If Darwin says that blacks are soon going to die off and sick children in the hospital should die off because they are all the weaker of the species in "the descendants of man" then it is that what you guys believe too?
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You're the one making the assumption that black people are 'weaker'
Oh and turns out sick people are more likely to die than healthy people. There is a difference between noticing this and encouraging it.
Yeah, when I walk into a biologist's office, they typically have a completely empty bookshelf, except for one dog-eared copy of Origen of the Species. They spend hours poring over it each day trying to coax the meaning out of every verb choice and turn of phrase, and its words are their sole guide to how they conduct business. Oh, wait, that doesn't happen!
it's not like the is-ought fallacy was something that ethical philosophers discovered just yesterday. that you can't go making statements about what ought to be (ethics) based solely upon knowledge of what actually is (natural science, as in what Darwin spent his life doing) was understood at least as early as David Hume (who lived, wrote, and died a century before Darwin, and whose texts Darwin almost certainly read or at least knew of).
but, y'know, some folks haven't caught up to such new discoveries yet. Hume's Treatise of Human Nature is only two and a half centuries old, after all. if you never read anything newer than the bible...
Darwin never said that, and being a humanist I believe every human has the right to life.
What the hell is it with these idiots who think that we atheists worship Darwin like they do Jesus?
You mean if Darwin had said that... he is quite dead by now.
If Peter Sutcliffe says he killed prostitutes in the name of God, then is that what you Christians believe too?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutcliffe
See what I did there?
Darwin never said that, so everything that follows is fail.
If Jesus said to dash babies heads against rocks, is that what you guys believe too?
Edit: Nicole nailed it. The sooner rational people understand this the sooner fundies will be dealt with the way the should.
This is a perfect illustration of a classic problem with fundie thinking - having no idea how anything outside their own belief system actually works (and having no idea that they have no idea ), they project what they're familiar with upon it. In this case, this person believes that Darwin is to atheists what prophets are to the religious - that his words are to be unquestioningly followed, not to be examined and tested.
He's not saying that Darwin actually said that... he's just projecting his own blind faith onto atheists and trying to "challenge" them. Unfortunately, it doesn't work because what Darwin said is completely irrelevant if it doesn't hold up to scientific testing and/or what we'd consider good ethics today.
We're talking science here, dearie, as in everything get tested and challenged before it's accepted. Darwin probably said many stupid things, in-between the smart things he wrote down in his book. It is of little or no consequence to science, however. The ToE is about what actually happens, not about what should happen.
You're thinking of Social Darwinism, engineered populations selectively killed off or abandoned by artificial means rather than any natural hazard. Despite Darwin's name being in the phrase he has nothing to do with the idea and his theory of natural selection is virtually the polar opposite of this practice. The ability to work as a group is also a component to natural selection (I.E. wolves, beavers, insects,) and is one of the major factors in humanity's rise to its current status in the world.
Additionally, if you were implying that black people are a different species or of lesser status than whites and south Asians then I invite you to kiss my ass. If the implication was that such a thought was racist and ridiculous then I withdraw the remark and refer again to the above.
You seem to think we mindlessly obey the 'gods' of science. There are no gods, only observations and facts that are either proven, disproven, or built upon by further observation.
"If Darwin says that blacks are soon going to die off and sick children in the hospital should die off because they are all the weaker of the species in "the descendants of man" then it is that what you guys believe too?"
Just a sec, I'll ask him:
image
No. Next question. [/hyper-smartarse]
So, you're making an ill-informed judgement that blacks are weaker than others and blaming it on Darwin. Nice work, a$$hat.
Darwin didn't say sick children should be allowed to die off, just that less well adapted members of an eco-system do not reproduce as well as those who are better adapted. In the case of humans, adaptation includes the inventions of modern medicine which allow many of those sick children to survive into adulthood.
P.S. The ToE has come a long way since Darwin. He is not the end all and be all of evolution.
Are we being provocative here?
Try not to be such an obvious arse. mentally you appear to be a weaker link, so it is you who will likely die out. Actually, sooner the better
If Darwin says ... is that what you guys believe too?
May I take the liberty of answering with a question?
If Fox News says the moon is going to fall from the sky, is that what you guys believe too?
Except that "Darwin" doesn't say that, and never did. What Darwin observed is that over time, populations of animals and plants slowly physically changed to accommodate their environment via a process of natural selection. This has been observed, both in a laboratory setting and in the natural world.
Unfortunately for people like you, remarkably stupid people then attempted to take this idea and apply it to politics and social theory, in an attempt to justify extreme selfishness, rampant social inequality and a lust for conquest.
The situation is very vaguely akin to a man deciding that, because Newton's Theory of Gravitation states that any two masses are attracted to each others' center of mass, it's right and proper to throw people and animals off of cliffs, high buildings and mountains and such so that nature can follow its grand design, and to ban aircraft and outlaw any safety mechanism that keeps people from naturally falling to their deaths. The term that describes this is the Naturalistic Fallacy --to wit, they have committed the sin of confusing "what is" with "what ought to be."
Darwin doesn't say anything anymore. The man has been dead for a while now.
I keep wishing that fundies would find a more interesting way of getting natural selection wrong. This one is getting a little old.
If Jesus said we should stone adulteresses to death is that what you guys believe too ? See what I did there?
On the other hand...
Matthew 10:5-6 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:
But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel
Matthew 15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
So according to the Bible 'Don't preach to anyone who isn't Jewish' is a direct instruction from Jesus to his followers. It's not an 'If Jesus said...' invention as in the Darwin question. Is that what you guys believe too?
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.
- Charles Darwin; The Descent of Man, 1871
That's pretty rich coming from a member of a group that historicaly considered it OK to torture and murder "witches" and unbelievers and enslave people based on their skin color just because your Church/Bible told you that it was Gawd's will. But to answer your questio, if Darwin said that, we would ask him to explain how he came to such conclusions.
We would also check his breath for alcohol, and discreetly ask his family and friends if he suffered a head trauma or a stroke or if he showed signs of the onset of senile dementia, to try to understand why he'd say something so out of character. What we wouldn't do is start to let people die off or kill them just on his say-so.
Or by "Darwin", did you mean the Theory of Evolution? In that case, you once again proved that fundies have no clue what the ToE actually says.
Well Darwin never said that. The bible says it's okay to murder, torture, enslave, stone, and persecute people, is that what you guys believe, too? There's no "if." Religious types like this whine that not enough people read their bible, but do they even pay attention to what's actually in it? And they have the nerve to claim atheists are immoral...
Also only idiotic racists think black people are all the "weaker of the species."
You know, even IF Darwin said that, we wouldn't accept it. Because Darwin wasn't a prophet, just a scientist. His theory has been improved on and modified in light of new discoveries.
Darwin was just a clever guy who came up with a really good theory, which we have since developed, refined, and built on. We don't worship him. He is not our Jesus. The Origin of Species is not our Bible.
If he had said "my theory of evolution is that niggers are stupid and should die also fuck sick kids too there totes gay amirite lol #YOLO", then you and your ilk would have your wish of no one taking Darwin or his theory remotely seriously. The reason we do take his theory seriously is because A) he didn't say that, and B) evolution is proven fact. Not because we think Darwin will send us to Hell if we don't.
Also note my use of past-tense. I use it because he's dead.
Just like we didn't evolve from monkeys, but share a common ancestor with monkeys, so too white people didn't evolve from black people, but shared a common ancestor with black people (that that common ancestor happened to have black skin is rather beside the point).
To say that Darwin thought that black people are weak means you are assuming that black people are "less evolved". Black people didn't stop evolving just because white people appeared on the scene. In fact that's fundamentally at odds with how evolution works. So why would you assume it, unless you're a closet racist trying to project your racism onto people who accept the fact of evolution?
That the weakest of a species tend to die off and not reproduce is an observation not a rule.
The fact that we control aspects of our environment, like houses, heaters, air-conditioning, fresh water and toilets, means that weaker people can survive longer. Also medical treatments help.
“If Darwin says”
Right off the bat, i have to point out that no one gives a flying fuck what Darwin SAID. We praise him more for making observations that stand up to scrutiny.
Some stuff he didn’t know, some stuff he got wring, but the basic idea has held up pretty well.
He didn’t just SAY that stuff evolves, he published the observations that led to the conclusions.
"that blacks are soon going to die off and sick children in the hospital should die off because they are all the weaker of the species”
‘Weaker’ isn’t part of evolutionary theory. FITTEST is where the magic happens.
And the genes that make us empathize with others and band together against sickness and famine are our evolutionary advantage over stronger creatures. So, he didn’t say that, wouldn’t say that, and it’s not what any ‘evolution’ studying person should say.
“in "the descendants of man" then it is that what you guys believe too?”
We accept science based on the latest findings, unlike some who hew to the writings or sayings of someone who never used a flush toilet in his entire life.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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