Was Hitler a Darwinian?

[Blamtasticful]

Came across a fantastic amateur paper that very calmly dismantles the assertions of David Berlinski and those from the Intelligent Design crowd about the link between Darwinism and Nazism. (Warning it is quite a long and thorough read.) I will post the link below and ask for any information and arguments pro or con from anyone here in this community on this proposition: was Nazism Darwinian? 

 

http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Was Hitler a Darwinian.pdf

[pantheory]

1 hour ago, Blamtasticful said:

Came across a fantastic amateur paper that very calmly dismantles the assertions of David Berlinski and those from the Intelligent Design crowd about the link between Darwinism and Nazism. (Warning it is quite a long and thorough read.) I will post the link below and ask for any information and arguments pro or con from anyone here in this community on this proposition: was Nazism Darwinian? 

 

http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Was Hitler a Darwinian.pdf

 

Perusing the paper I see little comparison between the beliefs of Darwin and Hitler. The brunt of Darwin's theory is based upon natural selection. Nature selects the fittest individuals to survive and procreate. A primary tenet of Naziism was eugenics. Eugenics is based upon what man decides are the best characteristics for racial and social supremacy and procreation. This is quite different. Darwinism is based upon science where Naziism and Hitlers beliefs had little or no science to it. Also social Darwinism is based upon justification for some people or groups to dominate others because it was asserted that this is the natural way of the world. This type of thinking relates to attempted justification for behaviors unrelated to Darwin, where morals, or a lack thereof, are unrelated to instinctive survival and procreation.

[Thurisaz]

Besides, even if it can be shown that the austrian moustache was a "Darwinian" (and we all know they really mean "atheist")... so what?

 

He didn't commit all those unspeakable crimes with his own hands exclusively, did he?

 

Morontheists desperately regurgibabbling "hitler was an athiest!!!!111!!!!!!oneoneone!!!!!!!" ignore that of the millions of Germans who willingly obeyed his orders, the vast majority were... you guessed it!... christians. Where were the oh-so-praised christian morals during those 12 years?

[Bhim]

Wow...David Berlinski, that name takes me back! Back when I was in high school, before I even knew who the hell Jesus was, I was deeply interested in mathematics and devoured his pop-math textbook "A Tour of the Calculus." I was sad, over a decade later, to discover he was an evangelical Christian. The man has some cool insights into basic mathematics...too bad he's also a creationist.

 

At some point maybe I'll read this document. But at the outset it's important to recognize that science isn't a sort of moral framework to be judged by moral standards. I can think of at least one Nobel Laureate in physics (Johannes Stark) who was a future Nazi. Likewise, recall that many prominent physicists worked towards building an atomic bomb for the Nazis, and many of these people (e.g. Werner Von Braun) were later recruited in America's foray into space exploration.

 

Science is a methodology for arriving at the truth in a reliable way. It is a tool, and is no more responsible for evil acts committed with its aid than a hammer (or gun, if you prefer) is responsible when used in a murder. Was Hitler a believer in Darwinian evolution? I would guess the answer is "probably," even in the 30s most educated people accepted modern science. But before we even begin to answer that question, it's important to emphasize that Hitler's belief or disbelief in accepted science has no bearing whatsoever on the truth of said science. We who don't believe in gods are fond of saying "the beauty of science is that it works whether or not you believe in it." Let's take that to heart: it works, so who cares if Hitler believed in it?

 

Personally, I wouldn't bother entertaining the notion that any scientific theory is more or less true because Hitler believed it.