Science vs. Religion: When Science Crosses the Line

Last week, Jonathan Rosenblum wrote 2 articles on Darwin and Evolution: "Darwinism – Science or Secular Religion?" and "Think Again: Charlie Darwin's angels". There has been a lot of debate on Rosenblum's articles at Cross-Currents, Emes Ve-Emuna, and Not The Gadol Hador. I have nothing to add to that.

I just think that it is interesting that some argue that Religion and Science each have their own particular sphere of influence and should not trespass into each other's territory. According to Rabbi Dr. Yirmiahu Luchins, the head the science department at Kushner:

Science is amoral. It does not say anything about how we ought to behave. We do. Whether we find dinosaur bones or not does not tell us whether or not we ought to help a little old lady across the street.

I think he is right--science does not say anything about how we should behave, but historically that is not the way things have worked out. Daniel J. Kevles, a historian of science and society, at Yale University writes about Darwin, Darwinism, and Eugenics in his article "In the Name of Darwin":

Eugenics was rooted in the social Darwinism of the late 19th century, a period in which notions of fitness, competition, and biological rationalizations of inequality were popular. At the time, a growing number of theorists introduced Darwinian analogies of "survival of the fittest" into social argument. Many social Darwinists insisted that biology was destiny, at least for the unfit, and that a broad spectrum of socially deleterious traits, ranging from "pauperism" to mental illness, resulted from heredity.

The word "eugenics" was coined in 1883 by the English scientist Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, to promote the ideal of perfecting the human race by, as he put it, getting rid of its "undesirables" while multiplying its "desirables" -- that is, by encouraging the procreation of the social Darwinian fit and discouraging that of the unfit. In Galton's day, the science of genetics was not yet understood. Nevertheless, Darwin's theory of evolution taught that species did change as a result of natural selection, and it was well known that by artificial selection a farmer could obtain permanent breeds of plants and animals strong in particular characteristics. Galton wondered, "Could not the race of men be similarly improved?" [emphasis his]

And we all know where this led. In Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It, Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman write:

Nazi racial ideologies can indeed be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century, to the linking of social Darwinism and eugenics that burst on the scene in Germany, arriving from England, where the "science" of eugenics was founded by Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton. (p. 225)

Shermer and Grobman give an example of the case of a girl who, along with her mother were found to be "feebleminded." When the girl gave birth to an illegitimate daughter who was also found to be feebleminded, it was decided on the basis of the science of the day that 3 generations of feeblemindedness constituted a hereditary cause and the girl should be sterilized.

A court finally handed down a judgment in the case--a judgment that was used by the Nazis to justify their sterilization program:

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing the kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough. (p. 226-7)

The girl's name was Carrie Buck. The case was took place in the US. The court was the US Supreme Court and the above words were the opinion of Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

As Shermer and Grobman note, "In America, a similar commitment to social Darwinism resulted in mass sterilizations of the 'feebleminded' and other 'undesirables.'" From 1907 to 1928 almost 9,000 Americans were sterilized and there were approximately 20,000 sterilizations by the mid-30's.

There are ideas in Science that catch on and are applied outside of their area. Martin Gardner, in his book, The Relativity Explosion, felt the need to write:

If the reader wonders why the book contains no chapter on the philosophical consequences of relativity, it is because I am firmly persuaded that in the ordinary sense of the word "philosophical," relativity has no consequences...as far as the great traditional topics of philosophy are concerned--God, immortality free will, good and evil, and so on--relativity has absolutely nothing to say. The notion that relativity physics supports the avoidance of value judgments in anthropology, for example or a relativism with respect to morals, is absurd. Actually, relativity introduces a whole series of new "absolutes." (p. x) [emphasis mine]

(Apparently Einstein's Theory of Relativity has nothing to say on the relativity of terrorists vs. freedom fighters.)

Neither Darwin nor Science are responsible for the Nazis nor the Holocaust. However, when setting up the boundary between Religion and Science, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea if Science kept to it's side of the line as well.

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