From Mein kampf: [censored] on Evolution

Quoted message said:

[moderator's note: I really really don't want to post this, but it's certainly on-topic, and
Robert's pretty insistent, so here goes. Let's not get bogged down in big arguments about the
values of eugenics if possible; those threads are always nasty, and worse, pointless. - JAH]

RKS: I didn't think I was THAT insistent. Anyway, a claification on the Darwin connection that
I made to another group may prempt the protest that [censored]'s Eugenics was not based on
Darwin's theories.

The introduction to the piece was rethought to read: "Eugenic policies took root in European
countries including Germany and England as well as the USA and Australia (The white Australia
policy) and stem in part from Darwin's evolution theories or from corruptions of those theories. Neo-
Lamarkian ideas also played a part in forming ideas of racial inferiority and it was up to
governments to act upon that 'science', or at least that is how it seems to have gone.

Having just read 'Outcasts from Evolution: Scientific Attitudes of Racial Inferiority 1859-1900' by
John S Haller, Jr., a book which dwelled more heavily on scientific ideas in the USA, there were
plenty of academic texts for a racist to draw upon to justify notions of inferiority and the
problems of mixing blood (the general view was that pure white and pure black had their pluses and
minuses, but crosses languished and were more vulnerable to disease etc).

Mixing of the blood and subsequent degeneration of the race was a preoccupation of [censored]'s and the
Nazi party (National Socialist Worker's Party). In the following excerpt, from Mein Kampf, [censored]
outlines his notion of evolution in his flowery prose, drawn largely from the writings of
philosophers and of Heroic Opera (Wagner was his favourite).

This translation of page 121, Chapter 4 'Munich', of the first book 'A Reckoning' of Mein Kampf is
by Ralph Manheim."

and the reply to the Darwin question (including the question) follows:-

----- Original Message ----- From: "Mikey Brass" <[email hidden]> To: <evolutionary-
[email hidden]> Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 11:40 PM Subject: Re: [evol-psych]
Aldolf Hitlers warped View on Evolution

Quoted message said:

At 11:02 08/02/2004 said:

Eugenic policies took root in European countries including Germany and England as well as the USA
and Australia (The white Australia policy) and stem in part from Darwin's evolution theories

Was it really from a corruption of the theory of natural selection or was it from a corrupted form
of Spencer's theory of cultural evolution (the

two

Quoted message said:

are sometimes confused) ? I thought it was the latter.

===========
Best, Mikey Brass MA in Archaeology student "The Antiquity of Man" antiquityofman.comantiquityofman.comOpen ↗
Book: "The Antiquity of Man: Artifactual, fossil and gene records

explored"

RKS: I gave a general introduction to eugenic policies mentioning Darwin, but went on only to
mention 'evolution' with regard to [censored]. His ideas were of an evolution of sorts, where nature
'selects' the fittest to survive by weeding out the weak. [censored] makes the observation that in
nature, more are born than are needed for the maintenance of populations.

He also points out that 'compassionate' politics reverses this by preserving the weak and limiting
birth, in his view the reverse of the nature.

His pronouncement on the mixing of blood may be spencerian (social Darwinism) but his ideas of
evolution come from the writing of the French man of letters Joseph Arthur de Gobineau. In a modern
introduction to his book "Mademoiselle Irnois and Other Stories" we read: "The simplest way to
characterize Gobineau is by the prefix anti. He was antirepublican, anticolonialist,
antiprogressive, and antievolutionist in the century of democratization, imperialist expansion,
technical progress, and Darwinism. As a student, he was judged impertinent and expelled from school.
As a writer, he offended even some of his strongest supporters (Tocqueville, for one) with the
somber anti-Christian determinism of Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines , irked such veteran
orientalists as Botta, Pott, and Mohl with his eccentric explanation of the cuneiforms, and ranted
in vain against evolutionists as entrenched as Lyell, Oppert, and even Darwin. But he felt an equal
contempt for the "so outrageously ignorant and inept" good Catholics."

and further on we read

"It is true that after 1890 awkward attempts by the Gobineau Vereinigung (a group of Gobinolators
headed by Ludwig Schemann) to salvage his reputation in Germany succeeded in making La Renaissance
and Nouvelles asiatiques better known. And when Wilhelm II mounted the throne in 1890, German neo-
Nationalists and expansionists exhumed the Essai from thirty-five years of obscurity and claimed to
find in it a theoretical justification for their will to power. But Gobineau was dead by then and,
alas, could not protest the astonishing twists given his ideas. It is also true that around the turn
of the century, when anti-Semitism grew in Western Europe, it found an excuse in Gobineau's
sentimental and mythical vision of the original Aryans, even though that vision had as many
practical implications for its author as the Golden Age might have had for Ovid. Indeed, Gobineau
twice referred to his projection of the distant future as a "divination."

This Book is available Online at ark.cdlib.orgft2w1004x8Open ↗

The connection to de Gobineau can be found in 'Health, Race and German Politics between National
Unification and Nazism 1870-1945' by Paul Weindling, Cambridge 1993 (cited in '[censored]'s Scientists:
Science, war and the Devil's Pact' by John Cornwell, Viking, 2003).

The Mein Kampf excerpt represents the culmination of his ideas drawn from several sources. It is
not, at least at first, obvious as to the flaw in his logic. If natural selection works by selecting
the fittest from an over abundant stock of new born examples, how can it be right to reverse this by
reducing the number of newborn and preserving even the unfittest? Little wonder that Francis Galton
and others ran with the 'natural' form that became eugenics.

Others, such as Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and his American disciple John Fiske (1842-1901) asked
about the mixing of blood and subsequent outcomes of the black-white mix. They determined that there
were noble qualities in both black and white, with white being better suited to cerebral pursuits
and the black better at labouring and strength related pursuits. But the 'hybrid', they believed,
though more intelligent than the pure black, was generally weaker and less adapted, and a burden to
both black and white societies. Thus they thought the cross 'weakened the blood'.

This was very much [censored]'s thinking with regard to the 'Aryan' race that should be kept pure.
The Teutonic Aryan mythology was drawn from a number of sources including de Gobineau and
Wagner's Operas.

Nowhere else in Mein Kampf does [censored] point out his 'evolutionary' thinking as clearly as in the
passage quoted, but he does go on and on and on about 'blood' - the mixing of it, degrading of it
etc etc etc.

Kind Regards, Robert Karl Stonjek.

"Robert Karl Stonjek" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Many people have a vague notion that the Nazis used a warped notion of Darwin's evolution theory
in their Eugenic policies.

[ [censored] ]

Quoted message said:

At the same time the diminution of number strengthens the individual and thus in the last analysis
fortifies the species.

While nature, by making procreation free, yet submitting survival to a >

hard trial, chooses from an excess number of individuals the best as

Quoted message said:

worthy of living, thus preserving them alone and in them conserving their species,

[censored] has understood that natural selection, generally, acts on the individual. However he then
offers a "good of the species" argument for not interfering with evolutionary processes. Usually we
associate a belief in group selection with political liberals, so this is a bit incongruous.

"Evolution is to the social sciences as statues are to birds: a convenient platform upon which to
deposit badly digested ideas."

--Steve Jones. Darwin's Ghost: The Origin of the Species Updated. Ballantine. 2000.

Please forgive the reference to popular literature. I thought the quote was apt.

-DP-

Malcom said:

[censored] has understood that natural selection, generally, acts on the individual. However he then
offers a "good of the species" argument for not interfering with evolutionary processes. Usually we
associate a belief in group selection with political liberals, so this is a bit incongruous.

If that's the case, and I have no reason to dispute your analysis, there must have been an enormous
wave of optimism and progressive thought that must have swept over the world 540-570 mya, just prior
to the "Cambrian Explosion", when individual, free-living cells -- who up to that time had fervently
advocated a "live free or die" stance -- first adopted the radical, if not outrightly socialist
political position of task-partitioned multicellularity as a way to achieve the liberal uptopian
goal of cooperative complexity.

Wirt Atmar

Wirt Atmar said:

Malcom said:

[censored] has understood that natural selection, generally, acts on the individual. However he then
offers a "good of the species" argument for not interfering with evolutionary processes. Usually
we associate a belief in group selection with political liberals, so this is a bit incongruous.

If that's the case, and I have no reason to dispute your analysis, there must have been an
enormous wave of optimism and progressive thought that must have swept over the world 540-570 mya,
just prior to the "Cambrian Explosion", when individual, free-living cells -- who up to that time
had fervently advocated a "live free or die" stance -- first adopted the radical, if not
outrightly socialist political position of task-partitioned multicellularity as a way to achieve
the liberal uptopian goal of cooperative complexity.

Wirt Atmar

But then came World War I (the Permian extinction), and all that progressivism fell prey to
fashionable conservatism.
--
John Wilkins wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not mark it when they miss"
- Francis Bacon

[censored] and Nazi Germany were examples of Darwinian evolution in action. There is no way [censored] could
have come to power and Nazi Germany not done what it did without having a basis in Darwinian
evolution. The next question is this a desirable state of affairs? Is all the horror, pain and death
brought about by Nazi Germany really something we as a species want to emulate? I think the answer
is a resounding "no" for many of us. But that alone won't save us. Because if Nazi Germany was a
product of Darwinian evolution than it is very likely something like it can happen again. Human
beings haven't changed in 10,000 years and Nazi Germany happened less than seventy years ago.
Despite the fact many of us don't want to emulate Nazi Germany as a model of evolution the forces of
Darwinian evolution won't listen and will proceed on their own accord. Are human beings
compassionate and caring? Of course not. And this is because of Darwinian evolution.

The ONLY solution is genetic engineering..specifically eliminating aggression. Aggression was once
necesary and useful for our survival when there were predators and it was imprinted on our DNA by
Darwinian evolution. It is no longer adaptable. The real horror is that genetic engineering is in
its infancy and there is high likihood the human species will once again blast forth in aggression
before science has advanced to the point we can eliminate this trait.

As Hawking stated, "We won't change much in the next 100 years. I stated this to a friend of mine
and he quipped, "That's a conservative estimate".

Michael Ragland

[moderator's note: I really really don't want to post this, but it's certainly on-topic, and
Robert's pretty insistent, so here goes. Let's not get bogged down in big arguments about the values
of eugenics if possible; those threads are always nasty, and worse, pointless. - JAH] Many people
have a vague notion that the Nazis used a warped notion of Darwin's evolution theory in their
Eugenic policies. Here is Adolf [censored]'s own words, from Mein Kampf (translated by Ralph Manheim),
first book 'A Reckoning', Chapter 4 'Munich', page 121 of the aforementioned translation: " Nature
herself in times of great poverty or bad climactic conditions, as well as poor harvest, intervenes
to restrict the increase of population of certain countries or races; this, to be sure, by a method
as wise a sit is ruthless. She diminishes, not the power of procreation as such, but the
conservation of the procreated, by exposing them to hard trials and deprivations with the result
that all those who are less strong and less healthy are forced back into the womb of the eternal
unknown. Those whom she permits to survive the inclemency of existence are a thousandfold tested
hardened, and well adapted to procreate-in turn, in order that the process of thoroughgoing
selection may begin again from the beginning. By thus brutally proceeding against the individual and
immediately calling him back to herself as soon as he shows himself unequal to the storm of life,
she keeps the race and species strong, in fact, raises them to the highest accomplishments. At the
same time the diminution of number strengthens the individual and thus in the last analysis
fortifies the species. It is different, however, when man undertakes the limitation of his number.
He is not carved of the same wood, he is 'humane'. He knows better than the cruel queen of wisdom.
He limits not the conservation of the individual, but procreation itself. This seems to him, who
always sees himself and never the race, more human and more justified than the opposite way.
Unfortunately, however, the consequences are the reverse: While nature, by making procreation free,
yet submitting survival to a hard trial, chooses from an excess number of individuals the best as
worthy of living, thus preserving them alone and in them conserving their species, man limits
procreation, but is hysterically concerned that once born it should be preserved at any price. This
correction of the divine will seems to him as wise as it is humane, and he takes delight in having
once again got the best of Nature and even having proved her inadequacy. The number, to be sure, has
really been limited, but at the same time the value of the individual has diminished; this, however,
is something the dear little ape of the Almighty does not want to see or hear about. For as soon as
procreation as such is limited and the number of births diminished, the natural struggle for
existence which leaves only the strongest and healthiest alive is obviously replaced by the obvious
desire to 'save' even the weakest and most sickly at any price, and this plants the seed of a future
generation which must inevitably grow more and more deplorable the longer this mockery of Nature and
her will continues. " A translation of this text can also be found at
stormfront.orgmkv1ch04.htmlOpen ↗ Posted by Robert Karl Stonjek

Malcom writes: [censored] has understood that natural selection, generally, acts on the individual.
However he then offers a "good of the species" argument for not interfering with evolutionary
processes. Usually we associate a belief in group selection with political liberals, so this is a
bit incongruous.

Wirt Atmar: If that's the case, and I have no reason to dispute your analysis, there must have been
an enormous wave of optimism and progressive thought that must have swept over the world 540-570
mya, just prior to the "Cambrian Explosion", when individual, free-living cells -- who up to that
time had fervently advocated a "live free or die" stance -- first adopted the radical, if not
outrightly socialist political position of task-partitioned multicellularity as a way to achieve the
liberal uptopian goal of cooperative complexity.

_____________________________________

See what happens when I leave this newsgroup for a little while and come back! A discussion started
by Mr. Stonjek regarding [censored]'s ideas on evolution. It is to bitterly laugh. So what's your point
Mr. Atmar. Is it that [censored]'s belief in natural selection acts on the individual doesn't contradict
group selection is consistent with free living cells being task partitioned to multicellularity?
That's the impression I get by your sarcastic reply to Malcom.

Tell me Mr. Atmar are you a fan of [censored]'s? I know it is foolish to expect you to openly admit such
on here but just for the heck of it I'm asking you. Many people do sympathize with [censored]'s views
either directly or indirectly. Whatever your answer is I'd be curious to hear you explain it. My
impression having seen many of your posts is that you do sympathize with [censored]'s ideas regarding
"evolution". I don't.

As I've repeated before the human species can't wait for Darwinian evolution to catch up. We will
have to use genetic engineering. If you want to continue to praise the "monkey" you are entitled
to..but for those who want to accelerate our evolution we can't depend on Darwinian evolution.

Michael Ragland

<< If that's the case, and I have no reason to dispute your analysis, there must have been an
enormous wave of optimism and progressive thought that must have swept over the world 540-570 mya,
just prior to the "Cambrian Explosion", when individual, free-living cells -- who up to that time
had fervently advocated a "live free or die" stance -- first adopted the radical, if not outrightly
socialist political position of task-partitioned multicellularity as a way to achieve the liberal
uptopian goal of cooperative complexity.

Wirt Atmar

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Wirt has added the other half of the equation. Along with the fight or flight behavior, there is the
tend and befriend behavior. But that comes only after social behavior evolved.

In early bio, we had no social behavior so it was more likely competition vs symbiosis.

Each of these strategies had advantages, each had disadvantages. Both were strategies to survive.
And both evolved to their counterpoint social behaviors of competing independence vs cooperating
symbiosis. But that was much much later.

Wirt is very eloquent and witty in his response, and even suggests a connection between the two sets
( early bio symbiosis and competition / later social symbiosis and social independent competition)
though perhaps its not intended. Fun stuff.

Tom

"Robert Karl Stonjek" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Many people have a vague notion that the Nazis used a warped notion of Darwin's evolution theory
in their Eugenic policies. Here is Adolf [censored]'s own words, from Mein Kampf (translated by Ralph
Manheim), first book 'A Reckoning', Chapter 4 'Munich', page 121 of the aforementioned
translation:

Quoted message said:

For as soon as procreation as such is limited and the number of births diminished, the natural
struggle for existence which leaves only the strongest and healthiest alive is obviously replaced
by the obvious desire to 'save' even the weakest and most sickly at any price, and this plants the
seed of a future generation which must inevitably grow more and more deplorable the longer this
mockery of Nature and her will continues. "

But in that case, if [censored] was trying to improve Germans Not of Jewish Descent (GNJD's), he should
obviously have been killing off weaker GNJD's (say by sending GNJD's to camps and forcing them to
work as slaves with inadequate food and water), meanwhile attempting to coddle Germans of Jewish
descent by spending huge sums of money in health care to save the weakest and most sickly so that
they would grow "deplorable". Why he failed to advocate and pursue a policy in keeping with his
views on evolution we will never know.

Enough irony. With luck we will learn from and long regret [censored] and his ilk.

Yours,

Bill Morse

Wirt Atmar said:

Malcom said:

[censored] has understood that natural selection, generally, acts on the individual. However he then
offers a "good of the species" argument for not interfering with evolutionary processes. Usually
we associate a belief in group selection with political liberals, so this is a bit incongruous.

If that's the case, and I have no reason to dispute your analysis, there must have been an
enormous wave of optimism and progressive thought that must have swept over the world 540-570 mya,
just prior to the "Cambrian Explosion", when individual, free-living cells -- who up to that time
had fervently advocated a "live free or die" stance -- first adopted the radical, if not
outrightly socialist political position of task-partitioned multicellularity as a way to achieve
the liberal uptopian goal of cooperative complexity.

Quite true. Although one of the unintended side effects was a holocaust, the mass genocide and
extinctions caused by the fallout from the Cambrian explosion.

Bob

--
Bob O'Hara

Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5) FIN-00014 University of Helsinki Finland Telephone: +358-9-191 23743
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540 Fax: +358-9-191 22 779 WWW: rni.helsinki.fi~bohOpen ↗

My solution to [censored]'s observations may differ from some, but here goes...

[censored] observes, as others had been doing so before him, that nature provides far more live births
than is required to sustain the population. The inclement conditions restrict the number of
survivors so reducing their number.

instance 80% of male Elephant Seals miss out (why the sales of inflatable rubber Elephant Seal cows
has never taken off is quite beyond me).

[censored] then notes that we humans seem to have turned this on its head, limiting birth numbers and
preserving more of the live births to maturity and beyond.

Is the evolutionary dynamic this simple? Hardly!!

Firstly, the best adapted are not the only one that survive. There is plenty of variation within
population and the degree of adaptation varies (and so to the success of those individuals). Those
clone populations (where males have died out) are rigid and unable to adapt to a changing
environment - they survive as long as no unfavourable change in the environment occurs.

Each animal, in adapting to an environment, changes the environment it is adapting to. It is not a
simple interaction between animal A and 'the environment'. Animal B sees the environment as
including animal A, thus any adaptation by A changes the environment that B is trying to adapt to,
and animal A then sees a slightly different environment (as B changes to suit the new dynamic). Thus
the process never ends.

These changes may seem subtle for remotely related (by behaviour eg predator and prey etc) animals,
but in any ecosystem there are many animals all adapting at the same time. An animal can't arrive at
a new territory to which, on paper, it is already maximally adapted and expect not to have to
change. Because when that animal enters that new environment, that environment changes from what may
have been observed previously. Never was this more obvious than the world dynamic that is changing
in response to the human population explosion.

But change takes time. We know how slow evolution is. If animals had to rely on favourable mutations
to occur before adaptation could take place then we would all become extinct within a century or
two, perhaps humans clinging on through technological cleverness for a bit longer.

The trick, for all populations of animals, is to carry forward as many variations as possible so
that regardless of the subtle change in environment, there is a variation ready to exploit it. This
is very true of, say, the fruit fly, that can keep a population of a mutants that act almost like an
'evolutionary eye' that can spot allopathic and sympatric opportunities, but, more importantly, can
sense change in the environment and so change the nature of the colony within a generation or two -
by becoming the dominant form.

Humans need also to do this, but the dynamic is not immediately obvious. I wonder, though, just how
many of the computer nerds who brought us the technological revolution are of the athletic blond
Germanic ideal that [censored] thought best adapted? From Turing forward they were people who would
probably have been confined to university maths campuses or clerks offices of the 19th century.

The truth is that we simply have no idea what kind of human is required for the world of 100 years
time, or even tomorrow. We do know that as we change, the environment changes. The economic
environment has changed markedly over the last 100 years, technology has totally, and the kind of
human who will naturally do best has also changed, and will continue to change as time passes.

The more variations that we can carry into the future the better. They are like humanities eyes and
ears that will sniff out new opportunities, novel ways of thinking, and create unimagined
technologies, and the more we have, the clearer we can see - [censored] would have poked out our eyes
and made a rigid population that snapped upon encountering the first bend in the road ahead.

Kind Regards, Robert Karl Stonjek.

Wirt Atmar <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Malcom writes:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

[censored] has understood that natural selection, generally, acts on the individual. However he then
offers a "good of the species" argument for not interfering with evolutionary processes. Usually
we associate a belief in group selection with political liberals, so this is a bit incongruous.

If that's the case, and I have no reason to dispute your analysis, there must have been an
enormous wave of optimism and progressive thought that must have swept over the world 540-570 mya,
just prior to the "Cambrian Explosion", when individual, free-living cells -- who up to that time
had fervently advocated a "live free or die" stance -- first adopted the radical, if not
outrightly socialist political position of task-partitioned multicellularity as a way to achieve
the liberal uptopian goal of cooperative complexity.

Looking at it another way - the germ cells cloned themselves and then castrated the clones - thus
turning them into willing slaves.

Socialist politics is a bit of a different ball game - since human beings are not currently clones
of each other.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove lock to reply.

"Robert Karl Stonjek" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Many people have a vague notion that the Nazis used a warped notion of Darwin's evolution theory in
their Eugenic policies. Here is Adolf [censored]'s own words, from Mein Kampf (translated by Ralph
Manheim), first book 'A Reckoning', Chapter 4 'Munich', page 121 of the aforementioned translation:
For as soon as procreation as such is limited and the number of births diminished, the natural
struggle for existence which leaves only the strongest and healthiest alive is obviously replaced by
the obvious desire to 'save' even the weakest and most sickly at any price, and this plants the seed
of a future generation which must inevitably grow more and more deplorable the longer this mockery
of Nature and her will continues. "

But in that case, if [censored] was trying to improve Germans Not of Jewish Descent (GNJD's), he should
obviously have been killing off weaker GNJD's (say by sending GNJD's to camps and forcing them to
work as slaves with inadequate food and water), meanwhile attempting to coddle Germans of Jewish
descent by spending huge sums of money in health care to save the weakest and most sickly so that
they would grow "deplorable". Why he failed to advocate and pursue a policy in keeping with his
views on evolution we will never know. Enough irony. With luck we will learn from and long regret
[censored] and his ilk.

Yours, Bill Morse

Actually Bill [censored] did have plans to kill off Germans who were weaker and accomplished it to a
certain extent. At first the disabled were sterilized under the Nazi regime but this was relatively
short lived and escalated to killing them.The Nazi "euthanasia program" resulted in hundreds of
thousands of disabled Germans being systematically exterminated. The only reason it was "officially"
stopped is because of protests from relatives and German clergy. I also read years ago [censored]
planned on ultimately expanding his so-called euthanasia program to include Germans who had been
found to have any heriditary abnormaliies such as a predisposition for cancer, etc. Unfortunately I
don't remember the name of the book or author and I only came across it once.

Nazi Germany was not intent on systematically murdering just weak and sickly Jews but all
Jews irrespective of whether they were healthy or not. Nazi Germany engaged in genocide and
the biological mechanisms of this are still not totally understood. There are sociological
and sociobiological theories of genocide but we still don't understand the biological
mechanisms involved.

Nazi Germany not only systematically murdered its mentally and physically disabled and Europe's Jews
but also Roma, Poles and Russians.

Michael Ragland

Michael rants:

Quoted message said:

Tell me Mr. Atmar are you a fan of [censored]'s? I know it is foolish to expect you to openly admit
such on here but just for the heck of it I'm asking you. Many people do sympathize with [censored]'s
views either directly or indirectly. Whatever your answer is I'd be curious to hear you explain it.
My impression having seen many of your posts is that you do sympathize with [censored]'s ideas
regarding "evolution". I don't.

A more astute, less emotional reader would have noticed that I didn't say anything about [censored] one
way or the other. Rather I merely replied to Malcolm's contention that "Usually we associate a
belief in group selection with political liberals, so this is a bit incongruous."

You may find it valuable to practice reading what was actually written once or twice
before replying.

Wirt Atmar

Wirt:

I think I was very astute and it appears two other posters were also. They just weren't as direct as
me. Here is Mr. Wilkin's response to you:

"But then came World War I (the Permian extinction), and all that progressivism fell prey to
fashionable conservatism."

And here is Mr. O'hara's response

"Quite true. Although one of the unintended side effects was a holocaust, the mass genocide and
extinctions caused by the fallout from the Cambrian explosion."

You didn't have to say anything about [censored] one way or the other Wirt. You're words said it all.

Michael Ragland

Michael rants:

Tell me Mr. Atmar are you a fan of [censored]'s? I know it is foolish to expect you to openly admit such
on here but just for the heck of it I'm asking you. Many people do sympathize with [censored]'s views
either directly or indirectly. Whatever your answer is I'd be curious to hear you explain it. My
impression having seen many of your posts is that you do sympathize with [censored]'s ideas regarding
"evolution". I don't.

A more astute, less emotional reader would have noticed that I didn't say anything about [censored] one
way or the other. Rather I merely replied to Malcolm's contention that "Usually we associate a
belief in group selection with political liberals, so this is a bit incongruous." You may find it
valuable to practice reading what was actually written once or twice before replying.

Wirt Atmar

Wirt Atmar wrote: Malcom writes: [censored] has understood that natural selection, generally, acts on
the individual. However he then offers a "good of the species" argument for not interfering with
evolutionary processes. Usually we associate a belief in group selection with political liberals, so
this is a bit incongruous. If that's the case, and I have no reason to dispute your analysis, there
must have been an enormous wave of optimism and progressive thought that must have swept over the
world 540-570 mya, just prior to the "Cambrian Explosion", when individual, free-living cells -- who
up to that time had fervently advocated a "live free or die" stance -- first adopted the radical, if
not outrightly socialist political position of task-partitioned multicellularity as a way to achieve
the liberal uptopian goal of cooperative complexity.

Quite true. Although one of the unintended side effects was a holocaust, the mass genocide and
extinctions caused by the fallout from the Cambrian explosion. Bob
--
Bob O'Hara Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5) FIN-00014 University of Helsinki Finland Telephone: +358-9-191 23743
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540 Fax: +358-9-191 22 779 WWW: rni.helsinki.fi~bohOpen ↗

Wirt Atmar <[email hidden]> wrote: Malcom writes: [censored] has understood that natural selection,
generally, acts on the individual. However he then offers a "good of the species" argument for not
interfering with evolutionary processes. Usually we associate a belief in group selection with
political liberals, so this is a bit incongruous. If that's the case, and I have no reason to
dispute your analysis, there must have been an enormous wave of optimism and progressive thought
that must have swept over the world 540-570 mya, just prior to the "Cambrian Explosion", when
individual, free-living cells -- who up to that time had fervently advocated a "live free or die"
stance -- first adopted the radical, if not outrightly socialist political position of task-
partitioned multicellularity as a way to achieve the liberal uptopian goal of cooperative
complexity.

Wirt Atmar

But then came World War I (the Permian extinction), and all that progressivism fell prey to
fashionable conservatism.
--
John Wilkins wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not mark it when they miss"                                                                                               -
Francis Bacon

Quoted message said:

RAGLAND: I think you are wrong we simply have no idea what kind of human will be required for the
world 100 years from now. I think on a purely philosophical level we can definitely state at least
some things which will be "considered" to be a requirement 100 years from now. 100 years is not a
long time and I imagine human beings will be pretty much the way they are in 100 years as they are
now. I would imagine there will be upheavals which occur in that 100 year time span but this isn't
evidence of humans changing evolutionarily since our past has been marked at various points with
numerous upheavals. So despite the possibility of social-political revolutions and drastic
political changes these things aren't indicators of changes in our evolution. But when one
considers the scientific advancements which have occured in the last 100 years we can expect many
more scientific advancements within the next 100 years..even as upheavals occur.

Yes, the economic environment has changed markedly over the last 100 years as has technology. But
the kind of human being who naturally does "best" hasn't changed. It is still Darwinian evolution
with the strong and powerful exploiting and crushing the weak. While the economic environment has
changed as a result of technologies due to globalization man himself hasn't evolutionarily changed
at all. This is what I've stated in the past as regards our biological evolution being outpaced by
our cultural evolution i.e. technology, science.

Humans will not "continue" to change evolutionarily merely as a result of time passing i.e. no
intervention through genetic engineering. As I've also stated without genetic engineering the
human species faces the certainty of destroying itself.

RKS: Darwinian evolution is too slow to do much, if anything, in a one hundred year time frame. But
what [censored] proposed was "unnatural selection" or "breeding" which he would have based on his idea
of evolution. He thought that the abundance of young should be tested in war periodically, and that
it was up to the state to weed out the unworthy eg they had a saying for disabled, eg bipolar
sufferers, "life unworthy of life".

I point out that such unnatural selection does not work because the selector (in this case, the
state) can not anticipate the future, and therefore may mould the genome using flawed or out-of-date
paradigms. I point out an example of where [censored]'s ideas fail - the computer revolution of the
second half of the 20th century, for instance.

Quoted message said:

RKS: The more variations that we can carry into the future the better. They are like humanities
eyes and ears that will sniff out new opportunities, novel ways of thinking, and create unimagined
technologies, and the more we have, the clearer we can see - [censored] would have poked out our eyes
and made a rigid population that snapped upon encountering the first bend in the road ahead.

RAGLAND: I disagree the more variations we carry into the future the better. If through genetic
engineering we have the ability to wipe out genetic diseases shouldn't we do so? If through
genetic engineering we are able to eliminate aggression from our DNA shouldn't we do so? If
through genetic engineering we are able to create a more complex DNA shouldn't we do do? If
through genetic engineering we are able to augment certain aspects of intelligence shouldn't we do
so? If through genetic engineering we are able to make people able to withstand space travel
shouldn't we do so? Through genetic engineering some variations would be gradually eliminated but
other variations would be created.

If you are expecting Darwinian evolution to accomplish any of these things you are badly mistaken.
[censored] wasn't interested in humanity taking control of its evolution. If anything his view was the
exact opposite..let nature proceed without any intervention from human beings.

RKS: Your first statement is paradoxical - I am advocating that the more variations we carry through
to the future the better, so you "agree", not "disagree"?

Genetic diseases are not variations as such, but genetic flaws which are an unwanted consequence of
variation by mutation. If they can be corrected, then it seems sensible that we should do so. But
no-one suffering from Cyclopia has ever lived to maturity (usually still born) so I wonder just how
successful this might be. Some genetic flaws seem destined to occur with some frequency no matter
what we do. But we could look at hereditary genetic flaws.

MR:"If through genetic engineering we are able to eliminate aggression from our DNA shouldn't
we do so?"

RKS: First I want your written assurance that aggression will never be needed in the future eg that
all countries will eliminate aggression at the same time and not store up any genes of aggression;
that no alien visitors will ever show up on dear old Planet Earth; that no animal will ever evolve
to a point where they threaten humans.

[censored] was intervening - he eliminated the 'sickly', that is, the incurable, the mentally ill etc by
gassing them. He tried to "rid Germany of the infestation of Jews" and went on to try his hand at
eliminating them from the rest of the world (He suggested they should make a place for themselves in
Palestine, which they eventually did).

He would have supplied the method of culling the unwanted or unneeded excess population, which is
not exactly natural. Who will make that decision, and on what paradigm will it be based?

Kind Regards, Robert Karl Stonjek.

MR:[censored] and Nazi Germany were examples of Darwinian evolution in action. There is no way [censored]
could have come to power and Nazi Germany not done what it did without having a basis in
Darwinian evolution. The next question is this a desirable state of affairs? Is all the horror,
pain and death brought about by Nazi Germany really something we as a species want to emulate? I
think the answer is a resounding "no" for many of us. But that alone won't save us. Because if
Nazi Germany was a product of Darwinian evolution than it is very likely something like it can
happen again. Human beings haven't changed in 10,000 years and Nazi Germany happened less than
seventy years ago. Despite the fact many of us don't want to emulate Nazi Germany as a model of
evolution the forces of Darwinian evolution won't listen and will proceed on their own accord.
Are human beings compassionate and caring? Of course not. And this is because of Darwinian
evolution.

JE:- If everything in living nature is an example "of Darwinian evolution in action" then yes,
"[censored] and Nazi Germany were examples of Darwinian evolution" The _unanswered_ question remains:
EXACTLY what aspect of Darwinian evolution were [censored] and Nazi Germany examples of?

___________________________________________________
The EASY bit is to say "[censored] and Nazi Germany were examples of Darwinian evolution" the HARD bit
is to provide testable hypothesis of EXACTLY "what aspect of Darwinian evolution were [censored] and
Nazi Germany examples of".
___________________________________________________

I will attempt provide such a hypothesis which depends on contrasting BOTH organism fitness altruism
(OFA) and organism fitness selfishness (OFS) with organism fitness mutualism (OFM).

The key to my view lies in a refutation of:

"Are human beings compassionate and caring? Of course not. And this is because of Darwinian
evolution."

Because OFA and OFS are _incorrectly_ considered as opposing Neo Darwinian strategies AND OFM is all
but ignored, altruism becomes confused with compassion within Neo Darwinian discourse.

The first point to understand is that OFA = OFS. This means you can't have a donor who appears OFA
unless you also have a receiver who appears OFS. What is donated = what is received. Logically they
are the opposite side of EXACTLY THE SAME process and not contesting processes. So what PROCESS
contests OFA/OFS? Organism fitness mutualism (OFM).

When [censored] tried to inflict OFA on certain individuals by declaring them unfit using his racial
criteria, he was employing a NON natural selective standard because he was employing _forced_ group
selection. Using fascist OFS to force OFA onto hapless individuals as ONE GROUP selectee, cannot
happen within nature because these individual are selected before groups of them can be. As [censored]
forced group selection he was being naturally selected against while he was attempting to do so.
However the very expensive natural selective resolution of his error was an avoidable tragedy.
Nature does not give a hoot re: what mistakes man makes. Man makes choices and old mother nature
naturally selects them. Man makes massively WRONG choices, nature sighs "ho hum" and massively
naturally corrects them. The difference between man and the rest of the animal world is that man can
more often "enjoy" the fruits of a _false_ cognition. This cost can take over to a lifetime to pay.
The cost of [censored]'s forced group selection was mass death which eventually included his own life.
This was also true of Stalin's forced group selection except he died a natural death. However, the
number of people Stalin killed using state sponsored group selection was massively more than the
number [censored] killed. Mao ran a lively 2nd to Stalin. Pol Pot was in the Johnny-Come- Lately, junior
league. The fact they all allowed group selection for what they may have argued were opposing
political reasons means absolutely nothing. Forcing group selection in the name of OFA (Stalin, Mao,
Pol Pot i.e. the political left) or forcing group selection for OFS ([censored], Mussolini Franco and
any tin pot dictator i.e. the political right) where OFA = OFS, means no difference in logic exists
between any of them. Orwell's "Animal Farm" tried to point out this basic. The similarity between
them all is that OFA/OFS chases out OFM. The reason that millions died was because OFM was reduced
in every case so that these populations could no longer support themselves. The actual fighting
produced an insignificant number of deaths compared to deaths by starvation, disease and exposure,
all of which are only prevented by OFM. It is not the OFA/OFS that causes the mayhem, it is the
withdrawal of OFM.

OFM provides a fitness gain to all selectee's that is greater for each, than just going it alone.
OFM fitness associations are mostly reversible. This means that individuals can be selected to be
excluded or forced leave an OFM association, as well as being selected to join one. OFM does NOT
exclude Darwinian competition because absolute fitness gains per selectee are mostly, very
different. In fact OFM can produce a more intense form of _conventionalised_ competition which does
NOT bring about mass death, just the OPPOSITE: a mass population INCREASE.

Contrary to what MR wrote, OFM fosters compassion. This is because ill treating those you are
fitness mutualising with, is not to _anybodies_ interests. Compassion is NOT altruism. The political
left has manipulated the term "altruism" to be equated with compassion so that if you are not
altruistic, you cannot be compassionate. The political right now deletes compassion because it
believed the political left while deleting altruism. Both the political right and left reduce OFM.
It is the reduction of OFM via false cognitions that old mother nature, who does not have a brain in
her head, has to naturally correct. The cost of natural selection can be reduced or increased by the
correctness human cognition BUT CANNOT BE AVOIDED.

Best Wishes,

John Edser Independent Researcher

PO Box 266 Church Pt NSW 2105 Australia

[email hidden]