Racism has been perpetuated falsely by evolutionary ideas throughout history. Since the beginning of intelligent life mankind has discriminated against others of it's own species. The "in group" mentality may be a genetic psychological trait. However, evolutionary theory has been used to justify unfair treatment of certain groups. Literature and other forms of influence have used evolutionary ideas to perpetuate racism. The ideas of Charles Darwin and other respected evolutionists have been misconstrued to serve the racist hate of many leaders, writers and clergy.

Given that species evolved over time. Darwin strove to deduce a means by which descent with modification might occur. He cleverly named his mechanism natural selection, because it was familiar to anyone acquainted with the breeding of domestic stock, dogs or horses, for this was the insight that showed Darwin how the whole mechanism of evolution might operate. Although nothing was known of modern genetics, DNA, or chromosomes, it was apparent to most that offspring often inherited the characteristics, physical and mental, of their parents. Darwin's most convincing p

It was a view of life reminiscent of the Protestant perspective of previous generations. Worldly success had been accepted as evidence of goodness or divine approval. Now that a scientific rather than a religious standard was to be met, worldly success was obviously an indicator of Darwinian fitness and genetic superiority. The poor and the working classes, which lived in poverty and misery, suffered because they were made of inferior genetics. Their struggles were simply the manifestation of nature's plan, of natural selection, and to interfere was to doom the society, the race, or even the species as a whole. Society and the economy would be led by those most fit to lead, those who had been selected over long generations of superior performance, and it was absurd to contemplate any rapid of profound changes. The ideal meshed neatly with the long-standing practice of judging a new acquaintance by inquiring after his or her family; if you knew someone's "people," it was believed, you knew what tendencies and personality traits that individual was likely to have inherited.

Consider this story about Indigenous Americans and the voyage of The Beagle.

Another German of influence was the great evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). Haeckel is known for his "Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny" (the embryo re-traces evolution) contribution to the field of evolution, a theory which is now discredited but still lingers on. Haeckel became one of Germany's major ideologists for racism, nationalism, and imperialism. The ideas of racial supremacy and the survival of the fittest race reached its zenith with the National Socialist party of Nazi Germany. The legacy of Haeckel and Nietzsche turned many German scientists into racist evolutionists. Adolph Hitler himself was an evolutionist. His book "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle) has a strong theme of the necessity of struggle, a struggle between the races. Hitler likened Jews to parasites. Which if left alone would kill its host, The Nordic race. Throughout Mein Kampf Adolph Hitler uses evolutionary theory to perpetuate hatred for Jews. In volume 1, Chapter 6 of Mein Kampf he writes about the superiority of the Aryan race. Hitler portrays races as a hierarchy, encouraging that no Aryan capitulate with a lesser race. The consequence would be offspring inferior to that of the Aryan but still superior to the race of the lesser parent. Such mating is contrary to nature's intentions of higher breeding of all life.

Horsman, Reginald. Race and Manifest Destiny. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.

In summary, Darwin claimed that as some horses are selected by their owners for breeding because they are faster runners, and some cows for their higher yield of milk, so too do the different variations in physique or ability among a wild species sometimes enhance or damage the reproductive success of particular individuals. It was a commonplace in Darwin's day that any good horseman looks for the best stallion to breed to his prize mare, hoping that their offspring will enjoy the best qualities of each. Advertisements for the services of particular stallions appeared regularly in newspapers in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, In fact, the benefit of selective breeding was so irrefutable, that English mares had been segregated from stallions except for planned breedings since the 1100s (Shipman, Pg. 21).

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Approximate Word count = 3435
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)