From Darwin to Hitler

From Darwin to Hitler PDF Author: R. Weikart
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137109866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
In this work, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary 'fitness' (especially intelligence and health) to the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism.

From Darwin to Hitler

From Darwin to Hitler PDF Author: R. Weikart
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137109866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
In this work, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary 'fitness' (especially intelligence and health) to the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism.

Pure Society

Pure Society PDF Author: André Pichot
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789604494
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
Amid the eulogies and celebrations commemorating the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth, the darker side of evolutionary theory should not be forgotten. In The Pure Society, Andr Pichot, one of France's foremost specialists in the history of science, excavates the underside of the Darwinian legacy, where the notions of 'race' and heredity became powerful tools of malign political agendas and instruments of social oppression. Pichot examines the relationship between science, politics and ideology through an analysis of specific cases: from Nazism and the concentration camps to the various eugenicist research programmes launched or financed by eminent scientific organizations. Racist eugenic ideas were once prevalent among the scientific community, despite a patent lack of supporting evidence. As today's scientists and writers applaud the advance of science, the egregious mistakes made along the way are too often forgotten. Now, with the mapping of the human genome and rapid advances in gene therapies, Pichot warns that biologists are increasingly emboldened to venture into the realms of public policy and politics. If moral philosophers abandon these fields, it is all too possible that the lights of a misguided science will resurrect the dream of a 'pure society'.

Was Hitler a Darwinian?

Was Hitler a Darwinian? PDF Author: Robert J. Richards
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022605909X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
In tracing the history of Darwin’s accomplishment and the trajectory of evolutionary theory during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most scholars agree that Darwin introduced blind mechanism into biology, thus banishing moral values from the understanding of nature. According to the standard interpretation, the principle of survival of the fittest has rendered human behavior, including moral behavior, ultimately selfish. Few doubt that Darwinian theory, especially as construed by the master’s German disciple, Ernst Haeckel, inspired Hitler and led to Nazi atrocities. In this collection of essays, Robert J. Richards argues that this orthodox view is wrongheaded. A close historical examination reveals that Darwin, in more traditional fashion, constructed nature with a moral spine and provided it with a goal: man as a moral creature. The book takes up many other topics—including the character of Darwin’s chief principles of natural selection and divergence, his dispute with Alfred Russel Wallace over man’s big brain, the role of language in human development, his relationship to Herbert Spencer, how much his views had in common with Haeckel’s, and the general problem of progress in evolution. Moreover, Richards takes a forceful stand on the timely issue of whether Darwin is to blame for Hitler’s atrocities. Was Hitler a Darwinian? is intellectual history at its boldest.

Hitler’s Ethic

Hitler’s Ethic PDF Author: R. Weikart
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230623980
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
In this book, Weikart helps unlock the mystery of Hitler's evil by vividly demonstrating the surprising conclusion that Hitler's immorality flowed from a coherent ethic. Hitler was inspired by evolutionary ethics to pursue the utopian project of biologically improving the human race.

Hitler's Religion

Hitler's Religion PDF Author: Richard Weikart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621575519
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!

Darwinian Racism

Darwinian Racism PDF Author: Richard Weikart
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781637120095
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
To hear some tell it, Adolf Hitler was a Christian creationist who rejected Darwinian evolution. Award-winning historian Richard Weikart shows otherwise. According to Weikart, Darwinian evolution crucially influenced Hitler and the Nazis, and the Nazis zealously propagated evolutionary theory during the Third Reich. Inspired by arguments from both Darwin and early Darwinists, the Nazis viewed the "Nordic race" as superior to other races and set about advancing human evolution by ridding the world of "inferior" races and individuals. As Weikart also shows, these ideas circulate today among white nationalists and neo-Nazis, who routinely use Darwinian theory in their propaganda to advance a racist agenda. Darwinian Racism is careful history. It is also a wake-up call.

Hitler's Philosophers

Hitler's Philosophers PDF Author: Yvonne Sherratt
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300151934
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
A gripping account of the philosophers who supported Hitler's rise to power and those whose lives were wrecked by his regime

Darwin Day in America

Darwin Day in America PDF Author: John G. West
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497635721
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
At the dawn of the last century, leading scientists and politicians giddily predicted that science—especially Darwinian biology—would supply solutions to all the intractable problems of American society, from crime to poverty to sexual maladjustment. Instead, politics and culture were dehumanized as scientific experts began treating human beings as little more than animals or machines. In criminal justice, these experts denied the existence of free will and proposed replacing punishment with invasive “cures” such as the lobotomy. In welfare, they proposed eliminating the poor by sterilizing those deemed biologically unfit. In business, they urged the selection of workers based on racist theories of human evolution and the development of advertising methods to more effectively manipulate consumer behavior. In sex education, they advocated creating a new sexual morality based on “normal mammalian behavior” without regard to longstanding ethical and religious imperatives. Based on extensive research with primary sources and archival materials, John G. West’s captivating Darwin Day in America tells the story of how American public policy has been corrupted by scientistic ideology. Marshaling fascinating anecdotes and damning quotations, West’s narrative explores the far-reaching consequences for society when scientists and politicians deny the essential differences between human beings and the rest of nature. It also exposes the disastrous results that ensue when experts claiming to speak for science turn out to be wrong. West concludes with a powerful plea for the restoration of democratic accountability in an age of experts.

Racial Science in Hitler's New Europe, 1938-1945

Racial Science in Hitler's New Europe, 1938-1945 PDF Author: Anton Weiss-Wendt
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496211324
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
In Racial Science in Hitler’s New Europe, 1938–1945, international scholars examine the theories of race that informed the legal, political, and social policies aimed against ethnic minorities in Nazi-dominated Europe. The essays explicate how racial science, preexisting racist sentiments, and pseudoscientific theories of race that were preeminent in interwar Europe ultimately facilitated Nazi racial designs for a “New Europe.” The volume examines racial theories in a number of European nation-states in order to understand racial thinking at large, the origins of the Holocaust, and the history of ethnic discrimination in each of those countries. The essays, by uncovering neglected layers of complexity, diversity, and nuance, demonstrate how local discourse on race paralleled Nazi racial theory but had unique nationalist intellectual traditions of racial thought. Written by rising scholars who are new to English-language audiences, this work examines the scientific foundations that central, eastern, northern, and southern European countries laid for ethnic discrimination, the attempted annihilation of Jews, and the elimination of other so-called inferior peoples.

Darwin

Darwin PDF Author: Paul Johnson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0147509777
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
A “riveting” (The Wall Street Journal) biography of one of the most influential and controversial scientists in Western history Acclaimed historian and biographer Paul Johnson turns his keen eye on Charles Darwin, the towering figure whose work continues to spur scientific debate. With his publication of On the Origin of Species, Darwin forever changed our concept of the world. While Johnson praises Darwin’s extraordinary skills as a natural scientist and his monumental achievements, he does not sidestep Darwin’s tragic failures as an anthropologist. Johnson argues that by applying his theory of natural selection to humans, Darwin provided a platform for the burgeoning eugenics movement. Lay readers and academics alike will enjoy this concise and unflinching exploration of Charles Darwin, a genius whose discoveries—even the flawed ones—add significant dimension to our understanding of his mind, the era in which he lived, and his everlasting impact on our world.