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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2007
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Claim CA005:

Evolution promotes racism.

Source:

Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, p. 179.

Response:

  1. When properly understood, evolution refutes racism. Before Darwin, people used typological thinking for living things, considering different plants and animals to be their distinct "kinds." This gave rise to a misleading conception of human races, in which different races are thought of as separate and distinct. Darwinism helps eliminate typological thinking and with it the basis for racism.

  2. Genetic studies show that humans are remarkably homogeneous genetically, so all humans are only one biological race. Evolution does not teach racism; it teaches the very opposite.

  3. Racism is thousands of years older than the theory of evolution, and its prevalence has probably decreased since Darwin's day; certainly slavery is much less now. That is the opposite of what we would expect if evolution promotes racism.

  4. Darwin himself was far less racist than most of his contemporaries.

  5. Although creationism is not inherently racist, it is based upon and inseparable from religious bigotry, and religious bigotry is no less hateful and harmful than racism.

  6. Racism historically has been closely associated with creationism (Moore 2004), as is evident in the following examples:

  7. None of this matters to the science of evolution.

Links:

Trott, Richard and Jim Lippard, 2003. Creationism implies racism? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/racism.html

References:

  1. Esterhuysen, Amanda and Jeannette Smith, 1998. Evolution: 'the forbidden word'? South African Archaeological Bulletin 53: 135-137. Quoted from Stear, J., 2004. It's official! Racism is an integral part of creationist dogma. http://noanswersingenesis.org.au/aig_and_racism_response.htm
  2. Moore, R., 2004. (see below)
  3. Morris, Henry M., 1976. The Genesis Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers.
  4. Numbers, Ronald L., 1992, The Creationists, New York: Knopf.

Further Reading:

Mayr, Ernst, 2000. Darwin's influence on modern thought. Scientific American 283(1) (Jul.): 78-83.

Moore, Randy, 2004. The dark side of creationism. The American Biology Teacher 66(2): 85-87.
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created 2001-4-29, modified 2006-9-6