Yowza. Vox Day tried to pull his usual ahistorical, illiterate, ignorant schtick, blaming Nazis and Communists on ol’ Chuck Darwin, and Ed Darrell completely eviscerated him. I mean, it’s like all that’s left of Day is a few tattered scraps of skin hanging from a stick, drying in the wind.
Vox Day is a rather cheap and easy target, I know, but still … it’s frightening to see. It’s so thorough.
“So according to Vox, this photograph is impossible:”
That was the best part, methinks. Worth a thousand words, easily.
Naturally, a detailed list of historical people, events, and philosophies which drew inspiration from Darwin’s writings is completely unrelated to the veracity of those writings.
Vox may think he’s talking about science, but he’s talking about history instead. Next!
Thanks for noticing.
Alas (for Vox), it’s not thorough. I have only scratched the surface of what was quickly available on the internet and in my library, which is pretty meager on Soviet history and the philosophical underpinnings of Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
For example, after I posted it, I hit a local library of sorts — Half-Price Books, actually — and checked the indices of the entire shelf on the Soviets, the Cold War, Soviet and Chinese history. No major work on the era makes any reference to Darwin or evolution worth listing in the indices. Oh, let’s dump the full load: No work on the period lists Darwin or evolution as an influence.
I think I have collected most of Mao’s references to Darwin, now. Mao uses Darwin’s theory of an example of how people reject ideas initially. Mao doesn’t endorse Darwin or evolution, nor is there any hint that any of Mao’s policies are related in any fashion to anything Darwin wrote, said or did.
There is one possible exception, though it requires stretching the words of both Mao and Darwin past reasonableness: Mao wrote, “Let a thousand flowers bloom,” and Darwin wrote a monograph on orchids.
I’ll wager Vox uses that example. Maybe soon.
Reading Ed’s response felt as though I was watching a skilled and talented surgeon gutting a fish. It was perfect and precise –if not a little messy and embarrassing for the poor, unfortunate fish.
Stalin was a Lamarckian who officially opposed Darwinism. All Soviet biologists had to recant Darwin or risk getting sent to Siberia. IIRC, a few were in fact sent there.
Hitler and the Nazis were devout Xians and said so often.
More creos lying their asses off. It is a Death cult thing, you wouldn’t understand.
There’s yet another reason why Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology rejects evolution a la Darwin: according to MLM, humans are perfectible under the aegis of the Communist Party, a type of evolution of sorts.
BUT, biological evolution is blind and not in any way directed toward a goal. Therefore, evolution by natural selection must be a bourgeois ideology. On the contrary, Lamarck’s view is compatible with “progress,” hence Lysenko.
I dunno.
Even if it were demonstrably true that all of Stalin’s excesses were directly inspired by Darwin I don’t see that it makes any difference at all to the truth of evolution. To claim it does is such an egregious category error that it seems to me to outrank any of Vox’s historical idiocy.
I see this from theists quite a bit on the RA forums, arguments on the lines of “if evolution were true it would mean {something nasty that theist doesn’t like}, therefore evolution can’t be true”. WTF is that about anyway? How do these people think it makes one iota of difference?
If I could interject here, it seems to me that you’re never going to get much traction arguing toward Darwin’s innocence where the Soviets are concerned, since the early Marxists were eager to embrace anything that smacked of a progressive view of history.
I think it’s a much better tactic to point out that, regardless of what Marxists said, what matters is how they first ignored, then attempted to purge any trace of the capitalist economic theories which inspired Darwin’s vision from their version of ‘Darwinism.’ Which really was an ‘ism’ in the sense of a belief system. It’s not science that’s responsible for the Marxist repression of legitimate biology and the horrors of the gulag—it’s the Marxist version of religion.
And, Ed, Vox is seizing upon a technical error he claims you made in an effort to poison the well. You can’t trust either PZ or Ed Darrell (an unlikely tag team, that) because (Vox implies) they can’t get their facts about who wore what belt buckle when.
Obviously, I think that’s an unworthy argument.
No it isn’t, it’s one thing he got actually right (more or less). PZ Myers and Ed Darrell used the belt buckle to suggest a relationship between Nazism and Theism when in fact the slogan “Gott mit uns” dates back not to 1870 like “Vox” says but to 1700 – it was the motto of the prussian kings, later adopted by the german emporers and it was embossed on the belt buckles because it was part of the state regalia (or whatever the appropriate english word is). And of course the military doesn’t easily let go of any tradition.
Even in the middle of the culture war it should be possible to admit an error, shouldn’t it?
— eike
And, Ed, Vox is seizing upon a technical error he claims you made in an effort to poison the well. You can’t trust either PZ or Ed Darrell (an unlikely tag team, that) because (Vox implies) they can’t get their facts about who wore what belt buckle when.
Obviously, I think that’s an unworthy argument.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | September 1, 2007 3:00 PM
Yes, it is a technical error. But an error nevertheless; to which no attempt to correct or admit has been made. The error has been left intact, being used under false colors.
Ed has already corrected his post.
Yes, it now says that the fact that he was wrong really means that he was right, only more so. I find that a little disingenious (although if he means to say that the Wehrmacht was a criminal organization I would agree). But by his logic the german Bundeswehr is a fascist army because it uses some of the same insignia as the Wehrmacht.
— eike
Salt, we have yet to see Day make any admission about any of the errors that were pointed out by Darrell. For him, the big sticking point is calling a Wermacht belt buckle an SS belt buckle, and he assumes that this was done in bad faith, so everything that Ed or PZ says is discredited. Needless to say, it’s a blatant ad hominem argument, coupled with so many puerile invectives that make me wonder why Darrell or PZ are even talking about this fool.
So, I’m curious…does the swastika as a symbol of German nationalism also date back to 1870? Because that belt buckle is not just a piece of Franco-Prussian War surplus: it’s “Gott Mit Uns” + Nazi symbology.
You still don’t get it PZ. Allow me to explain it to you: it’s like the christian cross. That has been used for ages before the nazis, hence the nazis cannot have been christians! QED.
Capitalism thinks that competition in industry produces products that work better for the intended purpose.
Darwin and subsequent evolutionary theory think that competition produced organisms better adapted for the environment.
Communism thinks that industry competition is a detriment to progress.
Therefore, Communism is like Darwinism.
ROFL!
I’m sorry, but this Vox Day guy is friggin’ hilariously dimwitted.
I must admit I was annoyed by Eds piece and as much as I like a good takedown I feel it suffers from a lot of flaws. His reading of Marx is very very bad ((quote In short, Marx thought that through hard discussions, people could filter out bad ideas, and promote good ideas — a sort of survival of the best ideas. (/quote)). The whole point of Marx use of dialectics is that they apply to class-struggle, not to the best idea winning in some abstract markedplace of idea. Struggle for Marx was between class and ideas derived from this real social struggle (the ruling ideas are the rulers ideas?). He might be wrong, but at least get the idea right.
Ed seems to be trying to argue that there is some inherent and logical contradiction between Communism and Darwinism because one has competition as a central concept and the other is based on lack of competition.
But here he gives way to much ground to the line of argument Vox day makes, namely that there are unique political conclusions to be made on the basis of Darwins work and that Darwins theory can somehow blamed for those unique consequences.
Ed makes the same mistake by saying:
a) Darwins theory says natural selection hence competition,
b) Communism says collective ownership hence lack of competition
c) ergo Communism and Darwins doesn’t mix
The problem is that the theories/political ideology are not at all about the same thing!
Communism is a political ideology based on a theory of history; hence it is about how the economic and political system should be organized.
Darwinism (god I hate that we use this word, damn creationist) is a scientific theory about how the natural world is. It is not a theory of human social history. It does have derived political consequences, because it is a dangerous idea. Once you understand it, it becomes much harder to accept traditional religion and authority derived from it (dangerous in a world where many political systems were based on the authority of God through kings). But it’s not a political idea. Darwins theory explain the process by which humans and all life evolved, but it doesn’t tell us what forms of ownership one should have in a industrial economy.
It would be like me arguing against same sex marriage because in electromagnetism two opposite poles attract each other and two of the same repulse each other. Or to take some Chopak Woo: in quantum mechanics the observation of a event changes the event (or determines it or whatever he chooses to say that day), therefore how you look on life decides what happens. Its neither here nor there.
Communism might be (is) wrong, but it doesn’t have anything to do with whether communist were inspired by or hated Darwin. Darwinism (ei. evolutionary theory) could be wrong (but isn’t) but that doesn’t have anything to do with whether communist liked it or understood it.
I am not even going to go into the property question but it seems that Ed has not studied economic history very much. Private ownership of the means of production in the modern sense is not a stable or dominant feature in all forms of human economic organization, nor is competition a state of affairs that must exist in capitalist economies.
Also the Lenin quote that he criticises, I don’t for the love of god understand with you, PZ, accepts this line of argument:
“Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species bear no relation to one another, except by chance, and that they were created by God, and hence immutable.”
– Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
To which Ed writes:
The Lenin claim itself is balderdash. Darwin himself didn’t believe that evolution negated God (Darwin remained an active member of his church until his death). Asa Gray, the evolution convert in America, didn’t believe it — he was an active Christian. Theodosius Dobzhansky didn’t believe it; Dobzhansky left Stalinist Russia partly to keep practicing his Russian Orthodox faith (Dobzhansky having read Darwin in 1915 and been inspired to be a biologist, but not to leave the church) — Lenin may have hoped for it to be so that Darwin took God out of the picture, but it is not so. There is nothing in Darwin’s writings that denies deity, unless one insists deity is separate from nature.
Yeah, Lenin hoped in vain, but how is this different than what Dawkins argues? Lenin and Dawkins don’t care what Darwin believed, they care what his theory meant. And what did it mean? Exactly what Lenin wrote: There is no rational reason to believe in a designer or creator who made animals and plants according to his mighty plan. Actually based on this quote he doesn’t even say that there is no God because of Darwin, he just says it means no creationism. To take it further than Lenin does in this quote (but I am sure other quotes echoing this sentiment can be found), that Darwin meant an end to the strongest argument for a designer, namely that animals and plants look designed.
Why you faun over this piece is beyond me…
Sorry for the wall of text.
I agree that errors should be corrected, and I think Ed did make that correction, then add some spin.
But my main point above remains. The Marxists gave lip service to Darwin as inspiration, but you know what? So did the so-called ‘Social Darwinists’, on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Both the Marxist version of evolution and the reactionary version of eugenics pushed in the first half of the 20th century are contradicted by the facts of biology.
Who wore which belt buckle? Give me a break, and focus on whether or not Soviet-style Marxism or Nazi Germany was inspired by Darwin, or (as I maintain) ideological distortions of science.
Since everyone appears to be ignoring the more salient points in favor of the simple and obvious error, I’ll post here as well.
Salt, we have yet to see Day make any admission about any of the errors that were pointed out by Darrell.
That’s because there aren’t any except for the possibility of the Mao quote being fictional, which has yet to be established. Darrell’s attempt to pose capitalism and competition as contradictory to Communism reveals his ignorance of both the dialectic and the Marxist theory of “scientific” socialism. Properly speaking, socialism is post-capitalist, not anti-capitalist, it is not capitalism’s rival but its inevitable heir. In Marxist terms, both “competition” and “evolution” are “struggle”, an essential aspect of the dialectic. Neither Darwin nor Hegel were socialists, of course, but their theories – evolution and the dialectic – were integral to the development and intellectual support Marxism and its subsequent variants. That’s why the two men are lionized as the two most important pre-Marxists; Darwin is known as “the unconscious dialectitian”.
Only parochial and maleducated Americans could possibly think to deny the link between Darwin and Marx, as that link was explicitly taught in most European Communist countries, and in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist period that Darrell erroneously attempts to portray as anti-Darwinist. Stalin was anti-Mengel, but he was never anti-Darwin as Just a Girl, who attended Soviet schools, confirms. Her statements are supported by another VP reader who grew up in East Germany.
Above is the link to the text of the book in Russian, called “The Teaching of Michurin and Religion.” (published 1955) In a nutshell it says, that the theory of Darwin is very progressive,and materialistic, but has some drawbacks, which were corrected by a Soviet Darwinist Michurin, who was the only true Darwinist becase he used the works of Marx, Lenin and Stalin as the basis for his scientific research. Stalin was not against the theory of Darwin, he was against genetics, and the book which was published only 2 years after his death, says that those scientists who believed in genetics, were not really Darwinists, and only Michurin, Lisenko and some others were true “creative Darwinists”. Vox is absolutely correct, Stalin wasn’t against Darwin, the theory of Darwin was very important for the development of historic materialism, which was the basis for marxism-leninism. After Stalin’s death, they just proclaimed that he was wrong about genetics, that it was perfectly compatible with theory of Darwin, and went on teaching it at schools.
This chapter of the book is called The role of Darwin’s theory in the struggle of science against religion.
The link above is to a part of the document from 1948, when Stalin was yet alive, I think it’s a transcript of the session of the Russian Scientific Academy, which calls Lisenko the scientist who is developing the theory of Darwin and Michurin. Once again, Vox is absolutely right. Stalin was against Mendel and Morgan, but NOT against Darwin. And he considered Lisenko and Michurin the true Darwinists.
Of course, none of this has any signficance regarding the truth or falsehood of any aspect of Darwinian thought, merely some of its historical ramifications. I find it very amusing that a group of atheist scientists should attempt to rely on logic in the face of copious and verifiable evidence. What are you, medieval philosophers?
As for the belt buckle, PZ and Ed’s argument is historically hopeless. It’s like trying to argue that the Rangers are a Catholic institution because the US Army motto is “Semper Fi”. The Nazis didn’t try to make the Wehrmacht drop its Eagle insignia either, shall we then conclude they were birds?
I don’t know if you ask in jest or if you are really slow on the uptake, so I try to rephrase the point:
You and Ed suggested the “Gott mit uns” belt buckle meant that the Nazis embraced christian religion. That’s wrong. The belt buckle meant that they embraced the military and allowed it to continue it’s traditions (they just added the insignia of the new state to that of the old state), and that’s really something different.
If your looking for a scandal than it’s not that Nazism was particularly close to christian religion, because it wasn’t – centerpiece of the Nazist “faith” was the idea that fate (like, a supernatural power) had placed the “aryan race” in the middle of an epic battle in which it would either conquer or vanish. The scandal really is that christians would happily embrace Nazism (including comitting genocide) as long as they were allowed to remain christians at the same time.
— eike
Scott, I would agree that the questions of belt buckles is irrelevant to the Soviet/Nazi-Debate, but I think it’s quite relevant to the style of discussion in general – if I know that PZ and Ed insist on being right even if they have been proven wrong then how can I trust in anything else they say?
— eike
**************************************************
Nazism and christianity were closely intertwined. German antisemitism has its roots in Martin Luther, a notorious antisemite who proposed a Jewish final solution of his own, the 7 point plan. Hitler was a Catholic who invoked god and xianity often as did his party. Christians today have a habit of lying about it to the point where some have forged documents indicating the opposite. Lying for Jesus is pathetic.
Who cares what you think or say? You just flat out lied about Hitler and the Nazis not being intertwined with German Christianity. There is a vast history on this, very well documented, very well known, and the Protestant and Catholic churches have been trying to live it down ever since.
Where, out of interest? A quick spin through Ed’s post reveals no such argument.
Counting on the faint possibility that you are not an idiot I will again try to make myself clear. I wouldn’t deny that the Nazis had ample dealings with the christian church – how could I, I have at least two shelves ob books dedicated to the treaties between the “Third Reich” and the Vatican, and the “rat line” and things like that. I was just commenting on the idea that christian religion had inspired Nazism in any other way than that Hitler recognized an opportunity for grandstanding when he saw it.
Remember that I’m not a native speaker so my meaning might get a little blurred in translation (which is the reason why I have hardly ever commented so far and will cease to do so after this comment). But I’m also trained in social sciences, and even if it’s been some time since I praticed in my field I still know what science is supposed to look like, so naturally I’m appalled at the american idea of doing science which is obviously to run a search for g*d on Hitlers “Mein Kampf” and thus conclude he was a devout christian. This is very bad science indeed. Oh, and if I had ever said in my politics courses that communism was unsustainable because it lacked the darwinian idea of competition they would have flunked me (and would propably asked if I was drunk).
I have a feeling that you think I’m either a Nazi or a Christian (or both)- I’m neither. I’m just annoyed that the (social) science of the science faction is so often so incredibly pathetic. And now you all feel free to jump on my head.
— eike
Sorry, my mistake. Obviously Ed had some room to spare and thought a nice picture would come in handy. I accidentally thought he was trying to tell us some thing or the other.
— eike
No, you thought he was trying to tell us something very specific; namely that ‘the “Gott mit uns” belt buckle meant that the Nazis embraced christian religion.’
There are differences between the 3 statements: “The nazis were christians”, “The nazis embraced christian religion” and “Christianity was the source of nazi ideology”.
The first is only broadly true, the second is certainly true but doesn’t prove much (the fact that they embraced their own demented version of “darwinism” is in the same category) and the third is broadly false – because nazism and anti-semitism are not the same thing.
Just my 2 cents.
As we all know, “after dabbling in radical politics,” Adolf Hitler emigrated to the United States in 1919 and became a science fiction illustrator, editor and author. He wrote the science-fantasy novel Lord of the Swastika in less than a month in 1953, shortly before dying of cerebral hemorrhage (possibly caused by tertiary syphilis); Lord of the Swastika subsequently wins the Hugo Award.”
[Norman Spinrad, The Iron Dream; as summarized in wikipedia]
Ah, kiss my cudgel.
(vroom!)
— CV
But look at that eagle. It’s the typical Nazi eagle standing on top of the swastika. It and the swastika together are a single symbol.
Also, Himmler and Bormann weren’t Christians, and Hitler wanted to “take care” of the churches “after the Final Victory(tm)”. It’s complicated.
One simple thing, though: German does not have separate capitalization rules for headlines. Nouns always begin with capitals, and other words never do (unless beginning a sentence or being part of a proper name). So, Gott mit uns.
But look at that eagle. It’s the typical Nazi eagle standing on top of the swastika. It and the swastika together are a single symbol.
Also, Himmler and Bormann weren’t Christians, and Hitler wanted to “take care” of the churches “after the Final Victory(tm)”. It’s complicated.
One simple thing, though: German does not have separate capitalization rules for headlines. Nouns always begin with capitals, and other words never do (unless beginning a sentence or being part of a proper name). So, Gott mit uns.
Christians today have a habit of lying about it to the point where some have forged documents indicating the opposite. Lying for Jesus is pathetic.
Amen. So true.
I’ve got that belt buckle linked on my blog here.
Has anyone noted that Richard Steigmann-Gall has a book called “The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945“?
A quote from this review:
To be honest, I couldn’t read the entire message written by Vox Day (or someone pretending to be him) without vomiting. However, one item did catch my eye:
Here is a perfect example of an error committed by ‘VD’. “Semper Fi” is the motto of the US Marine Corps, not the US Army Rangers. Most Marines I’ve known would take great offense at being mistaken for an Army soldier. Secondly, although commonly communicated as simply “Semper Fi”, the motto is actually “Semper Fidelis”. So that’s at least two errors right there.
Amongst many other things, ‘Eike’ wrote:
Here is what I predict may happen:
1) VD will ignore my post
2) VD will claim that the poster “VD” is not he
3) VD will flail about and try to spin this so it looks like he didn’t make any errors. Some preemptive excuses include:
Here is what I predict will NOT happen:
1) VD will admit his error(s)
Eike, You would like to think “Social science” is science, It is mostly anectdotal gibberish made up by pseudo scientists.
Elke, Elke, Elke – um Gottes willen, was fuer ein dummes Maedchen! Of course the Nazis were close to Christianity! When they made their most popular slogan, “Kinder, Kueche, Kirche”, did you think they were referring to mosques?
The annoying thing about being a social scientist is that everyone seems to think they know something about your field.
Biologist whine about having creationist and such, but we have to suffer that everyone has a halfass opinion about social science.
So unless you are going to come with some actual evidence for your statement, I will just regard your statment as first class bullshit, TK.
Here is a perfect example of an error committed by ‘VD’.
Yes, precisely. Because it isn’t one.
Semper Fi” is the motto of the US Marine Corps, not the US Army Rangers.
Just as “Gott mit uns” was the motto of the Wehrmacht, not the Waffen SS. It’s called “an analogy”, my good infidel. Sweet Darwin, you people are unbelievable!
Another amusing thing about Darrell’s “Nazi” belt buckle is that at the time the belt buckle in the photograph was issued, Nazis were not permitted to serve in the Wehrmacht.
See, this is what happens when you allow a tangent to take over the discussion. Who wore which belt buckles is silly, and yet, some of you ‘true believers’ on both sides are still going back and forth on that, as if that were substantive,to the extent that Vox just suckered one of his critics into providing him with another opportunity to demonstrate his cleverness.
The question of whether or not Darwin inspired the Nazis, logically speaking, has no bearing on whether Christianity inspired the Nazis. You can’t defend Darwin by attacking Christianity, or vice versa. I’m sure Ed Darrell and Vox both understand this. Why get bogged down with belt buckles?
To Scott Hatfield:
I believe the point of the discussion is to show just how far removed from reality Vox Day really is. Towards that end I conducted a little experiment.
I do not believe that I, assuming you were referring to me, was suckered into anything nor that VD was clever. I fully expected to receive a dissembling reply from VD that completely ignored the substance of my post, and I was not disappointed. I even tried to anticipate which excuse(s) VD would try to use. I couldn’t care less about any belt buckles or what they may or may not prove about anyone’s ideology. Having read reply #13 and then VD’s garbage in #20 (specifically “That’s because there aren’t any [errors] except for the possibility of the Mao quote being fictional, which has yet to be established.“), I saw an obvious error that jumped out at me. I pointed out this very basic, easily verified and noncontroversial (although trivial) error to give VD the opportunity to show that he could admit to making a mistake.
The point of my post was that VD (or whoever is pretending to be him) is apparently incapable of admitting to any error, no matter how minor or trivial it may be. Contrast this to Ed, who made a minor factual error, had said error brought to his attention, then corrected the error after admitting that he made it.
To the entity going by the handle “VD”:
Your bald assertion to the contrary, it is an error1. You stated “the US Army motto is “Semper Fi”“. First, to be pedantic, the actual motto is “Semper Fidelis”. Second, this is not the motto of the Rangers (or any other Army unit), but of the US Marine Corps.
Well, well. Looks like excuse #3b with a side order of “but it’s not an error”. I understand perfectly well that in your original post, your use of the hypothetical belief that the “Rangers (sic) are a Catholic institution” was an analogy. Further, I understand that the strength of your argument does not depend upon whether you are using the Rangers or the USMC, since in the context of your analogy they represent the same thing. I was not then, nor am I now, attacking that analogy. I was then, and am now, only pointing out your factual error with respect to the motto of the USMC, and seeing if you are capable of admitting to this minor error.
To reiterate one last time: I am not engaged in any philosophical debate with anyone on any issue here; I am *only* trying to see if VD can admit to a very minor mistake.
1Admittedly, an error of no real consequence, which is why I chose to use it to avoid any side discussions.
I was then, and am now, only pointing out your factual error with respect to the motto of the USMC, and seeing if you are capable of admitting to this minor error.
No, he is right. That error was clearly made on purpose to mock Ed’s error. However, this is a complete red herring:
Another amusing thing about Darrell’s “Nazi” belt buckle is that at the time the belt buckle in the photograph was issued, Nazis were not permitted to serve in the Wehrmacht.
Come on. By that time, the Nazis were in power. The requirement of not being affiliated with a political party did not stop the Wehrmacht members from swearing allegiance to Hitler. It’s not a belt buckle of the Nazi party, but it’s a belt buckle of the army of Nazi Germany.
I understand perfectly well that in your original post, your use of the hypothetical belief that the “Rangers (sic) are a Catholic institution” was an analogy.
And what you failed to understand was that the equally hypothetical confusion of the USMC with the US Army was an apt analogy to PZ’s and Ed’s confusion of the Wehrmacht-Heer with the Waffen SS. It demonstrated how absurd and complete their lack of basic historical knowledge is.
The only error here is yours. The idea that I do not know the USMC motto is downright laughable, considering my familiarity with 8th & I.
And Scott, I have presented plenty of evidence of the direct link between Darwin and the Soviet Union. Not a single person here has yet challenged the evidence provided by the former Soviet citizen, Just a Girl.
Here is a Marxist, circa 1912 stating that Marxism and Darwinism are two arms of the same theory.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1912/marxism-darwinism.htm#S5
LOL.
Go Hawks! I think that a 500 word rebuttal is your next step.
Vox, I didn’t know you roamed…
Scott Hatfield, it must be tough being you. But I have more sympathy for you than anyone else in the room.
PZ, regarding “eviscerate”, in the words of Inigo Montoya:
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
And Scott, I have presented plenty of evidence of the direct link between Darwin and the Soviet Union.
Posted here and on Vox’s site:
Vox, whether or not the Soviets gave lip service to Darwin is irrelevant. The Social Darwinists, who were arch-capitalists, also gave lip service to Darwin. I do not believe for one moment that the Soviets were inspired by Darwin’s actual theories. Instead, they seized upon him as an example of someone who (they thought) provided evidence for Marx’s vision of dialectic progression in human history.
And, in so doing, they were wrong, wrong, wrong. Their invocation of Darwin is a spectacular case of intellectuals with blinders on, only seeing what they want to see. Surely you, with your distaste for the radical left, can see quite clearly how such folk could convince themselves that Darwin ‘supported’ Marx while ignoring Darwin’s capitalist origins and the pretty brutal competition implied by his actual theory.
The question is: what did they actually promote? The Soviets manifestly did not promote Darwin’s theory of natural selection. They instead accepted evolution, embraced Darwin as providing evidence for it, but first ignored and then attempted to suppress Darwin’s explanation for how it occurred (natural selection) as ‘counter-revolutionary.’ Under Lysenko, scientists who stood up for TENS in the Soviet Union lost their livelihood (and in some cases, their lives) for doing so.
I’ll tell you what: you show me evidence that the Soviets enthusiastically incorporated natural selection within their version of Marxism, rather than mere evolution, and then you might have something. Or, alternatively, if you can show me state-approved scientists in 1930-1950 Russia who were lauded for their championing of natural selection, that might be something. But failing that? Until you can show that the Soviets were inspired by Darwin’s actual theory, rather than their false take on the fact of evolution, you’ve got no case.
I’ll tell you what: you show me evidence that the Soviets enthusiastically incorporated natural selection within their version of Marxism, rather than mere evolution, and then you might have something. Or, alternatively, if you can show me state-approved scientists in 1930-1950 Russia who were lauded for their championing of natural selection, that might be something.
I’m sure someone who actually knows something about the history of evolution could do far better, but this should suffice for the purposes requested.
Theodosius Dobzhansky, University of Leningrad
I learned about this guy from you, Scott. At least he had the good sense to leave before his fellow Darwinists got out of hand.
Yuri Filipchenko, University of Leningrad
“Russian entomologist and coiner of the terms microevolution and macroevolution. Mentor of Theodosius Dobzhansky. Though he himself was an orthogenetic he was one of the first scientists to incorporate the laws of Mendel into evolutionary theory and thus had great influence on The Modern Synthesis.”
Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin – Lenin All-Union Academy of Agriculture
Michurin was one of the founding fathers of scientific agricultural selection. He worked on hybridization of plants of similar and different origins, cultivating methods in connection with the natural course of ontogenesis, directing the process of predominance, evaluation and selection of seedlings, acceleration of process of selection with the help of physical and chemical factors. Michurin’s method of crossing of geographically distant plants would be widely used by other selectionists…. Throughout all his life Michurin worked to create new sorts of fruit plants. He introduced over 300 new species. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and Order of the Red Banner of Labor for his achievements.
Sergei Sergeevich Chetverikov – Department of Genetics at Gorky University.
“One of the founders of population genetics and synthetic theory of evolution.
VD:
Moved to the US in 1927. Almost all of his significant work was done after that point.
Predates Dobzhansky.
Look farther down in the Wikipedia article you quoted:
“In fact, Michurin’s theory of influence of the environment on the heredity was a variant of Lamarckism. He maintained the position that the task of a selectioner is to assist and enhance the natural selection.”
Michurin believed in the inheritance of acquired charateristics and criticized the Mendelian model of inheritance. He wasn’t as extreme as Lysenko, but then he died in 1935, so he didn’t have to be.
Banished in 1929, later allowed to return and did a small amount of work in genetics before the Lysenkoists shut his work down for good in 1948.
So far, you’ve got scientists being punished by the Soviet government for championing natural selection, or being praised and rewarded for arguing against it. You should probably try to find better examples.
This whole debate is very unfortunate. Vox Day is obviously a hack who pulls unattributed, and likely false, quotes off the internet (why, oh why, do all quote pages on the internet fail to give sources!).
On the other hand, Ed has done a terrible job in rebuttal. His argument is so poorly organized I could hardly follow him, as he jumped from one thing to another.
Worst of all, however, Ed clearly has a worse grasp of Marxism thatn Vox Day! To argue that dialectical materialism was about debating ideas, in a sort of ideas’ survival of the fittest, shows he has not even a college undergrad’s knowledge of Marxism. Nor does the previous complainant about this have it wholly right.
Dialectical materialism was about the inexorable change in social beliefs caused by changing material conditions; i.e., the economic structure. There was no debating it-it’s simply going to happen no matter how vigorously you argue against it. Not that Marx was right–in fact he could have used a good course on Darwinian theory.
But if you set out to fisk the idiots, you need to actually be better educated than they are.
So far, you’ve got scientists being punished by the Soviet government for championing natural selection, or being praised and rewarded for arguing against it. You should probably try to find better examples.
Incorrect. Apparently you didn’t read this, which was already posted above.
Stalin was not against the theory of Darwin, he was against genetics, and the book which was published only 2 years after his death, says that those scientists who believed in genetics, were not really Darwinists, and only Michurin, Lisenko and some others were true “creative Darwinists”. Vox is absolutely correct, Stalin wasn’t against Darwin, the theory of Darwin was very important for the development of historic materialism, which was the basis for marxism-leninism. After Stalin’s death, they just proclaimed that he was wrong about genetics, that it was perfectly compatible with theory of Darwin, and went on teaching it at schools.”
Chetverikov Banished in 1929, later allowed to return and did a small amount of work in genetics before the Lysenkoists shut his work down for good in 1948.
That’s a misleading summary. He returned in 1934 and that “small amount of work” included organizing the Department of Genetics at Gorky University over a period of 14 years.
There’s also Nikolai Vavilov, who was a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee before being arrested in 1940. Ironically, his work ended up in the hands of the SS, who were much more enthusiastic about genetics…. As for a non-Soviet Marxist Darwinist, there’s Richard Dawkins’s old hero, J.B.S. Haldane. “In 1937, Haldane had become a Marxist, and an open supporter of the Communist Party, but not yet a member of the Party. He would join the Party in 1942.”
This took about five minutes to look up. I’m sure my Russian-speaking friends could provide many more examples; they’ve already established Michurin’s Darwinism. The relevant fact is that Lysenko was anti-Mendel, not anti-Darwin.
Oh yeah, quite so. The higher ranks were all deep into mysticism. Thule Society… Theosophy, Anthroposophy… all of the most obnoxious woo from the start of the 20th century has contributed to National Socialism.
Oh, that’s why I didn’t recognize any Latin word “fi” after having had 6 years of Latin at school!
Ah, no. Eike is a boy’s name (…unlike Heike). (Changes everything, I’m sure.)
Now the famous Voice of God himself:
You just don’t want to understand what she wrote, right? It’s obvious: the Party had made a big mistake. But because the Party, as we all know, never makes mistakes, it put a spin on it (after Stalin had died and Khrushchov had given his shocking secret speech) and taught the next three generations that Scientific [hah!] Socialism was actually compatible with the theory of evolution. Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. We love Big Brother.
And the quote from marxists.org… look at its last sentence:
We have here a Marxist who loves big-P Progress (which, as we all know, inevitably leads to Socialism and then to Communism), wants to find it in science so he can build Scientific Socialism upon it, and mistakenly believes to have found it in the theory of evolution. It’s actually quite pathetic.
Admitting ignorance is a good first step, VD. Being proud of it is two steps backwards.
A devout Russian Orthodox. I mean, please.
That was actually a dumb idea, in hindsight.
That means he didn’t think that natural selection alone was enough. Instead, he thought a more or less supernatural drive towards big-P Progress was acting.
Then why have I never heard of him?
And why did you leave off all the dates, when they are on the Wikipedia articles you quoted without attribution? Isn’t that called “lying by omission”?
No, he didn’t argue that. Read his post again.
Stalin was for Lysenko, to put it mildly, and Lysenko was against the theory of natural selection. Now, Darwin’s original contribution to the theory of evolution is the theory of natural selection. Ever wondered why we don’t celebrate Lamarck or Buffon?
Your spin is too transparent. If you want to continue your career in politics, you’ll have to work on that.
It was too late for them to besmirch Darwin’s name. So they claimed to praise him and taught the exact opposite of what he had found. Communists can spin, too; you don’t have a monopoly on that.
Oh, please. A vitalist. What next? Deepak Chopra?
They are wrong. See comment 48 — he was a Lamarckist.
Again: Darwin’s original contribution, that which made him famous, is natural selection. Lysenko and Michurin did not accept the reality of the power of natural selection.
Так, я думаю что твои русскоязычные друзья не знают ни историю ни биологию.
Oh yeah, quite so. The higher ranks were all deep into mysticism. Thule Society… Theosophy, Anthroposophy… all of the most obnoxious woo from the start of the 20th century has contributed to National Socialism.
Oh, that’s why I didn’t recognize any Latin word “fi” after having had 6 years of Latin at school!
Ah, no. Eike is a boy’s name (…unlike Heike). (Changes everything, I’m sure.)
Now the famous Voice of God himself:
You just don’t want to understand what she wrote, right? It’s obvious: the Party had made a big mistake. But because the Party, as we all know, never makes mistakes, it put a spin on it (after Stalin had died and Khrushchov had given his shocking secret speech) and taught the next three generations that Scientific [hah!] Socialism was actually compatible with the theory of evolution. Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. We love Big Brother.
And the quote from marxists.org… look at its last sentence:
We have here a Marxist who loves big-P Progress (which, as we all know, inevitably leads to Socialism and then to Communism), wants to find it in science so he can build Scientific Socialism upon it, and mistakenly believes to have found it in the theory of evolution. It’s actually quite pathetic.
Admitting ignorance is a good first step, VD. Being proud of it is two steps backwards.
A devout Russian Orthodox. I mean, please.
That was actually a dumb idea, in hindsight.
That means he didn’t think that natural selection alone was enough. Instead, he thought a more or less supernatural drive towards big-P Progress was acting.
Then why have I never heard of him?
And why did you leave off all the dates, when they are on the Wikipedia articles you quoted without attribution? Isn’t that called “lying by omission”?
No, he didn’t argue that. Read his post again.
Stalin was for Lysenko, to put it mildly, and Lysenko was against the theory of natural selection. Now, Darwin’s original contribution to the theory of evolution is the theory of natural selection. Ever wondered why we don’t celebrate Lamarck or Buffon?
Your spin is too transparent. If you want to continue your career in politics, you’ll have to work on that.
It was too late for them to besmirch Darwin’s name. So they claimed to praise him and taught the exact opposite of what he had found. Communists can spin, too; you don’t have a monopoly on that.
Oh, please. A vitalist. What next? Deepak Chopra?
They are wrong. See comment 48 — he was a Lamarckist.
Again: Darwin’s original contribution, that which made him famous, is natural selection. Lysenko and Michurin did not accept the reality of the power of natural selection.
Так, я думаю что твои русскоязычные друзья не знают ни историю ни биологию.
He never returned to Moscow; Gorky was a small regional college in Nizhny Novgorod. That can hardly be considered evidence of government favor, especially as he even got dismissed from Gorky in ’48.
To quote S.M. Gershenson, Russian geneticist, collaborator with Hermann Muller, and student of Chetverikov, from Quarterly Review of Biology 65:4:
“Among these, Chetverikov was attacked in the pages of Pravda for his criticism of the scientific views of the “progressive” Austrian investigator [Paul Kammerer, champion of Lamarckism]. Hence, even the first and relatively mild wave of repression, beginning in the later 1920s, affected Chetverikov. At that time, he was head of the Department of Genetics of the Institute of Experimental Biology in Moscow….Chetverikov had been the first geneticist in the USSR to lecture on biometry and genetics at Moscow University. In 1929 he was arrested, spent several months in prison, and then was exiled from Moscow. He became a teacher in the secondary school of the town Vladimir, and later was appointed to the chair of genetics at Gorky University, where he studied the genetics of the silkworm.”
The facts are clear: Chetverikov was systematically persecuted for decades due to his supporting natural selection and rejecting the transmission of acquired characteristics.
…and starving to death in prison after three years, despite the massive contributions he had made to Soviet agriculture, purely because he had opposed Lysenkoism. Really, if this is an example of government support for Darwinists….
Who wasn’t Soviet, so this isn’t relevant. Certainly a political Marxist or semi-Marxist could favor mainstream evolutionary biology–even in the USSR, many did. They just got punished for it.
Five minutes more would tell you that your friends are wrong on that. Michurin was strongly in favor of Lamarckian inheritance, although he did not deny the existence of natural selection. From “Darwin in Russian Thought,” by Alexander Vucinich:
“The 1870s witnessed the rise of yet another form of extreme Lamarckism, presented as an orientation consonant with the spirit and the substance of Darwin’s scientific legacy. It was at this time that V. I. Michurin, inspired by the atmosphere created by the diffusion of Darwinian ideas, had barely begun his long-term activity of inducing heritable characteristics in fruit trees by changing the environmental conditions under which they grew. He was guided by the idea of the possibility of adding a new dimension to the Lamarckian theory: the artificial inducement of predetermined and accelerated transformation of characters. His method was the crossing of geographically distant plants; his aim was to produce varieties best adapted to specific environments. Not recognized by the scientific community, mainly because he operated in the realm of folk science, Michurin became part of a popular movement devoted to improving domestic plants in Russia and to extending their cultivation to new areas. With exemplary devotion, Michurin worked on developing new varieties of fruit trees in central Russia. Keeping Lamarckism alive, Michurinism became part of a general cultural setting that encouraged a union of Lamarck and Darwin and that stood in the way of a faster diffusion of the theoretical ideas of modern genetics. To its chief articulators, Russian Lamarckism of this period represented a modification rather than a negation of Darwinism.”
Again, Michurin was not as anti-Darwin as Lysenko, but he was hardly an “orthodox” Darwinist.
This is false for at least two reasons. First, as Scott Hatfield already pointed out, the question is what theory Lysenko and Stalin promoted, not whose name they slapped on it. Lysenko had very little understanding of the theories of Mendel, Darwin and Michurin alike, and Stalin was not concerned with portraying them accurately.
Second, Lysenko and Stalin were critical even of what they called Darwinism. To quote again from Gershenson: “Second, Lysenko unconditionally accepted the inheritance of acquired characters and denied the leading role of natural selection in evolution He considered natural selection to have been “Darwin’s mistake.”
And from Kirill Rossiyanov, historian of science from the Russian Academy of Sciences:
Lysenko was anti-Darwin both in name and in substance.
I put it too mildly. Lysenko at least had a religious hatred of it. No wonder. According to him, it was incompatible with Stalinism and therefore… fundamentally wrong.
Stalinism was a religion… one without an afterlife (only Kim Il-Sung got one), but still.
I put it too mildly. Lysenko at least had a religious hatred of it. No wonder. According to him, it was incompatible with Stalinism and therefore… fundamentally wrong.
Stalinism was a religion… one without an afterlife (only Kim Il-Sung got one), but still.
Because the Soviet government squelched his career. A number of Russian geneticists and biologists seem to have anticipated theoretical advances made later in the West, probably because the USSR initially encouraged their work for its agricultural utility. But they never got to elaborate or disseminate their work in their lifetime, because…well…they were Darwinists.
VD is like many wingnuts, in that he conflates everything he disapproves of. He disapproves of Marxism and disapproves of Darwinism, so to him that’s more than enough to prove that they’re the same thing. By extension, they’re also the same thing as atheism and liberalism. If you disagree with him, well that just proves you’re a Marxist Evolutionist Liberal Atheist, and thus of course wrong.
Not a single person here has yet challenged the evidence provided by the former Soviet citizen, Just a Girl.
Vox, one thing I’ve always wondered, is where did you get these issues with women that you suffer from? Something ugly in your adolescence, or what?
“Just a Girl” is the name of a commenter on his blog.
“Just a Girl” is the name of a commenter on his blog.
It is evident from Stalin’s insertions that he considered Darwinian theory to have some defects “in so far as it included Malthus’ erroneous ideas.”
Because Stalin didn’t swallow the Malthusian line, you conclude that he was somehow anti-Darwinist? From that same series of articles cited above, Stalin writes on page 311:
“Darwin rejects Cuvier’s cataclysms, he recognises gradual evolution. But the same Anarchists say that “Marxism rests on Darwinism and treats it uncritically,” i.e., the Marxists repudiate Cuvier’s cataclysms. In short, the Anarchists accuse the Marxists of adhering to Cuvier’s view and at the same time reproach them for adhering to Darwin’s and not to Cuvier’s view…. Which is right?… As you see, in the opinion of Marx and Engels, revolution is engendered not by Cuvier’s “unknown causes,” but by very definite and vital social causes called “the development of the productive forces.”
On the other hand, Darwinism repudiates not only Cuvier’s cataclysms, but also dialectically understood development, which includes revolution; whereas, from the standpoint of the dialectical method, evolution and revolution, quantitative and qualitative changes, are two essential forms of the same motion. Obviously, it is also wrong to assert that “Marxism . . . treats Darwinism uncritically.””
So, while Stalin does not quibble with the statement that “Marxism rests on Darwinism”, he objects first to the idea that “Marxism repudiates Darwinism” and second that “Marxism treats Darwinism uncritically”.
But to criticise is not to oppose. And while Stalin did write that Neo-Darwinism was “gradually yielding place” to Neo-Lamarckism, it doesn’t appear he was opposed to a synthesis or its component parts, such as the Creative Darwinism announced later. He may not have been an entirely orthodox Darwinist, but then, how many of you are today?
Obviously, it appears I am wrong about Lysenko’s attitude, but it seems to me that his “anti-Darwinism” is being exaggerated here. Was genetics considered orthodox Darwinism prior to Lysenko? As for Michurin, how is his acceptance of natural selection and desire to somehow speed it up indicative of being anti-Darwinist in any way?
To me, it looks as if a now-extinct branch of neo-Darwinist theory is being erroneously labled as anti-Darwinist. If the Soviets were ever anti-Darwin as is being asserted here, it seems most strange that they should have preserved the Darwin museum in Moscow. Finally, all of this is focused on the science aspect, none of it even begins to deal with the way in which Darwinist philosophy was used as a basis for the Soviet materialist philosophy.
What is confusing me here is that if Lamarck’s soft inheritance view “is consistent with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection” and his theory of adaptation to the environment was “was later expanded in Charles Darwin’s theories of species adaption and natural selection”, (both quotes as per Wiki), then how is a neo-Lamarckian view inherently anti-Darwinian?
I’ve been deeply impressed by Scott Hatfield’s coolness in this whole thing, and ultimately much of what he’s got is deadly.
Here’s the deal: “Dialecticism” is not science. Marxists had hoped to establish that science supported their version of it, but it didn’t happen. They claimed Darwin’s work supported it, but not by the science. Who can make sense of such a claim? Yes, the emperor’s new clothes are wonderful, for invisible clothing. Yes, the Marxists’ invisible science background is easily as pretty as the emperor’s invisible clothes. Vox disagrees — he says the invisible clothes are ugly, and he wants to blame the tailor, whom he identifies as Darwin. Nuts. Nuts. Nuts.
I don’t pretend to understand Marxist philosophy in even one language, let alone two or three. So much of it seems counterintuitive to me, and counter to the evidence. But I can smell excrement when it’s put on paper, or on the screen. And when someone says that Darwin’s work inspired Marx, when no serious historian or economist makes such a wild claim, my dander rises. The claim is lunacy. The Czar’s oppression and stupid land policies had nothing to do with it? The evils of the industrial revolution had nothing to do with Marx’s observations? The stupid wars across Europe, with royal families sending thousands or millions to die to preserve their “holdings,” or with Napoleon sending millions to die for his own power, had nothing to do with Marx’s view?
Vox is running what we used to call a squirrel case, in debate. It’s far enough off the topic, and stupid enough, that one can usually get a surprise effect simply by one’s opponents not being familiar with the topic. So when religionists and dominionists like D. James Kennedy tell gullible church goers that communism, about which they know less than I, is linked to Darwin, about which they know nothing but the name, they accept it. It’s not against the law to tell such lies in the U.S.
But it’s immoral.
And, to the extent anyone actually believes such foolishness, such advocacy tends to produce bad policies, bad politics, and it engenders genuine stupidity.
So here’s what Vox supporters need to do — since he won’t and can’t: Show us what point of evolution theory traces to Marx, to communism, and to the Stalin- or Mao-generated terror. Don’t make up straw men, don’t point to social policies which inherently have nothing to do with Darwinian theory, don’t talk about philosophy. Stick to the point.
Same with Hitler, if you want to claim there is a connection, show it. Don’t offer quotes of people claiming it’s there. We’re all from Missouri. Show it, if you can. No quote is necessary, if the connections are real. No quote can save the connection, if it’s not real.
And then, when you can’t make the showing, please confess. (Ha! That’ll be the day.)
Obviously, it appears I am wrong about Lysenko’s attitude, but it seems to me that his “anti-Darwinism” is being exaggerated here
Vox’s triumphant argument: Okay, so I admit Stalin supppressed Darwinists, but not as much as you guys claim!
That puts Vox on the horns of a dilemma, then. Either the belt buckle — from either the Wehrmacht or the SS — shows that the Nazis thought God was with them, or the Nazis were not the hard-core, anti-religion atheists he claims. He, and his supporters, may pick one, but not both.
Either way, the buckle denies any connection between Darwin and the Nazis. Is that weak evidence? Absolutely. But it’s much stronger than any evidence of a linkage, so it’s enough.
Given that “the Malthusian line” is very important to Darwinian theory (overpopulation being a major factor in the force of natural selection); given that he condoned Lysenko’s championing of acquired characteristics over natural selection; yes, that would follow.
Lysenko was even more so, given that he also criticized Darwin’s gradualism, which Stalin apparently found politically inexpedient.
In the passage you cite, Stalin objects to the contradiction between the two claims; that’s not the same as objecting to either on its own. Evidently he does repudiate Darwinism’s proposed mechanisms of evolution; the only aspect of Darwinism he holds in common with Marxism is the bare fact of gradual, non-cataclysmic evolution. In other words, Stalin’s Marxism and Darwinism merely agreed that Cuvier is wrong. But so did Lamarckianism, and progressive evolution, and any number of biological/geological theories.
As has been repeatedly explained, Michurin was not as anti-Darwinist as Lysenko (he was also a vastly more capable scientist and far less interested in political power). But his position was still non-Darwinian inasmuch as he elevated Lamarckian inheritance to a much higher level of significance than Darwin accepted. Michurin was farther from Darwin than were most of his scientific contemporaries in the West, and Lysenko was much farther still.
To my knowledge, the Soviets never declared that Darwin was an idiot or a horrible person–merely that he did valuable work but, being unavoidably ideologically tainted, was wrong about a bunch of stuff. I imagine they thought the same of Newton, or Galileo. That doesn’t mean that Stalinism was motivated by Newtonianism.
That’s because Darwin didn’t write any philosophy.
If you’re going to claim that Darwin or Darwinian biologists were responsible for the views of Stalin and Lysenko, don’t you think you should at least show that their theories were closer to those views than were other theories of the time?
Darwin accepted the possibility of Lamarckian inheritance. So did pretty much everyone else at the time. But Darwin was exceptionally strongly opposed to the concept, arguing that such inheritance was rare and much less significant to evolution than was natural selection. And by the era of Stalin and Lysenko, his scientific successors had rejected the idea almost entirely. It makes very little sense to blame Darwin and “Darwinism” for ideas to which they were unusually hostile.
Because Stalin turned Lysenkoism into a party line and persecuted Darwinists, we conclude he was somehow anti-Darwinist?
Should I talk about not getting it, or about not wanting to get it?
Also, look up who Cuvier was, to see how ridiculous Stalin’s analogy between Cuvier’s mass extinctions and the revolutions of communism is.
Where?
I can’t find that either in your quote.
We — all of us — are much more orthodox neodarwinists than Stalin. To start with the most obvious, we accept the fact that acquired characteristics cannot be inherited. Stalin’s “synthesis” was neo-Larmackism/Lysenkoism alone, as far as I can tell.
Sure. Why do you think he kept attacking “Mendelism-Morganism-Weissmannism” (his word)? Do you know what Morgan and Weissmann are (moderately) famous for?
You know what “sola scriptura” means, right? Then let me simplify: neo-Darwinism is “sola selectio”. Once you have inheritance of acquired characteristics in there, and Michurin believed in this, you have neo-Lamarckism.
Incidentally, this is also why Darwin himself was not a neo-Darwinist. He believed in inheritance of acquired characteristics. He made up a whole theory of inheritance that looks very 18th century. When it was found to be wrong, it was quietly dropped; it turned out the theory of evolution doesn’t need it.
– It’s a now-extinct branch of neo-Lamarckist theory.
– Stalin persecuted neo-Darwinists and let some of them die in Siberia. For crying out loud, how is that not anti-Darwinist?!?
And if you don’t know anything about the history of science, why do you keep talking about it?
There is no such thing as “Darwinist philosophy”. Please. Forget about history of science, don’t you know anything?
Very well said.
Because Stalin turned Lysenkoism into a party line and persecuted Darwinists, we conclude he was somehow anti-Darwinist?
Should I talk about not getting it, or about not wanting to get it?
Also, look up who Cuvier was, to see how ridiculous Stalin’s analogy between Cuvier’s mass extinctions and the revolutions of communism is.
Where?
I can’t find that either in your quote.
We — all of us — are much more orthodox neodarwinists than Stalin. To start with the most obvious, we accept the fact that acquired characteristics cannot be inherited. Stalin’s “synthesis” was neo-Larmackism/Lysenkoism alone, as far as I can tell.
Sure. Why do you think he kept attacking “Mendelism-Morganism-Weissmannism” (his word)? Do you know what Morgan and Weissmann are (moderately) famous for?
You know what “sola scriptura” means, right? Then let me simplify: neo-Darwinism is “sola selectio”. Once you have inheritance of acquired characteristics in there, and Michurin believed in this, you have neo-Lamarckism.
Incidentally, this is also why Darwin himself was not a neo-Darwinist. He believed in inheritance of acquired characteristics. He made up a whole theory of inheritance that looks very 18th century. When it was found to be wrong, it was quietly dropped; it turned out the theory of evolution doesn’t need it.
– It’s a now-extinct branch of neo-Lamarckist theory.
– Stalin persecuted neo-Darwinists and let some of them die in Siberia. For crying out loud, how is that not anti-Darwinist?!?
And if you don’t know anything about the history of science, why do you keep talking about it?
There is no such thing as “Darwinist philosophy”. Please. Forget about history of science, don’t you know anything?
Very well said.
And then Stalin goes on to explain that Stalinism and Cuvier agree that Darwin was wrong in — Stalin’s ridiculous analogy — only allowing for “evolution” but not for “revolution”. Thus, the anarchists are wrong, and Stalin has won the argument. As always.
Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, scientists are from Missouri! LOL! I love that :-D
And then Stalin goes on to explain that Stalinism and Cuvier agree that Darwin was wrong in — Stalin’s ridiculous analogy — only allowing for “evolution” but not for “revolution”. Thus, the anarchists are wrong, and Stalin has won the argument. As always.
Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, scientists are from Missouri! LOL! I love that :-D
The ill-informed arguments of VD and others work at the level of the “political brain,” unconsciously, hypnopaedically. The point is not to create a rational, watertight argument. The point is to create an irrational association in the minds of right-wing readers.
According to these arguments, “National Socialism” means that the Nazis were socialists, and “Social Darwinism” must mean that Socialists were Darwinists.
Oh, and that means that “social sciences” are socialist, too, and shouldn’t be taught in universities. Since it’s impossible to do any mainstream intellectual reading without encountering the term “social” very often, any reading (other than the Good Book and WorldNetDaily) is a dangerous thing.
If we could convince wingnuts that Republicanism is a social disease, they might abandon it.
Boy, do I get really tired of the Christian/Creationist/Anti-Darwin argument that Darwin/atheists/evolutionary biology, etc., etc., is/are wrong and evil because Hitler or Stalin or some other criminal supposedly subscribed to it. By this logic I could claim that Christianity leads to evil because Ted Bundy was a Christian. In actuality, these people that argue that atheism leads to amorality have no answer for all the bigotry, racism, and genocide committed in the name of religion. Bottom line – “by their works shall ye know them”. Check my math, but when I add up all the crap done in the name of religion, a few kooks claiming to be atheists adds up to nothing.
At the risk of bragging, I think I provide some really powerful context from Dobzhansky’s own words, here.
Scott: Yes, that is a very clear exposition of the issue.
Since somebody actually mentioned Michurin, consider ‘The Situation in Biological Science’ (Proceedings of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the USSR, Session July 31st – August 7th, 1948, Verbatim Report, Moscow, Foreign Languages, 1949), which I picked up in a Sydney second-hand bookshop about 15 years ago. Fascinating read. One or two live and unrepentent ‘Morganists’ get to speak, but are slowly roasted for a week with an audience of 700, in speeches by 30 or more ‘Michurinists’ echoing the President’s (Trofim D. Lysenko’s) sentiments in as many of his exact terms as possible.
Many of the speakers have brought samples of improved crops, and the summer meeting must have somewhat resembled a harvest festival or agricultural show; I think it could possibly be adapted as an opera (much shorter than the book, because you’d have the chorus singing unison and harmony rather than going one after the other).
Vavilov, dead for several years, is not mentioned anywhere in the Verbatim Report. He might be playing the role of Trotsky in this microcosm of Stalinist Biology. Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin :: Darwin-Timiryazev-Michurin-Lysenko; nobody labours the parallels explicitly, but many of the rhetorical flourishes are interchangeable.
The questions of the day – or rather, of 20 years before when the feud began in Russia – are the existence of ‘genes’ (Michurinists deny it absolutely) and the inheritance of acquired characters (which they passionately promote). Moreover, genetics is purely academic, and not geared to immediate full-steam-ahead production.
Note that the Michurinists (Lysenko and his suckups) claim Darwin (the CD who did not exclude the possibility of inherritance-of-acquired-characters) as the founder of their tradition, and also (logically independent) indulge in presenting their principles and methods (up to and including the cult of personality) as the biological instantiation of Soviet Marxism. What if anything follows from this?
Let’s just be clear on one thing, what Karl Marx actually wrote and what later can to be called Marxism were not the same thing. Marx himself declared that he was not a “Marxist”. Soviet-style communism abandoned Marx. So demonstrating that Marx accepted Darwin’s Theory doesn’t mean jack+shit about whether a “Marxist” government does.
Darwin did not so much influence Marx as provide a “data point” in Marx’s philosophy, it demonstrated historical materialism in nature as well as human affairs. Marx was much more heavily influenced by Adam Smith than by Darwin.
More salient is that both Marx and Darwin were inimical to Soviet-style communism, and both were rejected, although their names were retained for the cachet value.
Boy, do I get really tired of the Christian/Creationist/Anti-Darwin argument that Darwin/atheists/evolutionary biology, etc., etc., is/are wrong and evil because Hitler or Stalin or some other criminal supposedly subscribed to it. By this logic I could claim that Christianity leads to evil because Ted Bundy was a Christian.
No, don’t you see, Ted Bundy couldn’t have been a Christian because no Christian would have done the things he did. Problem solved.
But somehow ‘Darwinists’ are still all Nazis and Stalinists.