"Evolutionary biology": and racism: Time for truth

I put this in the combox below another post over at Uncommon Descent to a commenter, and then ended up putting it on the front page, for reasons of social responsibility:

I think that "evolutionary biology" is the basket-weaving course of science - but basket weaving keeps some people from crime and drug addiction, after all - so who am I to say it isn't worth doing?

When are "evolutionary biologists" going to get around to admitting Darwin's racism and its consequences?

Here is what I wrote:

When a world association of evolutionary biologists formally acknowledges that “The Descent of Man” is one long racist tract and *disassociates* its members from Darwin’s actual views, I will be impressed.

Otherwise not. And lots of other people will not be impressed either.

In the meantime, attacks on anyone’s character are entirely beside the point.

There is a huge, open, running, rotting Stage 4 sore here - visible to the whole world - that “evolutionary biologists” seem in no hurry to deal with.

It is NO use telling me that no one agrees with Darwin if science associations are not prepared to make a formal statement about his actual views and disassociate themselves from them.

I would have thought that the Darwin year was the exact right time to do just exactly that - especially if it is true that so few biologists are racists, as you say*.

To me, the fact that it never occurred to them to do so is highly significant - given the world we live in.

*I don’t say anything one way or the other about all that except this: I ask for a general retraction of Darwin’s views on race and you can be very sure that I will know what to make of any failure to do so. And it is no use quoting high panjandrums against me.

You can be sure you will be hearing from me again - and again - on this. So why not just deal with it?

[I won't be surprised if I hear nothing but evasions, bumpf, and fulminations. And why is that exactly?]

Coffee break: Why my fridge quit talking to me recently ...

I received a post from some outfit called AVAAZ, about "talking fridges," and couldn't resist responding:

Hey, AVAAZ fella, my fridge talks to me already!

It nags me, and it bores me:

Fridge: You didn’t defrost me all winter! You’ve never cared. You only heat the kitchen enough to keep the pipes from freezing. You’re cheap - and I’m lonely.

Me: You deserve to be lonely. Look, you’re a .3 x .2 x .2 cubic metre cold storage box sitting on a counter. For seven months of the year, I don’t even need you. I could replace you at Canadian Tire, assuming they still make cheap, lonely, neurotic models like you, for maybe CDN$100 or less.

My big worry, if you die, is that I may have to settle for a bigger, better fridge - that costs more and can’t just sit on my counter. That’s the problem, these days ...

Fridge (crying): You’re so cruel!

Me: The truth is, when guests come I just store the extra stuff in the back porch. It’s usually about the same temperature as you, and it is about 200 times as big as you. And it never needs defrosting, ever.

And in hot weather, we either eat salads or – when guests come - just order takeout, to avoid heating the house.

And, Fridge, please understand me, if you WON’T get out of my face, well, … there are worse places for a fridge to be than your side of the kitchen counter.

I understand there is a mine somewhere in Michigan, under contract to The City of Toronto, where … you decide, okay?

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Gotta hand it to the ol' boy ...

Darwin has master publicists. He really does.

Coming home on the bus today, I suddenly realized how odd it is that the ol' Brit toff racist - whose The Descent of Man is an open running sore of racism - is being celebrated everywhere as some kind of liberator.

Well, I guess he is - if you are a racist, and are looking for a "scientific" cover.

Look, this is a guy who thought black people were closer to gorillas than white people are. The idea is not only wrong and offensive, it is completely ridiculous.

He travelled all around the world and he didn't realize that?*

A physicist friend actually spent some time getting through the book, and was astonished at the racism.

I knew about it, of course, but didn't know how to tell him.

In the current era of worship of St. Darwin, you can't tell people these things. You must just hope that they will somehow find out or figure it out for themselves. After all, there is an Internet ....

The really interesting question for me is, why don't the atheist materialists I have met just admit and repudiate Darwin's racism, instead of telling me how much they admire him and what a great hero he was?

They never do. Is that because they secretly believe it and hope for the day when they can admit it openly?

After all, their theory does leave open the idea that different races could be more or less "evolutionarily"** developed, doesn't it?

I would be happy to learn that, as a group, they have openly and publicly denounced and backed away from Darwin's views instead of just covering them up and making coy excuses like "he was against slavery."***

(*Note: I live in a city that hosts people from all over the world, and have seen just about everything you can imagine. Please don't write to tell me what I supposedly don't know. Human culture is everywhere different but human nature is everywhere the same.)

** "evolutionarily" - it grates on the ear as one of the ugliest adverbs in English. Only a Darwinist could have invented it.

***Lots of racists in good standing have been against slavery. There are perfectly good reasons for opposing slavery that are entirely consistent with racism - and that was true in Darwin's case.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy: