there are &quot;archtypes&quot;.


Again, your presentation of the past discussion is inaccurate. Far better than refuting your claim that biological races have no biological reality, I showed that you were equivocating by substituting one version of race (yours or that of modern science) for the one held in Nazi Germany), and more importantly I pointed out the biological unreality of an archetype (as with the dorsally-eared mouse) is no obstacle toward an attempt to achieve either end.
You have either been unable to understand that simple point ("you're making no sense here"), or simply unwilling to acknowledge it via your attempts at counterargument.
In sum, you have failed in your attempt to identify a misunderstanding of biology on my part.



Once you assume that &quot;archtypes&quot; or other cultural constructs of race have a biological reality, then Hitler's &quot;racial science&quot; seems defensible.


I've illustrated the fact that the reality of the archetype is irrelevant to the ability to pursue the reality, so the supposed analysis of the logical progression is inaccurate.



Hitler had a plainer phrase; &quot;the final solution&quot;. My thinking is that if you can't say it plainly, you don't understand it. Or you're trying to obfuscate.


Well, if you call that thinking.
You can call Hitler's genocidal plan "Aunt Petunia's pajama's" and it doesn't change the facts relative to the valid application of science.



Well, it doesn't to me. But your objection to the fact that human races are not biologically real is in alignment with &quot;racial science&quot;.


What "objection to the fact that human races are not biologically real"?
Quote me. Imagine me laughing at you while you hunt in vain. That'll help motivate your search, eh?



Actually, I told you that degree of genetic variation was evidence for supspecies. When I realized that you simply denied what they said, I gave up at three or four or whatever number I gave you.


Your excuses remain so much spluttering until you deal with my reasoned objections to your use of the citations.
How do you type with your fingers inserted into your ears?



I would certainly like your clarification of your opinion. Do you still have a problem with the observation that human races are only cultural constructs?

Sure, since you're trying to use that idea to deny the biological reality of the real phenotypical features that the Nazis were trying to increase in their population. When I nailed you on the biological reality of any phenotypical difference whatsoever you completely ignored that aspect of my argument, iirc.
Well, now you've been reminded of it. If you stay true to form, your next reply will either betray no trace of the idea, or will instead contain some bizarre straw man version of it.

[QED]

Today @ 08:09 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=142101#post142101)
Captain Ochre:

And that, in a Mothra-sized nutshell of your own words, is why you'll be fully restored to manual "ignore" status once I send my reply.

Horrors!



Is that as close as you're going to come to answering the question?

If you are asking whether your "smokescreen of irrelevancy" is working, then yes, I would have to say - just barely. You seem to have preserved yourself a plausible deniability.



If someone chooses to do so, that's their prerogative, however, I haven't taken a stance on creationism in this thread (or others at TWeb, iirc.

Quite - it is possible you are an evolutionist trying to make creationism look bad. After all, John D. Lurker will likely assume you are a creationist with no better argument.


I decline to feel guilty over supposedly forcing otherwise intelligent persons to dispense with logic when it comes to assessing the creationist viewpoint (which literally has nothing to do with this thread apart from the imaginative conspiracy theories advances by Joe Meert and echoed by QED above).

I can't speak for Meert, but I did not say that you were forcing anyone to abandon logic. You are just lending creationism the strong appearance of complete intellectual bankruptcy by wrangling for a nazi-evolution connection.


So, I guess that you did all that writing without ever answering the question, and it looks like that was your intent.
And I should bother to read what you write?

I answered the question to the best of my knowledge. I cannot read your mind, & you seem reluctant to express any useful opinions on the matter. Whether you read what I write is entirely up to you. I'm not getting paid by the copy sold.



Your usage is the one at issue.

You asked me if I believed that killing wasn't natural (or words to that effect). Eventually I figured out that you didn't give a flip about whether killing was natural, but whether efforts at genocide could rightly be considered an example of "natural selection" in action. The answer to that should have already been clear.



That's the absurd state of affairs that I referred to earlier. This view forces you to assume, afaics, that humans are the only being who serve as exceptions to natural selection, when in fact all manner of organisms have criteria for choosing mates.

How silly. I never claimed that humans were exceptions to natural selection. Humans who are more reproductively successful (for what ever reason) will tend to leave more offspring, and gene frequencies in the future will reflect more genes from the more reproductively successful humans. I think you are still confused about what constitutes natural selection.


Do all such criteria invalidate "natural" selection? Do some such criteria invalidate "natural" selection?

What makes the difference between "natural" and "artificial" selection is whether the selective criteria are human engineered or not. It makes little difference whether its subject is pigs or humans - the difference is whether the selective criteria are contrived.


Ironically, your "scientific" approach requires absolutely no understanding of science. In fact, the "scientific" approach that you recommend would be more certainly achieved in the greater absence of scientific knowledge.

Odd, isn't it - that Darwin suggested that without engineering, races favored by chance will survive and come to dominance over the long term - yet Hitler seemed to believe that Human engineering was required in order for the race he considered to be especially favored to come to dominance.

It's almost as though Hitler didn't have the first clue what Darwin's theory meant.



Were any of the traits that the Germans were trying to favor heritable traits, in fact?

IIRC there were physiological traits that Nazi's found desirable - light skin, blue eyes, blonde hair. If Hitler had understood selection in terms of either agriculture or Darwinian evolution, he would likely have actually have arranged selection on these traits, rather than on races. In other words, dark haired Aryans would not be allowed to reproduce, and light haired Jews would.

Of course, Hitler didn't understand the science that well, or he would have tried to keep the scientists quiet about it. After all, he had dark hair & eyes himself!


When you make "natural" mean "normal", since when is it not normal for humans to meddle in their own reproduction and make war on their neighbors for economic reasons?
Thanks for defining your term!

Who said that such was "unnatural"? The U.S. just had a war against Iraq. Fighting that war was a "natural" act. It was not a "Darwinian" act, an act of "evolution".


Sure, and why didn't the Wright Brothers just build an SR-71 without all that fiddling around?

What relevance? They understood aerodynamics well enough to get their airplane off the ground. Hitler, apparently, did not understand doodly-squat about selection - artificial or natural.



I'm leaving that BoP where it belongs: Right with you. Taking into account all of the relevant factors at the time, come up with a plan better than Hitlers.

Sure, OK. Here is the plan:
1) Not make stupid and unjustifiable assumptions about the biological reality of human cultural divisions.
2) Take actions to ensure the security and safety of Germany to aid in the reproductive success of himself and his kin.

Not so hard, was it?



Have fun. I can see this work of yours reaching epic proportions in terms of the sheer number of words.

If you would prefer I sacrifice precision for brevity, you will have to go fish.



I don't remember bringing up philosophical naturalism,

I did that, since it's the most appropriate way to understand "natural" in terms of science, if scientists are to be believed, anyway. You can take that as a clue as to why I asked what worldview you were working from early on.

I'll leave you with the burden of proof for this statement. I assume you were speaking of scientists in general, not just the one or two individuals who are philosophical materialists themselves?



Correct, because individual sets of moral categorizations by naturalists are irrelevant, as you probably realized when you posed the question. Thus, I provided an answer that is germane to our subject rather than veering down the proffered rabbit-trail.

I didn't ask for individual sets of moral categorizations by naturalists. I asked for general trends of ethical thinking on the subject by naturalists. Something like "according to most systems of ethics held by naturalists, murder is wrong, but killing in self defense may be justifiable" -- would have done fine.

The point was just to be sure that no one misunderstood your statement about naturalists perceiving killing as "natural" to mean that they approved of killing. So, as you can see, it was not a rabbit trail. It was an invitation for you to clarify your meaning.


Yes, really.
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=science+&amp;num=10&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;btnG=Google+Search&amp;as_epq=methodological+naturalism&amp;as_oq=&amp;as_eq=&amp;lr=&amp;as_ft=i&amp;as_filetype=&amp;as_qdr=all&amp;as_occt=any&amp;as_dt=i&amp;as_sitesearch=.edu&amp;safe=images
Why would you think me mistaken?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Your+google+search+is+meaningless.+Think%21+Reason%21&btnG=Google+Search

I would think you were mistaken because methodological naturalism makes no presupposition about the existence of unobservable/unpredictable causes. It simply requires that explanations of natural phenomena must not include such causes if they are to be studied by science. Since philosophical naturalism confers reality only on that which can be studied by science (at least in principle), then it is not a method related to scientific study, but a theorem related to epistemology.

There is no circumstance that I can think of where a theorem related to epistemology can be indistinguishable from a methodological restriction, any more than a fish can be indistinguishable from a coconut.


If man can only behave "naturally" (apart from human intervention) by acting as though he has no understanding of science, then in what sense is acting naturally for purposes of selection "scientific"?

Hurmm??



If man himself is natural, the his actions planned or unplanned are all part of the naturalistic Darwinian framework for evolution. That is how most scientists would see the situation, imo. Thus, it is a distraction from the issue of whether or not the actions of the Nazis were "best" or not.

You seem to have jumped track somewhere along the line, but if I am guessing right, you have mixed up how scientists might go about investigating the effects of Hitler's regime under a Darwinian framework (i.e. how much actual change they might expect to find in gene frequencies as a result of Hitler's influence), with Hitler's misunderstanding of how artificial selection should operate.

My question (which remains unanswered) is why Hitler did not conclude from his understanding of natural selection and his view that the Aryan race was superior, that he could invest his energies in constructive pursuits with confidence that the Aryan race would become dominant without genocidal intervention.

I think the reason this question is unanswered is quite obvious - Hitler portrayed no understanding of Darwinian theory, and this robs the desperate anti-evolutionists of their last hope of a case against science.

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Then it seems odd that you made such a thing about applying it to Hitler's misuse of science. You aren't a very consistent person.


C&P the alleged inconsistency, if you can.

Nice try. I gave you a number of statements by geneticists, showing that genetic diversity was evidence for races or subspecies,and you simply denied them. Depending on the post, you either said you "refuted" what the geneticists said, or simply denied that they said what they said. I'll let anyone interested go back and look at my links.

Barbarian observes:
If you fail to make a distinction between biologically real things and "archtypes", suddenly, Hitler's misunderstanding of biology becomes "scientifically valid", and "To the naturalist, killing is as natural as giving your neighbor a nice fruit basket. ”


As I've already pointed out, "human" ears on the dorsum of mice were not "biologically real" until somebody got the idea to do it.

Barbarian askes:
And as soon as someone thought up "racial science", it became real science?


No. Apparently you missed the point of the analogy.

An analogy establishes a mapping of elements, some relationships. How exactly, does grafting human tissue on mice make Hitler's fantasies about Jews real?

No, I'm sorry, you're making no sense here.


I'll spell it out for you (again).
Getting the ear on the mouse's back required a technological application that relied on science. Similarly, eliminating certain features from the gene pool of Germany required technological applications that relied on science.

No. "Racial science" was just foolish fantasy. In fact, the "technological applications" depended only on those identified by culture and family history as Jews. Blue-eyed blondes were sent to the death camps because they were culturally Jewish, while those with the alleged Jewish phenotypes were never sent there on that basis.


Your attempt to refute my observation that human races have no biological reality, by asserting that there are "archtypes".


Again, your presentation of the past discussion is inaccurate.

Nope. You went on a name-calling hissy fit when I told you that. And yes, Sher has told me that calling one "slow on the uptake", (among other things) is suitable for this forum. It's her call...


Far better than refuting your claim that biological races have no biological reality, I showed that you were equivocating by substituting one version of race (yours or that of modern science) for the one held in Nazi Germany),

Actually, science shows that human races are cultural constructs. Like Hitler's. They are whatever any particular society wants them to be. But they have, as I remind you again, no biological validity. And even then, the Nazis didn't follow their "archtype" in who would go to the death camps as a Jew.

If you read the Wansee Protocol, you'll see nothing like that. It's a foolish ramble about how to figure out how Jewish a person is, without regard to any phenotype at all. And it determined who went.


And more importantly I pointed out the biological unreality of an archetype (as with the dorsally-eared mouse)

So why did you go ballistic when I showed you that human races have no biological reality? And a mouse/human chimera is not an "archtype". Look up the word.

Barbarian observes:
Once you assume that "archtypes" or other cultural constructs of race have a biological reality, then Hitler's "racial science" seems defensible.


To correct you, the general eugenic approach in terms of approaching one archetypical phenotype and diminishing another archetypical phenotype was valid.

Barbarian observes:
Hitler had a plainer phrase; "the final solution". My thinking is that if you can't say it plainly, you don't understand it. Or you're trying to obfuscate.


You can call Hitler's genocidal plan "Aunt Petunia's pajama's" and it doesn't change the facts relative to the valid application of science.

The point, of course, is that it wasn't. Hitler and his guys sent many of the phenotypes they wanted to the death camps, and permitted many of the phenotypes they didn't want to live. How you think this is scientifically reasonable is beyond me.


As noted, the term "race" doesn't mean to you and me what it meant to the Nazis.

Barbarian observes:
Well, it doesn't to me. But your objection to the fact that human races are not biologically real is in alignment with "racial science".


What "objection to the fact that human races are not biologically real"?

Let's see...

Barbarian observes:
Science does not distinguish humans into races. Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races.

("races" here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well)[/quote]

(Cap'n O disagrees)

Science has distinguished races one from another, and may do so yet again.
Science is dynamic that way.

and...

Barbarian observes:
There is nothing scientific at all about the idea of biological human races. They don't exist.

(Cap'n O disagrees)

Hyperbole.

Barbarian observes:
No, it's a fact.

and...

Barbarian observes:
If "race" can be whatever you want it to be, by selecting the genes you want, then "race" as a biological entity does not exist. ”

Cap'n O disagrees:

Poppycock.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll get a rant saying "Poppycock" means "yes, you're right" or whatever. But there it is. I'm sure you can fish up a few where you say something else. You aren't very consistent.


Actually, I told you that degree of genetic variation was evidence for supspecies. When I realized that you simply denied what they said, I gave up at three or four or whatever number I gave you.


Your excuses remain so much spluttering until you deal with my reasoned objections to your use of the citations.

Sorry. If you want to argue, you'll have to argue with what I said, rather than what you wanted me to say.


How do you type with your fingers inserted into your ears?

I don't know. How do you type with your fingers inserted into your ears?

Barbarian asks:
I would certainly like your clarification of your opinion. Do you still have a problem with the observation that human races are only cultural constructs? ”


Sure, since you're trying to use that idea to deny the biological reality of the real phenotypical features that the Nazis were trying to increase in their population.

I said that? Nope. I just pointed out that:

There is no Jewish phenotype
The Nazi program did not in any way select for any "archtypes", since they did not use phenotype as a critieron for removal.


When I nailed you on the biological reality of any phenotypical difference whatsoever you completely ignored that aspect of my argument, iirc.

I told you that there is no biological reality to phenotypes? Nope. You made that one up. You aren't a very honest person.


Well, now you've been reminded of it. If you stay true to form, your next reply will either betray no trace of the idea, or will instead contain some bizarre straw man version of it.

Heh. Funny you should mention strawmen.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 11:14 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=142447#post142447)
The Barbarian:

Nice try.


Indeed; it's tough to get you to back up virtually any of your various claims.



I gave you a number of statements by geneticists, showing that genetic diversity was evidence for races or subspecies,and you simply denied them.


You've simply ignored my responses and summarized them with maximal spin.

My reply:
http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=140431#post140431

Your inadequate reply to my reply:
http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=140461#post140461



Depending on the post, you either said you &quot;refuted&quot; what the geneticists said, or simply denied that they said what they said.


It was your use of the material that was refuted. Your careless reading will continue to cause you problems:
"Your use of Templeton was refuted, as were these two latest."
http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=140590#post140590

"I take the links at face value and in the one case showed that it doesn't support your case and in the other promised to do so if you didn't follow the rationale.
You have no textual support for claiming that I disbelieve the links."
http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=140637#post140637




I'll let anyone interested go back and look at my links.


There you go, people. You've got the Barbarian's permission.



An analogy establishes a mapping of elements, some relationships. How exactly, does grafting human tissue on mice make Hitler's fantasies about Jews real?


Do I need to remind you of what an analogy is so soon after your indicate that you're aware of what an analogy is?
The archetypes correspond to the idea of the ear-backed mice prior to the development of ear-backed mice.
It's dead easy to follow, afaics.



No, I'm sorry, you're making no sense here.


:read:



No. &quot;Racial science&quot; was just foolish fantasy. In fact, the &quot;technological applications&quot; depended only on those identified by culture and family history as Jews. Blue-eyed blondes were sent to the death camps because they were culturally Jewish, while those with the alleged Jewish phenotypes were never sent there on that basis.


You cannot assume that the concentration camps were solely for the purpose of dealing with the Jews, and you'll need to substantiate your claim that persons were sent to detainment camps owing to cultural Judaism alone.



Nope.


Yep. Your summary was inaccurate. Insisting that it was accurate without substantiation is more fingers-in-ears argumentation on your part.
You've never seen a burden of proof you couldn't shirk, apparently.



Actually, science shows that human races are cultural constructs. Like Hitler's. They are whatever any particular society wants them to be. But they have, as I remind you again, no biological validity. And even then, the Nazis didn't follow their &quot;archtype&quot; in who would go to the death camps as a Jew.


Check here to see how the extermination of the Jews was primarily focused outside Germany in the first place. Germany and Austria reflect some of the lowest percentages of pre-war Jewish population lost to the death camps. This accords with the view that non-German Jews were killed as potential rebels rather than as part of the genetic program (though some overlap is inevitable).
http://www.holocaust.com.au/mm/finalsolution.htm
http://www.holocaust.com.au/lb/dm_deathtoll.htm

IOW, don't forget the nationalistic character of the program.



If you read the Wansee Protocol, you'll see nothing like that. It's a foolish ramble about how to figure out how Jewish a person is, without regard to any phenotype at all. And it determined who went.


Here's a portion of one English translation:
"The number of Jews given here for foreign countries includes, however, only those Jews who still adhere to the Jewish faith, since some countries still do not have a definition of the term "Jew" according to racial principles."
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~german/gtext/nazi/wanneng2.html

I don't see anything in the document regarding the classification of merely religious Jews as being Jewish for purposes of the "Final Solution".
If you think you see any, C&P and post 'em to the thread. You know how to C&P?
If you can't find anything, maybe I'll C&P the whole bit concerning various designations of "mixed blood" just to embarrass you concerning your apparent ignorance of the document you cited.



So why did you go ballistic when I showed you that human races have no biological reality? And a mouse/human chimera is not an &quot;archtype&quot;. Look up the word.


Two, two, two red herrings in one.
Races in the Nazi sense had biological reality since they were delineated on the basis of observable traits. I've explained the distinction between the Nazi view of "race" and the one you employ, but you appear to be immune from understanding.
The ear-backed mice are analogous to the archetype, not archetypes in themselves.
Would that you would deal with the issues someday instead of issuing red herrings one after another.



The point, of course, is that it wasn't. Hitler and his guys sent many of the phenotypes they wanted to the death camps, and permitted many of the phenotypes they didn't want to live. How you think this is scientifically reasonable is beyond me.


Perhaps because of two-dimensional thinking on your part? The Nazis had a war to fight and an economy to keep afloat. As I explained to deaf ears earlier, the Nazis were forgiving of "bad" phenotypes if the person served the Reich. The pursuit of "pure" German blood was only one of many purposes of the Nazi program.




Let's see...

Barbarian observes:
Science does not distinguish humans into races. Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races.

(&quot;races&quot; here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well)

(Cap'n O disagrees)


and...

Barbarian observes:
There is nothing scientific at all about the idea of biological human races. They don't exist.

(Cap'n O disagrees)


Barbarian observes:
No, it's a fact.

and...

Barbarian observes:
If &quot;race&quot; can be whatever you want it to be, by selecting the genes you want, then &quot;race&quot; as a biological entity does not exist. ”

Cap'n O disagrees:


Anyway, I'm sure we'll get a rant saying &quot;Poppycock&quot; means &quot;yes, you're right&quot; or whatever. But there it is. I'm sure you can fish up a few where you say something else. You aren't very consistent.


If you could get past your own editorial spin, perhaps you'd be able to see that I've been not just consistent, but extremely so.
What you see above is my recognition that "race" as sub-species isn't recognized currently by science along with the recognition that the term has changed meaning to such an extent that race was recognized as biologically real (and given further drift in meaning might be so recognized again) when the term meant something different.
Your final statement to the effect that I could pick my own criterion for race and that race would not be biologically real as a direct result of the manner in which the race was recognized is patently false, and while I can't see why any explanation should be necessary as to why it is so (especially since I already gave you a counterexample), I'll be happy to compound your humiliation by doing so again merely at your request.



Actually, I told you that degree of genetic variation was evidence for supspecies. When I realized that you simply denied what they said, I gave up at three or four or whatever number I gave you.


:hrm:
How can you bring yourself to keep saying stuff like that when I have offered reasoned objections that repeatedly draw impotent responses from you?



Sorry. If you want to argue, you'll have to argue with what I said, rather than what you wanted me to say.


I argue with your application of three particular links. You're stuck with what those links say: You can't make them say something different using only the power of your imagination. Your links provide no grounds for the reality of a line of demarcation with respect to percentages of genetic variation for classification of sub-species. You established genetic variation as an optional criterion tellingly (in one case) associated with the color of plumage. If the birds could get over their racial prejudice (used figuratively) enough to mate with one another then the sub-species line would dissolve regardless of the percentage of genetic variation. If you knew what you were talking about, I'd think that you would realize what a problem that is for the view you espouse.



I don't know. How do you type with your fingers inserted into your ears?


IKYABWAI? Classic!



I said that? Nope. I just pointed out that:

There is no Jewish phenotype
The Nazi program did not in any way select for any &quot;archtypes&quot;, since they did not use phenotype as a critieron for removal.

1) You've just ignored all the evidence of the stereotypical/archetypical Jew that I provided for you earlier. Short memory?
2) The Nazis specified that Jews were defined racially even on the Wannsee protocol that you cited as an exception.



I told you that there is no biological reality to phenotypes? Nope. You made that one up. *edited by a moderator*

I just love the way you carelessly interpet what I write and then take your fanciful interpretation as the last word on what I wrote.



Heh. Funny you should mention strawmen.

The fact that you produced one on cue isn't so much uncanny as it is true to your pattern.

[Joe Meert]

Ochre.


JM: You're now swimming in your own excrement.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Vorkosigan]

Not bad, Ochre. Your response contains no reply at all. Never did I say killing was not a viable strategy. The naturalist need not take any position on killing or competition, since nature supplies an infinite variety of strategies. Even assuming that the naturalist is dumb enough to derive &amp;quot;ought&amp;quot; from &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; in the first place.


What reply should I need, in consideration of the fact that all of your comments appear to hit well wide of any relevant mark? You've marked my entire reply as non sequitur. Yet you are replying to my series of posts, are you not? If I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, as your post would seem to hint, then shouldn't you be making some specific charges of error instead of writing various comments to which all of my replies are non sequiturs?

Think about it, V-man. [/QUOTE]

As I said in the first sentence, your reply was merely a string of smart remarks that were non-sequiturs. There was no error to point out, because you are not on-point.

Now, we are all awaiting your definitive evidence, from Nazi planning documents, party platforms, writing, speeches, interviews, and other data, showing that the Nazis indeed drew on science, and not on pseudoscience, in formulating their racist programs. So far you have not provided any support for any of your assertions. I am especially interested in your demonstration of Nazi use of the science of population dynamics. I am sure that will be fascinating.

Vorkosigan

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:

Nice try. I gave you a number of statements by geneticists, showing that genetic diversity was evidence for races or subspecies,and you simply denied them.

(denies that, too)

Sorry, I told you that genetic variation was evidence for subspecies, and gave you several links that confirmed it.


Depending on the post, you either said you "refuted" what the geneticists said, or simply denied that they said what they said.


It was your use of the material that was refuted. Your careless reading will continue to cause you problems:
"Your use of Templeton was refuted, as were these two latest.

Hmm... Let's see...

""Many species are divided into subspecies based on a limited number of morphological characteristics. According to Van Wagner and Baker (1990), Merilä et al. (1997), Mundy et al. (1997), Lucchini and Randi (1998), Barrowclough et al. (1999), and Holder et al. (2000) subspecies may also be distinguished by genetic variation, but the morphological classification and genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable (Avise et al. 1992, Ball & Avise 1992, Seutin et al. 1995, Fry & Zink 1998, Questiau et al. 1998, Bensch et al. 1999)."

Note that this one specifically says that genetic variation can be used to distinguish subspecies. I'll be generous and assume it's your reading comprehension problem, again.

Here's another:

""How to assess gene flow and reproductive isolation?1. Fixation indices or F-statistics (Sewall Wright 1922), particularly FSTF statistics describe how genetic variation (measured by heterozygosity, H) is fixed ateach level of organization in a structured population (or subspecies, or species - thesame logic can be applied at various levels)F stats are based on H. H is a good measure of genetic variability*increases with more alleles*increases with more even distribution of alleles."

Granted, that it's a bit more technical, and you may not have much training in science, but it's pretty clear; genetic variability increases between subspecies.

Maybe it's time you stopped arguing what "is" is, and just admit it.

(Barbarian suggests that people take a look at the links)


There you go, people. You've got the Barbarian's permission.

Better yet, I posted two of them.

Barbarian on analogies:
An analogy establishes a mapping of elements, some relationships. How exactly, does grafting human tissue on mice make Hitler's fantasies about Jews real?


Do I need to remind you of what an analogy is so soon after your indicate that you're aware of what an analogy is?

It appears you don't know what an "analogy" is.


The archetypes correspond to the idea of the ear-backed mice prior to the development of ear-backed mice.
It's dead easy to follow, afaics.

Um, a chimera of two different organisms is not an archtype. It's not even analogous to an archtype. You still aren't making any sense at all.

Barbarian on the assertions that Nazis attempted to favor certain characteristics:
No. "Racial science" was just foolish fantasy. In fact, the "technological applications" depended only on those identified by culture and family history as Jews. Blue-eyed blondes were sent to the death camps because they were culturally Jewish, while those with the alleged Jewish phenotypes were never sent there on that basis.


You cannot assume that the concentration camps were solely for the purpose of dealing with the Jews,

No one did. I'm just pointing out that you are completely wrong about what they did. If they identified someone as a Jew on cultural grounds, they sent them to the camps, regardless of their physical characteristics. If they did not identify one as a Jew, they never sent them to the camps on the basis that they looked like a Jew. There's no point in denying it. You might as well conced that one.


and you'll need to substantiate your claim that persons were sent to detainment camps owing to cultural Judaism alone.

Sure.

"Being a Jew was no longer a matter of self-definitions or self-identification. Now a person was considered a Jew because of what his or her grandparents had chosen to believe. Who you were no longer depended upon you."

http://www.howhist.com/outreach/reactions.html

They had to do it that way. Because they had no way of physically identifying who was a Jew (other than circumcision, which apparenlty was never used as a widespread screening criterion) they could only identify those who were members of the Jewish community, or who could be identified as having parents or grandparents who identified themselves as Jews.

Barbarian observes:
Actually, science shows that human races are cultural constructs. Like Hitler's. They are whatever any particular society wants them to be. But they have, as I remind you again, no biological validity. And even then, the Nazis didn't follow their "archtype" in who would go to the death camps as a Jew.


Check here to see how the extermination of the Jews was primarily focused outside Germany in the first place.

That would matter only if you can show that they used physical rather than cultural characteristics for such exterminations. They didn't. Again, if you were culturally identified as a Jew, you went to the camps. But no one was sent to the camp merely for looking like the Nazi conception of a Jew.

(Cap'n O attempts to change the subject)


If you read the Wansee Protocol, you'll see nothing like that. It's a foolish ramble about how to figure out how Jewish a person is, without regard to any phenotype at all. And it determined who went.


Here's a portion of one English translation:
"The number of Jews given here for foreign countries includes, however, only those Jews who still adhere to the Jewish faith, since some countries still do not have a definition of the term "Jew" according to racial principles."

Actually, as you just learned, the Nazis didn't have any "racial principles" to distinguish Jews, either. They sent them off, based on identifying them culturally as Jews. It was all they could do.


I don't see anything in the document regarding the classification of merely religious Jews as being Jewish for purposes of the "Final Solution".

Your error is in supposing that they couldn't identify non-religious Jews culturally.


If you can't find anything, maybe I'll C&P the whole bit concerning various designations of "mixed blood" just to embarrass you concerning your apparent ignorance of the document you cited.

You have a translation pf the Wansee Protocol that identifies Jews by specific physical characteristics? Now I know you don't know what's in it. Go ahead. Post us sections that identify Jews by any physcial charactieristic or "archtypes". C'mon. Let's see it.

On the other hand, if you knew that there was no such thing, and you were bluffing, I've just called your bluff. Be a man. Show us where the Nazis used "phenotypes" or physical characteristics or "archtypes" in the Wansee Protocols.

That was a pretty dumb claim.

Barbarian asks:
So why did you go ballistic when I showed you that human races have no biological reality? And a mouse/human chimera is not an "archtype". Look up the word.


Races in the Nazi sense had biological reality since they were delineated on the basis of observable traits.

Nonsense. You don't give things biological reality by believing them to be true. I gather you must be a creationist?

And you've already learned that the Nazis sent off many people as Jews with supposed "Aryan" features, while they didn't send off many people who had supposedly Jewish features.


I've explained the distinction between the Nazi view of "race" and the one you employ, but you appear to be immune from understanding.

I understand what you're saying, but it's prune product. You don't give biological reality to fantasies by believing that they are true.


The ear-backed mice are analogous to the archetype, not archetypes in themselves.

How does the joining of dissimilar elements amount to an analogy of archtypes?

Barbarian observes:
The point, of course, is that it wasn't. Hitler and his guys sent many of the phenotypes they wanted to the death camps, and permitted many of the phenotypes they didn't want to live. How you think this is scientifically reasonable is beyond me.


Perhaps because of two-dimensional thinking on your part?

My state of mind doesn't make anything real or unreal, either.


The Nazis had a war to fight and an economy to keep afloat. As I explained to deaf ears earlier, the Nazis were forgiving of "bad" phenotypes if the person served the Reich.

Nonsense. The "bad" characteristics weren't even an issue, unless one's cultural background was suspect. On the other hand, the Nazis sent off numerous well-educated, healthy people, even though they had "Aryan" appearances, because they had been culturally identified as Jews.

Barbarian observes:
Science does not distinguish humans into races. Genetics has shown that there is more variation within a race than between races.

("races" here refers to the particular cultural constructs traditional in America, but this observation applies to the race constructs of other Americans as well) ”

(Cap'n O disagrees)


and...

Barbarian observes:
There is nothing scientific at all about the idea of biological human races. They don't exist.

(Cap'n O disagrees)


Barbarian observes:
No, it's a fact.

and...

Barbarian observes:
If "race" can be whatever you want it to be, by selecting the genes you want, then "race" as a biological entity does not exist. ”

Cap'n O disagrees:


Anyway, I'm sure we'll get a rant saying "Poppycock" means "yes, you're right" or whatever. But there it is. I'm sure you can fish up a few where you say something else. You aren't very consistent.


If you could get past your own editorial spin, perhaps you'd be able to see that I've been not just consistent, but extremely so.

You've been all over the map. And you certainly, demonstrably are wrong about human races having a biological reality. There is no such thing.


What you see above is my recognition that "race" as sub-species isn't recognized currently by science along with the recognition that the term has changed meaning to such an extent that race was recognized as biologically real (and given further drift in meaning might be so recognized again) when the term meant something different.

Again, opinions do not change reality. Once science thought that there were biologically valid human races. The data indicate that is not so. What you or anyone else feels about it is of no consequence to the truth.


Your final statement to the effect that I could pick my own criterion for race and that race would not be biologically real as a direct result of the manner in which the race was recognized is patently false,

Could you rephrase that in Engish?

Barbarian observes:
Actually, I told you that degree of genetic variation was evidence for supspecies. When I realized that you simply denied what they said, I gave up at three or four or whatever number I gave you.


How can you bring yourself to keep saying stuff like that when I have offered reasoned objections that repeatedly draw impotent responses from you?

Again, you may not like what geneticists say, but simply denying that they said it isn't going to help.

Barbarian observes:
Sorry. If you want to argue, you'll have to argue with what I said, rather than what you wanted me to say.


I argue with your application of three particular links.

Understandably. You wish they didn't exist. But that's not relevant, either.


Your links provide no grounds for the reality of a line of demarcation with respect to percentages of genetic variation for classification of sub-species.

I gave you a link in which geneticists observed that the 15% variation between the culturally-determined "races" was not sufficient to allow them to be classified as separate biological races. I didn't set that mark, they did.

However, I merely pointed out that the amount genetic variation was evidence regarding races.


You established genetic variation as an optional criterion tellingly (in one case) associated with the color of plumage.

And in Cavalli-Sforza's refutation of biological human races.


If you knew what you were talking about, I'd think that you would realize what a problem that is for the view you espouse.

Let's see.. possibly the world's best population geneticist agrees with me.

And you don't.

Not much of a problem, is it?

Barbarian responds:
I don't know. How do you type with your fingers inserted into your ears?


IKYABWAI? Classic!

Sorry. Thought it was a joke. I had no idea you thought it was a clever insult.

I said that? Nope. I just pointed out that:

There is no Jewish phenotype

The Nazi program did not in any way select for any "archtypes", since they did not use phenotype as a critieron for removal.


1) You've just ignored all the evidence of the stereotypical/archetypical Jew that I provided for you earlier. Short memory?

Again, what you want to believe means nothing. Fact is, the Nazis shipped off to the camps, many people who had all the "Aryan" features they supposedly were favoring, and they didn't ship off many people who had all the features Jews were supposed to have.


The Nazis specified that Jews were defined racially even on the Wannsee protocol that you cited as an exception.

Really? Show me. List the phenotypes or physical characteristics they used. C'mon. By now you know I read it. Your bluff is over.


Sure, since you're trying to use that idea to deny the biological reality of the real phenotypical features that the Nazis were trying to increase in their population.

Barbarian observes:
I told you that there is no biological reality to phenotypes? Nope. You made that one up. You aren't a very honest person.


I just love the way you carelessly interpet what I write and then take your fanciful interpretation as the last word on what I wrote.

Sorry. I didn't say what you said I did. Heh. Funny you should mention strawmen. ”


The fact that you produced one on cue isn't so much uncanny as it is true to your pattern.

Well, we'll know when you post that sentence where I denied the reality of those phenotypes that you think the Nazis were favoring. That might be hard, since I've pointed out repeatedly:


That the phenotypes existed
That the Nazis sent many of the supposedly favored ones off
That the Nazis didn't send off many of the unfavored ones

Go for it.

[HRG_new]

[i]Today @ 07:39 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=142905#post142905)
[

Re the "identification of Aryans vs. Jews by phenotype"-claim, a joke that my parents had told me:

"What does the ideal Aryan look like ? He is blond like Hitler, slim like Goering and tall like Goebbels!"

Regards,
HRG.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 06:43 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=142886#post142886)
Vorkosigan:



What reply should I need, in consideration of the fact that all of your comments appear to hit well wide of any relevant mark? You've marked my entire reply as non sequitur. Yet you are replying to my series of posts, are you not? If I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, as your post would seem to hint, then shouldn't you be making some specific charges of error instead of writing various comments to which all of my replies are non sequiturs?

Think about it, V-man.

As I said in the first sentence, your reply was merely a string of smart remarks that were non-sequiturs. There was no error to point out, because you are not on-point.

Now, we are all awaiting your definitive evidence, from Nazi planning documents, party platforms, writing, speeches, interviews, and other data, showing that the Nazis indeed drew on science, and not on pseudoscience, in formulating their racist programs. So far you have not provided any support for any of your assertions. I am especially interested in your demonstration of Nazi use of the science of population dynamics. I am sure that will be fascinating.

Vorkosigan

Your challenge is simply a version of the fallacy of the false dilemma:
If the Nazi program wasn't exhaustively based on science, then none of it was based on science.

Some aspects of the Nazi plans were based on no science, some on bad science, and some on solid science.
Killing persons whom are not intended to be part of the gene pool is a very basic example of good science (along with bad morality).
Instead of trying to saddle me with some ludicrously involved burden of proof, you should be trying to establish that eugenics wouldn't alter the frequency of alleles in a general pattern agreeing with the Nazi aim.
Since that point is more-or-less inarguable, you come up with imaginative challenges such as the one above to continue to try to polish the image of science.

If "science" gets credit for hospitals, then it also gets credit for bombs, cigarettes, and eugenics.

[The Barbarian]

Some aspects of the Nazi plans were based on no science, some on bad science, and some on solid science.
Killing persons whom are not intended to be part of the gene pool is a very basic example of good science (along with bad morality).

But as you learned earlier this week, the Nazis sent many persons to the camps who personified the supposed Aryan ideal, and did not send many people who personified the supposed Jewish type. How you think this is "good science" is a mystery.


Instead of trying to saddle me with some ludicrously involved burden of proof, you should be trying to establish that eugenics wouldn't alter the frequency of alleles in a general pattern agreeing with the Nazi aim.

More to the point, the Nazi "racial science" wouldn't do it, because it did not select on the basis of alleles.


If "science" gets credit for hospitals,

Generally, hospitals are not built by "science", but by people who wanted to help others. That is not a value of science; anyone who seeks moral or ethical guidance from science will be continually misled.

For that, you have to look elsewhere.

[DunnySaze]

Today @ 02:04 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143117#post143117)
Captain Ochre:

Killing persons whom are not intended to be part of the gene pool is a very basic example of good science (along with bad morality).


I'm not so sure of this.

Where were the control groups for example? How could they know scientifically exactly what they were doing without control groups? Where are the published papers with statistical treatment of the data? What would be the point scientfically of killing elderly Jews (and others unable to conceive), Aren't they already removed from the gene pool since they are not potentially inter-breeding?

One can certainly do atrocious things in a scientific manner. There is some argument for example as to whether certain Nazi experiments on hypothermia should be cited, even if they provide some beneficial data. This data appears to have been collected in a scientifically defensible, if totally unethical, way.

How should the data be used? Not at all? Or used only if it's clear it's scientifically valid, and only when no other source is available, and only with the aknowledgement of where the data came from? It's a difficult question.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 07:39 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=142905#post142905)
The Barbarian:

Barbarian observes:

Nice try. I gave you a number of statements by geneticists, showing that genetic diversity was evidence for races or subspecies,and you simply denied them.

(denies that, too)


I deny the accuracy of your editorical comments. You provided statements showing that genetic diversity was possible evidence of races as subspecies.
I keep pointing out to you that your claim cannot rest on an optional criterion, plus you haven't met the challenge to establish a line of demarcation based on percentages, which is what your claim would seem to have demanded.
IOW, your citations do not support your earlier claims.

You have since proven that you are pretty good at forgetting your earlier claims while pretending that your links are relevant since they support a different claim. Funny think is, each of your attempts to prove your point just keeps showing how you've moved the goalposts, or ignored the content of my response to your (thin-thinner-thinnest) argumentation.



Sorry, I told you that genetic variation was evidence for subspecies, and gave you several links that confirmed it.


The above is a good example of the employment of ambiguity in the attempt to support your argument.
Yes, genetic variation is evidence for subspecies, but apparently only in certain instances and your links have not established when genetic variation is or isn't evidence for speciation, and they certainly haven't established anything like the line of demarcation based on percentage difference that you tried to illicitly sift from the Templeton quotation.



Hmm... Let's see...

&quot;&quot;Many species are divided into subspecies based on a limited number of morphological characteristics. According to Van Wagner and Baker (1990), Merilä et al. (1997), Mundy et al. (1997), Lucchini and Randi (1998), Barrowclough et al. (1999), and Holder et al. (2000) subspecies may also be distinguished by genetic variation, but the morphological classification and genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable (Avise et al. 1992, Ball &amp; Avise 1992, Seutin et al. 1995, Fry &amp; Zink 1998, Questiau et al. 1998, Bensch et al. 1999).&quot;

Note that this one specifically says that genetic variation can be used to distinguish subspecies. I'll be generous and assume it's your reading comprehension problem, again.


Silly me, when I read "may also" I misread that to mean that genetic variation is an optional criterion.
And what do you suppose they mean when they say: "but the morphological classification and genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable"?
You don't suppose they mean that genetic variance doesn't necessarily correllate to the sub-species classifications based on morphology, do you?



Here's another:

&quot;&quot;How to assess gene flow and reproductive isolation?1. Fixation indices or F-statistics (Sewall Wright 1922), particularly FSTF statistics describe how genetic variation (measured by heterozygosity, H) is fixed ateach level of organization in a structured population (or subspecies, or species - thesame logic can be applied at various levels)F stats are based on H. H is a good measure of genetic variability*increases with more alleles*increases with more even distribution of alleles.&quot;

Granted, that it's a bit more technical, and you may not have much training in science, but it's pretty clear; genetic variability increases between subspecies.


Thanks for the summary, since that pins you down as to what you're trying to derive from the quotation. Here's that link, btw:
http://www.montana.edu/~wwwbi/staff/creel/bio480/fstats.pdf

Here's why you link doesn't support your claim with respect to humans, based on your summary:
Your link describes statistical criteria for identifying reproductive isolation. If you will recall, reproductive isolation was the principle criteria for identifying subspecies according to the .edu links that I provided on the subject.
The upshot of this is that even if organisms are similar enough genetically to be the same sub-species, the mere fact of their reproductive isolation is the factor that establishes them as a sub-species.
Your link actually contributes to shoot down the idea that there exists a line of demarcation based on percentage of genetic variation.



(Barbarian suggests that people take a look at the links)


The Barbarian is digging his own grave with suggestions like that.



Better yet, I posted two of them.


I'm all for it. Don't forget to re-paste the links so that the readership can check the context.



It appears you don't know what an &quot;analogy&quot; is.


"My state of mind doesn't make anything real or unreal, either."
--The Barbarian
If you believe the above, then we have a right to expect you to justify burdening us with your impression of my understanding of "analogy".



Um, a chimera of two different organisms is not an archtype. It's not even analogous to an archtype. You still aren't making any sense at all.


You do not appear to understand what an "analogy" is.
By analogy, you would seemingly respond to the following analogy . . .
1. most connective tissues i.e. cartilage:

are like Jell-O (non-cellular matrix) with fruit cocktail (cells)
mixed in it
http://biowww.clemson.edu/biolab/analogies.html


. . . with "But fruit cocktail isn't cells. You're not making any sense."



Barbarian on the assertions that Nazis attempted to favor certain characteristics:
No. &quot;Racial science&quot; was just foolish fantasy. In fact, the &quot;technological applications&quot; depended only on those identified by culture and family history as Jews. Blue-eyed blondes were sent to the death camps because they were culturally Jewish, while those with the alleged Jewish phenotypes were never sent there on that basis.


Still waiting on your substantiation of your claims. Repeating the claim itself is inadequate substatiation.



No one did. I'm just pointing out that you are completely wrong about what they did. If they identified someone as a Jew on cultural grounds, they sent them to the camps, regardless of their physical characteristics. If they did not identify one as a Jew, they never sent them to the camps on the basis that they looked like a Jew. There's no point in denying it. You might as well conced that one.


You might as well stop stalling and present the substantiation of your claim.



Sure.

&quot;Being a Jew was no longer a matter of self-definitions or self-identification. Now a person was considered a Jew because of what his or her grandparents had chosen to believe. Who you were no longer depended upon you.&quot;

http://www.howhist.com/outreach/reactions.html

They had to do it that way.


What you're missing is that the individual from your first quotation was sent to the camps regardless of what he believed. He was "Jewish" based on his genetics. Now, it's true that going back to the grandparent's generation that religious Judaism was the criterion for establishing the varieties of "mixed blood" designations, but this is simply in keeping with the pragmatic nature of hte Nazi plan: I have already mentioned in this thread that cooperation with the Nazis would cause even "bad" phenotypical characteristics to be overlooked. None of that changes the fact that the basic definition of "Jew" according to the Nazis was properly genetic (via phenotype) and the Wannsee Protocol does nothing but reinforce that fact.



Because they had no way of physically identifying who was a Jew (other than circumcision, which apparenlty was never used as a widespread screening criterion) they could only identify those who were members of the Jewish community, or who could be identified as having parents or grandparents who identified themselves as Jews.


Well, you're glossing over the fact that grandparentage could have varying effects on classification depending on how many gparents were practicing Jews. Strictly speaking, the genetic program would have suggested that all Germans who had blood of the Jewish phenotype should be eliminated from the gene pool. You're mistaking the pragmatic approach of the Germans for an inconsistency in their notion of Judaism. There were forms of inconsistency, such as their identification of various behaviors as distinctively Jewish, but nothing that impacts the basic racial definition of the Jew according to the Nazi.



Barbarian observes:
Actually, science shows that human races are cultural constructs. Like Hitler's. They are whatever any particular society wants them to be. But they have, as I remind you again, no biological validity. And even then, the Nazis didn't follow their &quot;archtype&quot; in who would go to the death camps as a Jew.


Irrelevant since the purity of race wasn't the only aim of the Nazi program. See above.
(It they had really wanted to make the cars safe, then they would have made them entirely out of balloons and foam rubber!)



That would matter only if you can show that they used physical rather than cultural characteristics for such exterminations. They didn't.


Incorrect. It would matter if the Nazis had aims to fulfill apart from "purity" of the German bloodline.



Again, if you were culturally identified as a Jew, you went to the camps. But no one was sent to the camp merely for looking like the Nazi conception of a Jew.


That last is an excellent claim to tab for support.
This should be good.



Your error is in supposing that they couldn't identify non-religious Jews culturally.


If guinea pigs A mate in March while subspecies B mates only in June, are the guinea pigs separated into sub-species based on culture?
On what basis do you draw a hard-and-fast distinction between human behaviors and those of animals?



You have a translation pf the Wansee Protocol that identifies Jews by specific physical characteristics?


Are you having difficulty interpreting plain English again?
I've linked to a version of the Wannsee guidelines that specfically mentions that many of the conquered nations didn't have a racial view of the Jew as the Germans had.
You may now return to your spin-a-thon.



Now I know you don't know what's in it. Go ahead. Post us sections that identify Jews by any physcial charactieristic or &quot;archtypes&quot;. C'mon. Let's see it.


Let's see the non-racial criteria that you crowed about earlier. I don't need for the Wannsee document to specify points of identification, as it clearly affirms the racial understanding of Jewishness held by the Nazis.
Your claim is at issue here, not mine.



On the other hand, if you knew that there was no such thing, and you were bluffing, I've just called your bluff. Be a man. Show us where the Nazis used &quot;phenotypes&quot; or physical characteristics or &quot;archtypes&quot; in the Wansee Protocols.


:rofl:



That was a pretty dumb claim.


You mean the one that I actually made, or the one that you attributed to me?
There's a big difference, after all.



Nonsense. You don't give things biological reality by believing them to be true. I gather you must be a creationist?


Yeah, just like you probably are, except that I believe that the creator was personal rather than impersonal.
Ready to come back to the subject, now?



And you've already learned that the Nazis sent off many people as Jews with supposed &quot;Aryan&quot; features, while they didn't send off many people who had supposedly Jewish features.


It doesn't seem as though the above would support your claim adequately. We should see all religious (cultural) Jews in the death-camps if cultural Judaism was the criterion for Jewishness according to the Nazis. According to that data that I presented (and you ignored) above, more than half of the culturally Jewish persons in Germany avoided death in camp.
How do you explain that, using the Judaism-as-culture model? Isn't what you see as a problem for me actually an even bigger problem for you?



I understand what you're saying, but it's prune product. You don't give biological reality to fantasies by believing that they are true.


Then it's time for you to subsequently fail to understand that the archetype needs no biological reality in order to be an attainable biological goal, just like the ear-backed mice.



How does the joining of dissimilar elements amount to an analogy of archtypes?


All analogies have dissimilar elements.
Why do you think that my analogy isn't adequate?



My state of mind doesn't make anything real or unreal, either.


But that's just your own opinion, right? It doesn't make anything real or unreal. :smile:



Nonsense. The &quot;bad&quot; characteristics weren't even an issue, unless one's cultural background was suspect.


Still waiting for you to substantiate that claim . . .



On the other hand, the Nazis sent off numerous well-educated, healthy people, even though they had &quot;Aryan&quot; appearances, because they had been culturally identified as Jews.


Still waiting for you to substantiate that claim, also.



You've been all over the map.


Or so you assert, anyway.



And you certainly, demonstrably are wrong about human races having a biological reality. There is no such thing.


I've shown that you are incorrect via the demonstration that "race" doesn't mean only one thing. You handwave the Nazi conception of "race" as though they are talking about sub-species in the modern sense.
I could tell you 25 time per post that you're committing a fallacy and I doubt that you'd acknowledge that I had said anything about it. This is one of those points the the tennis player on the other side of the net never seems to return to my side.



Again, opinions do not change reality. Once science thought that there were biologically valid human races. The data indicate that is not so. What you or anyone else feels about it is of no consequence to the truth.


So, if I follow your logic correctly, if the Germans had a different conception of "race" then we can ignore that conception of "race" in favor of whatever version you claim has no biological reality?
Send that one back over the net, please.



Could you rephrase that in Engish?


No, sorry. I know English and that's it. Do you understand English?



Again, you may not like what geneticists say, but simply denying that they said it isn't going to help.


I'm just not letting you put words in their mouths.
You may not like that I won't let you put words in their mouths, but your simple denial that I'm not letting you put words in their mouths isn't going to help.



Understandably. You wish they didn't exist. But that's not relevant, either.


If I wish that they didn't exist, it's merely for the fact that the links do not support your relevant claim to the effect that genetic variation among humans is insufficient to allow for the designation of sub-species.



I gave you a link in which geneticists observed that the 15% variation between the culturally-determined &quot;races&quot; was not sufficient to allow them to be classified as separate biological races. I didn't set that mark, they did.


You don't understand what your citations are saying. The import of the 15% variation is relative to the variation with other populations, which reflects interbreeding, which in turn reflects a lack of reproductive isolation, which in turn agrees with the standard (not based on percentages of genetic variation) demarcation criteria for subspecies.



However, I merely pointed out that the amount genetic variation was evidence regarding races.


Right, as if that supported your earlier claims regarding human races.
:ahem:



And in Cavalli-Sforza's refutation of biological human races.


Same story. Cavalli-Sforza is talking about genetic isolation of populations.



Let's see.. possibly the world's best population geneticist agrees with me.

And you don't.

Not much of a problem, is it?


You're trying to make Cavalli-Sforza your ventriloquist's dummy. He's not saying what you need him to say.



The Nazi program did not in any way select for any &quot;archtypes&quot;, since they did not use phenotype as a critieron for removal.


You keep saying that, but we're still waiting for your evidence.
Let's see if I can help you:

"Those GIs who “looked Jewish” or had “Jewish sounding” last names were shipped to Berga, a satellite of the Buchenwald concentration camp, where they suffered harrowing atrocities as slave laborers."
http://www.ketc.org/insideketc/NewsRelease.asp?sub=news

"The family pretended to be Catholic. Anne was often told she looked Jewish because of her dark skin tone and dark, curly hair, and because of this she had to remain in hiding while her family members could leave the apartment. She could not give away their cover. They tried to dye her hair red, but it didn't work well. She was occasionally allowed outside on the balcony, but only if her head was kept covered."
http://www.fatherryan.org/holocaust/ghweb/survive/anne.htm

"Children who "looked Jewish" were virtually impossivle to hide. Part of the curiculum in German schools was racial education which among other aspects taught German children to identify Jews. Light complexioned Jewish childrem especially children with blond hair and blue eyes were the most likely to survive."
http://histclo.hispeed.com/essay/war/ww2/hol/hol-child.html



Again, what you want to believe means nothing.


But if you want to believe that I want to believe something it means something?
:hrm:



Fact is, the Nazis shipped off to the camps, many people who had all the &quot;Aryan&quot; features they supposedly were favoring, and they didn't ship off many people who had all the features Jews were supposed to have.


You were going to provide substantiation of this claim, right? Such that it contradicts some claim of mine?



Really? Show me. List the phenotypes or physical characteristics they used. C'mon. By now you know I read it. Your bluff is over.


Your bluff isn't.
It's a red herring to demand specific criteria for phenotypic identification of Jews in the Wannsee Protocol. The persons attending the meeting were Germans who had spent years being exposed to Nazi propaganda concerning "Jewish" appearance of type I gave you many examples of earlier. Dark hair, hooked nose, sloping forehead--those and more were understood by the attendees at Wannsee.
Thus, they could say
"Persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be treated fundamentally as persons of German blood, with the exception of the following cases, in which the persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be considered as Jews:

a) The person of mixed blood of the second degree was born of a marriage in which both parents are persons of mixed blood.

b) The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a racially especially undesirable appearance that marks him outwardly as a Jew."
http://prorev.com/wannsee.htm

. . . and they would have a pretty good idea of what they meant by it even if you feign ignorance.



Sorry. I didn't say what you said I did.


What did I say you said? Quote me, B.



Well, we'll know when you post that sentence where I denied the reality of those phenotypes that you thing the Nazis were favoring.


No need for me to do that until you post that sentence where I claim you denied the reality of those phenotypes that I think the Nazis were favoring, afaics.



That might be hard, since I've pointed out repeatedly:

[list]
That the phenotypes existed


Good for you! Hurrah! You're capable of reason!!!!!!!!!!!



That the Nazis sent many of the supposedly favored ones off


Because they were "culturally" Jewish? Or are you intentionally altering your earlier claim?



That the Nazis didn't send off many of the unfavored ones


Right, since the Nazis intended to keep sterilization as an option for those who didn't want to go off.



Go for it.

After you.

[Bald Ape]

Captain Ochre,

Do you affirm that were it not for the "science" of eugenics and an understanding of population dynamics, the Nazi's absolutely would not have tried to get rid of the hated Jews, the pillagers of the Aryan economy, by killing them? Do you truly think that it was a lesson in advanced Biology that caused the leaders of the Nazi regime to decide to kill, rather than just deport, the murderers of their Christ? If so, I'd really like to see it in writing. I'd really like you to positively assert, without feeling ridiculous doing so, that without an accute awareness of how allele frequencies shift within populations, the Nazi's would not have put 6 million Jews to death.

If you don't feel this way, then why did you say that these sciences were "key" to the Holocaust?

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 04:15 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143236#post143236)
DunnySaze:



I'm not so sure of this.

Where were the control groups for example?


The principle I outlined above was experimentally validated by generations of animal breeding.



How could they know scientifically exactly what they were doing without control groups?


You mean how could they know what they would end up with? The wouldn't. You play the odds with eugenics, and work with the results you get. One thing's for sure, though: If you prevent an animal from reproducing, then its particular genes aren't perpetuated in the gene pool, and that is the obvious scientific principle that I'm referring to. Do you have any question regarding the scientific validity of that principle?



Where are the published papers with statistical treatment of the data?


If all of the Nazi program wasn't scientific, then none of it was scientific?
That's a familiar false dilemma, by now.



What would be the point scientfically of killing elderly Jews (and others unable to conceive), Aren't they already removed from the gene pool since they are not potentially inter-breeding?

They would be a drag on the economy, I imagine. The Germans would probably have them work until they didn't earn their keep.

I left off your bits about using data collected using unethical expermentation. It's interesting, but severely off-topic even for this thread.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 05:22 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143306#post143306)
Bald Ape:

Captain Ochre,

Do you affirm that were it not for the &quot;science&quot; of eugenics and an understanding of population dynamics, the Nazi's absolutely would not have tried to get rid of the hated Jews, the pillagers of the Aryan economy, by killing them?


No, because I don't think that anybody could know such things for sure (short of omniscience).
It's clear that the particularly barbaric methods of the Nazis were chronologically coincidental with the advent of evolutionary thinkings (and Scientism), however.
People in Luther's day had the techology needed to kill people, but no apparent conception of the Jew as a bloodline in competition with the native German in a battle for evolutionary ascendancy.



Do you truly think that it was a lesson in advanced Biology that caused the leaders of the Nazi regime to decide to kill, rather than just deport, the murderers of their Christ?


I'm not advocating a direct causal relationship, and the biology is basic, not advanced.



If so, I'd really like to see it in writing. I'd really like you to positively assert, without feeling ridiculous doing so, that without an accute awareness of how allele frequencies shift within populations, the Nazi's would not have put 6 million Jews to death.


The best scientists of the time had a sketchy understanding of genetics--the term "allele" as it applies to genes wasn't even coined until nearly 1930. They worked with the understanding they had at the time, sometimes based on what we now see as "good science" and sometimes based on what we see as "bad science".



If you don't feel this way, then why did you say that these sciences were &quot;key&quot; to the Holocaust?

I was referring to the state of those sciences prior to and leading up to the holocaust, of course.
Taking the modern understanding of such ideas and projecting them backward into the Nazi past would be a fallacy.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 02:12 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143125#post143125)
The Barbarian:


More to the point, the Nazi &quot;racial science&quot; wouldn't do it, because it did not select on the basis of alleles.


Non sequitur. Even indiscriminate elimination of various gene packages from the gene pool results in a change in frequency of alleles.
It's just not easy to achieve perfect Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, and conversely it's easy to upset that equilibrium.

Again, your fallacy resembles: If it isn't 100% science, then it's 0% science.



Generally, hospitals are not built by &quot;science&quot;, but by people who wanted to help others.


I'm quite aware of that, but that only makes it curious as to why there's not much outcry over people crediting science with medical care while they deplore the assocation of science with less savory pursuits.



That is not a value of science; anyone who seeks moral or ethical guidance from science will be continually misled.


Agreed--so I can expect to see you vehemently attack those who seek to credit science with moral goodness?
:poke:

[edit to add]:

Here, start with this guy:
"We can thank science for the contacts in our eyes, the cell phone in our backpacks, and the comfortable shoes on our feet."
http://www.bcc.ctc.edu/thejibsheet/section_detail.asp?ID=267&section=NEWS

[Roy]

Today @ 05:08 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143293#post143293)
Captain Ochre:

&quot;Children who &quot;looked Jewish&quot; were virtually impossivle to hide. Part of the curiculum in German schools was racial education which among other aspects taught German children to identify Jews. Light complexioned Jewish childrem especially children with blond hair and blue eyes were the most likely to survive.&quot; http://histclo.hispeed.com/essay/war/ww2/hol/hol-child.html




Fact is, the Nazis shipped off to the camps, many people who had all the "Aryan" features they supposedly were favoring, and they didn't ship off many people who had all the features Jews were supposed to have.
You were going to provide substantiation of this claim, right? Such that it contradicts some claim of mine?


He dosen't need to - you just supplied it yourself, above.

If the Nazis didn't ship off blond-haired Jews, they would not have needed to hide, and would not have been merely the 'most likely to survive'.

Roy

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 05:51 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143335#post143335)
rthearle:

You were going to provide substantiation of this claim, right? Such that it contradicts some claim of mine?


He dosen't need to - you just supplied it yourself, above.


You're straining mightily, Roy, and you're coming up short.



If the Nazis didn't ship off blond-haired Jews, they would not have needed to hide, and would not have been merely the 'most likely to survive'.

Roy

The Barbarian's point was that mere religious Judaism led to death-camp trips. The evidence that I cited shows that phenotypic characteristics were primary in identifying Jewish children, who in many cases hadn't had much opportunity to form their religious convictions in the first place. The more Nordic looking Jews would have been identified by clues of culture that made it probabilistically likely that they were of one of the proscribed mixed-blood types. There's a parallel to the use of internment camps in the US, where a Chinese person might find himself penned with Japanese Americans. Whatever rule-of-thumb was used for identification didn't necessarily identify the target group unerringly, and it probably wasn't intended to do so in the first place.
The counterexample that gives the lie to Barbarian's claim is that a "pure-blooded" German who held to religiously Jewish beliefs would have nothing to fear so long as his beliefs were not associated with a betrayal of the German state.

[The Barbarian]

Cap'n O backpedals:
You provided statements showing that genetic diversity was possible evidence of races as subspecies.

I posted statements by geneticists, showing that the degree of genetic variation is evidence concerning races or subspecies.


I keep pointing out to you that your claim cannot rest on an optional criterion,

Nothing optional about it. Cavalli-Sforza, for example, shows that biological human races don't exist, based on the degree of genetic variation between culturally-determined "races". C'mon. Everyone saw it. Why deny it?


plus you haven't met the challenge to establish a line of demarcation based on percentages, which is what your claim would seem to have demanded.

Note that Cavalli-Sforza points out that a 15% difference between populations is less than scientists would accept as defining a race. Since I made no claims as to the specific numbers, I have no need to give them to you. You're embarassed and upset that you painted yourself into a corner on this, and now you're trying to add new conditions to get out.

Sorry.

(further attempts to redefine the argument)

Sorry. That won't work, either.

Barbarian observes:
I told you that genetic variation was evidence for subspecies, and gave you several links that confirmed it.


The above is a good example of the employment of ambiguity in the attempt to support your argument.

Nonsense. Cavalli-Sforza, for example, pointed out that fact. You just pretended I never posted it.


Yes, genetic variation is evidence for subspecies,

Thank you. Now, are you ready to also concede that there are no biological human races?


but apparently only in certain instances

For that, you need some evidence. Show me where there are subspecies that do not have more genetic variation between subspecies than within each one. This, I really want to see.

(sound of Cap'n O frantically dragging goal posts)


and your links have not established when genetic variation is or isn't evidence for speciation,

I don't remember anyone making claims about genetic differences being evidence of speciation. Nice try, but that won't help, either.


and they certainly haven't established anything like the line of demarcation based on percentage difference that you tried to illicitly sift from the Templeton quotation.

I said that a number Templeton cited, was a "line of demarcation"? Hmm... nope. You just made that up. You are not a very honest person.

Hmm... Let's see...

""Many species are divided into subspecies based on a limited number of morphological characteristics. According to Van Wagner and Baker (1990), Merilä et al. (1997), Mundy et al. (1997), Lucchini and Randi (1998), Barrowclough et al. (1999), and Holder et al. (2000) subspecies may also be distinguished by genetic variation, but the morphological classification and genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable (Avise et al. 1992, Ball & Avise 1992, Seutin et al. 1995, Fry & Zink 1998, Questiau et al. 1998, Bensch et al. 1999)."

Note that this one specifically says that genetic variation can be used to distinguish subspecies. I'll be generous and assume it's your reading comprehension problem, again.


Silly me, when I read "may also" I misread that to mean that genetic variation is an optional criterion.

Yep. Silly. "Boards may be also measured by yardsticks." merely means that yardsticks are a valid means of measurement. C'mon. You knew that. Everyone knows you did. Why pretend otherwise?


And what do you suppose they mean when they say: "but the morphological classification and genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable"?

There are infrequent cases where genetics and morphological standards do not agree. Generally, when the question is resolved, genetic criteria turn out to be more accurate. For example, it was thought, based on anatomical similarities, that New and Old World vultures were closely related. But genetic tests indicated otherwise. This set off a lot of intensive research, which resulted in the discovery that one group is more closely related to storks and one to raptors. It's not common, but it does happen.


You don't suppose they mean that genetic variance doesn't necessarily correllate to the sub-species classifications based on morphology, do you?

It could. I can't think of one right now, but I know of one case where it was true of higher taxa.

Barbarian observes:
"How to assess gene flow and reproductive isolation?1. Fixation indices or F-statistics (Sewall Wright 1922), particularly FSTF statistics describe how genetic variation (measured by heterozygosity, H) is fixed ateach level of organization in a structured population (or subspecies, or species - thesame logic can be applied at various levels)F stats are based on H. H is a good measure of genetic variability*increases with more alleles*increases with more even distribution of alleles."

Granted, that it's a bit more technical, and you may not have much training in science, but it's pretty clear; genetic variability increases between subspecies.


Here's why you link doesn't support your claim with respect to humans, based on your summary:
Your link describes statistical criteria for identifying reproductive isolation. If you will recall, reproductive isolation was the principle criteria for identifying subspecies according to the .edu links that I provided on the subject.

Nope. Reproductive isolation is the criteria for specieation. If they are reproductively isolated, they are (by definition) two species, not two subspecies. You still don't get it.

Barbarian observes:
It appears you don't know what an "analogy" is.

(Cap'n O attributes real world effects to Barbarians state of mind)

Barbarian observes:
My state of mind doesn't make anything real or unreal, either.


If you believe the above, then we have a right to expect you to justify burdening us with your impression of my understanding of "analogy".


Your beliefs don't change reality either.

Barbarian observes:
Um, a chimera of two different organisms is not an archtype. It's not even analogous to an archtype. You still aren't making any sense at all.


You do not appear to understand what an "analogy" is.

Hint: it's not a chimera.

( tries a real analogy instead)

That one is an analogy. Yours wasn't.

Barbarian on the assertions that Nazis attempted to favor certain characteristics:
No. "Racial science" was just foolish fantasy. In fact, the "technological applications" depended only on those identified by culture and family history as Jews. Blue-eyed blondes were sent to the death camps because they were culturally Jewish, while those with the alleged Jewish phenotypes were never sent there on that basis.


Still waiting on your substantiation of your claims. Repeating the claim itself is inadequate substatiation.

You're denying that the Nazis sent blue-eyed blondes to the camps, if they were identified as being of Jewish ancestry? You're asserting that all big-nosed, dark-haired, short people were sent to the camps? Yes or no?

Barbarian observes
I'm just pointing out that you are completely wrong about what they did. If they identified someone as a Jew on cultural grounds, they sent them to the camps, regardless of their physical characteristics. If they did not identify one as a Jew, they never sent them to the camps on the basis that they looked like a Jew. There's no point in denying it. You might as well conced that one.


You might as well stop stalling and present the substantiation of your claim.

Let's be sure what you want. You say you don't think that the Nazis sent blue-eyed blondes to the camps, if they were culturally Jewish? You think they rounded up and sent off all short, dark-haired, big-nosed people? Is that right?

"Being a Jew was no longer a matter of self-definitions or self-identification. Now a person was considered a Jew because of what his or her grandparents had chosen to believe. Who you were no longer depended upon you."

http://www.howhist.com/outreach/reactions.html

They had to do it that way.


What you're missing is that the individual from your first quotation was sent to the camps regardless of what he believed. He was "Jewish" based on his genetics.

Really? What specific genetic tests did they run on him to know? C'mon, you know better than that? Do you honestly think someone checked his genes?


Now, it's true that going back to the grandparent's generation that religious Judaism was the criterion for establishing the varieties of "mixed blood" designations, but this is simply in keeping with the pragmatic nature of hte Nazi plan: I have already mentioned in this thread that cooperation with the Nazis would cause even "bad" phenotypical characteristics to be overlooked.

It was constantly overlooked. Hitler himself would have been sent off, based on your idea of what the Nazis were trying to eliminate.

"Being blonde and blue-eyed, he was treated fairly well by the Nazi guards. He was what he termed the "Nazi epitome of an Aryan." However, looks were not a free escape for him or any other Jew. They were forced to carry papers, basically a passport labeled with a big red "J" for Jew."

http://www.dt.navy.mil/pao/excerpts%20pages/2001/Holocaust5_01.html

If he had not fled, that "J" would have sent him to the camps.

One official definition of a Jew was anyone of "Non-Aryan" descent.

"Aryan", as you might know, is an old word used by Indo-Europeans to describe themselves. However, since "Indo-European" is a linguistic, not a racial category, that makes no sense, either, if you assume the Nazis "racial science" was sensible.


None of that changes the fact that the basic definition of "Jew" according to the Nazis was properly genetic (via phenotype)

Phenotypes are not genes, and are not even strictly determined by genes. And, as you can see above, being blonde and blue-eyed, did not save one who was identified on cultural criteria.

Nor, as Hitler personifies, did having "Jewish characteristics" send one to the camps.

Barbarian observes:
Because they had no way of physically identifying who was a Jew (other than circumcision, which apparenlty was never used as a widespread screening criterion) they could only identify those who were members of the Jewish community, or who could be identified as having parents or grandparents who identified themselves as Jews.


Well, you're glossing over the fact that grandparentage could have varying effects on classification depending on how many gparents were practicing Jews.

Nope. In fact, it's another demonstration that the Nazi's didn't use genetics at all. It was the cultural identification of Jews that mattered, as you just mentioned.


Strictly speaking, the genetic program would have suggested that all Germans who had blood of the Jewish phenotype should be eliminated from the gene pool.

Woud have, but for two factors:

[list]
The Nazis used cultural criteria, not genetic analysis

The Nazis couldn't use genetics, because German Jews were genetically like other Germans

The Germans did not ship off people who fit the presumed "Jewish phenotype" based on that criterion[/'list]

Barbarian observes:
Actually, science shows that human races are cultural constructs. Like Hitler's. They are whatever any particular society wants them to be. But they have, as I remind you again, no biological validity. And even then, the Nazis didn't follow their "archtype" in who would go to the death camps as a Jew.

That would matter only if you can show that they used physical rather than cultural characteristics for such exterminations. They didn't.

Again, if you were culturally identified as a Jew, you went to the camps. But no one was sent to the camp merely for looking like the Nazi conception of a Jew.

Your error is in supposing that they couldn't identify non-religious Jews culturally.

(Cites hypothetical problems with "culture" and Guinea pigs)

Do you still think that they couldn't identify non-religious Jews culturally? Of course they could. Many non-religious jews were still culturally Jewish, living many of the traditions common to their religious fellows. And there were birth records. Still, many escaped, because one could not identify a Jew outside of cultural criteria.

Barbarian asks:
You have a translation pf the Wansee Protocol that identifies Jews by specific physical characteristics?


Are you having difficulty interpreting plain English again?

No, but you seem to be. You claim that the Wansee Protocol uses racial criteria. Show me. What physical characteristics, exactly? C'mon. Did you think we didn't know what was in it?

Go ahead. Post us sections that identify Jews by any physcial charactieristic or "archtypes". C'mon. Let's see it.


Let's see the non-racial criteria that you crowed about earlier.

Let's see... non-racial critieron? Here ya go..

"The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a particularly bad police and political record that shows that he feels and behaves like a Jew."

Now, let's quit stalling, and show me what racial characteristics the Wansee Protocol lists for Jews. Or admit that you were bluffing.


I don't need for the Wannsee document to specify points of identification, as it clearly affirms the racial understanding of Jewishness held by the Nazis.

In fact, it directly refutes your argument, doesn't it? Be honest now, admit it. It doesn't list any "phenotypes", "archtypes" or genetics at all. You took a chance and bluffed. You got caught.


Your claim is at issue here, not mine.

Nope. Your's is at stake here. On the other hand, if you'd be willing to openly admit that there are no genetic or phenotypic criteria in the Wansee Protocol, we'll consider it closed and move on.

Barbarian observes:
Nonsense. You don't give things biological reality by believing them to be true. I gather you must be a creationist?


Yeah, just like you probably are, except that I believe that the creator was personal rather than impersonal.

One more dishonesty on your part? I'll be charitable, and assume you don't know what Christians believe.

And you've already learned that the Nazis sent off many people as Jews with supposed "Aryan" features, while they didn't send off many people who had supposedly Jewish features.


We should see all religious (cultural) Jews in the death-camps if cultural Judaism was the criterion for Jewishness according to the Nazis.

Unless special provisions were made (e.g. Hitler's physician), they took all they could find. It is, after all, in the Protocol. Did you read it?


According to that data that I presented (and you ignored) above, more than half of the culturally Jewish persons in Germany avoided death in camp. How do you explain that, using the Judaism-as-culture model?

Because, if one has no identifiable phenotype, then it's possible to hide one's cultural identity. Many did that.

Nonsense. The "bad" characteristics weren't even an issue, unless one's cultural background was suspect. Read the links.

On the other hand, the Nazis sent off numerous well-educated, healthy people, even though they had "Aryan" appearances, because they had been culturally identified as Jews. Read the links.


And you certainly, demonstrably are wrong about human races having a biological reality. There is no such thing.


I've shown that you are incorrect via the demonstration that "race" doesn't mean only one thing.

Indeed. That's why I made the distinction between biological and culurally-defined races. As you know, Cavalli-Sforza shows that there are no biological human races.


You handwave the Nazi conception of "race" as though they are talking about sub-species in the modern sense.[/'quote]

Nope. You just can't figure out that culturally-determined races have no genetic or biological reality.

Just because you really want it so, has no bearing on whether or not it is so.

Barbarian observes:
Again, opinions do not change reality. Once science thought that there were biologically valid human races. The data indicate that is not so. What you or anyone else feels about it is of no consequence to the truth.

[quote]So, if I follow your logic correctly, if the Germans had a different conception of "race" then we can ignore that conception of "race" in favor of whatever version you claim has no biological reality?

Still can't get it? Listen up. Because the Nazi conception of race was entirely cultural, it has no biological validity. It is, of course, no less valid than any other culturally-derived idea of "race".


Send that one back over the net, please.

Easy. Game, set, and match.


No, sorry. I know English and that's it.

As I said, if you can't say it succinctly, you probably don't understand it.


Again, you may not like what geneticists say, but simply denying that they said it isn't going to help.


I'm just not letting you put words in their mouths.

Cavalli-Sforza, citing evidence, points out that there are no biological human races. What do you not understand about that?

Barbarian observes:
I gave you a link in which geneticists observed that the 15% variation between the culturally-determined "races" was not sufficient to allow them to be classified as separate biological races. I didn't set that mark, they did.


You don't understand what your citations are saying.

Sure I do. Cavalli-Sforza, because there is more variation within a human "race" than there is between races, and because the 15% between "races" is smaller than would be accepted for a subspecies, points out that there are no biological human races.

(Cap'n O disagrees with Cavalli-Sforza)

That's not much of a concern for science.

Barbarian observes:
However, I merely pointed out that the amount genetic variation was evidence regarding races.


Right, as if that supported your earlier claims regarding human races.

Wasn't supposed to. I'm pointing out that in some species, biological races exist, but not in humans. For the reasons scientists cite when they point this out.

Barbarian observes:
Let's see.. possibly the world's best population geneticist agrees with me.

And you don't.

Not much of a problem, is it?


You're trying to make Cavalli-Sforza your ventriloquist's dummy.

Wrong. I'm saying what he's saying, not the other way around.

(cites evidence that some people were cited as Jewish because they had Jewish names, and some "looked Jewish")

But not sent to camps? Oh the GIs were, especially if they had "Jewish-sounding" names? That would be cultural, wouldn't it?


It's a red herring to demand specific criteria for phenotypic identification of Jews in the Wannsee Protocol.

I think it's too late to back off now. You already said that there were racial criteria used. But there aren't any, are there?


The persons attending the meeting were Germans who had spent years being exposed to Nazi propaganda concerning "Jewish" appearance of type I gave you many examples of earlier. Dark hair, hooked nose, sloping forehead--those and more were understood by the attendees at Wannsee.

But they didn't use that, did they? In fact, there are no specific genetic or phenotypic critieria at all, other than a vague comment about "appearance". But there are numerous cultural criteria, in great detail.

Not what you told us, was it?

Barbarian observes:
Barbarian observes:
Well, we'll know when you post that sentence where I denied the reality of those phenotypes that you think the Nazis were favoring. That might be hard, since I've pointed out repeatedly:

That the phenotypes existed

That the Nazis sent many of the supposedly favored ones off

That the Nazis didn't send off many of the unfavored ones

Go for it.


No need for me to do that until you post that sentence where I claim you denied the reality of those phenotypes that I think the Nazis were favoring, afaics.

OK:

"Sure, since you're trying to use that idea to deny the biological reality of the real phenotypical features that the Nazis were trying to increase in their population. "

Never deny something you said in the same thread.


Because they were "culturally" Jewish? Or are you intentionally altering your earlier claim?

You'll have to explain what you mean about that. But before you do that, you've got a lot of other explaining do to. Especially the one just above.

Barbarian ... These continuing attacks on C.O.'s integrity are getting out of hand ... you have been warned twice already ... discontinue these repeated assaults, or back up your claims of dishonesty with proof of intent to deceive NOW ... the very next post in this topic ... or you will be put into moderation and all your future posts will have to be preapproved at our leisure before they hit the board ~Sher

[Roy]

Today @ 06:04 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143345#post143345)
Captain Ochre:

The more Nordic looking Jews would have been identified by clues of culture that made it probabilistically likely that they were of one of the proscribed mixed-blood types. ... . Whatever rule-of-thumb was used for identification didn't necessarily identify the target group unerringly, and it probably wasn't intended to do so in the first place.
The counterexample that gives the lie to Barbarian's claim is that a &quot;pure-blooded&quot; German who held to religiously Jewish beliefs would have nothing to fear so long as his beliefs were not associated with a betrayal of the German state.

You've just flatly contradicted yourself twice within the space of four sentences.

According to you a practicing Jew with an aryan appearance would be picked up on cultural grounds and killed, but a practicing Jew with an aryan appearance would have nothing to fear.

According to you, a 'pure-blooded'* Jew would have nothing to fear even though the system for determining who should be sent to the camps was probably designed to be imperfect.

Further, a few posts back you objected to the claim that some Jews were targeted based solely on cultural grounds - but here you are making the exact same claim.

Your own sources give evidence that all Jews, regardless of appearance, had to hide to avoid being taken to the camps, and that blond Jewish survived more often than dark-haired ones because they were easier to hide - not because they wouldn't be killed if they were caught.

Frankly, if anyone is straining here it's you. You can't keep your claims straight, and not even your own documentation agrees with what you are trying to say.

Roy

*Whatever that means. As far as I can tell from your sources, it simply means that a person has no Jewish grandparents.

[The Barbarian]

I'm still trying to figure out how Cap'n O rejects the opinions of the scientists who work with genetics and populations.

Cavalli-Sforza says this about the wildly different classifications of "race" in humans:

"We could count many more if we wanted, But there doesn't seem to be much purpose. Every classification is equally arbitrary." (emphasis mine)

I invite any rational person to explain how that is an acceptance of biological human races.

Anyway, as others have observed, he's gotten to the point where he continually contradicts himself. As a consequence, it appears that there's not much left to do with this one.

[The Barbarian]

Cap'n O:


he Barbarian's point was that mere religious Judaism led to death-camp trips.

Nope. I never said it, never hinted at it. In fact, I told him otherwise. I said that cultural factors were used. Hence, my observation that non-religious Jews were also vulnerable, because they most often remained culturally Jewish.

And in other cases, birth records were used to catch those who had dropped all observation of secular or religious practice.

Note to moderator: I REALLY, REALLY Believe that this is merely an error on his part....

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 09:25 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143528#post143528)
rthearle:

You've just flatly contradicted yourself twice within the space of four sentences.


I doubt it, but I'll hear your case.



According to you a practicing Jew with an aryan appearance would be picked up on cultural grounds and killed, but a practicing Jew with an aryan appearance would have nothing to fear.


The former only if he were designated as of mixed blood to an unacceptable level. This is a "cultural clue" kind of like finding out that your mutt has an ancestor with a name typically indicative of a particular breed.
A practicing Jew with no history of mixed blood and an Aryan appearance need not fear the authorites, apparently.
Placed in the proper context, the statements are utterly non-contradictory. If my presentation misled you previously, then I apologize for that.



According to you, a 'pure-blooded'* Jew would have nothing to fear even though the system for determining who should be sent to the camps was probably designed to be imperfect.


I believe that I said pure-blooded German, which does not preclude Jewish cultural practice. So, while it's technically correct for you to refer to "pure-blooded Jew" it confuses the archetypes unnecessarily.



Further, a few posts back you objected to the claim that some Jews were targeted based solely on cultural grounds - but here you are making the exact same claim.


Am I correct in surmising that you consider 4/4 Jewish parentage, culturally defined, as merely cultural criteria? I would disagree. While categorizing Jews of "mixed blood" is superficially cultural, it is actually a probabilistic indicator of "Jewish blood" in preceding generations where observation of phenotypes would be more difficult or even impossible. The purely cultural way to categorize persons would be to simply ask them what religion they practice. When you start up the family tree, it must be conceded that biology and inheritance are in play.



Your own sources give evidence that all Jews, regardless of appearance, had to hide to avoid being taken to the camps, and that blond Jewish survived more often than dark-haired ones because they were easier to hide - not because they wouldn't be killed if they were caught.


Your reluctance to quote the passages you're talking about makes it look like you badly misinterpreted the linked information. In the one instance, the dark-haired child could not go out at all for fear of being identified as a Jew. The rest of the family was able to go out and about (but they were Jews no less). They didn't have to hide their appearance, they had to hide their accent other indications that they might have Jewish blood. The Nazis were very agressive in the conquered nations with respect to rounding up suspected troublemakers, and cultural Judaism would be such a marker given the Nazi treatment of Jews over the previous decade and more.



Frankly, if anyone is straining here it's you. You can't keep your claims straight, and not even your own documentation agrees with what you are trying to say.


Actually, it does. You just read carelessly, afaics.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 07:27 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143408#post143408)
The Barbarian:

Cap'n O backpedals:


It's been my position all along . . . you were just excruciatingly slow to acknowledge it.



Nothing optional about it. Cavalli-Sforza, for example, shows that biological human races don't exist, based on the degree of genetic variation between culturally-determined &quot;races&quot;. C'mon. Everyone saw it. Why deny it?


I don't deny that "everyone" saw it (though it seems to be a claim open to challenge), but that you have gone anywhere close to establishing a non-optional criterion of a given percentage of genetic variation for demarcating subspecies.
The amount of tap-dancing you're doing on this issue would put Astaire to shame.



Note that Cavalli-Sforza points out that a 15% difference between populations is less than scientists would accept as defining a race.


If this is the quotation that you're referring to, explain how you derive your conclusion:
In fact, we find that any population, however small, has enormous genetic variation; on average, one finds 85% of the total human variation is within populations, and only 15% between. We therefore cannot use for the comparison of different human populations the same measure of genetic distance useful for comparing different species.
http://www.balzan.it/english/pb1999/cavalli/paper.htm



Since I made no claims as to the specific numbers, I have no need to give them to you.


If you don't give a specific number and document your source, then you have no case. All of your citations, as you have tried to employ them, have been effectively challenged, and your attempts at rebuttal typically involve your customary ear-plugging use of fingers.



Barbarian observes:
I told you that genetic variation was evidence for subspecies, and gave you several links that confirmed it.


Okay, then, here's the magic question that makes it apparent that the The Barbarian Has No Clothes: What degree of genetic variation is indicative of sub-species?



Thank you. Now, are you ready to also concede that there are no biological human races?


Not if you try to make "race" one-size-fits-all term that covers all of history. For that, B, would be a fallacy.



For that, you need some evidence. Show me where there are subspecies that do not have more genetic variation between subspecies than within each one. This, I really want to see.


Indeed, I'm sure that you would enjoy it if I were hoodwinked by one of your red herrings.
I repeat: I do not accept the modern definition of "sub-species" as applied to the Nazi view of "race", and the existence of greater variation between subspecies than within each one is indicative of reproductive isolation, which is the real criterion for subspecies.
http://lynx.uio.no/catfolk/mjissues/mjchp_3n.htm



I don't remember anyone making claims about genetic differences being evidence of speciation. Nice try, but that won't help, either.


Make that "sub-species demarcation".



I said that a number Templeton cited, was a &quot;line of demarcation&quot;? Hmm... nope. * edited by a moderator *
Hmm... Let's see...


If philanthropy were measured by how many words you try to put in the mouths of others, you'd be a Saint several time over. You tried to cite Templeton to claim that a given number of variation by percentage was a certain order less that an unnamed line of demarcation. Without that line, you've got no case because you'll never be able to say what amount of variation consitutes a sub-species. Maybe everybody with a widow's peak is a sub-species of humans, if we went solely by a genetic criterion.
Why not, B? Not great enough difference by percentage? How much is enough?
Quit running and dancing and address the issue.



&quot;&quot;Many species are divided into subspecies based on a limited number of morphological characteristics. According to Van Wagner and Baker (1990), Merilä et al. (1997), Mundy et al. (1997), Lucchini and Randi (1998), Barrowclough et al. (1999), and Holder et al. (2000) subspecies may also be distinguished by genetic variation, but the morphological classification and genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable (Avise et al. 1992, Ball &amp; Avise 1992, Seutin et al. 1995, Fry &amp; Zink 1998, Questiau et al. 1998, Bensch et al. 1999).&quot;

Note that this one specifically says that genetic variation can be used to distinguish subspecies. I'll be generous and assume it's your reading comprehension problem, again.

I'm reading what you continue to miss. See where "the morphological classification and the genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable"? So, which do the geneticists go by, when there's a discrepancy?
Stop running, B. Stand and answer the question.



Yep. Silly. &quot;Boards may be also measured by yardsticks.&quot; merely means that yardsticks are a valid means of measurement. C'mon. You knew that. Everyone knows you did. Why pretend otherwise?


Are you certain that you wish to pick an analogy where the standard is perfectly arbitrary (not "biologically real" in terms of analogy)?
All measurement is relative and arbitrary.
What you're forgetting is that the two methods mentioned are also explicitly mentioned as not correlating perfectly. If both are mandatory, then classification is contradictory/imprecise. If one is preferable, then the other is optional.
Stop running and smell that coffee.



There are infrequent cases where genetics and morphological standards do not agree. Generally, when the question is resolved, genetic criteria turn out to be more accurate. For example, it was thought, based on anatomical similarities, that New and Old World vultures were closely related. But genetic tests indicated otherwise. This set off a lot of intensive research, which resulted in the discovery that one group is more closely related to storks and one to raptors. It's not common, but it does happen.


What's that supposed to have to do with subspecies identification?
You're not suggesting that the vultures were of the same species, are you?
Oh, just a red herring, then?



It could. I can't think of one right now, but I know of one case where it was true of higher taxa.


You can say that again.
:smile:



Nope. Reproductive isolation is the criteria for specieation. If they are reproductively isolated, they are (by definition) two species, not two subspecies. You still don't get it.


I should have used the term "geographical isolation" instead of reproductive isolation, which does serve as the primary component of speciation.
The idea is closely related, however, in that sub-species do not fully interbreed with the species as a whole, or else it isn't long before it's not a sub-species any longer.



You're denying that the Nazis sent blue-eyed blondes to the camps, if they were identified as being of Jewish ancestry?


No. Jewish ancestry is probabilistically indicative of the Jewish archetypical bloodline, so it isn't merely cultural. If it were merely cultural, the issue would be the culture of individual and not that of his grandparents.



You're asserting that all big-nosed, dark-haired, short people were sent to the camps? Yes or no?


No, but you had a good chance for a free ticket with that phenotype, and it was pretty certain if you also had 4/4 Jewish grandparents.
You have little reason for having any misunderstanding of my view on this, afaics.



Let's be sure what you want. You say you don't think that the Nazis sent blue-eyed blondes to the camps, if they were culturally Jewish?


Not for that reason alone, no.



You think they rounded up and sent off all short, dark-haired, big-nosed people? Is that right?


No. The Reich had a need for workers, after all, and many with phenotypically undesirable features had apparently inoffensive (to the Germans) bloodlines.



&quot;Being blonde and blue-eyed, he was treated fairly well by the Nazi guards. He was what he termed the &quot;Nazi epitome of an Aryan.&quot; However, looks were not a free escape for him or any other Jew. They were forced to carry papers, basically a passport labeled with a big red &quot;J&quot; for Jew.&quot;

http://www.dt.navy.mil/pao/excerpts%20pages/2001/Holocaust5_01.html

If he had not fled, that &quot;J&quot; would have sent him to the camps.

One official definition of a Jew was anyone of &quot;Non-Aryan&quot; descent.


Good. Document it, and it will become an interesting claim.



&quot;Aryan&quot;, as you might know, is an old word used by Indo-Europeans to describe themselves. However, since &quot;Indo-European&quot; is a linguistic, not a racial category, that makes no sense, either, if you assume the Nazis &quot;racial science&quot; was sensible.


Argument by etymology? You're joking.



Phenotypes are not genes, and are not even strictly determined by genes. And, as you can see above, being blonde and blue-eyed, did not save one who was identified on cultural criteria.


You appear to have conveniently forgotten that the Nordic dude was self-identified as a Jew. That doesn't rule out 1/4,2/4,3/4, or 4/4 grandparents being Jewish.
If it were merely cultural, only the individual's beliefs would be at issue.



Do you still think that they couldn't identify non-religious Jews culturally? Of course they could. Many non-religious jews were still culturally Jewish, living many of the traditions common to their religious fellows. And there were birth records. Still, many escaped, because one could not identify a Jew outside of cultural criteria.


Feel free to point out "cultural" Jewish customs that aren't simply religious customs done for the sake of tradition.
You're creating a distinction without a difference, afaics.



Barbarian asks:
You have a translation pf the Wansee Protocol that identifies Jews by specific physical characteristics?


I linked to a translation that is specific in identifying Jews as a racially identified group.
The Germans weren't as concerned with the genetic makeup of conquered peoples. Naziism was about Germans, not the French, Hungarians, or the Greeks.
They used the legal definition that had been used in Germany previously.
Cheap and easy, plus occupying forces don't have time to do physical evaluations, or genetic tests that haven't been invented yet.



No, but you seem to be. You claim that the Wansee Protocol uses racial criteria.


No, I claim that the Wannsee Protocol explicitly confirms the fact that the Germans criterion for Jewishness was racial.



Show me. What physical characteristics, exactly? C'mon. Did you think we didn't know what was in it?

Go ahead. Post us sections that identify Jews by any physcial charactieristic or &quot;archtypes&quot;. C'mon. Let's see it.


So that I can support a straw man version of what I actually said? Pointless exercise, that.



Let's see... non-racial critieron? Here ya go..

&quot;The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a particularly bad police and political record that shows that he feels and behaves like a Jew.&quot;


As noted above generally, "mixed blood of the second degree" is not properly categorized utterly as cultural. Moreover, behaviors are not strictly cultural either (else parrots mating only if the plumage is aptly colored might qualify as "cultural").
That wasn't the best you could do, I hope?



Now, let's quit stalling, and show me what racial characteristics the Wansee Protocol lists for Jews. Or admit that you were bluffing.


Or point out that you constructed a straw man version of what I said? Or do you insist on the false dichotomy?



In fact, it directly refutes your argument, doesn't it?


I suppose that you could imagine that it does--apart from logic.



Nope. Your's is at stake here. On the other hand, if you'd be willing to openly admit that there are no genetic or phenotypic criteria in the Wansee Protocol, we'll consider it closed and move on.


Bzzt. You claimed that the Wannsee Protocol exhibited cultural criteria for Jews, not racial (phenotypical) criteria. One to the exclusion of the other. That claim has already been demonstrated false. Yes, we'll consider it closed and move on.

Predict the phenotypical behaviors of these individuals, i.e. what behavioral patterns may be rooted in their genetic ‘phenome?’ . How will their behaviors differ?
http://www.plu.edu/~bernike/SysTheo/Entropy%20and%20Evolution.doc



And you've already learned that the Nazis sent off many people as Jews with supposed &quot;Aryan&quot; features,


On the basis of more than than their religious or "cultural" Judaism, afaics . . . unless you get around to evidence . . .



while they didn't send off many people who had supposedly Jewish features.


The "Final Solution" in the latter years of the war was a rush job. The methodology should not be expected to reflect any of the rigors of scientific practice. The purposes were cruder than the aim of racial purity, thus the methods were cruder.



Because, if one has no identifiable phenotype, then it's possible to hide one's cultural identity. Many did that.


Even if one has an identifiable phenotype, it is possible to hide it.
IOW, red herring. You've got something of a school going.



Indeed. That's why I made the distinction between biological and culurally-defined races. As you know, Cavalli-Sforza shows that there are no biological human races.


You simply created another false dilemma with that move. A "culturally defined" race in which the definition of race is based on phenotypical characteristics is a biological reality by definition.
Yet another point that you've ignored throughout.
Ah, yes. See below, where you do it yet again.



Still can't get it? Listen up. Because the Nazi conception of race was entirely cultural, it has no biological validity. It is, of course, no less valid than any other culturally-derived idea of &quot;race&quot;.

Easy. Game, set, and match.


More perfect irony. It's nice that you're good at something. :wink:

You're cutting a rut in the same circles, intent on making wild interpretations of what I have written along with what those you have cited have written.
The game is tired. Where you're in an apparently hopeless rut, your answer will be either ignored or result in a referral back to the original answer that you failed to deal with.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 10:53 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143622#post143622)
The Barbarian:

Cap'n O:

Nope. I never said it, never hinted at it. In fact, I told him otherwise. I said that cultural factors were used.


You would have to successfully distinguish between Jewish culture and Jewish religion to make your excuse fly.
Personally, I don't see how you can do it, but if you can make it believable I'll certainly grant you the distinction in the course of argument.



Hence, my observation that non-religious Jews were also vulnerable, because they most often remained culturally Jewish.

And in other cases, birth records were used to catch those who had dropped all observation of secular or religious practice.

Note to moderator: I REALLY, REALLY Believe that this is merely an error on his part....

For my part, I think that it's an error on your part to think that you can distinguish cleanly between cultural Jewishness and religious Jewishness.
http://www.jewishculture.org/CommisionReport/board_comm_rpt_jew_cult_wo_rel.html

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Nope. I never said it, never hinted at it. In fact, I told him otherwise. I said that cultural factors were used.


You would have to successfully distinguish between Jewish culture and Jewish religion to make your excuse fly.

Stuff like Yiddish, food preferences, a separate literature, living in specific places, music, etc? Yes. There was a specifically Jewish subculture in which even many non-religious Jews participated.


Personally, I don't see how you can do it,

Then you know very little about Jewish society as it existed in Europe.


but if you can make it believable I'll certainly grant you the distinction in the course of argument.

That doesn't matter. I made the distinction. You attributed something else to me. That's wrong in any case.

Barbarian observes:
Hence, my observation that non-religious Jews were also vulnerable, because they most often remained culturally Jewish.

And in other cases, birth records were used to catch those who had dropped all observation of secular or religious practice.

Note to moderator: I REALLY, REALLY Believe that this is merely an error on his part.... ”


For my part, I think that it's an error on your part to think that you can distinguish cleanly between cultural Jewishness and religious Jewishness.

"Cleanly" is your addition. (note to moderator: I REALLY REALLY believe this is merely an error on his part) I merely observed that there were numerous Jews who were not religious, but continued to live in Jewish culture.

When Spinoza left Judaism (he was tossed out because he no longer believed in the God of Abraham), did he cease to live as a Jew? The record shows that he did not.

Moses Mendelssohn, although religious, encouraged a secular Judaism in Europe. Saul Ascher, certainly did.

There was language, literature, music, and specific foods (besides those with religious significance)

It's worth learning about.

[DunnySaze]

Yesterday @ 05:23 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143307#post143307)
Captain Ochre:

[QUOTE]The principle I outlined above was experimentally validated by generations of animal breeding.

Perhaps it's good animal breeding technology to kill those not intended to contribute to the gene pool, but this technology was around long before Darwin's time. Darwinian mechanisms are of a passive, sorting nature. This is an active, somewhat arbitrary sorting.


You mean how could they know what they would end up with? The wouldn't. You play the odds with eugenics, and work with the results you get.

But does that square with the characterization of this being 'good science'? When you conduct a good experiment scientifically, you are doing so with the idea of observing a specific result Y, when you do X to the system. Without controls, then they'd have no way to know if Y came about becuse of X or some other reason. If I mix chemicals in a test tube willy-nilly, surely I'm just using the well established atomic theory which is established, good science. But I'm not doing good science.


One thing's for sure, though: If you prevent an animal from reproducing, then its particular genes aren't perpetuated in the gene pool ...

That's certainly true.


If all of the Nazi program wasn't scientific, then none of it was scientific? That's a familiar false dilemma, by now.

I put that stuff about Nazi experiments on hypothermia in there precisely to show that they really could do modern scientific (although grossly unethical) experimentation, although you dismissed it as way off topic. That doesn't mean that their entire program was 'scientific', even if they thought that's what they were doing.


They would be a drag on the economy, I imagine. The Germans would probably have them work until they didn't earn their keep.

I see. So did the Nazi's also treat Germans who were removed from the gene pool (by age, infirmity, sterility) in this way? Would they not also be a drag on the economy?

[Roy]

Today @ 12:42 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=143748#post143748)
Captain Ochre:



Am I correct in surmising that you consider 4/4 Jewish parentage, culturally defined, as merely cultural criteria? I would disagree.


Of course it's cultural criteria. You're examining the culture of four people.

Your hypothetical 'pure-blooded German practicing Jew' produces mixed blood children, doesn't he? And if he converts his wife, and their child marries the child of another 'pure-blooded German practicing Jew' then the grandchildren have 4/4 Jewish parentage, right? And somehow the grandchildren have 'Jewish blood'. And they get shipped off to a death camp. Right?



Your reluctance to quote the passages you're talking about makes it look like you badly misinterpreted the linked information.


I quoted them two posts back. Why should I quote them again?

I also note that you failed to quote the passage you were talking about. By your criteria, that shows you badly misinterpreted it.



In the one instance, the dark-haired child could not go out at all for fear of being identified as a Jew. The rest of the family was able to go out and about (but they were Jews no less). They didn't have to hide their appearance, they had to hide their accent other indications that they might have Jewish blood.


Yet again you admit that people of aryan appearance were in danger of being transported.



The Nazis were very agressive in the conquered nations with respect to rounding up suspected troublemakers, and cultural Judaism would be such a marker given the Nazi treatment of Jews over the previous decade and more.

Would it really.

Roy

[The Barbarian]

Cap'n O backpedals:


It's been my position all along . . . you were just excruciatingly slow to acknowledge it.

Your position changes within the same paragraph. And I'm not the only person who noticed.

Barbarian observes:
Nothing optional about it. Cavalli-Sforza, for example, shows that biological human races don't exist, based on the degree of genetic variation between culturally-determined "races". C'mon. Everyone saw it. Why deny it?


I don't deny that "everyone" saw it (though it seems to be a claim open to challenge), but that you have gone anywhere close to establishing a non-optional criterion of a given percentage of genetic variation for demarcating subspecies.

Since I only observed that genetic variation is evidence for subspecies, that's beside the point. I only have to show that my assertion is true.

(Cap'n (tapdance) O makes an ad hom) Warning for the humor-impaired[/b]

Barbarian observes:
Note that Cavalli-Sforza points out that a 15% difference between populations is less than scientists would accept as defining a race.


If this is the quotation that you're referring to, explain how you derive your conclusion:
In fact, we find that any population, however small, has enormous genetic variation; on average, one finds 85% of the total human variation is within populations, and only 15% between. We therefore cannot use for the comparison of different human populations the same measure of genetic distance useful for comparing different species.
http://www.balzan.it/english/pb1999/cavalli/paper.htm

He's saying that such small variation between populations can't be used to support the idea that they are biologically different. He also says elsewhere that larger differences can be used as evidence of races or subspecies:


Since I made no claims as to the specific numbers, I have no need to give them to you.


If you don't give a specific number and document your source, then you have no case.

Wrong. Only if I specified a number in my assertion, do I need to support a number. Otherwise I just have to cite scientists who have found that genetic variation is evidence of subspecies.


All of your citations, as you have tried to employ them, have been effectively challenged,[/'quote]

I know you want us to believe it, but your attempts at rebuttal typically involve your customary ear-plugging use of fingers.

Barbarian observes:
I told you that genetic variation was evidence for subspecies, and gave you several links that confirmed it.


Okay, then, here's the magic question that makes it apparent that the The Barbarian Has No Clothes: What degree of genetic variation is indicative of sub-species?

No one made any claims about that. I merely observed, as the sources I cited made plain, that one may use genetic variation as evidence of subspecies.

Barbaran, on Cap'n O's concession that genetic variation is evidence of supspecies:
Thank you. Now, are you ready to also concede that there are no biological human races?


Not if you try to make "race" one-size-fits-all term that covers all of history. For that, B, would be a fallacy.

Yes it would. However, as you learned earlier, "race" can either be biologically valid classifications or mere cultural constructs. That's what I told you.

On Cap'n O's argument that genetic variation is not evidence of subspecies:
For that, you need some evidence. Show me where there are subspecies that do not have more genetic variation between subspecies than within each one. This, I really want to see.

(declines to do it)


I repeat: I do not accept the modern definition of "sub-species" as applied to the Nazi view of "race", and the existence of greater variation between subspecies than within each one is indicative of reproductive isolation, which is the real criterion for subspecies.
http://lynx.uio.no/catfolk/mjissues/mjchp_3n.htm

Barbarian observes:
I don't remember anyone making claims about genetic differences being evidence of speciation. Nice try, but that won't help, either.


Make that "sub-species demarcation".

Let's make it the claim I actually made. Genetic variation is evidence for subspecies.

Barbarian observes:
I said that a number Templeton cited, was a "line of demarcation"? Hmm... nope. That was your wording, not mine.


If philanthropy were measured by how many words you try to put in the mouths of others, you'd be a Saint several time over.

You picked an odd time to bring up that subject. :D


You tried to cite Templeton to claim that a given number of variation by percentage was a certain order less that an unnamed line of demarcation.

Nope. "Line of demarcation" was your strawman.


Without that line, you've got no case because you'll never be able to say what amount of variation consitutes a sub-species.

Anyone can have an opinion that challenges the evidence, but it isn't going to be much use in an argument for you.


Maybe everybody with a widow's peak is a sub-species of humans, if we went solely by a genetic criterion.

Wouldn't work. Because you'd have individual family members in different sub-species. Of course, if you said "races", that would be O.K. Something like that is the case in Brazil, which has many "races". All of them mere cultural constructs, of course.


Why not, B? Not great enough difference by percentage? How much is enough?

See above. You can't put a polyphyletic group in a single taxon.

Barbarian observes:
"Many species are divided into subspecies based on a limited number of morphological characteristics. According to Van Wagner and Baker (1990), Merilä et al. (1997), Mundy et al. (1997), Lucchini and Randi (1998), Barrowclough et al. (1999), and Holder et al. (2000) subspecies may also be distinguished by genetic variation, but the morphological classification and genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable (Avise et al. 1992, Ball & Avise 1992, Seutin et al. 1995, Fry & Zink 1998, Questiau et al. 1998, Bensch et al. 1999)."

Note that this one specifically says that genetic variation can be used to distinguish subspecies. I'll be generous and assume it's your reading comprehension problem, again. ”


See where "the morphological classification and the genetic differentiation may not be strictly comparable"?

He says that genetic variation is evidence for subspecies. What does the fact that the evidence can sometimes appear to be contradictory have to do with it?


So, which do the geneticists go by, when there's a discrepancy?

Barbarian observes:
The one I know about,(Old World and New World vultures) turned out in favor of genetics. But it surely could go the other way as well.


Stop running, B. Stand and answer the question.

I already told you that. (Note to Moderator: I'm REALLY REALLY sure that it's merely an error on his part)

Barbarian on Cap'n O's Clintonisms:
"Boards may be also measured by yardsticks." merely means that yardsticks are a valid means of measurement. C'mon. You knew that. Everyone knows you did. Why pretend otherwise?


Are you certain that you wish to pick an analogy where the standard is perfectly arbitrary (not "biologically real" in terms of analogy)?

Let's see...

[color=purple]"subspecies may also be distinguished by genetic variation"

boards may be also measured by yardsticks"

Looks like a good one to me. But then, I know what an analogy is.


All measurement is relative and arbitrary.

Hmm... so that invaldiates the analogy, because...?


What you're forgetting is that the two methods mentioned are also explicitly mentioned as not correlating perfectly.

Hmm... measuring the board with a yardstick and a rangefinder won't correlate perfectly either. You're starting to get boring, Cap'n.


If both are mandatory, then classification is contradictory/imprecise. If one is preferable, then the other is optional.

Let's try it out:

"If both yardsticks and rangefinders are mandatory, then measurement is contradictory/imprecise.

Sounds pretty foolish to me, Cap'n.


Stop running and smell that coffee.

I smell something, but it's not coffee... :D

Barbarian observes:
There are infrequent cases where genetics and morphological standards do not agree. Generally, when the question is resolved, genetic criteria turn out to be more accurate. For example, it was thought, based on anatomical similarities, that New and Old World vultures were closely related. But genetic tests indicated otherwise. This set off a lot of intensive research, which resulted in the discovery that one group is more closely related to storks and one to raptors. It's not common, but it does happen.


What's that supposed to have to do with subspecies identification?

It's the only case I know about wherein morphological analysis and genetic anaysis did not agree.


You're not suggesting that the vultures were of the same species, are you?

That would be an egregious error, even for you. I'm merely pointing out the only example of genetic and morphological evidence conflicting in my knowledge.

Barbarian had previously told Cap'n O:
It could. I can't think of one right now, but I know of one case where it was true of higher taxa.

Note to moderator: I REALLY, REALLY believe that this is merely an error on his part.

You can say that again.

Barbarian observes:
Reproductive isolation is the criteria for specieation. If they are reproductively isolated, they are (by definition) two species, not two subspecies. You still don't get it.


I should have used the term "geographical isolation" instead of reproductive isolation, which does serve as the primary component of speciation.

No. "Reproductive Isolation" sums it up nicely. Geographic isolation is one sort of reproductive isolation, which merely means "there are two populations that don't interbreed".

It is one of a number of types of premating reproductive isolations.


The idea is closely related, however, in that sub-species do not fully interbreed with the species as a whole, or else it isn't long before it's not a sub-species any longer.

"Do not" and "Cannot" are two different things. In the case of the incipient specieation of a fly parasitic on Hawthorns, which has another population parasitic on apple trees, and which are now temporally reproductively isolated, it's just the timing of reproductive activity.

Barbarian, responding to the assertion that Nazis used genetics (or phenotypes or "archtypes")to identify Jews:
You're denying that the Nazis sent blue-eyed blondes to the camps, if they were identified as being of Jewish ancestry?


No. Jewish ancestry is probabilistically indicative of the Jewish archetypical bloodline,

Give us some details how that "Jewish archtypical bloodline" differs from the bloodline of the Germans. Specifically which alleles did the Nazis use?


so it isn't merely cultural. If it were merely cultural, the issue would be the culture of individual and not that of his grandparents.

If they use the culture of one's grandparents, that is no longer a cultural criterion? How so?

Barbarian asks:
You're asserting that all big-nosed, dark-haired, short people were sent to the camps? Yes or no?


No,

It was really cultural, after all, wasn't it?


but you had a good chance for a free ticket with that phenotype, and it was pretty certain if you also had 4/4 Jewish grandparents.

In fact, if they knew you had 4/4 Jewish grandparents, you went regardless, didn't you? You remind me of the Freudian psychiatrist who noted that people who took lithium and had psychoanalysis did just as well as people who had lithium alone.

Barbarian asks:
Let's be sure what you want. You say you don't think that the Nazis sent blue-eyed blondes to the camps, if they were culturally Jewish?


Not for that reason alone, no.

So, if one is identified as having four Jewish grandparents, but is tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, one is not classified as a Jew by the Nazis? Wrong. I posted evidence to the contrary.

Barbarian asks:
You think they rounded up and sent off all short, dark-haired, big-nosed people? Is that right?


No. The Reich had a need for workers, after all, and many with phenotypically undesirable features had apparently inoffensive (to the Germans) bloodlines.

So why didn't they send the one with the "Jewish phenotypes" to the camps, and save the blondes with "Aryan phenotypes"? We both know why, don't we?

"Being blonde and blue-eyed, he was treated fairly well by the Nazi guards. He was what he termed the "Nazi epitome of an Aryan." However, looks were not a free escape for him or any other Jew. They were forced to carry papers, basically a passport labeled with a big red "J" for Jew."

http://www.dt.navy.mil/pao/excerpts...ocaust5_01.html

If he had not fled, that "J" would have sent him to the camps.

"Aryan", as you might know, is an old word used by Indo-Europeans to describe themselves. However, since "Indo-European" is a linguistic, not a racial category, that makes no sense, either, if you assume the Nazis "racial science" was sensible.


Argument by etymology? You're joking.

Nope. Just pointing out that using a linguistic classification to describe supposed biological races is absurd.

Phenotypes are not genes, and are not even strictly determined by genes. And, as you can see above, being blonde and blue-eyed, did not save one who was identified on cultural criteria.


You appear to have conveniently forgotten that the Nordic dude was self-identified as a Jew.

Suppose he didn't know who his grandparents were, but the Nazis found out? "Self-identification" is irrelevant.

(Barbarian observes that there are many cultural identifiers for Jews)


Feel free to point out "cultural" Jewish customs that aren't simply religious customs done for the sake of tradition.

Yiddish. Accents. Favorite foods. Literature. Music. Figures of speech. Dress. Favored professions or locations.

Barbarian asks:
You have a translation pf the Wansee Protocol that identifies Jews by specific physical characteristics?


I linked to a translation that is specific in identifying Jews as a racially identified group.

By what critieria? Or did it merely list family relationships, with no genetic or racial criteria at all?


The Germans weren't as concerned with the genetic makeup of conquered peoples.

Or of Germans or German Jews. In fact, they had no clue any possible differences.


No, but you seem to be. You claim that the Wansee Protocol uses racial criteria.

(Cap'n O backpedals)

No, I claim that the Wannsee Protocol explicitly confirms the fact that the Germans criterion for Jewishness was racial.

I thought you had conceded that what they thought about race did not alter reality. Are you going to pick that up again?

(Barbarian asks to see the "racial critieria")


So that I can support a straw man version of what I actually said?

No, so we could see the "racial critiera" that you claimed they used.

Let's see... non-racial critieron? Here ya go..

"The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a particularly bad police and political record that shows that he feels and behaves like a Jew."


As noted above generally, "mixed blood of the second degree" is not properly categorized utterly as cultural.

It's cultural in the sense that there is no evidence whatever for a racial difference. But I meant the behavioral part of it.


Moreover, behaviors are not strictly cultural either (else parrots mating only if the plumage is aptly colored might qualify as "cultural").

In other words, human behavior is not cultural? You can't be serious. Do you think that one's honesty and political orientation are the result of genes? That wasn't the best you could do, I hope?

Barbarian asks:
Now, let's quit stalling, and show me what racial characteristics the Wansee Protocol lists for Jews. Or admit that you were bluffing.


Or point out that you constructed a straw man version of what I said? Or do you insist on the false dichotomy?

I see the problem. You see things like human behavior as not being cultural. It's not a straw man, you just have a bizarre definition of "cultural".

Barbarian observes:
On the other hand, if you'd be willing to openly admit that there are no genetic or phenotypic criteria in the Wansee Protocol, we'll consider it closed and move on.


Bzzt. You claimed that the Wannsee Protocol exhibited cultural criteria for Jews, not racial (phenotypical) criteria. One to the exclusion of the other. That claim has already been demonstrated false.

Not yet. First show me the racial criteria therein. What is it? You've been remarkably shy about telling us what it is.

Barbarian:
Indeed. That's why I made the distinction between biological and culurally-defined races. As you know, Cavalli-Sforza shows that there are no biological human races.


You simply created another false dilemma with that move. A "culturally defined" race in which the definition of race is based on phenotypical characteristics is a biological reality by definition.

Nope. You cannot have a biologically valid race from a polyphyletic group. By definition.

Barbarian observes:
Still can't get it? Listen up. Because the Nazi conception of race was entirely cultural, it has no biological validity. It is, of course, no less valid than any other culturally-derived idea of "race".

Easy. Game, set, and match.


You're cutting a rut in the same circles, intent on making wild interpretations of what I have written along with what those you have cited have written.

Getting you to the point where you define human behavior as "not cultural" is surely cutting new ground. That's about a weird a claim as I've heard on these boards.

You boxed yourself into an indefensible position. You're upset and embarassed, and every time you try to talk your way out, it gets worse.

It is possible for a very clever person to do that. But you aren't that clever.

[Joe Meert]

You boxed yourself into an indefensible position. You're upset and embarassed, and every time you try to talk your way out, it gets worse.

It is possible for a very clever person to do that. But you aren't that clever.

JM: Well, I gotta say you have much more patience with Capn O than I have. He's gotten lost in his own attempt to be clever. In the end, his waffling on the definition of 'jewness' is so vague as to include and exclude nearly everything.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[The Barbarian]

C'mon, Joe. By now you surely know that I'm a very patient guy...

[Roy]

07-09-2003 @ 09:42 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=144733#post144733)
The Barbarian:

&quot;Aryan&quot;, as you might know, is an old word used by Indo-Europeans to describe themselves. However, since &quot;Indo-European&quot; is a linguistic, not a racial category, that makes no sense, either, if you assume the Nazis &quot;racial science&quot; was sensible.

'Aryan', as used by the Nazis, meant "someone we like". By the 1940s, official statements had been issued that both the Japanese and the Sioux Indians were 'aryan'.*

Roy

*Gardner, 'Fads and Fallacies'.