Happy Birthday, Charlie!

In one of the unique facts of history, two of the most influential men in world history, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, were born on the same day, February 12, 1809. Last week marked their 200th anniversary, to which Lincoln has stolen most of the show, but Darwin should have received his due, as Darwinism continues to exact an enormous amount of influence in the world, particularly when the Left needs a club to bash Christianity.

Make no mistake, Darwinism is the Left’s baby. To a liberal it’s akin to religious dogma and must be taught in public schools. But Christians must wage an all-out fight, including court action, to teach creationism. The Left does not even want public school students to be free thinkers and decide the matter for themselves, after having been presented both sides of the argument fair and equally.

Yet, when it comes to other issues, such as global warming, the environment, and public welfare, liberals conveniently leave out Darwin altogether, seeking to separate them from Darwinism, as if it were distinct from what he intended. This is usually referred to as Social Darwinism – the application of Darwin’s theories to other areas of society.

But, despite the Left’s propaganda campaign, the two are actually one and the same. They attempt to propagate the lie that only a handful of heartless monsters twisted Darwin’s theories to suit their own evil desires. It’s just another example of liberal hypocrisy.

For example, it is often remarked, especially in the world of academia, that Darwin was not talking about humans in his book, On the Origins of Species. This fact is true but human beings were implied if you consider the subtitle of the book – By Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Most professors never bother to point out this brutal subtitle. I found it out on my own when examining an older copy of the book. Newer reprints often do not include the subtitle at all!

Liberal scholars also conveniently forget that Darwin wrote a second book, The Descent of Man (1871), where mankind was the subject.

And if you think Darwin did not apply any of his theories to humans, consider this gem from The Descent of Man:

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”

Hitler could not have said it better. He was a passionate believer in Darwinism and survival of the fittest. The whole of Nazi philosophy was centered on natural selection. But most of the geniuses constituting the Left do not realize this (or maybe they do but think we are so stupid not to ever find out). These crazies drive around in their cars with the ridiculous Darwin stickers and magnets on the back for all to see, but it might as well be a swastika.

Another of the Left’s icons, Friedrich Nietzsche, of “God is dead” fame, who was also a Darwinist, wrote that should we “preserve all that was sick and that suffered” then we would “worsen the European race.”

Liberals conveniently forget about these gems.

The Left also dumps Darwin when it comes to issues like the promotion of big business and welfare programs. Applying Darwinism to economics would allow for monopolies and prevent any public assistance to the needy, to which Darwin would have approved.

A British philosopher named Herbert Spencer applied Darwin’s theory to the business world, arguing that the brightest, the most energetic, and the most imaginative business tycoons would survive the brutal rigors of capitalism and the weak would fail and end up in bankruptcy. The strong businesses would become stronger, and as a result, the whole of society benefited. This philosophy found wide acceptance among the wealthy tycoons in late 19th century America, as it seemed to justify what they were doing and how they had arrived at such a high station in life.

A Yale professor, William Graham Sumner, wrote about this philosophy in a 1902 essay entitled “The Concentration of Wealth: Its Economic Justification”:

“What matters it then that some millionaires are idle, or silly, or vulgar, that their ideas are sometimes futile, and their plans grotesque, when they turn aside from money-making? How do they differ in this from any other class? The millionaires are a product of natural selection, acting on the whole body of men, to pick out those who can meet the requirement of certain work to be done. They get high wages and live in luxury, but the bargain is a good one for society.”

Poverty and slums, then, were the unfortunate consequences of this competitive struggle but poverty should only be temporary. Only the slothful, lazy, ignorant, unfit, and defective people would not rise from poverty and the state should not intervene to alleviate or attempt to eliminate poverty because that would negate the good effect of natural selection, where the strong survive and the weak perish. Nature’s process must be allowed to run its course.

During the late 18th century, Europeans were worried that a massive population surge over the previous 100 years could have devastating consequences, namely that there would not be enough food to feed everyone. An economic philosopher, Thomas Malthus, came up with one possible solution in a 1798 pamphlet entitled “Essay on Population.” Malthus believed that the population would grow too quickly for the earth to supply enough food and mass starvation would be the result.

Therefore, the government should not attempt to relieve the condition of the lower classes by increasing their incomes or improving agricultural productivity, as the extra means of subsistence would be completely absorbed by an induced boost in population.  As long as this tendency remained, Malthus argued, the “perfectibility” of society will always be out of reach.  And perfectibility, or Utopia, has always been the ultimate goal of socialists.

But in the 1840’s, it looked as though Malthus might be right, as Ireland experienced a potato famine beginning in the fall of 1845. Ireland had experienced food shortages before, usually lasting a few months, but never anything like this. It came to be known as the “Great Hunger” and lasted until 1849. One million Irish fled to the United States during the famine, while another million emigrated over the next few decades. Records are not available but it is widely believed that anywhere from 500,000 to 2,000,000 died in the famine. Although the British government instituted some assistance programs, for the most part it did nothing to help, believing in the validity of Malthus’ theory, as well as that of Darwin.

During the same time period, the economist David Ricardo, applying Darwin to economics, maintained that the wages of laborers should be kept at the lowest possible level because their high rate of reproduction ensured a surplus supply of labor. In other words, wages should be kept low and government should not set any type of minimum wage.

Ricardo also advocated a restriction of the so-called “Poor Laws.” These had originally been passed by the British Parliament in the early nineteenth century to bring relief to the poorer classes in British society.

But in our modern era, to advocate anything like Darwinism regarding liberal issues would essentially destroy your career.

In 2007, Dr. James Watson, the 79-year-old co-winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine, saw his tenure canceled at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, where he taught for four decades, as well as a book tour promoting his latest work. The prestigious Science Museum in London canceled a scheduled lecture, all for a remark that was pale in comparison to anything the Brit Darwin ever said.

Dr. Watson told The Sunday Times in October 2007 that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.” He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

His views are also reflected in his newest book Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science, in which he writes: “There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.”

Hadn’t Darwin reasoned much the same way, that there are races that have not been able to measure up to others? This is not to accuse Dr. Watson of being a Darwinist or even a racist, for I don’t believe he is one. He is only drawing conclusions from the scientific data, as was Darwin.

So why is Darwin a God of the Left but Watson a child of the devil?

In today’s society, the slightest instance, the tiniest utterance, however innocent it might be, if directed toward a protected group can lead to being branded a racist, the 21st century equivalent of a Scarlet Letter, which can ruin any career in any field. Ask Dr. Watson, ask Trent Lott, if you think it not so. Though neither can be considered racist, Darwin was every bit as racist as the most vile among us.

The Left invokes Darwin when it is useful, such as bashing creationism and Christianity in general, but conveniently puts him in the closet when it does not suit their immediate political needs in regards to other issues, like promoting victim-hood.

Darwinism is incompatible with Christianity. You cannot be a Darwinian Christian, for Jesus is the very antithesis of Darwin, teaching to help the poor, the weak, and the sick, though I don’t think he meant for the government to do it, only his Church.

So either you are a Darwinist or you are not. Either you believe all men are created equal, as Christ did, or you believe that they are not, as Darwin clearly did. We must either use Darwinism in all its sick and twisted ways, or we place him where he truly belongs, on the ash heap of history.