1. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #176761 by Jenny Haskins on May 8, 2008 at 1:01 am

"but it does seem to me to a logical end point to a purely naturalistic philosophy based on survival of the fittest."

This is a silly comment from a previous poster.

And I think Richard Dawkins himself misunderstand evolutionary theory when he says "I have several times said that a society based on Darwinian principles would be a very unpleasant society in which to live."

Darwin's theory never said anything about intentional selection of choosing 'fit' individuals. In fact if anything Darwin's major ommission was not defining the simple principle that survival long enough to produce descendants who themselves live long enough to produce descendants (etc) is 'fitness'.

Now by purely Darwinian (ie natural) selection humans have evolved into an altruistic, empathetic and cooperative social species -- and purely by Darwinian (ie natural) selection the different races have evolved. And we are still living in a society based on natural selection -- because our tendency and ability to help the weaker members of our society has evolved through Darwinian (natural) selection.

Blaming Darwin OR his theories for 'Social Darwinism" is as silly as blaming Karl Marx for the atrocities committed by the dictatorial societies that choose to call themselves 'Marxist'. Or, dare I say Jesus Ben Joseph (aka Christ) is not responsible for the atrocities committed in his name either.

Not to mention that the tendency/ability of people to believe in an ill-defined deity is also a characteristic developed through natural selection :-)