"May be". I know that you are not blindly supporting what the ICR says, and
I never intended to say that you were. However, I think that even the modest
level of credulity you display towards the ICR's preposterous claims is
unwarranted.
I'm not trying to distort what you said or attack you. If I misunderstood
your intentions, I apologize.
> I concede that "evolution" does not literally "grant" anything to
>anyone, the ostensible grammar of my original sentence notwithstanding.
>PEOPLE "infer" or claim theoretical connections between e.g. concepts and
>consequences. I only suggested that inferring a logical connection between
>purely naturalistic evolution and racism is not so easily dismissible.
Except that it is, when one takes even a cursory look at human history.
In fact, there is a simple test one can perform on the ICR's (ahem) theory.
Their claim is that acceptance of evolutionary theory tends to make one more
inclined towards racist beliefs. OK. Take a sample group of people (preferably
a large one), half of whom accept evolution as a fact, half of whom strongly
believe in Creationism. Then find out what percentage of each group believes in
the superiority of one ethnic group over another.
Has the ICR performed this experiment to test their theory? Have they performed
any experiment to test it? No. So until they do, it is "easily dismissible",
on the grounds that there is no significant supporting data.
> Personally, I still understand how some people WITHOUT racist
>predispositions can plausibly correlate a naturalistic and non-theistic
>"survival of the fittest" mentality with racism.
Just as I can understand how someone without racist predispositions can
plausibly correlate a biblical mentality with racism. But that that's
just blind speculation.
> Claiming that "modern [non-theistic] evolutionary theory does more
>to counter racism than support it" seems astounding to me.
Perhaps I reached a little too far on that one. However, I do know that,
from what I've read and who I've talked to, the concept of clearly definable
"races" of humans (i.e., the belief that there is a significant genetic
difference
between ethnic groups) is becoming less and less accepted by the scientific
community.
_____________________________________________________________
| Russell Stewart |
| http://www.rt66.com/diamond/ |
|_____________________________________________________________|
| Albuquerque, New Mexico | diamond@rt66.com |
|_____________________________|_______________________________|
If Rush is Right, then I'll take what's Left.