Here is the description I've written for the back cover of this new book:
Darwin
once pondered what it would be like to talk to an ape, if it could be
“dispassionate” about its own case. The ape, he said, would have to admit it
was inferior to humans. Darwin was obsessed with ranking organisms. It was no
different with human beings. It is not hard to prove that racism deeply
infected the work of Charles Darwin. Turn the pages of his writings—his
letters, his journal, Notebooks, and published works—and it’s there. There is
hardly a source that does not contain it. It seems like every time he picked up
his pen, he had something to say about the inferiority of certain races. For
him, evolution produced inequality. But Darwin and evolution are not synonymous
terms. It is possible to criticize Darwin without criticizing the theory of
evolution. Some of his contemporary evolutionists were more holistic and
humanitarian than he was. They were far more interested in connections than
disconnections and ranking. We don’t remember them because they defied the
ideology of conquest and domination of their day. The consequence of that is to
be erased from history.
I have completely reorganized how I present the evidence. It's interesting to rewrite a book in this way. Some points gain in power because the evidence for them is presented more compactly. Not only the points about Darwin's racism, but the presentation of the humanitarians who had a more holistic vision of evolution than he did gains by being concentrated in a higher strength solution, instead of being diluted by a lot of other facts. Just wait till you hear about Georg Gerland, J. Langfield Ward, Robert Chambers, Emma Martin, and more, all of whom were far more humane in their pursuit of science than Darwin was. We need people like that.
©
2017 Leon Zitzer
