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ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
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Richard Weikart on How Darwinism Fueled Scientific Racism

Episode
1358
Guest
Richard Weikart
Duration
00:13:23
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Audio File (9.4 mb)
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On this episode of ID the Future, historian and Cal State Stanislaus emeritus professor Richard Weikart speaks with host Michael Keas about the dark history of “scientific” racism. Racism, of course, long pre-dated Darwinism, but as Weikart argues, Darwin and Darwinian evolutionary theory greatly fueled racist thinking in the late nineteenth century and even down to the present. Weikart notes that Darwin himself was “intensely racist,” writing (The Descent of Man, 1871) that “at some time the civilized races of man will exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” Darwin didn’t merely predict this; he thought it would advance human evolution. His cousin Francis Galton, a strong proponent of eugenics, agreed, as did Margaret Sanger a few years later. (Part 1 of a 2-part conversation.)

Richard Weikart

Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Richard Weikart is Emeritus Professor of History, California State University, Stanislaus, and author of seven books, including From Darwin to Hitler, Hitler’s Ethic, The Death of Humanity, and Hitler’s Religion. His most recent book is Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism (2022). His PhD dissertation, Socialist Darwinism, earned the biennial prize of the Forum for History of Human Sciences as best dissertation in that field. He has lectured at many universities and other venues in the US and Europe. He also has been interviewed on dozens of radio shows, podcasts, and TV, and appeared in seven documentaries, including Expelled. Some of his lectures and interviews are available on YouTube.
Tags
Charles Darwin
Darwinism
Determinism
Eugenics
Evolution
evolutionary theory
Francis Galton
Free Will
imperialism
Margaret Sanger
Materialism
nature vs. nurture
scientific racism
The Descent of Man