WorldNetDaily has a follow-up to its report highlighting a new show that blames science for the Holocaust:
Darwin-Hitler connection sparks attacks
Bloggers try to discredit experts on evolution’s connection to bloodshed…Author and Christian broadcaster D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries said the new “Darwin’s Deadly Legacy” is a ground-breaking inquiry into Darwin’s “chilling” social impact, and it will air nationwide on Aug. 26-27 on “The Coral Ridge Hour.”
But yesterday comments appeared on the Pharyngula website, among others, offering stinging criticism of those on the show…One of those targeted was Human Genome Project Director Francis Collins, whose book, “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief,” was published only a few months ago.
…The program, according to producer Jerry Newcomb, is about the social effects of Darwinism, and the bloodshed that can be attributed to those beliefs. He said before Darwin, the basic concept was that man was made in the image of God, and was therefore valuable. But Darwin changed all that.
Alas, WND makes no mention of my own modest contribution to the discussion – if they had seen it, perhaps they might have at least learnt to spell the name of the show’s producer correctly (“Newcombe”, not “Newcomb”).
WND also includes the following tasteful photo and caption:
I’m sure that not one of those emaciated figures imagined that sixty years later their iconic suffering would be put to service as part of a fundamentalist campaign to whip up hate against scientists. And I suspect that Jews who care about using science to improve human welfare will find this crass misappropriation to be particularly painful and offensive.
UPDATE: It ooks as though my instincts were right. Pharyngula has the details:
ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said in a statement: “This is an outrageous and shoddy attempt by D. James Kennedy to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust. Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people. Trivializing the Holocaust comes from either ignorance at best or, at worst, a mendacious attempt to score political points in the culture war on the backs of six million Jewish victims and others who died at the hands of the Nazis…”
Collins, meanwhile, is
absolutely appalled by what Coral Ridge Ministries is doing. I had NO knowledge that Coral Ridge Ministries was planning a TV special on Darwin and Hitler, and I find the thesis of Dr. Kennedy’s program utterly misguided and inflammatory,”
PZ notes that publicity for the show has now removed all mention of Collins (and, more weirdly, of Ann Coulter).
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