Darwin and Hitler: Darwin disavowed selective breeding of humans

The film quotes an extended and seemingly damning passage from Darwin on the effects of bad breeding. ‘...No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” If anything seems like a “necessary” idea to German master race theory, it surely is this. But just a minute. Actually, the influence of breeding is not Darwin’s idea at all - he is merely pointing out what we have known for literally thousands of years since humans domesticated animals. And most importantly, Darwin himself emphatically disavows any such program for humans. The quote given in the movie completely excises a large section and a crucial qualifier in the middle of passage - “excepting in the case of man himself”. And it entirely leaves off Darwin’s conclusion: we cannot restrain our sympathy “without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature” and if “we neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for contingent benefit with an overwhelming present evil.” Darwin explicitly asserted that refusing to help, let alone destroying, the needy and the infirmed is both contrary to our nature and morally repugnant. The very opposite of Hitler and sadly, the opposite of the views ascribed to him by Expelled.

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