Page 206 - The Social Weapon: Darwinism

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Ian Kershaw's 1998 biography of Adolf Hitler states that
Social Darwinism, eugenics and fascism were closely intercon-
nected in 1920s Germany:
Integral nationalism, ... national socialism, social Darwinism,
racism, biological anti-Semitism, eugenics, elitism intermingled
in varying strengths... 118
Dr. Robert Youngson, who has studied errors in the history
of science, states in his analysis that the idea of eugenics under-
lay the Nazi slaughter, and that eugenics itself was a great scien-
tific error:
The culmination of this darker side of eugenics was, of course,
Adolf Hitler's attempt to produce a "master race" by encouraging
mating between pure "Aryans" and by the murder of six million
people whom he claimed to have inferior genes. It is hardly fair to
Galton to blame him for the Holocaust or even for his failure to
anticipate the consequences of his advocacy of the matter. But he
was certainly the principal architect of eugenics, and Hitler was
certainly obsessed with the idea. So, in terms of its consequences,
this must qualify as one of the greatest scientific blunders of all
time. 119
Describing Galton's irrational, unscientific views as merely

a "scientific blunder" is actually a too "optimistic" approach.
Actually, the claims made by Galton and those like him formed
the basis of unprecedented savagery and slaughter. When Nazi
Germany adapted the Social Darwinist world view to society,
the catastrophes that ensued are a historical lesson of what can
happen.
The Nazis adopted as a state policy the killing of every
"inferior," "deficient," "flawed" and sick" human being who "pol-

luted" the Aryan race. Hitler set out the reason:

The Social Weapon: Darwinism