10-18-2004, 11:54 PM
I find it hard to believe that Charles Darwin had all these devious ideas in mind when he was comparing finches on an island. Darwinism was spun into Social Darwinism and that's where it got nasty. Also, an explanation for the greater civilian death tolls could be the fact that there are simply more people on earth now than ever before, and that the exponent by which the human populace has risen has become greater. Another cause of greater human catastrophe is the invential of weapons of mass destruction (to use an over-abused buzz word.) Heavy bombs, nuclear weapons, radiological weapons, chemical weapons, and the advancement of long-rang transportation have all contributed to the destruction of human life. We are now able to get more lethal weapons, in greater quantities, to any place in the world at a faster speed. Also, the global market has made economic competition between nations fierce, and as we know, most wars are fought over money and power. Hitler's genocide against the Jews was not purely ethnic (though he did dislike them greatly.) Would Hitler really have hired Jews to work for him in carrying out the "final solution" if he had dispised them so much? Even Eichmann described some Nazis' hatred of the Jews as "insane." Hitler wanted power and money. Advance weaponry and long-range trasit made it possible for him to kill with such great efficency.
Charles Darwin contributed greatly to scientific theory. It would be unfair and wrong to accuse him of providing the entire world with a dogma by which to exterminate millions of people. Darwin explains why humans have tail bones, yet no tail. He doesn't contribute to mass genocide. Different groups of humans have always felt they were inherintly superior to other groups/tribes who were considered sub-human. It's really nothing new, it just sucks a lot more now that it ever did back and the day.