Ken Ham: Darwinism connected to, but not cause of racism

 

A new book by the founder of Answers in Genesis explores the connection between Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and racism.

 

 

In his new book Darwin's Plantation, Ken Ham says while racism did not begin with Darwinism, the theories promoted by Darwin did fan the flames of racist thought and ideology. The founder of the Christian apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis says in the book The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin applied his evolutionary ideas to humans, saying the Australian aborigines and the dark-skinned people of Africa were more closely related to apes then to Caucasians.
 
"[In Darwin's eyes] the Caucasians were the highest race. He talks about the lower races ... the savage races, and so it goes on," says Ham. "So we have to understand that evolution inherently is a racist philosophy. We wanted to highlight this and help people understand that connection -- how evolution was used by Hitler, for instance, to justify what he did to the Jews and gypsies and mentally handicapped and others."
 
Sin -- not evolution -- is the cause of racism, says Ham. "Just like evolution is not the cause of abortion or the cause of gay marriage or whatever," he continues. "But when people are taught that they're just animals and ... evolve from ape-like ancestors, and [that] there's no God and you're the result of natural processes, then why shouldn't you look down on another particular people group?" he wonders. In like vein, Ham says such a philosophy spawns individuals who who have no problem aborting an unborn child because they consider that baby to be "just an animal."
 
The solution to racism, according to Ham, is to get back to the foundational truths of God's Word, which states that there is only one race, with all humans descended from Adam and Eve and all equal before God.

like Kent Hovind said, racism exist long before Darwin, but evolution theory definitely add gasoline on it and justify it "scientifically".