It was the spring of 1999, a Denver suburb. The day, April 20 — Adolf Hitler’s birthday. An 18-year-old white nationalist, Eric Harris, donned a shirt emblazoned with “Natural Selection” before heading off to high school. For weeks he had been preparing a special event in honor of the Führer. Together with a co-conspirator, Dylan Klebold, he planted a bomb in the Columbine High School cafeteria. Harris planned to shoot his fellow students as they fled the explosion. When the bomb failed to detonate, he and Klebold entered the school and opened fire, killing 13 and wounding 24 before turning their guns on themselves.Why was Harris — as are many white nationalists today — so eager to honor both Hitler and Darwin? Why did he think Darwin’s theory of natural selection provided fodder for his white nationalist ideology?If we delve deeply into the ideology of Nazis, neo-Nazis, and white nationalists, we find that Darwinism — the view that species have evolved over eons of time through the process of natural selection — plays a fundamental role, shaping their views about race and society.Richard Weikart, “Darwinian Racism: How Evolutionary Theory Shaped Nazi Thinking” at Evolution News and Science Today (February 2, 2022)
Source: Excerpt from Richard Weikart’s new book, Darwinian Racism – Uncommon Descent
Darwiniana 