COMMENTS ON POPULATION ISSUES, BY NOBEL LAUREATES IN CHEMISTRY, IF ANY:
1954 Linus Pauling (1901–1994) Pauling supported a limited form of eugenics by suggesting
that human carriers of defective genes be given a compulsory visible mark – such as a
forehead tattoo – to discourage potential mates with the same defect, in order to reduce
the number of babies with diseases such as sickle cell anemia.[128][129]
COMMENTS ON POPULATION ISSUES, BY NOBEL LAUREATES IN CHEMISTRY, IF ANY:
1901 Jacobus van 't Hoff (1852–1911)
1902 Hermann Fischer (1852–1919)
1903 Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927)
1904 Sir William Ramsay (1852–1916)
1905 Adolf von Baeyer (1835–1917)
1906 Henri Moissan (1852–1907)
1907 Eduard Buchner (1860–1917)
1908 Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937)
1909 Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) In 1911, Ostwald became President of the Deutscher
Monistenbund (Monist Association), founded by Ernst Haeckel.[45] Ostwald (and other
Monists) promoted eugenics and euthanasia, but only as voluntary choices with the
intention of preventing suffering. Monist promotion of such ideas is suggested to
have indirectly facilitated acceptance of the later Social Darwinism of the National
Socialists.
Matt Beasley wrote:------------------
COMMENTS ON POPULATION ISSUES, BY NOBEL LAUREATES IN CHEMISTRY, IF ANY:
1954 Linus Pauling (1901–1994) Pauling supported a limited form of eugenics by suggestingI spent over an hour to locate;
that human carriers of defective genes be given a compulsory visible mark – such as a
forehead tattoo – to discourage potential mates with the same defect, in order to reduce
the number of babies with diseases such as sickle cell anemia.[128][129]
LINUS PAULING 1968: “I have suggested that there should be tattooed on the forehead of every young person a symbol showing possession of the sickle cell gene or whatever other similar gene that he has been found to possess in a single dose"
Linus Pauling, “Foreword to reflections on the New Biology,” UCLA Law Review 15:2; Feb. 1968, p. 269
Gary Hurd wrote:No. You linked the Nobel blurb.
Matt Beasley wrote:
COMMENTS ON POPULATION ISSUES, BY NOBEL LAUREATES IN CHEMISTRY, IF ANY:
------------------1954 Linus Pauling (1901–1994) Pauling supported a limited form of eugenics by suggestingI spent over an hour to locate;
that human carriers of defective genes be given a compulsory visible mark – such as a
forehead tattoo – to discourage potential mates with the same defect, in order to reduce
the number of babies with diseases such as sickle cell anemia.[128][129]
LINUS PAULING 1968: “I have suggested that there should be tattooed on the forehead of every young person a symbol showing possession of the sickle cell gene or whatever other similar gene that he has been found to possess in a single dose"
Linus Pauling, “Foreword to reflections on the New Biology,” UCLA Law Review 15:2; Feb. 1968, p. 269
You could have found pretty much the same thing in one minute if you had looked at Wikipedia footnotes 128 and 129!
--
--
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must
not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it
have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal
party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the
teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3 (1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler
Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his
followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,
who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature,
who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today
must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give
true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a
synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity)
and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of
Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of
disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high-
value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my
translation)
<mercy snip>I'll add;
On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must
not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the
teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3 (1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,
who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature, who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today
must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give
true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a
synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity)
and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of
disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high-
value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my
translation)
<mercy snip>I'll add;
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism
believed by Haeckel.
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and
SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various
racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher
levels" and so on.
On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
<mercy snip>I'll add;
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
believed by Haeckel.
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and
SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various
racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher
levels" and so on.
On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must
not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3 (1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists, who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature, who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today
must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a
synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity)
and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high-
value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my translation)
<mercy snip>I'll add;
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
believed by Haeckel.
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and
SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various
racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher
levels" and so on.
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 7:30:25 PM UTC+1, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of
National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must
not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it
have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3
(1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists, who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature,
who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity) and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high- value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my translation)
<mercy snip>I'll add;
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
You are both not quite right, though Öö Tiib is almost right.Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism believed by Haeckel.
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and
SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various
racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher
levels" and so on.
First, "being removed from libraries" is not the same as "banned". You
knew when your books were banned under the Nazis, they'd be publicly
burned and put on an index. That's not what's happening here. So at
best it would be hostility, but not outright ban. Darwin's books were
banned by several of Germany's fascist allies, and also remained banned
on those territories once they fell under full Nazi control. Possession
of Darwin's OoS was illegal in Franco's Spain , was banned in
Greece in 1937, under the right-wing, nationalistic and racist Metaxas regime and remained banned also after the Nazis invaded the country. Similarly in Yugoslavia, it was banned in 1935 on pressure of the catholic-fascist Ustashe, and as in Greece it remained banned in the Ustashe controlled NDH during German occupation.
The Nazis definitely disliked Haeckel and his monism. As a consequence,
they also disliked any "Darwinism with philosophical aspirations," especially when Darwinism was used to argue for materialism:
"We have to reject Haeckel's simplistic assumption that philosophy reached its pinnacle in the mechanistic solution to the world puzzles through Darwin’s
descent theory.” - so the party official Kurt Hildebrandt in the ,” Zeitschrift für
die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3(1937–1938)
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
One of their favourite biologists was Wilhelm Troll, who decried Darwinism as the "crass externality of the English perception of things" and argued instead for the "rebirth of morphology from the spirit of German science"
Or an early statement in the Weltkampf, IV (1927), the party journal of the Nazis, that called Darwin the "English disease", and blamed it for political democracy that "dissolved the organic unity of man" and was incompatible with the idea of an undivided racial identity."
So materialism is the meaning of "primitive" Darwinism here, not Lamarckism. They also disliked Lamarck, that's true, but for different reasons, and that discussion was in a different context.
Individual Darwinists were at risk, but typically only if they directly attacked
the Nazi pseudoscience. A typical example is Hugo Iltis (saved by Albert Einstein,
who facilitated his escape to the US) Iltis is better known as the author of the first comprehensive biography of Mendel - but there he goes out of his way
to depict Mendel as Darwinian at heart. He then attacked on scientific grounds
the Nazi conception of race, the "racial-metaphysical nexus" and "race mysticism"
as he called it, on both Mendelian and Darwinian grounds.
(cf e.g. Varshizky, Amit. 2019. “The Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and
Religion.” Central European History 52, no. 02 (June): 252–88.
But there were also Darwinians on the side of the Nazis, and as long as they stuck to the science they were left in peace, though it arguably did not help with a career. Gerhard Heberer is one of the most high profile examples -
he got indeed fired for teaching Darwin, but that was because his catholic students complained. Himmler then managed to give him a position in his
own ministry. Walter Zimmermann and Herman Rensch were others - they
all contributed to Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen, which was meant to be the rallying point for Darwinists in Nazi Germany.
Now this book does read like a "Darwin apologetic" in the sense that they spend a lot of time to show that Darwin is not a problem for Nazism
- they "explain away" all the problems Nazism has with
Darwinism, In parts, that involves fiddling with the data - they reject in particular the "out of
Africa" idea and try to argue that homo sapiens either comes from
Europe, or (second best) Asia.
Or when "admitting" that cross-breeding is an important evolutionary mechanism, and also applies to humans, but but but...."one should not
infer from that that today,interbreeding between races were not harmful." They discuss extensively e.g. an older paper by Holler, who had argued that Darwinism
was incompatible with Nazism because „Nach ihr [the theory of evolution] haben wir kein Recht, die Juden zu bekämpfen, denn sie sind längst durch Anpassung Germanen geworden. Die Amerikaner sind uns nicht mehr stamm-verwandt, denn sie sind Indianer geworden" ("According to this theory, we have no right to fight the Jews, because they have adapted a long time ago to their German environment, just as the Americans are not any longer related ot us but have become Indians").
So no, the Nazis did not ban evolutionary studies, which went one unimpeded and could publish. They just did not particularly promote them, and could be overall a career obstacle in the sense that biology chairs went preferentially to
people more attuned to their "holism".They also persecuted individual Darwinists ,
but typically onlt when these ventured into "philosophical" territory.
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:35:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 7:30:25 PM UTC+1, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of
National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it
have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal
party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3
(1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,
who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature,
who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity) and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high- value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my translation)
<mercy snip>I'll add;
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
You are both not quite right, though Öö Tiib is almost right.Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism believed by Haeckel.
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and
SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher levels" and so on.
First, "being removed from libraries" is not the same as "banned". You knew when your books were banned under the Nazis, they'd be publicly burned and put on an index. That's not what's happening here. So at
best it would be hostility, but not outright ban. Darwin's books were banned by several of Germany's fascist allies, and also remained banned
on those territories once they fell under full Nazi control. Possession
of Darwin's OoS was illegal in Franco's Spain , was banned in
Greece in 1937, under the right-wing, nationalistic and racist Metaxas regime and remained banned also after the Nazis invaded the country. Similarly in Yugoslavia, it was banned in 1935 on pressure of the catholic-fascist Ustashe, and as in Greece it remained banned in the Ustashe
controlled NDH during German occupation.
The Nazis definitely disliked Haeckel and his monism. As a consequence, they also disliked any "Darwinism with philosophical aspirations," especially when Darwinism was used to argue for materialism:
"We have to reject Haeckel's simplistic assumption that philosophy reached its pinnacle in the mechanistic solution to the world puzzles through Darwin’s
descent theory.” - so the party official Kurt Hildebrandt in the ,” Zeitschrift für
die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3(1937–1938)
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
One of their favourite biologists was Wilhelm Troll, who decried Darwinism as the "crass externality of the English perception of things" and argued instead for the "rebirth of morphology from the spirit of German science"
Or an early statement in the Weltkampf, IV (1927), the party journal of the
Nazis, that called Darwin the "English disease", and blamed it for political
democracy that "dissolved the organic unity of man" and was incompatible with the idea of an undivided racial identity."
So materialism is the meaning of "primitive" Darwinism here, not Lamarckism.
They also disliked Lamarck, that's true, but for different reasons, and that
discussion was in a different context.
Individual Darwinists were at risk, but typically only if they directly attacked
the Nazi pseudoscience. A typical example is Hugo Iltis (saved by Albert Einstein,
who facilitated his escape to the US) Iltis is better known as the author of
the first comprehensive biography of Mendel - but there he goes out of his way
to depict Mendel as Darwinian at heart. He then attacked on scientific grounds
the Nazi conception of race, the "racial-metaphysical nexus" and "race mysticism"
as he called it, on both Mendelian and Darwinian grounds.
(cf e.g. Varshizky, Amit. 2019. “The Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and
Religion.” Central European History 52, no. 02 (June): 252–88.
But there were also Darwinians on the side of the Nazis, and as long as they
stuck to the science they were left in peace, though it arguably did not help with a career. Gerhard Heberer is one of the most high profile examples -
he got indeed fired for teaching Darwin, but that was because his catholic students complained. Himmler then managed to give him a position in his own ministry. Walter Zimmermann and Herman Rensch were others - they
all contributed to Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen, which was meant to be the rallying point for Darwinists in Nazi Germany.
Now this book does read like a "Darwin apologetic" in the sense that they spend a lot of time to show that Darwin is not a problem for Nazism
- they "explain away" all the problems Nazism has with
Darwinism, In parts, that involves fiddling with the data - they reject in particular the "out of
Africa" idea and try to argue that homo sapiens either comes from
Europe, or (second best) Asia.
Or when "admitting" that cross-breeding is an important evolutionary mechanism, and also applies to humans, but but but...."one should not infer from that that today,interbreeding between races were not harmful." They discuss extensively e.g. an older paper by Holler, who had argued that Darwinism
was incompatible with Nazism because „Nach ihr [the theory of evolution] haben wir kein Recht, die Juden zu bekämpfen, denn sie sind längst durch
Anpassung Germanen geworden. Die Amerikaner sind uns nicht mehr stamm-verwandt, denn sie sind Indianer geworden" ("According to this theory,
we have no right to fight the Jews, because they have adapted a long time ago to their German environment, just as the Americans are not any longer related ot us but have become Indians").
So no, the Nazis did not ban evolutionary studies, which went one unimpededThe Nazi book purge in 1935 went well beyond Darwin, and Haeckel.
and could publish. They just did not particularly promote them, and could be
overall a career obstacle in the sense that biology chairs went preferentially to
people more attuned to their "holism".They also persecuted individual Darwinists ,
but typically onlt when these ventured into "philosophical" territory.
Take a look at E. Dennert's "At the Deathbed of Darwinism" German 1904 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21019
Matt Beasley wrote:
COMMENTS ON POPULATION ISSUES, BY NOBEL LAUREATES IN CHEMISTRY, IF ANY:
--------------------1954 Linus Pauling (1901–1994) Pauling supported a limited form of eugenics by suggestingI spent over an hour to locate;
that human carriers of defective genes be given a compulsory visible mark – such as a
forehead tattoo – to discourage potential mates with the same defect, in order to reduce
the number of babies with diseases such as sickle cell anemia.[128][129]
LINUS PAULING 1968: “I have suggested that there should be tattooed on the forehead of every young person a symbol showing possession of the sickle cell gene or whatever other similar gene that he has been found to possess in a single dose"
Linus Pauling, “Foreword to reflections on the New Biology,” UCLA Law Review 15:2; Feb. 1968, p. 269
This was entirely unrelated to Pauling's Nobel prizes in Chemistry (1954), and Peace (1963).
That is also vastly different from Francis Galton's "Eugenics Society" proposed in Hereditary Genius,' 1870. And, BTB Charles Darwin opposed Galton's proposal.
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 4:15:26 AM UTC+1, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:35:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 7:30:25 PM UTC+1, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of
National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it
have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal
party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3
(1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler
Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,
who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature,
who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give
true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity)
and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high- value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my translation)
<mercy snip>I'll add;
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
You are both not quite right, though Öö Tiib is almost right.Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism believed by Haeckel.
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and
SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher levels" and so on.
First, "being removed from libraries" is not the same as "banned". You knew when your books were banned under the Nazis, they'd be publicly burned and put on an index. That's not what's happening here. So at
best it would be hostility, but not outright ban. Darwin's books were banned by several of Germany's fascist allies, and also remained banned on those territories once they fell under full Nazi control. Possession of Darwin's OoS was illegal in Franco's Spain , was banned in
Greece in 1937, under the right-wing, nationalistic and racist Metaxas regime and remained banned also after the Nazis invaded the country. Similarly in Yugoslavia, it was banned in 1935 on pressure of the catholic-fascist Ustashe, and as in Greece it remained banned in the Ustashe
controlled NDH during German occupation.
The Nazis definitely disliked Haeckel and his monism. As a consequence, they also disliked any "Darwinism with philosophical aspirations," especially when Darwinism was used to argue for materialism:
"We have to reject Haeckel's simplistic assumption that philosophy reached
its pinnacle in the mechanistic solution to the world puzzles through Darwin’s
descent theory.” - so the party official Kurt Hildebrandt in the ,” Zeitschrift für
die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3(1937–1938)
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had
particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
One of their favourite biologists was Wilhelm Troll, who decried Darwinism
as the "crass externality of the English perception of things" and argued
instead for the "rebirth of morphology from the spirit of German science"
Or an early statement in the Weltkampf, IV (1927), the party journal of the
Nazis, that called Darwin the "English disease", and blamed it for political
democracy that "dissolved the organic unity of man" and was incompatible with the idea of an undivided racial identity."
So materialism is the meaning of "primitive" Darwinism here, not Lamarckism.
They also disliked Lamarck, that's true, but for different reasons, and that
discussion was in a different context.
Individual Darwinists were at risk, but typically only if they directly attacked
the Nazi pseudoscience. A typical example is Hugo Iltis (saved by Albert Einstein,
who facilitated his escape to the US) Iltis is better known as the author of
the first comprehensive biography of Mendel - but there he goes out of his way
to depict Mendel as Darwinian at heart. He then attacked on scientific grounds
the Nazi conception of race, the "racial-metaphysical nexus" and "race mysticism"
as he called it, on both Mendelian and Darwinian grounds.
(cf e.g. Varshizky, Amit. 2019. “The Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and
Religion.” Central European History 52, no. 02 (June): 252–88.
But there were also Darwinians on the side of the Nazis, and as long as they
stuck to the science they were left in peace, though it arguably did not help with a career. Gerhard Heberer is one of the most high profile examples -
he got indeed fired for teaching Darwin, but that was because his catholic
students complained. Himmler then managed to give him a position in his own ministry. Walter Zimmermann and Herman Rensch were others - they
all contributed to Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen, which was meant
to be the rallying point for Darwinists in Nazi Germany.
Now this book does read like a "Darwin apologetic" in the sense that they
spend a lot of time to show that Darwin is not a problem for Nazism
- they "explain away" all the problems Nazism has with
Darwinism, In parts, that involves fiddling with the data - they reject in particular the "out of
Africa" idea and try to argue that homo sapiens either comes from Europe, or (second best) Asia.
Or when "admitting" that cross-breeding is an important evolutionary mechanism, and also applies to humans, but but but...."one should not infer from that that today,interbreeding between races were not harmful."
They discuss extensively e.g. an older paper by Holler, who had argued that Darwinism
was incompatible with Nazism because „Nach ihr [the theory of evolution]
haben wir kein Recht, die Juden zu bekämpfen, denn sie sind längst durch
Anpassung Germanen geworden. Die Amerikaner sind uns nicht mehr stamm-verwandt, denn sie sind Indianer geworden" ("According to this theory,
we have no right to fight the Jews, because they have adapted a long time
ago to their German environment, just as the Americans are not any longer
related ot us but have become Indians").
So no, the Nazis did not ban evolutionary studies, which went one unimpededThe Nazi book purge in 1935 went well beyond Darwin, and Haeckel.
and could publish. They just did not particularly promote them, and could be
overall a career obstacle in the sense that biology chairs went preferentially to
people more attuned to their "holism".They also persecuted individual Darwinists ,
but typically onlt when these ventured into "philosophical" territory.
Take a look at E. Dennert's "At the Deathbed of Darwinism" German 1904 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21019I'm not sure what you think this shows? It is from 1904 (German original from 1903)
, so three decades before the Nazis came to power. Dennert was the founder and then
director of the Keppler Bund, which I mentioned in my reply to Beasley, but he resigned
from that role in 1920. (to be replaced btw by the eugenicist Bernhard Bavink,
author of "Eugenik und Protestantismus" and several other books and papers that argued
that eugenics was morally demanded and consistent with protestant ethics, in addition
to his books against Darwin)
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 10:15:26 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 4:15:26 AM UTC+1, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:35:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 7:30:25 PM UTC+1, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of
National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must
not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it
have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal
party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und
Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3
(1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler
Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his
followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,
who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature,
who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today
must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give
true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be
compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity)
and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of
Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high-
value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des
Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my translation)
Nineteenth Century" by Houston Stewart Chamberlain published in German in 1899. The notion that Darwin's work (or Haeckel's) were the sources of Nazi racism is just creationist spew.<mercy snip>I'll add;
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
You are both not quite right, though Öö Tiib is almost right.Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism believed by Haeckel.
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had
evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective
pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher levels" and so on.
First, "being removed from libraries" is not the same as "banned". You knew when your books were banned under the Nazis, they'd be publicly burned and put on an index. That's not what's happening here. So at best it would be hostility, but not outright ban. Darwin's books were banned by several of Germany's fascist allies, and also remained banned
on those territories once they fell under full Nazi control. Possession
of Darwin's OoS was illegal in Franco's Spain , was banned in
Greece in 1937, under the right-wing, nationalistic and racist Metaxas regime and remained banned also after the Nazis invaded the country. Similarly in Yugoslavia, it was banned in 1935 on pressure of the catholic-fascist Ustashe, and as in Greece it remained banned in the Ustashe
controlled NDH during German occupation.
The Nazis definitely disliked Haeckel and his monism. As a consequence,
they also disliked any "Darwinism with philosophical aspirations," especially when Darwinism was used to argue for materialism:
"We have to reject Haeckel's simplistic assumption that philosophy reached
its pinnacle in the mechanistic solution to the world puzzles through Darwin’s
descent theory.” - so the party official Kurt Hildebrandt in the ,” Zeitschrift für
die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3(1937–1938)
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had
particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
One of their favourite biologists was Wilhelm Troll, who decried Darwinism
as the "crass externality of the English perception of things" and argued
instead for the "rebirth of morphology from the spirit of German science"
Or an early statement in the Weltkampf, IV (1927), the party journal of the
Nazis, that called Darwin the "English disease", and blamed it for political
democracy that "dissolved the organic unity of man" and was incompatible
with the idea of an undivided racial identity."
So materialism is the meaning of "primitive" Darwinism here, not Lamarckism.
They also disliked Lamarck, that's true, but for different reasons, and that
discussion was in a different context.
Individual Darwinists were at risk, but typically only if they directly attacked
the Nazi pseudoscience. A typical example is Hugo Iltis (saved by Albert Einstein,
who facilitated his escape to the US) Iltis is better known as the author of
the first comprehensive biography of Mendel - but there he goes out of his way
to depict Mendel as Darwinian at heart. He then attacked on scientific grounds
the Nazi conception of race, the "racial-metaphysical nexus" and "race mysticism"
as he called it, on both Mendelian and Darwinian grounds.
(cf e.g. Varshizky, Amit. 2019. “The Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and
Religion.” Central European History 52, no. 02 (June): 252–88.
But there were also Darwinians on the side of the Nazis, and as long as they
stuck to the science they were left in peace, though it arguably did not
help with a career. Gerhard Heberer is one of the most high profile examples -
he got indeed fired for teaching Darwin, but that was because his catholic
students complained. Himmler then managed to give him a position in his
own ministry. Walter Zimmermann and Herman Rensch were others - they all contributed to Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen, which was meant
to be the rallying point for Darwinists in Nazi Germany.
Now this book does read like a "Darwin apologetic" in the sense that they
spend a lot of time to show that Darwin is not a problem for Nazism
- they "explain away" all the problems Nazism has with
Darwinism, In parts, that involves fiddling with the data - they reject in particular the "out of
Africa" idea and try to argue that homo sapiens either comes from Europe, or (second best) Asia.
Or when "admitting" that cross-breeding is an important evolutionary mechanism, and also applies to humans, but but but...."one should not infer from that that today,interbreeding between races were not harmful."
They discuss extensively e.g. an older paper by Holler, who had argued that Darwinism
was incompatible with Nazism because „Nach ihr [the theory of evolution]
haben wir kein Recht, die Juden zu bekämpfen, denn sie sind längst durch
Anpassung Germanen geworden. Die Amerikaner sind uns nicht mehr stamm-verwandt, denn sie sind Indianer geworden" ("According to this theory,
we have no right to fight the Jews, because they have adapted a long time
ago to their German environment, just as the Americans are not any longer
related ot us but have become Indians").
So no, the Nazis did not ban evolutionary studies, which went one unimpededThe Nazi book purge in 1935 went well beyond Darwin, and Haeckel.
and could publish. They just did not particularly promote them, and could be
overall a career obstacle in the sense that biology chairs went preferentially to
people more attuned to their "holism".They also persecuted individual Darwinists ,
but typically onlt when these ventured into "philosophical" territory.
The German race theories were opposed to Darwin even before the Nazis. See, for example, anti-Darwinists like Hitler's mentor Houston Stewart Chamberlain (particularly chapter 6 of vol. II of his book Immanuel Kant (1905), and "Foundations of theTake a look at E. Dennert's "At the Deathbed of Darwinism" German 1904 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21019I'm not sure what you think this shows? It is from 1904 (German original from 1903)
, so three decades before the Nazis came to power. Dennert was the founder and then
director of the Keppler Bund, which I mentioned in my reply to Beasley, but he resigned
from that role in 1920. (to be replaced btw by the eugenicist Bernhard Bavink,
author of "Eugenik und Protestantismus" and several other books and papers that argued
that eugenics was morally demanded and consistent with protestant ethics, in addition
to his books against Darwin)
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 10:20:27 AM UTC-7, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 10:15:26 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 4:15:26 AM UTC+1, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:35:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 7:30:25 PM UTC+1, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of
National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must
not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it
have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal
party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the
teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und
Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3
(1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler
Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his
followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,
who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature,
who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today
must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give
true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be
compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity)
and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of
Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of
disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high-
value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des
Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my translation)
Nineteenth Century" by Houston Stewart Chamberlain published in German in 1899. The notion that Darwin's work (or Haeckel's) were the sources of Nazi racism is just creationist spew.<mercy snip>I'll add;
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example; Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
You are both not quite right, though Öö Tiib is almost right.Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism
believed by Haeckel.
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and
SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had
evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective
pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher levels" and so on.
First, "being removed from libraries" is not the same as "banned". You
knew when your books were banned under the Nazis, they'd be publicly burned and put on an index. That's not what's happening here. So at best it would be hostility, but not outright ban. Darwin's books were
banned by several of Germany's fascist allies, and also remained banned
on those territories once they fell under full Nazi control. Possession
of Darwin's OoS was illegal in Franco's Spain , was banned in
Greece in 1937, under the right-wing, nationalistic and racist Metaxas
regime and remained banned also after the Nazis invaded the country. Similarly in Yugoslavia, it was banned in 1935 on pressure of the catholic-fascist Ustashe, and as in Greece it remained banned in the Ustashe
controlled NDH during German occupation.
The Nazis definitely disliked Haeckel and his monism. As a consequence,
they also disliked any "Darwinism with philosophical aspirations," especially when Darwinism was used to argue for materialism:
"We have to reject Haeckel's simplistic assumption that philosophy reached
its pinnacle in the mechanistic solution to the world puzzles through Darwin’s
descent theory.” - so the party official Kurt Hildebrandt in the ,” Zeitschrift für
die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3(1937–1938)
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had
particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
One of their favourite biologists was Wilhelm Troll, who decried Darwinism
as the "crass externality of the English perception of things" and argued
instead for the "rebirth of morphology from the spirit of German science"
Or an early statement in the Weltkampf, IV (1927), the party journal of the
Nazis, that called Darwin the "English disease", and blamed it for political
democracy that "dissolved the organic unity of man" and was incompatible
with the idea of an undivided racial identity."
So materialism is the meaning of "primitive" Darwinism here, not Lamarckism.
They also disliked Lamarck, that's true, but for different reasons, and that
discussion was in a different context.
Individual Darwinists were at risk, but typically only if they directly attacked
the Nazi pseudoscience. A typical example is Hugo Iltis (saved by Albert Einstein,
who facilitated his escape to the US) Iltis is better known as the author of
the first comprehensive biography of Mendel - but there he goes out of his way
to depict Mendel as Darwinian at heart. He then attacked on scientific grounds
the Nazi conception of race, the "racial-metaphysical nexus" and "race mysticism"
as he called it, on both Mendelian and Darwinian grounds.
(cf e.g. Varshizky, Amit. 2019. “The Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and
Religion.” Central European History 52, no. 02 (June): 252–88.
But there were also Darwinians on the side of the Nazis, and as long as they
stuck to the science they were left in peace, though it arguably did not
help with a career. Gerhard Heberer is one of the most high profile examples -
he got indeed fired for teaching Darwin, but that was because his catholic
students complained. Himmler then managed to give him a position in his
own ministry. Walter Zimmermann and Herman Rensch were others - they all contributed to Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen, which was meant
to be the rallying point for Darwinists in Nazi Germany.
Now this book does read like a "Darwin apologetic" in the sense that they
spend a lot of time to show that Darwin is not a problem for Nazism - they "explain away" all the problems Nazism has with
Darwinism, In parts, that involves fiddling with the data - they reject in particular the "out of
Africa" idea and try to argue that homo sapiens either comes from Europe, or (second best) Asia.
Or when "admitting" that cross-breeding is an important evolutionary mechanism, and also applies to humans, but but but...."one should not
infer from that that today,interbreeding between races were not harmful."
They discuss extensively e.g. an older paper by Holler, who had argued that Darwinism
was incompatible with Nazism because „Nach ihr [the theory of evolution]
haben wir kein Recht, die Juden zu bekämpfen, denn sie sind längst durch
Anpassung Germanen geworden. Die Amerikaner sind uns nicht mehr stamm-verwandt, denn sie sind Indianer geworden" ("According to this theory,
we have no right to fight the Jews, because they have adapted a long time
ago to their German environment, just as the Americans are not any longer
related ot us but have become Indians").
So no, the Nazis did not ban evolutionary studies, which went one unimpededThe Nazi book purge in 1935 went well beyond Darwin, and Haeckel.
and could publish. They just did not particularly promote them, and could be
overall a career obstacle in the sense that biology chairs went preferentially to
people more attuned to their "holism".They also persecuted individual Darwinists ,
but typically onlt when these ventured into "philosophical" territory.
The German race theories were opposed to Darwin even before the Nazis. See, for example, anti-Darwinists like Hitler's mentor Houston Stewart Chamberlain (particularly chapter 6 of vol. II of his book Immanuel Kant (1905), and "Foundations of theTake a look at E. Dennert's "At the Deathbed of Darwinism" German 1904 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21019I'm not sure what you think this shows? It is from 1904 (German original from 1903)
, so three decades before the Nazis came to power. Dennert was the founder and then
director of the Keppler Bund, which I mentioned in my reply to Beasley, but he resigned
from that role in 1920. (to be replaced btw by the eugenicist Bernhard Bavink,
author of "Eugenik und Protestantismus" and several other books and papers that argued
that eugenics was morally demanded and consistent with protestant ethics, in addition
to his books against Darwin)
"Though he abandoned Darwinism later because of its materialistic implications, he explicitly argued in his most famous book, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, that Darwin had hit upon two ideas central to racial theory: the struggle for existence,and selection through breeding."
"it should be clear that social Darwinism is a form of Darwinism, even if now most Darwinists think it is a misapplication of Darwinism"
https://www.discovery.org/a/6691/
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 10:20:27?AM UTC-7, Gary Hurd wrote:Nineteenth Century" by Houston Stewart Chamberlain published in German in 1899. The notion that Darwin's work (or Haeckel's) were the sources of Nazi racism is just creationist spew.
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 10:15:26?PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 4:15:26?AM UTC+1, Gary Hurd wrote:The German race theories were opposed to Darwin even before the Nazis. See, for example, anti-Darwinists like Hitler's mentor Houston Stewart Chamberlain (particularly chapter 6 of vol. II of his book Immanuel Kant (1905), and "Foundations of the
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:35:25?PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:I'm not sure what you think this shows? It is from 1904 (German original from 1903)
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 7:30:25?PM UTC+1, Öö Tiib wrote:The Nazi book purge in 1935 went well beyond Darwin, and Haeckel.
On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote:You are both not quite right, though Öö Tiib is almost right.
On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25?PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote: >> > > > > >Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,I'll add;
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of
National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must
not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it
have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal
party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the >> > > > > > > teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und
Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3
(1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler
Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his
followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,
who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature,
who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today
must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give
true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be
compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a >> > > > > > > synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity)
and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of
Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of
disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high-
value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des
Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my
translation)
<mercy snip>
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism >> > > > > believed by Haeckel.
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and >> > > > > SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had
evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various >> > > > > racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective
pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher >> > > > > levels" and so on.
First, "being removed from libraries" is not the same as "banned". You
knew when your books were banned under the Nazis, they'd be publicly >> > > > burned and put on an index. That's not what's happening here. So at >> > > > best it would be hostility, but not outright ban. Darwin's books were >> > > > banned by several of Germany's fascist allies, and also remained banned
on those territories once they fell under full Nazi control. Possession
of Darwin's OoS was illegal in Franco's Spain , was banned in
Greece in 1937, under the right-wing, nationalistic and racist Metaxas
regime and remained banned also after the Nazis invaded the country. >> > > > Similarly in Yugoslavia, it was banned in 1935 on pressure of the
catholic-fascist Ustashe, and as in Greece it remained banned in the Ustashe
controlled NDH during German occupation.
The Nazis definitely disliked Haeckel and his monism. As a consequence,
they also disliked any "Darwinism with philosophical aspirations,"
especially when Darwinism was used to argue for materialism:
"We have to reject Haeckel's simplistic assumption that philosophy reached
its pinnacle in the mechanistic solution to the world puzzles through Darwin’s
descent theory.” - so the party official Kurt Hildebrandt in the ,” Zeitschrift für
die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3(1937–1938)
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had
particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
One of their favourite biologists was Wilhelm Troll, who decried Darwinism
as the "crass externality of the English perception of things" and argued
instead for the "rebirth of morphology from the spirit of German science"
Or an early statement in the Weltkampf, IV (1927), the party journal of the
Nazis, that called Darwin the "English disease", and blamed it for political
democracy that "dissolved the organic unity of man" and was incompatible
with the idea of an undivided racial identity."
So materialism is the meaning of "primitive" Darwinism here, not Lamarckism.
They also disliked Lamarck, that's true, but for different reasons, and that
discussion was in a different context.
Individual Darwinists were at risk, but typically only if they directly attacked
the Nazi pseudoscience. A typical example is Hugo Iltis (saved by Albert Einstein,
who facilitated his escape to the US) Iltis is better known as the author of
the first comprehensive biography of Mendel - but there he goes out of his way
to depict Mendel as Darwinian at heart. He then attacked on scientific grounds
the Nazi conception of race, the "racial-metaphysical nexus" and "race mysticism"
as he called it, on both Mendelian and Darwinian grounds.
(cf e.g. Varshizky, Amit. 2019. “The Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and
Religion.” Central European History 52, no. 02 (June): 252–88.
But there were also Darwinians on the side of the Nazis, and as long as they
stuck to the science they were left in peace, though it arguably did not
help with a career. Gerhard Heberer is one of the most high profile examples -
he got indeed fired for teaching Darwin, but that was because his catholic
students complained. Himmler then managed to give him a position in his
own ministry. Walter Zimmermann and Herman Rensch were others - they >> > > > all contributed to Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen, which was meant
to be the rallying point for Darwinists in Nazi Germany.
Now this book does read like a "Darwin apologetic" in the sense that they
spend a lot of time to show that Darwin is not a problem for Nazism >> > > > - they "explain away" all the problems Nazism has with
Darwinism, In parts, that involves fiddling with the data - they reject in particular the "out of
Africa" idea and try to argue that homo sapiens either comes from
Europe, or (second best) Asia.
Or when "admitting" that cross-breeding is an important evolutionary >> > > > mechanism, and also applies to humans, but but but...."one should not >> > > > infer from that that today,interbreeding between races were not harmful."
They discuss extensively e.g. an older paper by Holler, who had argued that Darwinism
was incompatible with Nazism because „Nach ihr [the theory of evolution]
haben wir kein Recht, die Juden zu beka?mpfen, denn sie sind la?ngst durch
Anpassung Germanen geworden. Die Amerikaner sind uns nicht mehr
stamm-verwandt, denn sie sind Indianer geworden" ("According to this theory,
we have no right to fight the Jews, because they have adapted a long time
ago to their German environment, just as the Americans are not any longer
related ot us but have become Indians").
So no, the Nazis did not ban evolutionary studies, which went one unimpeded
and could publish. They just did not particularly promote them, and could be
overall a career obstacle in the sense that biology chairs went preferentially to
people more attuned to their "holism".They also persecuted individual Darwinists ,
but typically onlt when these ventured into "philosophical" territory.
Take a look at E. Dennert's "At the Deathbed of Darwinism" German 1904 >> > > http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21019
, so three decades before the Nazis came to power. Dennert was the founder and then
director of the Keppler Bund, which I mentioned in my reply to Beasley, but he resigned
from that role in 1920. (to be replaced btw by the eugenicist Bernhard Bavink,
author of "Eugenik und Protestantismus" and several other books and papers that argued
that eugenics was morally demanded and consistent with protestant ethics, in addition
to his books against Darwin)
"Though he abandoned Darwinism later because of its materialistic implications, he explicitly argued in his most famous book, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, that Darwin had hit upon two ideas central to racial theory: the struggle for existence,and selection through breeding."
"it should be clear that social Darwinism is a form of Darwinism, even if now most Darwinists think it is a misapplication of Darwinism"
https://www.discovery.org/a/6691/
On Wednesday, 6 September 2023 at 16:00:28 UTC+3, Glenn wrote:
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 10:20:27 AM UTC-7, Gary Hurd wrote:> >Evil people have done their nasty stuff using prejudiced understanding of religious texts and constructing their political pseudosciences for centuries.
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 10:15:26 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:> > >
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 4:15:26 AM UTC+1, Gary Hurd wrote:> >
wrote:> > > > > > On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, GaryOn Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:35:25 PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:>
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 7:30:25 PM UTC+1, Öö Tiib
Hurd wrote:> > > > > > > On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25 PM
UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:> > > > > > >> > > > > > > > Häckel's monists
were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,> > > >
university post and> > > > > > > > then arrested, he spend the nextits then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his
years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")> > > > > > > > without
trial.> > > > > > > > ....> > > > > > > > ....> > > > > > > > Günther
Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly
Department for> > > > > > > > Race Policies wrote:> > > > > > > >> > >
representatives must> > > > > > > > not only reject a part of thephilosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view"The common position of materialistic monism is> > > > > > >
National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its
Haeckelian conception—other parts of it> > > > > > > > have
occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal> > > > >
“Biologie und> > > > > > > > Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die >> Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3> > > > > > > > (1937–1938): 280–90, atparty dispute that involves the particulars of research and the>
teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht,
285.> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > > This Journal was at the time the
“Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural> > > > > > > > Science of the
Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there> > > > > > > >
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum> > > > > >
muscles, the "Keppler> > > > > > > > Bund", a group which had as itsThe Nazis did actively support, with money and
sole aim attacking Haeckel and his> > > > > > > > followers from a
Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,> > > > > > > > who
had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):> > > >
their German nature,> > > > > > > > who have realised that the type of„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of
world view that is needed today> > > > > > > > must not just encompass
recognition of the real world, and a to give> > > > > > > > true credit
to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be> > > > > > > >
compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a> > > > >
(Christianity)> > > > > > > > and German character […].“ It issynthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion
therefore not a violation of> > > > > > > > Christian doctrine if we
learn in future to prevent the birth of> > > > > > > > disabled people,
and to support the increased procreation of high-> > > > > > > > value
bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des> > > > > > > > >> Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my> > > > > >
snip>> > > > > > > I'll add;> > > > > > > The NAZI banned alltranslation)> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > > <mercy
evolutionary studies. For example;> > > > > > > Guidelines from Die
Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279> > > > > > > Die Bucherei, the official
Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection
evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications"
(saüberung).> > > > > > > 6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und
lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche
naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und
Monismus ist (Häckel).> > > > > > >> > > > > > > Guidelines from Die
Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279> > > > > > > 6. Writings of a philosophical
and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific
enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).> > > > > >
Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They>
Monism> > > > > > believed by Haeckel.> > > > > > Human evolution wasrejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and
part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and> > > > > > SS
anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had> > >
various> > > > > > racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitiveevolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their
Darwinism". Selective> > > > > > pressure from "Ice Ages" had made
Nordic Race to evolve to "higher> > > > > > levels" and so on.> > > > >
You are both not quite right, though Öö Tiib is almost right.> > > > >>
"banned". You> > > > > knew when your books were banned under theFirst, "being removed from libraries" is not the same as
Nazis, they'd be publicly> > > > > burned and put on an index. That's
not what's happening here. So at> > > > > best it would be hostility,
but not outright ban. Darwin's books were> > > > > banned by several of
Germany's fascist allies, and also remained banned> > > > > on those
territories once they fell under full Nazi control. Possession> > > > >
of Darwin's OoS was illegal in Franco's Spain , was banned in> > > > >
Greece in 1937, under the right-wing, nationalistic and racist Metaxas>
country.> > > > > Similarly in Yugoslavia, it was banned in 1935 onregime and remained banned also after the Nazis invaded the
pressure of the> > > > > catholic-fascist Ustashe, and as in Greece it
remained banned in the Ustashe> > > > > controlled NDH during German
occupation.> > > > >> > > > > The Nazis definitely disliked Haeckel and
his monism. As a consequence,> > > > > they also disliked any
"Darwinism with philosophical aspirations,"> > > > > especially when
Darwinism was used to argue for materialism:> > > > >> > > > > "We have
to reject Haeckel's simplistic assumption that philosophy reached> > >
through Darwin’s> > > > > descent theory.” - so the party official Kurt >> Hildebrandt in the ,” Zeitschrift für> > > > > die Gesamteits pinnacle in the mechanistic solution to the world puzzles
Naturwissenschaft 3(1937–1938)> > > > > This Journal was at the time
the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural> > > > > Science of the
Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had> > > > >
particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum> > > > > One
of their favourite biologists was Wilhelm Troll, who decried Darwinism>
and argued> > > > > instead for the "rebirth of morphology from theas the "crass externality of the English perception of things"
spirit of German science"> > > > >> > > > > Or an early statement in
the Weltkampf, IV (1927), the party journal of the> > > > > Nazis, that
called Darwin the "English disease", and blamed it for political> > > >
democracy that "dissolved the organic unity of man" and wasincompatible> > > > > with the idea of an undivided racial identity.">
here, not Lamarckism.> > > > > They also disliked Lamarck, that's true,So materialism is the meaning of "primitive" Darwinism
but for different reasons, and that> > > > > discussion was in a
different context.> > > > >> > > > > Individual Darwinists were at
risk, but typically only if they directly attacked> > > > > the Nazi
pseudoscience. A typical example is Hugo Iltis (saved by Albert
Einstein,> > > > > who facilitated his escape to the US) Iltis is
better known as the author of> > > > > the first comprehensive
biography of Mendel - but there he goes out of his way> > > > > to
depict Mendel as Darwinian at heart. He then attacked on scientific
grounds> > > > > the Nazi conception of race, the "racial-metaphysical
nexus" and "race mysticism"> > > > > as he called it, on both Mendelian
and Darwinian grounds.> > > > > (cf e.g. Varshizky, Amit. 2019. “The
Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and> > > > > Religion.” Central
European History 52, no. 02 (June): 252–88.> > > > >> > > > > But there
were also Darwinians on the side of the Nazis, and as long as they> > >
did not> > > > > help with a career. Gerhard Heberer is one of the moststuck to the science they were left in peace, though it arguably
high profile examples -> > > > > he got indeed fired for teaching
Darwin, but that was because his catholic> > > > > students complained.
Himmler then managed to give him a position in his> > > > > own
ministry. Walter Zimmermann and Herman Rensch were others - they> > > >
all contributed to Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen, which wasmeant> > > > > to be the rallying point for Darwinists in Nazi
Germany.> > > > >> > > > > Now this book does read like a "Darwin
apologetic" in the sense that they> > > > > spend a lot of time to show
that Darwin is not a problem for Nazism> > > > > - they "explain away"
all the problems Nazism has with> > > > > Darwinism, In parts, that
involves fiddling with the data - they reject in particular the "out
comes from> > > > > Europe, or (second best) Asia.> > > > >> > > > > OrAfrica" idea and try to argue that homo sapiens either
when "admitting" that cross-breeding is an important evolutionary> > >
were not harmful."> > > > > They discuss extensively e.g. an oldermechanism, and also applies to humans, but but but...."one should
infer from that that today,interbreeding between races
paper by Holler, who had argued that Darwinism> > > > > was
incompatible with Nazism because „Nach ihr [the theory of evolution]> >
längst durch> > > > > Anpassung Germanen geworden. Die Amerikaner sindhaben wir kein Recht, die Juden zu bekämpfen, denn sie sind
uns nicht mehr> > > > > stamm-verwandt, denn sie sind Indianer
geworden" ("According to this theory,> > > > > we have no right to
fight the Jews, because they have adapted a long time> > > > > ago to
their German environment, just as the Americans are not any longer> > >
the Nazis did not ban evolutionary studies, which went one unimpeded> >related ot us but have become Indians").> > > > >> > > > > So no,
and could be> > > > > overall a career obstacle in the sense thatand could publish. They just did not particularly promote them,
biology chairs went preferentially to> > > > > people more attuned to
their "holism".They also persecuted individual Darwinists ,> > > > >
but typically onlt when these ventured into "philosophical" territory.>
Haeckel.> > > >> > > > Take a look at E. Dennert's "At the Deathbed ofThe Nazi book purge in 1935 went well beyond Darwin, and
Darwinism" German 1904> > > > http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21019> > >
I'm not sure what you think this shows? It is from 1904 (German
original from 1903)> > > , so three decades before the Nazis came to
power. Dennert was the founder and then> > > director of the Keppler
Bund, which I mentioned in my reply to Beasley, but he resigned> > >
from that role in 1920. (to be replaced btw by the eugenicist Bernhard
Bavink,> > > author of "Eugenik und Protestantismus" and several other
books and papers that argued> > > that eugenics was morally demanded
and consistent with protestant ethics, in addition> > > to his books
against Darwin)> > The German race theories were opposed to Darwin even
before the Nazis. See, for example, anti-Darwinists like Hitler's
mentor Houston Stewart Chamberlain (particularly chapter 6 of vol. II
of his book Immanuel Kant (1905), and "Foundations of the Nineteenth
Century" by Houston Stewart Chamberlain published in German in 1899.
The notion that Darwin's work (or Haeckel's) were the sources of Nazi
racism is just creationist spew.
"Though he abandoned Darwinism later because of its materialistic
implications, he explicitly argued in his most famous book, Foundations
of the Nineteenth Century, that Darwin had hit upon two ideas central
to racial theory: the struggle for existence, and selection through
breeding.">> "it should be clear that social Darwinism is a form of
Darwinism, even if now most Darwinists think it is a misapplication of
Darwinism">> https://www.discovery.org/a/6691/> >
<genome.gov/about-genomics/educational-resources/timelines/eugenics>It
is not up to some hangman in power to decide who is fit and who is
not.Hitler was deeply religious, just that his religion wasn't
Christianity but
"Jews killed our God".
On 2023-09-06 13:49:25 +0000, Öö Tiib said:
Hitler was deeply religious, just that his religion wasn't
Christianity but
"Jews killed our God".
I was never taught that in the Church of England, and it has always
been clear to me that according the Bible Jesus was killed by the
Romans. Nonetheless, I've certainly met Roman Catholics who believe it.
On Wed, 6 Sep 2023 05:58:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <[email protected]>Nineteenth Century" by Houston Stewart Chamberlain published in German in 1899. The notion that Darwin's work (or Haeckel's) were the sources of Nazi racism is just creationist spew.
wrote:
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 10:20:27?AM UTC-7, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 10:15:26?PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 4:15:26?AM UTC+1, Gary Hurd wrote:The German race theories were opposed to Darwin even before the Nazis. See, for example, anti-Darwinists like Hitler's mentor Houston Stewart Chamberlain (particularly chapter 6 of vol. II of his book Immanuel Kant (1905), and "Foundations of the
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:35:25?PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:I'm not sure what you think this shows? It is from 1904 (German original from 1903)
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 7:30:25?PM UTC+1, Öö Tiib wrote: >> > > > > On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote:The Nazi book purge in 1935 went well beyond Darwin, and Haeckel.
You are both not quite right, though Öö Tiib is almost right.On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25?PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,I'll add;
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of
National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must
not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it
have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal
party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the
teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und
Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3
(1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum >> > > > > > >
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler
Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his
followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,
who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature,
who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today
must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give
true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be
compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a >> > > > > > > synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity)
and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of
Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of
disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high-
value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des
Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my >> > > > > > > translation)
<mercy snip>
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism
believed by Haeckel.
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and
SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had
evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various
racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective
pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher
levels" and so on.
First, "being removed from libraries" is not the same as "banned". You
knew when your books were banned under the Nazis, they'd be publicly
burned and put on an index. That's not what's happening here. So at >> > > > best it would be hostility, but not outright ban. Darwin's books were
banned by several of Germany's fascist allies, and also remained banned
on those territories once they fell under full Nazi control. Possession
of Darwin's OoS was illegal in Franco's Spain , was banned in
Greece in 1937, under the right-wing, nationalistic and racist Metaxas
regime and remained banned also after the Nazis invaded the country.
Similarly in Yugoslavia, it was banned in 1935 on pressure of the >> > > > catholic-fascist Ustashe, and as in Greece it remained banned in the Ustashe
controlled NDH during German occupation.
The Nazis definitely disliked Haeckel and his monism. As a consequence,
they also disliked any "Darwinism with philosophical aspirations," >> > > > especially when Darwinism was used to argue for materialism:
"We have to reject Haeckel's simplistic assumption that philosophy reached
its pinnacle in the mechanistic solution to the world puzzles through Darwin’s
descent theory.” - so the party official Kurt Hildebrandt in the ,” Zeitschrift für
die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3(1937–1938)
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had
particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
One of their favourite biologists was Wilhelm Troll, who decried Darwinism
as the "crass externality of the English perception of things" and argued
instead for the "rebirth of morphology from the spirit of German science"
Or an early statement in the Weltkampf, IV (1927), the party journal of the
Nazis, that called Darwin the "English disease", and blamed it for political
democracy that "dissolved the organic unity of man" and was incompatible
with the idea of an undivided racial identity."
So materialism is the meaning of "primitive" Darwinism here, not Lamarckism.
They also disliked Lamarck, that's true, but for different reasons, and that
discussion was in a different context.
Individual Darwinists were at risk, but typically only if they directly attacked
the Nazi pseudoscience. A typical example is Hugo Iltis (saved by Albert Einstein,
who facilitated his escape to the US) Iltis is better known as the author of
the first comprehensive biography of Mendel - but there he goes out of his way
to depict Mendel as Darwinian at heart. He then attacked on scientific grounds
the Nazi conception of race, the "racial-metaphysical nexus" and "race mysticism"
as he called it, on both Mendelian and Darwinian grounds.
(cf e.g. Varshizky, Amit. 2019. “The Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and
Religion.” Central European History 52, no. 02 (June): 252–88. >> > > >
But there were also Darwinians on the side of the Nazis, and as long as they
stuck to the science they were left in peace, though it arguably did not
help with a career. Gerhard Heberer is one of the most high profile examples -
he got indeed fired for teaching Darwin, but that was because his catholic
students complained. Himmler then managed to give him a position in his
own ministry. Walter Zimmermann and Herman Rensch were others - they
all contributed to Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen, which was meant
to be the rallying point for Darwinists in Nazi Germany.
Now this book does read like a "Darwin apologetic" in the sense that they
spend a lot of time to show that Darwin is not a problem for Nazism >> > > > - they "explain away" all the problems Nazism has with
Darwinism, In parts, that involves fiddling with the data - they reject in particular the "out of
Africa" idea and try to argue that homo sapiens either comes from >> > > > Europe, or (second best) Asia.
Or when "admitting" that cross-breeding is an important evolutionary
mechanism, and also applies to humans, but but but...."one should not
infer from that that today,interbreeding between races were not harmful."
They discuss extensively e.g. an older paper by Holler, who had argued that Darwinism
was incompatible with Nazism because „Nach ihr [the theory of evolution]
haben wir kein Recht, die Juden zu beka?mpfen, denn sie sind la?ngst durch
Anpassung Germanen geworden. Die Amerikaner sind uns nicht mehr
stamm-verwandt, denn sie sind Indianer geworden" ("According to this theory,
we have no right to fight the Jews, because they have adapted a long time
ago to their German environment, just as the Americans are not any longer
related ot us but have become Indians").
So no, the Nazis did not ban evolutionary studies, which went one unimpeded
and could publish. They just did not particularly promote them, and could be
overall a career obstacle in the sense that biology chairs went preferentially to
people more attuned to their "holism".They also persecuted individual Darwinists ,
but typically onlt when these ventured into "philosophical" territory.
Take a look at E. Dennert's "At the Deathbed of Darwinism" German 1904
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21019
, so three decades before the Nazis came to power. Dennert was the founder and then
director of the Keppler Bund, which I mentioned in my reply to Beasley, but he resigned
from that role in 1920. (to be replaced btw by the eugenicist Bernhard Bavink,
author of "Eugenik und Protestantismus" and several other books and papers that argued
that eugenics was morally demanded and consistent with protestant ethics, in addition
to his books against Darwin)
existence, and selection through breeding.""Though he abandoned Darwinism later because of its materialistic implications, he explicitly argued in his most famous book, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, that Darwin had hit upon two ideas central to racial theory: the struggle for
Little known fact: before Darwin's ToE, cattle herders, farmers and shepherd had no idea what they were doing. If a shepherd's dog had a litter bigger than the"it should be clear that social Darwinism is a form of Darwinism, even if now most Darwinists think it is a misapplication of Darwinism"
https://www.discovery.org/a/6691/Darwinism is neither necessary nor sufficient for Hitler and Nazism.
Despots and cultures have suppressed and persecuted "others"
throughout history, even before Darwin or Darwinism. Even the Bible describes God commanding Israelites to slaughter Canaanites, every
man, woman, and child.
--
On Thursday, September 7, 2023 at 1:35:28 PM UTC+1, jillery wrote:Nineteenth Century" by Houston Stewart Chamberlain published in German in 1899. The notion that Darwin's work (or Haeckel's) were the sources of Nazi racism is just creationist spew.
On Wed, 6 Sep 2023 05:58:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <[email protected]>
wrote:
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 10:20:27?AM UTC-7, Gary Hurd wrote:
On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 10:15:26?PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
On Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 4:15:26?AM UTC+1, Gary Hurd wrote: >> > > On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:35:25?PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote: >> > > > On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 7:30:25?PM UTC+1, Öö Tiib wrote:The German race theories were opposed to Darwin even before the Nazis. See, for example, anti-Darwinists like Hitler's mentor Houston Stewart Chamberlain (particularly chapter 6 of vol. II of his book Immanuel Kant (1905), and "Foundations of the
I'm not sure what you think this shows? It is from 1904 (German original from 1903)The Nazi book purge in 1935 went well beyond Darwin, and Haeckel. >> > >On Monday, 4 September 2023 at 20:30:25 UTC+3, Gary Hurd wrote: >> > > > > > On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:15:25?PM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:You are both not quite right, though Öö Tiib is almost right. >> > > >
Nazi did continue teaching evolution in their biology curriculum. They
Häckel's monists were actively prosecuted, his organisation made illegal in 1933,I'll add;
its then leader, Immanuel Herrmann, was dismissed from his university post and
then arrested, he spend the next years in "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody")
without trial.
....
....
Günther Hecht, an official from the NSDAP Rassenpolitischen Amt (roughly Department for
Race Policies wrote:
"The common position of materialistic monism is
philosophically rejected completely by the völkisch-biological view of
National Socialism. [. . .] The party and its representatives must
not only reject a part of the Haeckelian conception—other parts of it
have occasionally been advanced—but, more generally, every internal
party dispute that involves the particulars of research and the
teachings of Haeckel must cease.( Günther Hecht, “Biologie und
Nationalsozialismus,” Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3
(1937–1938): 280–90, at 285.
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there
had particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
The Nazis did actively support, with money and muscles, the "Keppler
Bund", a group which had as its sole aim attacking Haeckel and his
followers from a Christian perspective (very unlike Häckel's monists,
who had many prominent Jewish members, Jews did not need to apply):
„The leadership of the Bund are man conscious of their German nature,
who have realised that the type of world view that is needed today
must not just encompass recognition of the real world, and a to give
true credit to true religious-ethical convictions but also must be
compatible with the German nature. We see salvation only in a
synthesis of these there elements: Realism, religion (Christianity)
and German character […].“ It is therefore not a violation of
Christian doctrine if we learn in future to prevent the birth of
disabled people, and to support the increased procreation of high-
value bloodlines […]“. (Bavink, B. (1928): Zweck und Ziel des
Keplerbundes in der Gegenwart. Unsere Welt 20 (9), p.257, my
translation)
<mercy snip>
The NAZI banned all evolutionary studies. For example;
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
rejected Lamarckism (that was the "primitive Darwinism") and Monism
believed by Haeckel.
Human evolution was part of their propaganda and Nazi officials and
SS anthropologists agreed that humans, including the Nordic race, had
evolved from primates. Of course they did synthesise their various
racist garbage into it to make it "non-primitive Darwinism". Selective
pressure from "Ice Ages" had made Nordic Race to evolve to "higher
levels" and so on.
First, "being removed from libraries" is not the same as "banned". You
knew when your books were banned under the Nazis, they'd be publicly
burned and put on an index. That's not what's happening here. So at
best it would be hostility, but not outright ban. Darwin's books were
banned by several of Germany's fascist allies, and also remained banned
on those territories once they fell under full Nazi control. Possession
of Darwin's OoS was illegal in Franco's Spain , was banned in
Greece in 1937, under the right-wing, nationalistic and racist Metaxas
regime and remained banned also after the Nazis invaded the country.
Similarly in Yugoslavia, it was banned in 1935 on pressure of the >> > > > catholic-fascist Ustashe, and as in Greece it remained banned in the Ustashe
controlled NDH during German occupation.
The Nazis definitely disliked Haeckel and his monism. As a consequence,
they also disliked any "Darwinism with philosophical aspirations,"
especially when Darwinism was used to argue for materialism:
"We have to reject Haeckel's simplistic assumption that philosophy reached
its pinnacle in the mechanistic solution to the world puzzles through Darwin’s
descent theory.” - so the party official Kurt Hildebrandt in the ,” Zeitschrift für
die Gesamte Naturwissenschaft 3(1937–1938)
This Journal was at the time the “Organ of the Reich’s Section Natural
Science of the Reich’s Students Administration", so statements there had
particular impact on teaching and the science curriculum
One of their favourite biologists was Wilhelm Troll, who decried Darwinism
as the "crass externality of the English perception of things" and argued
instead for the "rebirth of morphology from the spirit of German science"
Or an early statement in the Weltkampf, IV (1927), the party journal of the
Nazis, that called Darwin the "English disease", and blamed it for political
democracy that "dissolved the organic unity of man" and was incompatible
with the idea of an undivided racial identity."
So materialism is the meaning of "primitive" Darwinism here, not Lamarckism.
They also disliked Lamarck, that's true, but for different reasons, and that
discussion was in a different context.
Individual Darwinists were at risk, but typically only if they directly attacked
the Nazi pseudoscience. A typical example is Hugo Iltis (saved by Albert Einstein,
who facilitated his escape to the US) Iltis is better known as the author of
the first comprehensive biography of Mendel - but there he goes out of his way
to depict Mendel as Darwinian at heart. He then attacked on scientific grounds
the Nazi conception of race, the "racial-metaphysical nexus" and "race mysticism"
as he called it, on both Mendelian and Darwinian grounds.
(cf e.g. Varshizky, Amit. 2019. “The Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and
Religion.” Central European History 52, no. 02 (June): 252–88.
But there were also Darwinians on the side of the Nazis, and as long as they
stuck to the science they were left in peace, though it arguably did not
help with a career. Gerhard Heberer is one of the most high profile examples -
he got indeed fired for teaching Darwin, but that was because his catholic
students complained. Himmler then managed to give him a position in his
own ministry. Walter Zimmermann and Herman Rensch were others - they
all contributed to Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen, which was meant
to be the rallying point for Darwinists in Nazi Germany.
Now this book does read like a "Darwin apologetic" in the sense that they
spend a lot of time to show that Darwin is not a problem for Nazism
- they "explain away" all the problems Nazism has with
Darwinism, In parts, that involves fiddling with the data - they reject in particular the "out of
Africa" idea and try to argue that homo sapiens either comes from >> > > > Europe, or (second best) Asia.
Or when "admitting" that cross-breeding is an important evolutionary
mechanism, and also applies to humans, but but but...."one should not
infer from that that today,interbreeding between races were not harmful."
They discuss extensively e.g. an older paper by Holler, who had argued that Darwinism
was incompatible with Nazism because „Nach ihr [the theory of evolution]
haben wir kein Recht, die Juden zu beka?mpfen, denn sie sind la?ngst durch
Anpassung Germanen geworden. Die Amerikaner sind uns nicht mehr >> > > > stamm-verwandt, denn sie sind Indianer geworden" ("According to this theory,
we have no right to fight the Jews, because they have adapted a long time
ago to their German environment, just as the Americans are not any longer
related ot us but have become Indians").
So no, the Nazis did not ban evolutionary studies, which went one unimpeded
and could publish. They just did not particularly promote them, and could be
overall a career obstacle in the sense that biology chairs went preferentially to
people more attuned to their "holism".They also persecuted individual Darwinists ,
but typically onlt when these ventured into "philosophical" territory.
Take a look at E. Dennert's "At the Deathbed of Darwinism" German 1904
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21019
, so three decades before the Nazis came to power. Dennert was the founder and then
director of the Keppler Bund, which I mentioned in my reply to Beasley, but he resigned
from that role in 1920. (to be replaced btw by the eugenicist Bernhard Bavink,
author of "Eugenik und Protestantismus" and several other books and papers that argued
that eugenics was morally demanded and consistent with protestant ethics, in addition
to his books against Darwin)
existence, and selection through breeding.""Though he abandoned Darwinism later because of its materialistic implications, he explicitly argued in his most famous book, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, that Darwin had hit upon two ideas central to racial theory: the struggle for
"it should be clear that social Darwinism is a form of Darwinism, even if now most Darwinists think it is a misapplication of Darwinism"
https://www.discovery.org/a/6691/Darwinism is neither necessary nor sufficient for Hitler and Nazism. Despots and cultures have suppressed and persecuted "others"
throughout history, even before Darwin or Darwinism. Even the Bible describes God commanding Israelites to slaughter Canaanites, every
man, woman, and child.
--Little known fact: before Darwin's ToE, cattle herders, farmers and shepherd had no idea what they were doing. If a shepherd's dog had a litter bigger than the
shepherd had use for, he'd just randomly grab a few and drown them - and if the runt of the litter was one that survived, or the one with the congenital limb,
that was just fate.
Same with cattle farmers. They were so worried to be accused of sizeism or thin-phobia that they would never have dreamt to select only their biggest bull with a track record of fathering meat-rich offspring, oh no, they just used the first that came through the gate,
Which is why until the the 1860s, all cattle looked like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs#/media/File:Aurochsfeatures.jpg
and all dogs like this: https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.6Y5x632c-TKgg-3VZ0haGwHaEa&pid=Api
Only after Darwin discovered the role of selection for breeding did this change,
and we quickly got all the breeds we see today. Sometimes you find pictures that "claim" to be 17th or 18th century ladies with lapdogs like this https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DP-1014-001.jpg
but they are all painted by Satan do deceive us/made by the atheist art conspirators
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