Category Archives: Darwinism

The next few years are going to be transformative from a marketing perspective partly driven by a new generation of marketing technologies but also continual changes in consumer behavior, which will lead to Digital Darwinism. Stephen Ingledew at Aprimo sheds some light on the evolutionary process that sees digital marketing embedding itself within corporate organizations in many countries

What is Digital Darwinism? Quite simply it means that when technology and society are changing faster than organizations can adapt, the only positive way to respond is to become customer driven. As a consequence, organizations will need to radically evolve their marketing operations to become customer driven.

To promote customer-centric operations, financial organizations should ask themselves, How are we relevant to a consumers life and how do our products address real-life changing consumer needs?

Failing to address the real and changing needs of consumers will open the way for the emerging group of market disrupters that will address those needs instead. Established businesses can too easily assume that because they are the biggest and have the most resources, they will be the survivors. Darwinism proves that isnt the case. Businesses that adapt and change will succeed, as opposed to those that continue to stick with what they have always done.

The right marketing operations platform

Within this rapidly evolving marketing environment, the selection of the most appropriate marketing operations platform is important. Securing the right marketing operations platform can help transform the way businesses interact with customers. Executives should seek a platform that supports the key foundations of marketing issues including: governance, risk management and supplier relationships. Technology has always been around on a basic level it facilitates automation and efficiency but it does not in itself create a customer driven businesses.

Technical advances should be combined with innately human marketing skills, such as creativity, an imagination and empathy - skills that technology cannot replace. As time goes on and the possibility of more jobs being replaced by technology increases, we must find a space that allows marketers to add value through their human skills. Essentially, freeing marketers to be marketers.

Furthermore, marketing execs should take a step beyond the front-line marketing team and ask questions like, How will my platform support aspects of the wider marketing ecosystem such as legal, risk, sales channels and third party suppliers? The right technology should break down silos within a company and provide a keen focus on client contact, the customer need and purpose of your business. The focus shouldnt just be on the technology. Placing concentrations beyond technology is valuable because otherwise efforts will only be put towards efficiency, which doesnt exactly motivate employees to get out of bed in the morning.

Within businesses there is a need to give consistency with personality. The brand is personality - it is not the company colors nor the logo. Customers relate to personality, and they expect that personality to have a certain level of consistency. The more comfortable customers are with a personality; the more engaged customers will feel. However, within marketing, different channels are often used such as mobile, telephone or social: frequently each channel can give a different experience or facet of your personality. The different channels can lead to confusion for your customer. By having a single source of marketing truth providing transparency and consistency of message tone and style, a marketing operations platform can ensure the root core of your personality is amplified across channels. While still enabling creative conversation, always provide an opportunity to give consistency with personality.

Marketing Operations helped me sleep at night

The best marketing operations platform provides governance and control while still driving operational efficiencies.

The right technology platform enables you to have confidence that your marketing messages are compliant. Once you have compliance confidence, you can empower your teams to be more creative and co-create with customers. We need governance and control this is where marketing operations technology becomes invaluable.

Regulators have the power to investigate, fine and potentially sanction the senior person who is ultimately responsible for signing off marketing from a regulatory perspective. Therefore, as senior executives are distanced from day-to-day operations, they need the assurance that their marketing messages are compliant and legal.

Once you have that confidence and competence, teams can self-regulate but to do this there is a need for governance and control, which is where technology comes into its own.

See the article here:

Digital Darwinism Predicted as Changes in Consumer Behavior Transform Marketing Landscape - MarTech Advisor

Humans have always wondered about the meaning of life...life has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA...life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.1 --Richard Dawkins

Evolution is "deceptively simple yet utterly profound in its implications,"2 the first of which is that living creatures "differ from one another, and those variations arise at random, without a plan or purpose."3 Evolution must be without plan or purpose because its core tenet is the natural selection of the fittest, produced by random copying errors called mutations. Darwin "was keenly aware that admitting any purposefulness whatsoever to the question of the origin of species would put his theory of natural selection on a very slippery slope."4 Pulitzer Prize author Edward Humes wrote that the fact of evolution was obvious but "few could see it, so trapped were they by the humandesire to find design and purpose in the world." He concluded:

Darwin's brilliance was in seeing beyond the appearance of design, and understanding the purposeless, merciless process of natural selection, of life and death in the wild, and how it culled all but the most successful organisms from the tree of life, thereby creating the illusion that a master intellect had designed the world. But close inspection of the watchlike "perfection" of honeybees' combs or ant trailsreveals that they are a product of random, repetitive, unconscious behaviors, not conscious design.5

The fact that evolution teaches that life has no purpose beyond perpetuating its own survival is not lost on teachers. One testified that teaching evolution "impacted their consciences" because it moved teachers away from the "idea that they were born for a purpose something completely counter to their mindset and beliefs."6

In a study on why children resist accepting evolution, Yale psychologists Bloom and Weisberg concluded that the evolutionary way of viewing the world, which the authors call "promiscuous teleology," makes it difficult for them to accept evolution. Children "naturally see the world in terms of design and purpose."7 The ultimate purposelessness of evolution, and thus of the life that it produces, was eloquently expressed by Professor Lawrence Krauss as follows: "We're just a bit of pollution. If you got rid of usthe universe would be largely the same. We're completely irrelevant."8

The Textbooks

To determine what schools are teaching about religious questions such as the purpose of life, I surveyed current science textbooks and found that they tend to teach the view that evolution is both nihilistic and atheistic. One of today's most widely-used textbooks stated that "evolution works without either plan or purpose. Evolution is random and undirected."9 Another text by the same authors added that Darwin knew his theory "required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its byproducts." The authors continued:

Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless--a process in which...nature ruthlessly eliminates the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.10

Another text taught that humans are just "a tiny, largely fortuitous, and late-arising twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life" and the belief that a "progressive, guiding force, consistently pushing evolution to move in a single direction" is now known to be "misguided."11 Many texts teach that evolution is purposeless and has no goal except to achieve brute survival: the "idea that evolution is not directed towards a final goal or state has been more difficult for many people to accept than the process of evolution itself."12 One major text openly teaches that humans were created by a blind, deaf, and dumb watchmaker--namely natural selection, which is "totally blind to the future."

Humans...came from the same evolutionary source as every other species. It is natural selection of selfish genes that has given us our bodies and our brains. Natural selectionexplainsthe whole of life, the diversity of life, the complexity of life, |and| the apparent design in life."13

The Implications

Many texts are very open about the implications of Darwinism for theism. One teaches that Darwin's immeasurably important contribution to science was to show that, despite life's apparent evidence of design and purpose, mechanistic causes explain all biological phenomena. The text adds that by coupling "undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous."14 The author concludes by noting that "it was Darwin's theory of Evolution that provided a crucial plank to the platform of mechanisms and materialismthat has been the stage of most western thought."15 Another text even stated directly that humans were created by a random process, not a loving, purposeful God, and:

The real difficulty in accepting Darwin's theory has always been that it seems to diminish our significance. |Evolution| asked us to accept the proposition that, like all other organisms, we too are the products of a random process that, as far as science can show, we are not created for any special purpose or as part of any universal design.16

These texts are all clearly teaching religious ideas, not science. An excellent example is a text that openly ruled out not only theistic evolution, but any role for God in nature, and demonstrated that Darwinism threatened theism by showing that humans and all life "could be explained by natural selection without the intervention of a god." Evolutionary "randomness and uncertainty had replaced a deity having conscious, purposeful, human characteristics."

The Darwinian view that present-type organisms were not created spontaneously but formed in a succession of selective events that occurred in the past, contradicted the common religious view that there could be no design, biological or otherwise, without an intelligent designer. In this scheme a god of design and purpose is not necessary. Religion has been bolstered by the comforting idea that humanity was created in the image of a god to rule over the world and its creatures. Religion provided emotional solace, a set of ethical and moral values. Nevertheless, faith in religious dogma has been eroded by natural explanations of its mysteries. The positions of the creationists and the scientific world appear irreconcilable."17

Darwin himself taught a totally atheistic, naturalistic view of origins. He even once said, "I would give nothing for the theory of natural selection if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."18 John Alcock, an evolutionary biologist, therefore concluded that "we exist solely to propagate the genes within us."19

Leading Darwin scholar Janet Browne makes it very clear that Darwin's goal was the "arduous task of reorienting the way Victorians looked at nature." To do this Darwin had to convince the world that "ideas about a benevolent, nearly perfect natural world" and those that believe "beauty was given to things for a purpose, were wrong--that the idea of a loving God who created all living things and brought men and women into existence wasa fable."

The worldsteeped in moral meaning which helped mankind seek out higher goals in life, was not Darwin's. Darwin's view of nature was dark--black. Where most men and women generally believed in some kind of design in nature--some kind of plan and order--and felt a deep-seated, mostly inexpressible belief that their existence had meaning, Darwin wanted them to see all life as empty of any divine purpose.20

Darwin knew how difficult it was to abandon such a view, but realized that for evolution to work, nature must ultimately be "governed entirely by chance." Browne concludes:

The pleasant outward face of nature was precisely that--only an outward face. Underneath was perpetual struggle, species against species, individual against individual. Life was ruled by death...destruction was the key to reproductive success. All the theological meaning was thus stripped out by Darwin and replaced by the concept of competition. All the telos, the purpose, on which natural theologians based their ideas of perfect adaptation was redirected into Malthusian--Darwinian--struggle. What most people saw as God-given design he saw as mere adaptations to circumstance, adaptations that were meaningless except for the way in which they helped an animal or plant to survive.21

Neo-Darwinist Richard Dawkins recognized the purposelessness of such a system:

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.22

How widely is this view held by scientists? One study of 149 leading biologists found that 89.9 percent believed that evolution has no ultimate purpose or goal except survival, and we are just a cosmic accident existing at the whim of time and chance. A mere six percent believed that evolution has a purpose.23 Almost all of those who believed that evolution had no purpose were atheists. This is only one example that Sommers and Rosenberg call the "destructive power of Darwinian theory."24

Purpose and Christianity

Christianity teaches that God made the universe as a home for humans. If the universe evolved purely by natural means, then it just exists and any "purpose" for its existence can only be that which humans themselves attribute to it. But our own experience and intellectual attainments argue against this. The similarity of human-constructed machines and the orderly functioning of the universe is the basis of the design argument. Just as a machine requires a designer and a builder, so too the universe that we see requires a designer and a builder.

Determining the purpose of something depends on the observer's worldview. To a nontheist the question "What is the purpose of a living organism's structure?" means only "How does this structure aid survival?" Eyesight and legs would therefore have nothing to do with enjoyment of life; they are merely an unintended byproduct of evolution. Biologists consistently explain everything from coloration to sexual habits solely on the basis of survival. Orthodox neo-Darwinism views everything as either an unfortunate or a fortuitous event resulting from the outworking of natural law and random, naturally-selected mutations. Conversely, creationists interpret all reality according to beliefs about God's purpose for humans. Evolutionists can usually explain even contradictory behavior, but creationists look beyond this and try to determine what role it plays in God's plan.

Conclusions

Orthodox evolution teaches that the living world has no plan or purpose except survival, is random, undirected, and heartless. Humans live in a world that cares nothing for us, our minds are simply masses of meat, and no divine plan exists to guide us. These teachings are hardly neutral, but rather openly teach religion--the religion of atheism and nihilism. The courts have consistently approved teaching this anti-Christian religion in public schools and have blocked all attempts to neutralize these clearly religious ideas.

As the Word of God states, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

References

* Dr. Bergman is Professor of Biology at Northwest State College in Ohio.

Cite this article: Bergman, J. 2007. Darwinism: Survival without Purpose. Acts & Facts. 36 (11): 10.

Read more from the original source:

Darwinism: Survival without Purpose | The Institute for ...

Discovery Institute philosopher of biology Paul Nelson is a great explainer. He is always a pleasure to listen to. In a rich and lucid conversation for ID the Future with Center for Science & Culture research coordinator Brian Miller, Dr. Nelson elaborates on the challenge to Darwinian theory from so-called orphan genes.

These are DNA sequences coding for protein (in the context of this discussion) with no known genetic relatives. They exist in great numbers. They often serve in vital roles in organisms. Where did they come from? Darwinism assumes a relationship of cousinship not only among all creatures, past and present, but between gene sequences. Orphan genes defy the theory of cousinship.

The history of life, presumed to originate with LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor), doesnt afford enough time to generate these novelties, seemingly out of nowhere. On the other hand, a perspective open to intelligent design accommodates the possibility of generating absolutely new biological information as needed, at, so to speak, the designers pleasure. This information could occur anywhere at all in possible genetic sequence space.

Darwinism has its possible rationalizations of the orphan genes problem. Its always does. But rationalizations are all they are.

Orphan genes are another examplewhere predictions of standard evolutionary theory are defeatedby the evidence. Meanwhile ID takes the evidence in stride. As a scientific theory, Darwinian evolution is indeed testable, except that it fails its tests. Download this podcastepisode of ID the Futurehere.Or listen to it here.

And by the way, are you in the Greater Houston area? Meet Dr. Nelson in person at a premiere screening of the new Illustra Media documentary Origin: Design, Chance and the First Life on Earth.ThatsFriday, March 31, from 7 to 9 PM. More information is here.

Photo: Orphaned baby two-toed sloth, Jaguar Rescue Center, Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Costa Rica, by Matt MacGillivray via Flickr.

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Pity the Unwanted Orphan Genes An Awkward Topic for Darwinism - Discovery Institute

See statements below by on Trumps proposed budget-from-Hell.

Rep. Donald McEachin (VA-04):

The Presidents fiscal year 2018 budget demonstrates clearly how much this Administration does not care about hardworking families.

The programs and funding that middle class, minority and low income communities rely on most were stripped or not adequately funded in the Presidents budget. Hardworking families in urban, suburban and rural communities will suffer if we fail to protect public education, housing, and the social safety net. If this budget were signed into law, it would place more fiscal burden on those who can least afford it, that is, our most vulnerable communities. History has shown that when Americas richest receive more tax breaks at the expense of everyone else, our country suffers.

While I support dedicating needed resources to help our brave men and women in the military, those funds should not come at the expense of critical, basic and needed programs. Debilitating cuts in climate change and alternative energy programs as well as the elimination of Chesapeake Bay federal funding are unacceptable. These cuts endanger public health now and for future generations. The Chesapeake Bay is a source of jobs, transportation, income, food, and recreation for countless Virginians. We have finally made some gains with the Bay, but this budget will reverse our gains.

It appears that this budget will simply make Americas richest even richer, while middle class and low income Americans will find themselves struggling even more to try to make ends meet. Congress is responsible for enacting the budget. I call on my colleagues to reject these draconian cuts and urge that we work together to create a budget that actually works for all Americans not the select few. This is not the budget that will make America great again.

Rep. Bobby Scott (VA-03):

If is serious about the budget, he should look to which has produced a morally & fiscally responsible budget for yrs budget makes investments in programs that support working families,students,seniors & the most vulnerable in our communitiesCongress must pass a budget that helps all Americans.

Be sure to read my op-ed on the Congressional Black Caucus budget. Based on what we are learning about President Trumps first budget, Americans of all races, colors and creeds should be concerned. If the President is serious about moving the African American community and the rest of the nation forward, he need only to look to the alternative budget developed by the CBC.

Rep. Don Beyer (VA-08):

Well fight tooth & nail against draconian cuts to feds, which will hurt clean air & water, public health, veterans services & so much more.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (VA-11):

Trumps budget doubles down on social Darwinism. Draconian cuts to the State Department, foreign assistance, and EPA threaten American security and public health.

Sen. Mark Warner:

This budget proposal from President Trump does not reflect a balanced approach. Instead, it includes many short-sighted choices that if implemented could actually harm our countrys strength and long-term growth. The Trump budget proposes to dramatically slash public investments in programs like early childhood education, job training, scientific research, and the protection of economic and natural resources like the Chesapeake Bay. We should be serious about addressing the fiscal issues in our country and work together to address the impact that the across-the-board spending cuts have had on the military and our national security. However, the roadmap the President has laid out does not meet those goals. I urge him to commit to working with Congress to take a more responsible, businesslike approach one that also respects the role of smart investments in our nations economic future.

Sen. Tim Kaine:

Budgets show us a Presidents priorities, and based on what President Trump released today, Im concerned that hes continuing to push policies that would hurt Virginians. While I support the Administrations commitment to investments in defense, deep cuts to the State Department jeopardize our national security. Despite President Trumps promises that Mexico would pay for a border wall, this budget shows hes trying to force American taxpayers to pick up the tab for a wall that wont make us safer.

While the budget is short on details, the drastic cuts threaten programs that help ensure Virginians have clean water, safe roads and bridges, well-funded public schools, and quality, affordable health care. The budget also shows President Trump intends to keep treating federal employees as a punching bag, while in reality these workers are patriotic Americans who keep our government running. Just weeks after President Trump promised us clean water and air in his joint address to Congress, he released a budget that completely eliminates the Chesapeake Bay Program and radically cuts funding for the agency that protects water resources like the James River and monitoring sea level rise in in Hampton Roads. And Im disappointed that President Trumps promises to fix our crumbling infrastructure so far havent amounted to any action to fix the roads and bridges of Virginia.

There is already bipartisan agreement that President Trumps harmful budget will be a nonstarter in Congress. I hope that my colleagues in the Senate will work across the aisle on a budget that charts a different roadmap, which makes the investments to help Virginia families get ahead that are absent from President Trumps budget proposal.

Below is a list of potential impacts Donald Trumps budget cuts could have on Virginians:

$2.6 billion (31%) cut to the Environmental Protection Agency could jeopardize:

Slashing the federal workforce

$2.4 billion (13%) cut to the Department of Transportation could jeopardize:

$1.5 billion (12%) cut to the Department of the Interior could jeopardize:

$4.7 billion (21%) cut to the Department of Agriculture could jeopardize:

$9 billion (13.5%) cut to the Department of Education could jeopardize:

$10.1 billion (28%) cut to the State Department and USAID which could jeopardize:

$15 Billion (17.9%) cut to Department of Health and Human Services could jeopardize:

$2.8 billion (6.8%) increase to the Department of Homeland Security, primarily to pay for border wall construction and immigration enforcement. Proposed cuts could jeopardize:

$100 Million (1%) cut to NASA could jeopardize:

$1.1 billion (3.8%) cut to the Department of Justice could jeopardize:

$6.2 billion (13%) cut to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) could jeopardize:

o HOME Investment Partnerships

o Choice Neighborhoods

o Self-help Homeownership Opportunity Program

o Section 4 Capacity Building for Community Development and Affordable Housing

$9.6 billion (21%) cut to the Department of Labor could jeopardize:

$519 million (4.1%) in cuts to the Department of the Treasury

President Trump has also proposed eliminating these federal agencies that benefit and employ Virginians: Appalachian Regional Commission; Chemical Safety Board; Corporation for Public Broadcasting; Corporation for National and Community Service; National Endowment for the Arts; National Endowment for the Humanities; Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation; and United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.

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Reps. McEachin, Scott, Beyer, Connolly; Sens. Kaine, Warner Blast Trump's Draconian, Social Darwinism Budget ... - Blue Virginia (press release)...

In a world of more than 7 billion people, one might expect it to be difficult for the individual to feel terribly important, but that isn't a problem here in the United States. Our five percent of the world's human population seems to consider itself the most valuable of all the planet's creatures, human or otherwise. More than most countries, ours evinces an epidemic of national, factional, and personal narcissism. From kindergarten to the White House, tantrums are the common response to any parents, peers, public, or politicians who refuse the demands of those who deem themselves deserving by the sheer virtue of their existence.

The relative worth of the individual human life nevertheless strikes me as a matter of legitimate debate a proposition that horrifies the evangelists of what religious fundamentalists call secular humanism. The notion that humans are capable of moral behavior without the imagined surveillance of a supreme being soon spawned the belief that Homo sapiens actually is that supreme being, and merits unquestioning worship. That philosophical distortion generally betrays itself in the "if-it-saves-one-life" argument so popular at the more pedestrian levels of public debate. In hilarious irony, that simplistic appeal to the sanctity of human life is always deployed against any resort to the very capacity for reason that supposedly differentiates humans from what they consider lesser beings.

In light of such self-contradiction even among the more reflexive advocates of human exceptionalism, it hardly seems unreasonable to wonder what, if anything, really does distinguish us. For a species faced with the prescient predictions of Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" and the realized pipedreams of Samuel Butler's "Erewhon," the evident answer is that humankind is no longer really so special at all. The heightened human sense of self-importance may, in fact, merely reflect a reaction to the recognition of our declining collective relevancenot to mention the dwindling significance of the individual.

A college professor of mine once remarked that the social urge to be noticed and remembered motivates such endeavors as having children, writing books, and planting trees. I chose writing books, and my attachment to place and time yielded a preoccupation with history, especially in one focused era. After a decade or two I began making connections that produced an occasional stir, at least within my limited fieldnot because I was endowed with any particular talent or intelligence, but from a simple combination of good memory and obsessive, concentrated research. From a trove of trivia I simply recognized and illuminated characters or concepts common to different episodes.

Such minor research coups were the only achievements by which historians can distinguish themselves, but as history turns more quantitative those discoveries are frequently the products of computer analysis. Teams of practitioners who betray more interest in their tools than in their craft input endless streams of data, regurgitating computations with lightning speed and formulating conclusions faster than the academy can absorb them. The sources can be mined and sifted before a plodding archive rat can transcribe his research notes, and his interpretations may be superseded before they are fully developed.

This winter, I thought I had found another project for which I could claim a useful combination of qualifications. Having learned that a coveted historical journal in a private French manuscript library had been published, I ordered a copy and began translating segments of it. As usual, I sent relevant portions to some friends who are working on similar subjects. Their surprise that I could read it suggested that the traditional expectation of fluency in two foreign languages (customarily French and German) is no longer required for doctoral-level Civil War specialists. Thanks to machine translators, it may never be required again, either. Now anyone, including someone completely unfamiliar with either French or English, could translate that entire 600-page journal by just typing it in. Even the archaic idioms that my 1890-vintage Larousse helps me decipher may soon be available for automatic translation. I might as well have spent those six years of French classes watching television.

Almost no human occupation seems exempt from substitution by a machine, including the job of building and programming the machines. With the added ingredient of artificial intelligence, the threat to humanity only escalates. Scientists who see no ethical limits to their ambitions strive to create human life in the laboratory, trying to reduce reproduction to machinelike replication. Meanwhile, engineers work to design machines with ever-more human skills and the ability to reason. Time alone separates the machine from becoming the supreme being, and reproducing its own creator for utilitarian purposes as it was once used. Skeptics often draw the obvious analogy that those involved in robotics are actually developing their own replacements, but it might be equally apt to suggest that they are forging their own chains.

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Bill Marvel: Mechanical Darwinism - Conway Daily Sun

Micro-cap companies beware

As Darwin suggested well over 100 years ago, all of life relates to and descends from a common ancestor and, over time, creatures evolve to survive. While I am not prepared to affix a comparable commonality among non-living organisms, I firmly believe the rules of evolution also apply to companies and professions: evolve or perish.

Prime examples of companies that should have dominated over the long term but fell short of expectations due to their inability to evolve include Sony (producer of the walkman), Yahoo (developer of the first significant online marketplace) and Motorola (the once dominant producer of mobile phones). In terms of professions, when was the last time you saw a bowling alley pinsetter?

Applying this theory to my chosen profession, I am pleased to report that investor relations has definitively evolved throughout the 20-plus years I have been involved in the industry. When I first got into the industry, when compared with public relations, investor relations was considered the lesser of the two communications competencies. Not only was IR less established than PR, but it was also less defined in the eyes of the C-suite in terms of perceived value.

In its infancy, IR was considered nice to have but certainly not a must-have. By the early 2000s, however, aided by the maturing of the industry, and given a tremendous boost by the introduction of Sarbanes-Oxley, investor relations had reached the promised land: gaining a seat at the proverbial table with senior management.

Whether providing key insight and advice to the CEO on various topics such as strategic messaging and crisis communications or providing an informed opinion on the merits of guidance, IROs and IR consultants have evolved into the go-to authority for all aspects of shareholder communications and deservedly so.

But as the investor relations industry has matured, I have become concerned that IR has lost some of its scrappiness and evolutionary momentum especially as it pertains to the micro-cap segment of the industry, where companies are having an increasingly difficult time realizing the benefits or determining the merits of remaining (or becoming) a publicly traded company.

On a weekly basis, I encounter management teams of sub-$100 mn market cap companies that cant understand why their stocks dont trade or why the price of their shares is depressed and the buy side and sell side act as if they dont exist. This common scenario undermines the core rationale to be public to gain access to growth capital, provide liquidity for founders and use stock as a currency to make acquisitions and attract and retain key employees.

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion, with increased frequency, that micro-cap companies and their respective IR advisers are failing themselves and their shareholders as a result of IR fatigue, IR churn and IR tunnel vision. From overbearing boards of directors and shareholders to unpredictable capital market conditions, lets face it: running a public company isnt easy, and it isnt always fun. This is especially true for micro-cap companies.

IR fatigue

The result of this challenge is what I refer to as IR fatigue, which occurs when management executives lose faith in the capital markets they believe theyre doing everything right, delivering strong results and favorable news, and know all of the right investors, but still, the market isnt properly valuing their shares. Over time, this condition results in a defeatist attitude that causes executives to call it in to simply go through the motions in terms of IR issuing two to three obligatory press releases, hosting uninspired earnings conference calls and conducting a couple of days of lackluster non-deal roadshows, and repeating this quarter after quarter.

My advice for micro-cap companies is simple: present yourself and your company as the company you aspire to be. If you communicate like a small company, youll likely be treated like a small company. If you communicate as if youre a small company on the rise with a solid plan to be a much larger company in the future youre likely to be taken seriously and be rewarded over the long haul for your current and future successes.

IR churn

I am equally concerned that the micro-cap IR profession has lost some of the credibility it has worked so hard to attain. With increasing frequency, micro-cap companies are committing IR churn going from one IR firm to another every few months, hoping to achieve what they have been unable to achieve with their precious consultants. While some of this can be chalked up to managements lack of hiring prowess or having unreasonable expectations, much of the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the bad actors who have nudged their way into the industry, promising the world but failing to deliver tangible results.

The fallout from this is two-fold: (1) a lack of continuity in terms of a companys investor relations program is not only a tremendous distraction for management, but is also viewed negatively by investors, and (2) substandard IR counsel gives the entire investor relations profession a black eye.

Taken to the extreme, IR has become a dirty word, synonymous with stock promotion. The good news is that peoples reputation typically precedes them, so the vast majority of my fellow IR brethren have nothing to worry about. In addition, trade organizations such as NIRI have done an exceptional job helping to define the IR industry and establish rules for best practices.

IR tunnel vision

Finally, I contend that many micro-cap companies employ IR tunnel vision and have been conditioned to view non-deal roadshows as the panacea for what ails them underappreciated, underperforming publicly traded shares.

While I agree its important to press the flesh and tell your story to a range of current and prospective investors, roadshows are only one tool in a toolbox chock-full of complementary communications services. From strategic messaging, well-articulated press releases and conference call scripts to the effective use of traditional public relations and, increasingly, social media, successful IR is grounded in a multi-pronged, holistic approach that empowers companies to communicate directly with key stakeholders: shareholders, employees and business partners.

In practice, publicly traded companies can greatly raise their profiles through earned media print, television and online providing opportunities for management executives to demonstrate their expertise through thought-leadership, positioning the company as a leading participant in its industry. As many micro-cap companies often lack the ability to generate of-value, consistent news flow, earned media fills the void and provides an opportunity for public companies to consistently communicate with investors. What is achieved through earned media can also be repurposed through corporate websites and social media channels.

The good genes

The good news, as my mother likes to say, is that the investor relations industry has good genes. Not only is it a respected industry, but I would also go so far as to say its effect on the overall health of the capital markets has been tremendous. Can I put a dollar amount against what strong IR has meant to the combined market capitalization of publicly traded companies? Clearly not, but my guess is that it has been extremely positive.

My advice for our beloved IR industry is very simple: do not rest on our laurels but speak out and make change when necessary and, by all means, continue to evolve.

Jeffrey Goldberger is managing partner at consultancy KCSA Strategic Communications

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Darwinism and the evolution of IR: Evolve or perish - IR Magazine

Whether Darwinian evolution is at bottom a process driven by chance, happenstance, randomness is a question that Darwinian apologists have habitually sought to cloud in obscurity. That might be because, to our intuition, the world of life certainly does not present itself as a production of chance. As an illustration, the insistence that evolution isnt random was the theme of a rebuke to Discovery Institutes Stephen Meyer from Richard Dawkins following Meyers debate with cosmologist Lawrence Krauss.

However, as our historian colleague Michael Flannery notes in a new article in the journal Metascience, Darwin himself was absolutely committed to the chance view as the distinguishing characteristic of his theory. Flannery reviews Darwins Dice: The Idea of Chance in the Thought of Charles Darwin (Oxford University Press), by Curtis Johnson:

Johnson has meticulously examined the role of chance in Darwinian evolution and produced a superlative study. By dissecting the mass of Darwins writings back to his earliest notebooks, Johnson has concluded that Darwinism had a single meaning . . . from beginning to end (xii) and that chance formed the leitmotif of his thought from his Notebooks B and C commenced in July of 1837 to his death in April of 1882. A designed world in all of its parts and operations, he writes, cannot be a chance world in any them; and a world in which chance plays any role at all seems to be one that excludes a place for an omnipotent designer (67). Darwin had to choose between a designed world or a world of chance; he chose the latter and adopted a variety strategies aimed a concealing this atheistic proposition.

Focusing on chance allows Darwinian evolution to come into much sharper metaphysical focus. Johnsons assertion that Darwins departure from Christianity was early and abrupt may be uncomfortable to some, but his detailed and exhaustive analysis makes it hard to argue against the fact that Darwins chance-governed world seems tantamount to a godless world (xviii). As such, Johnsons bold and clearly argued thesis makes for an important addition to our understanding of the man and his theory.

Theistic evolutionists or as Flannery calls them, Darwinian theists are especially inclined to becloud the contradiction between chance and providence, as if there were no choice to be made between Darwins theory and any coherent understanding of Christianity or Judaism. Flannerycites Karl Giberson and Kenneth Miller as cases in point. No matter what interpretation of Genesis one invokes, the tension between Darwins chance and Gods providence will be there.

And that is surely true. Theistic evolutionarythinking is designed, whether intelligently or not, to reconcile religious believers to the denial of their own common sense as interpreters of their faith in relationship to science. Darwin himself, at least, was candid enough to admit that a fundamentalchoice indeed needs to be made. Read the rest of Michael Flannerys very interesting review here.

Photo: Ivory dice, by Liam Quin [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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"Darwin's Dice" -- Michael Flannery on the Role of Chance in ... - Discovery Institute

By NICHOLAS TRUJILLO

For minimum-wage earners whove had a taste of the $1.95 per hour pay raise, I can relate if you are feeling both happy and scared by the change.

My eyes light up when I see the significant increase in my paychecks. However, my face turns gray when I hear that another store has closed or raised prices because it cant keep up.

In Tucson, the owner of Shlomo and Vitos Deli blamed the minimum wage when it closed. The move threw 43 employees out of work.

Im not an economist, but I would argue the closing represents free market principles. Its not great a local deli closed, but it allows other entrepreneurs an opportunity to open another food store that might be economically stronger.

The ability to adapt and overcome obstacles shows the strength of a business. This life-and-death business cycle is healthy for an areas economy.

The Metro Chamber of Commerce recently sent an anonymous survey to businesses across Tucson.

About 40 percent of businesses that responded said they are increasing prices to keep up.

Thirty-two percent are reducing employee hours. I see this happening at my own job, at Frys. Many of my fellow employees are seeing their hours cut because they dont have seniority and the store has to save money.

The chamber survey said 13 percent of businesses are considering closing for good. This is without a doubt bad for the individual businesses that close. However, a growing customer base will greet those that ride the wave of uncertainty and stay open.

Another 11 percent of the business owners said they would move to automation.

We wont be having much human interaction at those stores. Theyll be based on machines with one or two people keeping up day-to-day maintenance.

Again, this process eliminates the weak businesses and allows others to come up with fresh ideas to keep their business going. This is good for everyone in the long run.

I understand that finding a new job is scary in the short run, especially when you have a family to feed. Its also scary to see businesses close.

Focusing on that, however, will only make you close-minded to that fact that other businesses may perform better.

Opportunities are driven by the free market and its ability to make and break businesses.

This is the circle of life in the world of economics. We shouldnt be afraid to take it on.

Nick Trujillo isnt a conservative, but he likes a free-functioning market.

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HOWS THAT MINIMUM WAGE LAW WORKING?: Increase sets social Darwinism in motion - Aztec Press

The Envelope, Please? Doug Axe and Undeniable Are World Magazine 2016 Science Book of the Year! Discovery Institute In 1985 biologist Michael Denton noted in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis that Darwinism was cruising for a bruising. Now he's back with Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis, which shows with three decades of new research that Darwin's theory ...

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The Envelope, Please? Doug Axe and Undeniable Are World Magazine 2016 Science Book of the Year! - Discovery Institute

by Jerry Bergman

Leading Nazis, and early 1900 influential German biologists, revealed in their writings that Darwins theory and publications had a major influence upon Nazi race policies. Hitler believed that the human gene pool could be improved by using selective breeding similar to how farmers breed superior cattle strains. In the formulation of their racial policies, Hitlers government relied heavily upon Darwinism, especially the elaborations by Spencer and Haeckel. As a result, a central policy of Hitlers administration was the development and implementation of policies designed to protect the superior race. This required at the very least preventing the inferior races from mixing with those judged superior, in order to reduce contamination of the latters gene pool. The superior race belief was based on the theory of group inequality within each species, a major presumption and requirement of Darwins original survival of the fittest theory. This philosophy culminated in the final solution, the extermination of approximately six million Jews and four million other people who belonged to what German scientists judged as inferior races.

Of the many factors that produced the Nazi holocaust and World War II, one of the most important was Darwins notion that evolutionary progress occurs mainly as a result of the elimination of the weak in the struggle for survival. Although it is no easy task to assess the conflicting motives of Hitler and his supporters, Darwinism-inspired eugenics clearly played a critical role. Darwinism justified and encouraged the Nazi views on both race and war. If the Nazi party had fully embraced and consistently acted on the belief that all humans were descendants of Adam and Eve and equal before the creator God, as taught in both the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, the holocaust would never have occurred.

Expunging of the Judeo-Christian doctrine of the divine origin of humans from mainline German (liberal) theology and its schools, and replacing it with Darwinism, openly contributed to the acceptance of Social Darwinism that culminated in the tragedy of the holocaust.1 Darwins theory, as modified by Haeckel,2,3,4,5,6 Chamberlain7 and others, clearly contributed to the death of over nine million people in concentration camps, and about 40 million other humans in a war that cost about six trillion dollars. Furthermore, the primary reason that Nazism reached to the extent of the holocaust was the widespread acceptance of Social Darwinism by the scientific and academic community.1,8,9,10

The very heart of Darwinism is the belief that evolution proceeds by the differential survival of the fittest or superior individuals. This requires differences among a species, which in time become great enough so that those individuals that possess advantageous featuresthe fittestare more apt to survive. Although the process of raciation may begin with slight differences, differential survival rates in time produce distinct races by a process called speciation, meaning the development of a new species.

The egalitarian ideal that all people are created equal, which now dominates Western ideology, has not been universal among nations and cultures.11 A major force that has argued against this view was the Social Darwinian eugenics movement, especially its crude survival of the fittest worldview.10,12 As Ludmerer noted, the idea that the hereditary quality of the race can be improved by selective breeding is as old as Platos Republic but:

Nazi governmental policy was openly influenced by Darwinism, the Zeitgeist of both science and educated society of the time.10 This can be evaluated by an examination of extant documents, writings, and artefacts produced by Germanys twentieth century Nazi movement and its many scientist supporters. Keith concluded the Nazi treatment of Jews and other races, then believed inferior, was largely a result of their belief that Darwinism provided profound insight that could be used to significantly improve humankind.14 Tenenbaum noted that the political philosophy of Germany was built on the belief that critical for evolutionary progress were:

The theory of evolution is based on individuals acquiring unique traits that enable those possessing the new traits to better survive adverse conditions compared to those who dont possess them. Superior individuals will be more likely to survive and pass on these traits to their offspring so such traits will increase in number, while the weaker individuals will eventually die off. If every member of a species were fully equal, natural selection would have nothing to select from, and evolution would cease for that species.

These differences gradually produce new groups, some of which have an advantage in terms of survival. These new groups became the superior, or the more evolved races. When a trait eventually spreads throughout the entire race because of the survival advantage it confers on those that possess it, a higher, more evolved form of animal will result. Hitler and the Nazi party claimed that one of their major goals was to apply this accepted science to society. And the core idea of Darwinism was not evolution, but selection. Evolution describes the results of selection.16 Hitler stressed that to produce a better society we [the Nazis] must understand, and cooperate with science.

As the one race above all others, Aryans believed that their evolutionary superiority gave them not only the right, but the duty to subjugate all other peoples. Race was a major plank of the Nazi philosophy; Tenenbaum concluded that they incorporated Darwinism:

In the 1933 Nuremberg party rally, Hitler proclaimed that higher race subjects to itself a lower race a right which we see in nature and which can be regarded as the sole conceivable right, because it was founded on science.15

Hitler believed humans were animals to whom the genetics laws, learned from livestock breeding, could be applied. The Nazis believed that instead of permitting natural forces and chance to control evolution, they must direct the process to advance the human race. The first step to achieve this goal was to isolate the inferior races in order to prevent them from further contaminating the Aryan gene pool. The widespread public support for this policy was a result of the belief, common in the educated classes, in the conclusion that certain races were genetically inferior as was scientifically proven by Darwinism. The Nazis believed that they were simply applying facts, proven by science, to produce a superior race of humans as part of their plan for a better world: The business of the corporate state was eugenics or artificial selectionpolitics as applied biology.18,19

As early as 1925, Hitler outlined his conclusion in Chapter 4 of Mein Kampf that Darwinism was the only basis for a successful Germany and which the title of his most famous workin English My Strugglealluded to. As Clark concluded, Adolf Hitler:

And Hickman adds that it is no coincidence that Hitler:

Furthermore, the belief that evolution can be directed by scientists to produce a superior race was the central leitmotif of Nazism and many other sources existed from which Nazism drew:

The Nazi view on Darwinian evolution and race was consequently a major part of the fatal combination of ideas and events which produced the holocaust and World War II:

Terms such as superior race, lower human types, pollution of the race, and the word evolution itself (Entwicklung) were often used by Hitler and other Nazi leaders. His race views were not from fringe science as often claimed but rather Hitlers views were:

The philosophy that humans can control and even use Darwinism to produce a higher level of human is repeatedly mentioned in the writings and speeches of prominent Nazis.25 Accomplishing the Darwinian goal for the world required ruthlessly eliminating the less fit by open barbarian behavior:

Hitler once even stated that we Nazis are barbarians! We want to be barbarians. It is an honorable title [for, by it,] we shall rejuvenate the world .26 Hitler, as an evolutionist, consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.27 Keith adds that:

The German eugenic leadership was originally less anti-Semitic than even the British leadership. Most early German eugenicists believed that German Jews were Aryans, and consequently the eugenicist movement was supported by many Jewish professors and doctors both in Germany and abroad. The Jews were only slowly incorporated into the German eugenic theory and then laws.

The Darwinian racists views also slowly entered into many spheres of German society which they had previously not affected.9 The Pan German League, dedicated to maintaining German Racial Purity, was originally not overtly anti-Semitic and assimilated Jews were allowed full membership. Many German eugenicists believed that although blacks or Gypsies were racially inferior, their racial theories did not fit Jews since many Jews had achieved significant success in Germany. Schleunes adds that by 1903, the influence of race ideas permeated the Leagues program to the degree that by 1912, the League declared itself based upon racial principles and soon excluded Jews from membership.29

In spite of the scientific prominence of these racial views, they had a limited effect upon most Jews until the 1930s. Most German Jews were proud of being Germans and considered themselves Germans first and Jews second. Many Jews modified the German intelligentsias racial views by including themselves in it. Their assimilation into German life was to the extent that most felt its anti-Semitism did not represent a serious threat to their security. Most Jews also were convinced that Germany was now a safe harbour for them.30 Many still firmly held to the Genesis creation model and rejected the views upon which racism was based, including Darwinism. What happened in Germany later was obviously not well received by Jewish geneticists, even Jewish eugenicists and certain other groups:

Nazi policies resulted less from a hatred toward Jewish or other peoples than from the idealistic goal of preventing pollution of the superior race. Hitler elaborated his Darwinian views by comparing the strong killing the weak to a cat devouring a mouse, concluding that ultimately the Jews must be eliminated because they cause:

Hitler then argued that for this reason, governments must understand and apply the laws of Nature, especially the survival of the fittest law which originally produced the human races and is the source of their improvement. The government must therefore aid in the elimination, or at least quarantine, of the inferior races. Hitler argued:

Hitler was especially determined to prevent Aryans from breeding with non-Aryans, a concern that eventually resulted in the final solution. Once the inferior races were exterminated, Hitler believed that future generations would be eternally grateful for the improvement that his programs brought to humanity:

Individuals are not only far less important than the race, but the Nazis concluded that certain races were not human, but were animals:

As a result, the Darwinist movement was one of the most powerful forces in the nineteenthtwentieth centuries German intellectual history [and] may be fully understood as a prelude to the doctrine of national socialism [Nazism].35 Why did evolution catch hold in Germany faster, and take a firmer hold there than any other place in the world?

Schleunes noted, rather poignantly, that the reason the publication of Darwins 1859 work had an immediate impact in Germany, and their Jewish policy, was because:

The Darwinian revolution and the works of its chief German spokesman and most eminent scientist, Professor Haeckel, gave the racists something that they were confident was powerful verification of their race beliefs.37 The support of the science establishment resulted in racist thought having a much wider circulation than otherwise possible, and enormous satisfaction that ones prejudices were actually expressions of scientific truth.36

And what greater authority than science could racists have for their views? Konrad Lorenz, one of the most eminent animal-behavior scientists then, and often credited as being the founder of his field, stated that:

Lorenzs works were important in developing the Nazi program designed to eradicate the parasitic growth of inferior races. The governments programs to insure the German Volk maintained their superiority made racism almost unassailable. Although King claimed that the holocaust pretended to have a scientific genetic basis,39 the position of the government and university elite of the time was so entrenched that few contemporary scientists seriously questioned it. The anti-Semitic attitudes of the German people were only partly to blame in causing the holocaustonly when Darwinism was added to the preexisting attitudes did a lethal combination result.

The first step in an eugenic program was to determine which groups were genetically superior; a judgment that was heavily influenced by culture. The ideal traits were:

Although superficial observations enable most people to make a broad classification of race, when explored in depth, race status is by no means easy to determine, as the Nazis soon found out. Many of the groups that they felt were inferior, such as the Slovaks, Jews, Gypsies, and others, were not easily distinguishable from the pure Aryan race. In grouping persons into races to select the best, the Nazis measured a wide variety of physical traits including brain case sizes. The Nazis relied heavily upon the work of Hans F.K. Gnther, professor of racial science at the University of Jena. Although F.K. Gnther s personal relationships with the party were stormy at times, his racial ideas were accepted. They received wide support throughout the German government, and were an important influence in German policy.41 Gnther recognized that, although a race may not be pure, its members share certain dominant characteristics, thus paving the way for stereotyping.41

Gnther concluded that all Aryans share an ideal Nordic type which contrasted with the Jews, whom he concluded were a mixture of races. Gnther stressed a persons genealogical lineage, anthropological measurement of skulls and evaluations of physical appearance, were all used to determine their race. Even though physical appearance was stressed, the body is the showplace of the soul and the soul is primary.42 Select females with the necessary superior race traits were even placed in special homes and kept pregnant as long as they remained in the program. Nonetheless, research on the offspring of the experiment concluded that, as is now known, IQ regressed toward the population mean and the IQs of the offspring were generally lower than that of the parents.

Darwinism not only influenced the Nazi attitude toward Jews, but other cultural and ethnic groups as well. Even mental patients were included later, in part because it was then believed that heredity had a major influence on mental illness (or they possibly had some Jewish or other non-Aryan blood in them), and consequently had to be destroyed. Poliakov notes that many intellectuals in the early 1900s accepted telegony, the idea that bad blood would contaminate a race line forever, or that bad blood drives out good, just as bad money displaces good money.43 Only extermination would permanently eliminate inferior genetic lines, and thereby further evolution.

Darwin even compiled a long list of cases where he concluded bad blood polluted a whole gene line, causing it to bear impure progeny forever. Numerous respected biologists, including Ernst Ruedin of the University of Munich and many of his colleagues such as Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, and Eugene Kahn, later a professor of psychiatry at Yale, actively advocated this hereditary argument. These scientists were also the chief architects of the German compulsory sterilization laws designed to prevent those with defective or inferior genes from contaminating the Aryan gene pool. Later, when the genetically inferior were also judged as useless dredges, massive killings became justified. The groups judged inferior were gradually expanded to include a wide variety of races and national groups. Later, it even included less healthy older people, epileptics, both severe and mild mental defectives, deaf-mutes, and even some persons with certain terminal illnesses.1,44

The groups judged inferior were later expanded to include persons who had negroid or mongoloid features, Gypsies, and those who did not pass a set of ingeniously designed overtly racist phrenology tests now known to be worthless.45 After Jesse Owen won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Hitler chastised the Americans for even permitting blacks to enter the contests.46

Some evolutionists even advocated the view that women were evolutionarily inferior to men. Dr Robert Wartenberg, later a prominent neurology professor in California, tried to prove womens inferiority by arguing that they could not survive unless they were protected by men. He concluded that because the weaker women were not eliminated as rapidly due to this protection, a slower rate of evolution resulted and for this reason natural selection was less operative on women than men. How the weak were to be selected for elimination was not clear, nor were the criteria used to determine weak. Women in Nazi Germany were openly prohibited from entering certain professions and were required by law to conform to a traditional female role.47

Darwinism not only offered the Germans a meaningful interpretation of their recent military past, but also a justification for future aggression: German military success in the Bismarkian wars fit neatly into Darwin categories in the struggle for survival, [demonstrating] the fitness of Germany. 48 War was a positive force not only because it eliminated weaker races, but also because it weeded out the weaker members of the superior races. Hitler not only unabashedly intended to produce a superior race, but he openly relied heavily upon Darwinian thought in both his extermination and war policies.25 Nazi Germany, partly for this reason, openly glorified war because it was an important means of eliminating the less fit of the highest race, a step necessary to upgrade the race. Clark concludes, quoting extensively from Mein Kampf, that:

German greatness, Hitler stressed, came about primarily because they were jingoists, and thereby had been eliminating their weaker members for centuries.50 Although Germans were no stranger to war, this new justification gave powerful support to their policies. The view that eradication of the weaker races was a major source of evolution was well expressed by Wiggam:

In other words, war is positive in the long run because only by lethal conflicts can humans evolve. Hitler even claimed as truth the contradiction that human civilization as we know it would not exist if it were not for constant war. And many of the leading scientists of his day openly advocated this view: Haeckel was especially fond of praising the ancient Spartans, whom he saw as a successful and superior people as a consequence of their socially approved biological selection. By killing all but the perfectly healthy and strong children the Spartans were continually in excellent strength and vigor. 52 Germany should follow this Spartan custom, as infanticide of the deformed and sickly was a practice of advantage to both the infants destroyed and to the community. It was, after all, only traditional dogma and hardly scientific truth that all lives were of equal worth or should be preserved.18,53

However, the common assumption that European civilization evolved far more than others, primarily because of its constant warmongering in contrast to other nations, is false. War is actually typical of virtually all peoples, except certain small island groups who have abundant food, or peoples in very cold areas.54 Historically, many tribes in Africa were continually involved in wars, as were most countries in Asia and America.

Much of the opposition to the eugenic movement came from German Christians. Although Hitler was baptized a Catholic, he was never excommunicated, and evidently considered himself a good Roman Catholic as a young man, and at times used religious language. He clearly had strong, even vociferous, anti-Christian feelings as an adult, as did probably most Nazi party leaders. As a consummate politician, though, he openly tried to exploit the church.55 Hitler once revealed his attitude toward Christianity when he bluntly stated that religion is an:

His beliefs as revealed in this quote are abundantly clear: the younger people who were the hope of Germany were absolutely indifferent in matters of religion. As Keith noted, the Nazi party viewed Darwinism and Christianity as polar opposites. Milner said of Germanys father of evolution, Ernst Haeckel, that in his Natural History of Creation he argued that the church with its morality of love and charity is an effete fraud, a perversion of the natural order.57 A major reason why Haeckel concluded this was because Christianity:

The opposition to religion was a prominent feature of German science, and thus later German political theory, from its very beginning. As Stein summarized Haeckel in a lecture titled On evolution: Darwins Theory:

Martin Bormann, Hitlers closest associate for years and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, was equally blunt: the church was opposed to evolution and for this reason must be condemned, but the Nazis were on the side of science and evolution. Furthermore, Nazi and Christian concepts are incompatible because Christianity is built:

Bormann also claimed that the Christian churches have long been aware that:

As Humber notes, Hitler believed that Blacks were monstrosities halfway between man and ape and therefore he disapproved of German Christians:

A literature review shows that German racism would have had a difficult time existing if the historical creation position, void of race curse theories, had been widely accepted. One of these biblical theories was the claim that Genesis teaches that two types of men were originally created; Adam and Eve, the superior race line, and the beasts of the earth, the inferior black race line.62,63 Few people, though, accepted this idea.

Relatively few scientific studies exist which directly deal with Darwinism and Nazismand many evolutionists avoid the subject because evolution is inescapably selectionist. One of the best reviews of Darwinism and Nazism documents clearly that Nazism felt confident that their programs of extermination was firmly based on evolution science.64 Recently, a number of popular articles have covered this topic in a surprisingly candid and honest way.65 The source of the worst of Nazism was in Darwinism and we must first understand history to prevent its repeat. Paraphrasing the words of Hitler, those who ignore the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it.66 Admittedly, some persons who did not accept evolution espoused non-evolution theories which accommodated or even espoused racism. Nonetheless, these persons were few and the theories that were developed seem to be mostly in response to preconceived ideas or to justify existing social systems.

From our modern perspective, many persons have concluded that World War II and its results ensued from the ideology of an evil madman and his equally evil administration. Hitler, though, did not see himself as evil, but as humanitys benefactor. He felt that many years hence, the world would be extremely grateful to him and his programs which lifted the human race to genetically higher levels of evolution by stopping race pollution by preventing mixed marriages with inferior races.

Hitlers efforts to put members of these inferior races in concentration camps was not so much an effort to punish but, as his apologists repeatedly stated, was a protective safeguard similar to quarantining sick people to prevent contamination of the rest of the community. In Haass words, the Nazis believed that killing Jews and others was in fact a scientific and rational way of serving an objectively greater good.68 Or, as Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, adds, such a struggle, legitimized by the latest scientific views, justifies the racists conceptions of superior and inferior people and nations and validated the conflict between them.69 Many in Germany recognized the harm of Darwinism, and Nordenskild claimed the Prussian Minister of Education, even for a time in 1875 banned, its teaching:

An interesting question is, would the Nazi holocaust have occurred if this ban had remained in effect? Haeckel was at the center of this fight and garnered much support from:

A biologist writing the above today would certainly drop as they deserve because Haeckel is today acknowledged as an unscrupulous forger who played no small role in the horrible events that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s.

The well documented influence of Darwinism on the holocaust has been greatly downplayed by the mass media. Current writers often gloss over, totally ignore, or even distort the close connection between Darwinism and the Nazi race theory and the policies it produced, but as Stein admonishes:

He adds that there is also little doubt that this contemporary self-protecting attitude is based on a:

Darwin was not just responding to his culture as often alleged. In Hulls words we have all heard, time and time again, that the reason Darwins theory was so sexist, and racist is that Darwins society exhibited these same characteristics. Hull answers this change by noting that Darwin was not so callow that he simply read the characteristics of his society into nature.72

Nazism is often used as a warning example of the danger of religious zeal, yet only occasionally is the key role of the eugenics of Francis Galton, based on the theory of natural selection espoused by his cousin, Charles Darwin, mentioned. Eugenics is still alive in the world today. As late as 1955, a Canadian professor of zoology, notes that possibly the most significant fact is that he [Darwin] finally freed humanity from a great measure of church proscription and won his fellow men a freedom of thought that had been unknown for centuries. 73 He then argues that reducing the churches influence in society allowed the discovery of, not only the means of evolution, but the knowledge that man had the means and that we can either direct evolution or let it take place on its own or, worse, stop it by counteracting the forces which propel it, causing devolution.

Rowan argued that man has, tragically, chosen the latter selection is still as vital to human progress as it has ever been. The great Darwinian principle remains. Then he added, When man acquired intellect, he started on an entirely new path without precedent in the animal world, the course of which now depends, not on further physical changes, but on intellectual and equally intellectual selection.74 Unfortunately, he concludes, humans are saving the intellectually inferior and have failed to order their affairs according to the laws of biology.74 This discussion, although tactful, is clear: those whom evolutionists judge as less fit need to be eliminated, or at the least our efforts in saving them, should be limited and we should let nature do its work. Not to do so will result in the eventual doom of the human race.

Firmly convinced that Darwinian evolution was true, Hitler saw himself as the modern saviour of mankind. Society, he felt, would some day regard him as a great scientific socialist, the benefactor of all humankind. By breeding a superior race, the world would look upon him as the man who pulled humanity up to a higher level of evolutionary development. If Darwinism is true, Hitler was our saviour and we have crucified him. As a result, the human race will grievously suffer. If Darwinism is not true, what Hitler attempted to do must be ranked with the most heinous crimes of history and Darwin as the father of one of the most destructive philosophies of history. An assessment by Youngson concluded that the application of Darwinism to society, called eugenics, produced one of the most tragic scientific blunders of all time:

I wish to thank Wayne Frair, Ph.D., John Woodmorappe, M.A. and Paul Humber, M.A. for their insight and comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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Darwinism and the Nazi race Holocaust - creation.com