Nialler

Dear Troll,

The alleged evolution/racism link is the most ridiculous assertion that I've seen yet.

At BB, Helen has been flying the flag for this link, but she puts her foot in her mouth in almost her first sentence when she says:

"One of the arguments used by evolutionists is that Darwin was simply going along with the culture of his day regarding racism. He may well have been."

Read again... "with the culture of his day". This is a huge admission that racism was alive and well *before* evolution reared its head. Not only alive and well, but far more prevalent than nowadays. The histories of conquest and colonisation are replete with tales of the decimation of indigenous populations - all killed in the manner of animals, and all characterised as such by the murderers. Did they need evolution to shore up their justifications for their barbarity? No. Emphatically no. They had all the justification they needed by clapping their hand on their well-read bibles and telling themselves that the heathen/infidel/pagan/whatever animals had no right to live. Did the church ever decide to condemn these outrages? No. It funded them and rewarded the conquerors.

The racist movement never needed evolution to justify its murderous excesses; it had the bible. Evolution has hampered it, if anything, by providing raw evidence of our shared humanity.

Just because some people have deliberately twisted its findings in order to assert their own evil beliefs doesn't make the TOE invalid.

But just in case you don't understand this simple message, let me paraphrase one of the tenets of the NRA, of which I have no doubt you are a supporter:

"Evolution isn't racist, people are".