The racism of the early Darwinists

Today, the theory of human evolution is typically portrayed as a series of stages of upward development from small crouching apes to the present-day tall, erect homo sapien, as in the chart shown here. Sometimes, the ‘modern man’ resembles a rustic, handsome actor like Gerard Butler, or maybe a well-groomed Barry Gibb from the BeeGees. But when the theory was first applied to humans, the drawing used to illustrate the theory reeked with racism.

As I explain in Chapter 11 of Floodgates, Charles Darwin was the grandson of a leading abolitionist, Erasmus Darwin. And although he divided up the human races into “savages” and “civilized” – like most Europeans of his day – Darwin still thought that the “lower” races could be improved through education, diet and other means. But many of the earliest advocates of his theory of evolution were quite racist, including the flamboyant German biologist Ernst Haeckel.

It was Haeckel who popularized Darwinism on the continent of Europe and forced its teachings in German public schools. And it is Haeckel, not Darwin, who should be credited as the first scientist of note to apply Darwin’s concept of natural selection to the human race. In Origin of Species, published in 1859, Darwin presented his theory of evolution but only in the context of plants and animals. Instead, Haeckel was the first one with genuine scientific credentials to definitively state that humans came from apes. A renowned artist, he also included a sketch illustrating his view on the lowly origins of black Africans – shown here at left from his book The Evolution of Man. Today, we are shocked at such a “racist” drawing. Yet this is exactly what is taught in our public schools and universities every single day.

I have concluded that this is the moment when we started crossing the line with God! By adopting such a low view of mankind – as descended from monkeys and apes, rather than a special creation of God made in His image – we have violated the one condition of the Noahide covenant, and the world is now hurtling headlong into an ominous time of divine judgment.