199 years ago on this very day, two famous men were born who have impacted our world tremendously. They both left very distinct legacies in their wakes. The first was President Abraham Lincoln. I quote his own very famous words that summarize his legacy:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. [emphasis added]
The other man was Charles Darwin. I will quote his words to showcase the legacy that he has left us:
I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit…. The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.1 [emphasis added]
At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time, the anthropomorphous apes…will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.2 [emphasis added]
We have two distinct legacies left by these men. One was a moral champion who freed four million slaves3 because he defended the moral principle that all men are created equal. The other wrought incredible damage on America by creating a framework whereby men are mere animals that can be killed and abused at will. This can be seen today as over 800,000 babies are brutally murdered for convenience each year in America. However, not only did Darwin create this foundational framework, he explicitly argued that it would be for “the progress of civilization” if “[t]he more civilized so-called Caucasian race” “[would] exterminate, and replace, the savage races” such as “negro[s]“, the “Turkish” race, and “gorilla[s]“.
So we see two clear legacies.
In this Republican nomination for President of the United States, we have two candidates remaining: John McCain and Mike Huckabee. John McCain believes that abortions should be legal in certain cases4. Mike Huckabee supports a constitutional amendment to ban abortions5. John McCain believes in evolution6. Mike Huckabee does not believe in evolution and believes that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”7
If you live the Virginia, Maryland, or D.C., you have an opportunity to vote in the primaries today. You are presented with a choice between two legacies, two worldviews. Pick the one that matches your own.
A great video in which Huckabee talks about evolution and creation:
A great collection of things that Huckabee has said:
1 Charles Darwin: Life and Letters, I, letter to W. Graham, July 3, 1881, 316; cited in Himmelfarb, G. 1959. Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution. London: Chatto and Windus, 343.
2 Darwin C. 1901. The Descent of Man. London: John Murray, 241-242.
3 “Slavery in the United States”. Wikipedia.
4 “John McCain on Abortion”. OnTheIssues.org.
5 “Mike Huckabee on Abortion”. OnTheIssues.org.
6 “John McCain on Education”. OnTheIssues.org
7 “Mike Huckabee on Education” (1, 2). OnTheIssues.org.
7 Responses
March 23rd, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Ron Paul is still running.
And I don’t quite see the causal relationship between Darwin and abortion. People aren’t aborting to improve the species, but rather to prevent themselves from being inconvenienced and their plans from being interrupted.
Looks like Huckabee coulda been pretty good after all.
March 26th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I agree with Galen… I see no relationship between Darwin and abortion. but w/e… i don’t mean to bash your observations and opinions… it was interesting to read them.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Darwin made the idea intellectually respectable that we are mere biological bits of carbon just like the animals, instead of unique individuals with eternal souls created in the image of God. Aborting/killing then becomes simply one more bit of a natural biological life cycle.
January 26th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Pardon my late comment but I’ve only just now come upon this posting and wanted to respond to the questions regarding the link between Darwin and abortion. I agree entirely with Hans that Darwin made the concept respectable; in fact, what was once considered barbaric became “scientific” and thus seemingly “clean” and “modern.”
Darwinianism was the primary justification cited for the creation early in the 20th Century of what came to be called the “Eugenics Movement.” Eugenics, which literally means “well-born,” is an effort to improve the human race by selective breeding and the “culling” (sterilization or euthanization) of those deemed undesirable or unfit. A leader in the American Eugenics Movement was invited by the German government in the 1930s to explain the techniques and advise them on its implementation, which she enthusiastically did.
Later, as Germany was putting Darwinian eugenics into practice at places like Auschwitz and Treblinka, Sanger devoted her energies toward a society intended to accomplish the same ends in America, a society which was named Planned Parenthood and which was and remains particularly devoted to promoting both the prevention and the termination of pregnancies, especially among poor and minority populations deemed to be naturally unfit.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Pardon me for coming even later to this [a google search of Darwin Lincoln birthday yields your post first]. Linking Darwin to abortion is laughable at best and completely historically incorrect at worst. Darwin was not a ‘Darwinian’ who came up with Eugenics and all the other things societies have used to justify their murderous actions. No more than God [whichever religion you believe] killed thousands during the crusades or in Rwanda. People kill people and they often do it because they interpret things in their own twisted way to justify their actions.
Know this: Darwin simply went out to investigate the world around him. At first he held a literal belief in the Bible. But lo and behold he observed things through scientific inquiry that contradicted his literal belief. He did not set out to contradict the Bible or belittle religion or support abortion [!]. In fact Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the same conclusions at the same time – so it was inevitable that scientists would discover evolution. Understand that. Darwin was a great man a great scientist and you need not be afraid of evolution.
February 10th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I too have come late to this discussion, having only just stumbled upon it after learning of the remarkable fact that Lincoln and Darwin share a birthday. After reading this post I feel compelled to chime in on a couple of key points. First of all I have to agree with Matt that Darwin can not be faulted for the emergence of eugenics… that his ideas were grossly misinterpreted and applied as justification for terrible atrocities is no more a valid refutation of his principles than Muslim extremism is to Islam or the crusades are to Christianity.
With the question of his influence on the practice of abortion things get a bit trickier. I suppose one might accurately posit that the growing acceptance of evolutionary theory is indeed responsible for the gradual erosion of the stranglehold on morality that religion, specifically Christianity in the United states, has enjoyed for centuries. Obviously, one views this as either a good or bad thing depending on one’s ideology. As some one who earnestly straddles the issue, I ultimately find myself aligned with the side that DOES NOT seek to limit the rights of others by virtue of their own moral code, as inherited by the specific form of organized religion to which they subscribe. That being said, I believe that to ‘blame’ Darwin for such social practices as abortion and euthanasia, regardless of the fact that in doing so one ASSUMES the immorality of those practices, is irresponsible in that it denies the certain inevitability of Darwin’s theory based upon it’s inherit truthfulness. Blaming Evolution for a social practice you dissaprove of is like blaming gravity when some jerk drops an apple on your head from the top of a ten story building. So I guess all im saying is that the meaningfulness of this discussion hinges around the argument over the truthfulness of the Darwin’s theory (don’t let the word theory mislead you, this thing has been pretty well proven, hehe!!)…. for more on that I highly recommend the NOVA series Judgement day: Evolution and Intelligent design on trial, it provides a fascinating, and I found objective exposition of both ideas.
February 11th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
I fail to see how denouncing Darwin as a racist makes the theory of evolutionany less true. Does that mean that all anti-biotic resistant bacteria are racist as well?
Leave a Comment