Wednesday, March 23, 2005
AMA, Holocaust Museam Join Hands to Sponsor "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race" Lecture Series
Recently, Red State Rabble has been involved in a debate with Richard Weikart, a fellow at the Discovery Institute, who has written a book and delivered lectures claiming that "Darwinism played a key role in the rise of eugenics, euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all ultimately embraced by the Nazis."
It is undeniable that some scientists wrongly embraced social Darwinism and eugenics. Some even became willing tools of the Nazi regime. However, many scientists also risked their lives to oppose the Nazis, or fought against these reactionary social movements in other countries.
Scientists everywhere now agree that Social Darwinism, the notion that "the survival of the fittest" applies to human ethics and politics just as it does to biological evolution, is a distortion of evolutionary theory.
The important question for us now is: what are science and medicine doing to ensure that these ugly movements don't reappear?
For one thing, the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs is helping to initiate a lecture series in conjunction with the Holocaust Museum special exhibition, "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race," which runs through Oct. 16, 2005.
"The question we are asking is," says Alan Wells, Ph.D., an expert in medical ethics with the American Medical Association, "How could science be co-opted so that doctors as healers evolved into killers and medical research became torture?"
You can view the schedule for the lecture series here.
As RSR has pointed out, Christians -- like scientists -- were divided among those who supported or opposed these dark social movements. RSR's only question is this: will fundamentalist Christians also explore their own role in the rise of social Darwinism, eugenics, and the rise of Nazi power -- and draw the appropriate lessons from it -- or will they continue down the path they seem to be on?
It is undeniable that some scientists wrongly embraced social Darwinism and eugenics. Some even became willing tools of the Nazi regime. However, many scientists also risked their lives to oppose the Nazis, or fought against these reactionary social movements in other countries.
Scientists everywhere now agree that Social Darwinism, the notion that "the survival of the fittest" applies to human ethics and politics just as it does to biological evolution, is a distortion of evolutionary theory.
The important question for us now is: what are science and medicine doing to ensure that these ugly movements don't reappear?
For one thing, the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs is helping to initiate a lecture series in conjunction with the Holocaust Museum special exhibition, "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race," which runs through Oct. 16, 2005.
"The question we are asking is," says Alan Wells, Ph.D., an expert in medical ethics with the American Medical Association, "How could science be co-opted so that doctors as healers evolved into killers and medical research became torture?"
You can view the schedule for the lecture series here.
As RSR has pointed out, Christians -- like scientists -- were divided among those who supported or opposed these dark social movements. RSR's only question is this: will fundamentalist Christians also explore their own role in the rise of social Darwinism, eugenics, and the rise of Nazi power -- and draw the appropriate lessons from it -- or will they continue down the path they seem to be on?
