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The Forum > Article Comments > Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln and race > Comments

Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln and race : Comments

By Hiram Caton, published 3/4/2009

Neither Darwin nor Lincoln believed in racial equality: they believed humankind is structured in a hierarchy with Caucasians at the peak.

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Actually, Darwin acknowledged "Spencer's excellent expression", which Spencer coined in the first place after reading Darwin's concept of natural selection in "On the origin of species". Darwin himself preferred "natural selection", however.

I'm not much of an expert on Spencer's philosophy, but he seems to have though that society was also subject to evolution, albeit a kind of evolution that was reaching upwards to a kind of social perfection (ok, there is a word for this, but it escapes me at present ...). As such, he was opposed to social reform programmes, etc., which he saw as interfering with natural selection.

I'm not sure if he necessarily regarded other (presumably non-White, non-British) races as inherently inferior or not. I suspect part of the problem may be that the use of the term "race" had different, possibly less perjorative, connotations in Spencer's time.
Posted by Clownfish, Friday, 3 April 2009 3:22:20 PM
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Hiram Caton is described as an evolutionist on the "TruthInScience" website (which seems to be a creationist website) http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/view/242/63/ and http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/2007/05/update-aussie-prof-who-protests-darwin.html

http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/2008_08_14_archive.html

Some more about him at http://www.whither-progress.org/documents/CATON%20VS%20FEMINISTS.pdf

I get the impression that Caton's angle is about debunking the misrepresentation of science (and it's history). Not a creationist but an evolutionist who thinks that much that's written about Darwin is driven by ideology rather than fact.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Friday, 3 April 2009 3:36:13 PM
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'.or the reflection at once rushed into my mind - such were our ancestors. These men were absolutely naked and bedaubed with paint…”'

With this warped thinking it is no wonder evolutionist thought that the aboriginals were less than human and could in fact be the missing (eternal) link. How they continue to believe the fraud of evolution defies belief.
Posted by runner, Friday, 3 April 2009 5:00:01 PM
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Clownfish

'... a kind of evolution that was reaching upwards to a kind of social perfection (ok, there is a word for this, but it escapes me at present ...)'

It escapes me too, but it does embody the dubious principle beyond the myth of progress, which assumes that human society (or evolution) is on a linear continuum from a primitive to an advanced state. I believe more in the concept of cyclical existence - and that 'primitive' and 'advanced' states of being are no more than value judgements.

Just my thoughts ...

R0bert

'I get the impression that Caton's angle is about debunking the misrepresentation of science (and it's history). Not a creationist but an evolutionist who thinks that much that's written about Darwin is driven by ideology rather than fact.'

I agree. Caton didn't come across to me as a creationist at all. I don't know why some posters here seem to have formed that opinion.
Posted by SJF, Friday, 3 April 2009 6:30:58 PM
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I obviously need to get out more ... this nagged at me, until the answer popped into my faltering grey matter, late last night.

The word is, of course ...

TELEOLOGY!
Posted by Clownfish, Saturday, 4 April 2009 11:08:56 AM
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Hiram Caton is a liar.

Darwin opposed slavery, expressed that eugenics should be left to the choice of the individuals, and generally expressed a far more liberal view than most in his time.

To do the same for the church would be to prosecute people for suggesting the earth revolved around the sun, and proposing that heathen natives were better off dead than remaining non christian.

What a loser.
Posted by Democritus, Saturday, 4 April 2009 1:42:47 PM
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