Finnish school shooting: Student social Darwinist dies, kills eight others

A Finnish student, believed to have shot eight people, including his school's headmistress, seems to have been motivated by social Darwinism.

In the rambling text posted on the site, Auvinen said that he is "a cynical existentialist, anti-human humanist, anti-social social-Darwinist, realistic idealist and god-like atheist.
"I am prepared to fight and die for my cause," he wrote. "I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection."

Awful. In the course I was teaching last night, I was trying to explain to my adult students that social Darwinism really is a serious problem. People can come to believe that they are entitled to kill others to "help" Darwinian evolution. That's exactly what William Jennings Bryan was concerned about at the real (not fake) Scopes trial.

Here's a video link. (Note: As of November 9 2007, the video link was removed. Go here for story updates.)