My response:

Geoff here makes some mistakes.  

1. I make a practice of not basing anything that I write on "feelings."  I state only what I can prove, and expect others to do the same.   I feel with my fingers, I think with my mind.  My problem with Darwin has nothing to do with "feelings."
2. Nothing scientific gives any credence to Darwin's theories being anything other than  "theories," particularly his views on Origin and Natural Selection.  Geoff, that's why they are called "theories."   Stuart Kauffman (University of Pennsylvania), writing in his "The Origins of Order" (Oxford University Press, 1993), aptly describes the condition of which Geoff is perhaps suffering:  "It has been said that a weakness of some biologists is persistent physics-envy: the seeking of deep structure to biology.  ...Even the outline of an adequate theory is not available but must be found, for the proper marriage of these conceptual realms constitutes the proper evolution of our theory of life."  pp. 643,644).   Geoff, you really need to "read up" to see what is going on around you before you "close the patent office."  Please, allow me to help:   Click here to check out what some of the real scientists are saying, and have been saying for a long time.   The truth is that the only safe harbor for the flat-earth Darwinists is in education.   
3. Geoff, it is grammatically incorrect to begin a sentence in the manner you begin your second.  Even though it might seem awkward, you have to preface it with something such as:  "You do so..."  You need a subject for your sentence, or at least an ellipses. 

Geoff then writes:

Certainly you can argue that some people have used the idea of evolution to justify heinous acts.  Some people have also used Christianity to justify the commission of atrocities.  

My response:

I am not sure why Geoff introduces Christianity into his argument.  No where in my arguments does he find anything relating to Christianity, or Christian teachings.  I argue exclusively from the merits of the words of Darwin himself, and his influence.  I think that all religious inferences are out of place in this discussion.  I suspect Geoff is trying to argue that Darwin is not the only person in the world whose influence caused pain and suffering to others.  Logically, that makes no sense.  That line of reasoning, if valid, could be used to prove that Son of Sam was innocent simply because Charles Manson existed.  Geoff's argument here has no merit.  

Furthermore, I wonder what prompts Geoff so quickly and selectively to attack Christianity.  No where in my writings does he find religious arguments used.   

Geoff then writes:

The Christian religion speaks against "bearing false witness," yet that is
just what you are doing in your attempts to make Charles Darwin appear to be a raging racist with your very careful selection of quotations.

My response:

Again, Geoff brings Christianity into the picture.  This time he seems to be preaching to me.  Why does he not quote from the Koran, or the Talmud?  ...Or better yet, why does Geoff insist on bringing religion into this discussion at all?  This is the second time he does this.

Geoff then includes a short statement, followed by a short question, then followed by a rather long quote from Darwin.  I have chosen not to chop this section of his letter up very much as it seems to be the pivotal point of his argument: 

Yet, somehow you seem to conveniently overlook some other words written by the man.

Does the following sound like the words of a raging racist?

"On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil, I thank God, I
shall never again visit a slave-country ... Those who look tenderly at the
slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put
themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with
not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of you [sic.] wife and your little children [sic.] even the slave to call his own the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty: but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin." ~ Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle
(1839), Chapter XXI

My response:

(I would preface my comments here with a link to a short quote from a subsequent letter from Geoff regarding Darwin's racism)  Geoff, this is an interesting quote.   I am glad you brought it up, because it helps prove my point about Darwin's racism.  It was written at a very early part of Darwin's life; during his formative years, if you will.  He had just graduated with a BA from Christ's College (1831) when he almost immediately set sail on the H.M.S. Beagle.  ...It was while sailing on this ship that he penned the words you quote.  

The H.M.S. Beagle was a scientific vessel commissioned by the Admiralty to survey the east and west coasts of South America.  The trip lasted from December 27, 1831, to October 2, 1836 (Keep in mind that Darwin was graduated in 1831).  Darwin, at this point in his life, like so many other young college graduates, was an idealist.  He was even reputed to be contemplating a career in the Christian ministry.

Geoff, I would agree with your assessment of Darwin's words to this point:  I think it safe to say that at the beginning of (and even during) his voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle, Darwin had not yet formulated his racist beliefs.  His Christian idealism (which he attributes to himself) led him to be able to identify with the slaves.  

Later in his life, however, Darwin changed into the raging racist exemplified by his writings in "The Origin of Species, The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life," especially in light of his "The Decent of Man."   It is likely (though speculative), that the psychological impact made upon him by his nearly five years aboard the H.M.S. Beagle had a lot to do with his metamorphous.  I think his idealism was overwhelmed by this traumatic experience, and that his rational mind  was unable to grapple with the inhumanity he had witnessed, up close.   I think that it is quite possible that something of a breakdown (emotional perhaps) occurred, and that this is what led him to write these "raging racist" words later in his life:  

"At some future period (Darwin the adult writes), not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla."  (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 2nd ed (New York:  A. L. Burt Co., I 874), p. 178).     

Geoff, your question to me was this:  "Does the following (Darwin writing while aboard the H.M.S. Beagle) sound like the words of a raging racist?  My answer:  No.  Those do not sound like the words of a raging racist.  But they certainly do not establish that he would never become a racist.  Had he been able to preserve his idealism, he would not have become a racist.  But, unfortunately for the world, he allowed his inner demons to take over, and he became one of the most heinous racists the world has ever known.  

Geoff, regarding your unwillingness (or inability) to face up to Darwin's racism is unconscionable.   You simply do not want to face up to the fact that your guy predicted (if not advocated) the inevitability of the  extermination of Africans and Australian Aborigines.   You, Geoff, and your cohorts in the elite educational establishment, are guilty of defacto racism.  You are willing to accept the teachings of a man who has, by his own words, demonstrated himself to be a raging racist, and whose views do not stand up to the scrutiny of modern science.  Why are you doing this?  What is your excuse?  Is change too difficult a concept for you?  You talk evolution, but you refuse to take part.  Geoff, your antiquated views need to evolve.  Expand your comfort zone to incorporate what is going on in the real world.   Explore.  Expand.  Learn.  Be a big boy.

Geoff then writes:

One of the hallmarks of creationist argument, I've found, is the ready
willingness to resort to any means, including lying, to forward the
creationist/religious agenda. But you do your cause little good when you do the very things your Bible advises you against doing, such as "bearing false witness," as you do with the subject of Charles Darwin and his supposed "raging racism." I value honesty. Why would I want to take seriously someone who seems so willing to NOT be completely honest? Why would I want to be willing to join the cause of such a person?

My response:

Again, for the third time, Geoff brings religion into the picture.  This time he incorporates it with creationism, and wrongly attributes it to me.  More and more I am led to think that Geoff might suffer from anti-Christian bigotry.  Why else would he resort to name-calling and wrongly-attributed religious inferences?  I think it is because he has no real answer to the racist situation.  After all, his task is monumental.  Facts are always difficult to refute.  

I will state this again, no where in my writings do I raise the creation issue.  Would it help if I used big letters to express this?   Perhaps some people only read the big letters, so here goes:  

No where in my writings do I raise the creation issue.   

I always allow Darwin's teachings to rest on their own merits.   Geoff's arguments are so weak that he has to attribute false notions to me, and then attack those false notions with innuendo.  

Geoff, if you are able to, please get this:  I do not base my views of Darwin and his racist teachings on a "creation/religious agenda."  You have invented this out of whole cloth.    

What you are doing is this:  You create an argument, wrongly attribute it to me, and then attack it.  That is not only a bad debate tactic, it is unfair, and it suggests weakness on your part.  

Geoff, you do not demonstrate that I am a liar.  You do not even show that I have quoted out of context.  You simply cannot handle the fact that the adult Darwin was a racist.  For crying out loud, Geoff, Darwin predicts (if not advocates) that the African peoples will be exterminated by whites.   He refers to Africans as the nearest kin to an "anthropomorphous ape."  In case you do not know what that means, Geoff, he is referring to Africans as something less than human; one short step above an "anthropomorphous ape,"  which could be loosely described as a "manlike monkey."  Simply stated, Darwin did not view the African or the Australian aborigines as fully human.  He predicted their extermination.  Use your brain, Geoff, the man was a racist.  Be a big boy here.  Not to face up to this reality is ignorant and unforgivable.  Darwin was a raging racist, and his influence needs to be rooted out of our culture, now!

The truth is becoming more and more evident, in the real scientific circles (as opposed to the elite educational establishment), not only was Darwin a racist, and his teachings racist-based, his theories of Origins and Natural Selection are now viewed as mythological.   This is the direction the real physicists and cosmologists are going.  (Geoff, if you are not sure about it, a cosmologist is a scientist that studies the cosmos (another word for universe).  It has nothing to do with the person who does your hair and nails.).

Geoff closes with these words:

As regards your statement, "It should be no surprise that no lesser racist
villain than Adolf Hitler picked up on Darwin's evolutionary theories,"
please direct me to any quotation made by Adolf Hitler in which he
specifically refers to Charles Darwin or Darwinism.  Yours in honesty, Geoff in Oregon

My response:

Geoff, there can be no doubt that Darwin's teachings formed the backdrop of Adolf Hitler' educational experience.  He studied Darwin's theories on Origin, and Natural Selection, and especially Darwin's very own words, that certain races must be "exterminated," and then he (Hitler) set about doing it.   About this Karl Schleunes writes:  "Darwin's notion of struggle for survival was quickly appropriated by the racist ... such a struggle, legitimized by the latest scientific views, justified the racists' conception of superior and inferior peoples ... and validated the conflict between them."  (Karl A. Schleunes, The Twisted Road To Auchwitz (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1970)p. 30 , 32. Cited by J. Bergman, "Eugenics and Nazi Racial Policy," p. 118.).

Geoff, as you know, the German Nazis (follow link to see source of the following) not only adopted the doctrine of fascism, but Hitler added a further element : the myth of racial purity and Aryan superiority.  It was Hitler who regarded the Nordic Aryan race as the only source of human greatness, and he despised the 'inferior' Slavs.  ...And, above all, Hitler despised the Jews as un-German. His anti-Semitic campaign resulted during the 1940's in the infamous Holocaust, that is, the extermination of many millions of Jews. (The Jewish population of Poland, for instance, shrank from a pre-war population of 3,3 Million Jews to 300,000 after the war).  That means that 3.2 million Jews have Darwin to thank for planting the seed of racism in Hitler's head, thus causing their extermination.  

On the other hand, African Americans have Roosevelt to thank for his guts and resolve to take Hitler down, otherwise Darwin's top student, Adolf Hitler, would have decimated all non-whites in the US as well.   

Hitler's aim was to unite all Germans in a common state (the 'Third Reich') inhabited by a 'pure Aryan' race. That was but the first step, for Hitler (like Darwin)  believed that a life and death struggle was the substance of history. The future of the German race could only be assured, he argued, by colonizing large territories and settling them with members of the pure Aryan race.  That, my dear Geoff, would not have included the African Americans.

For you, Geoff, because you are so deeply entrenched in your myth, I am going to repeat Darwin's words:

"At some future period (Darwin writes), not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla."  (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 2nd ed (New York:  A. L. Burt Co., I 874), p. 178).  

Hitler was simply trying to fulfill Darwin's prophecy, to "exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world."   

My closing comments regarding Geoff's letter:

Geoff signs himself, "yours in honesty, Geoff."  My papa always told me to be careful with people who bragged about their honesty.  He said when you ran into one, put your hand on your wallet.   It is a little like that person who prefaces a statement with, "To tell you truth."  I know that when I hear someone say that I stop listening, and start assuming that everything not prefaced with that comment cannot be believed; or perhaps nothing that this person says can be believed.    

Geoff, you accuse me of lying, but you do not support your claim.  At the least, you should have pointed out one quote out I might have made out of context, and then establish that I did this with deceitful intent.  But you did nothing to substantiate your claims.  You simply call names and make false accusations.  Your letter, on the surface, appears to be the work of an intelligent person.  I assume you are.  However, I cannot understand why you insist on sticking to your "flat-earth" theory of Darwin.  It forces you into absurdities that are beneath you.  Learn to think for yourself, Geoff.  Be willing to look at the facts.  Do not continue to buy into the line of the elite educational establishment.  

Real scientists,  such as Stuart A. Kauffman, are driving the final nails in Darwin's coffin with words such as these:  "Natural selection, operating on variations which are random with respect to usefulness, appears a slim force for order in a chaotic world.  ...  Our legacy from Darwin, powerful as it is, has fractures as its foundations" (p.643, The Origins of Order, New York:  Oxford University Press, 1993).  

For additional facts concerning the racism and the non-scientific nature of Darwinism, visit our page on Darwin.

[Dear Goodschools:]

You must feel terribly threatened by the fact of life known as evolution.

To the point of spreading misinformation and disinformation.

Certainly you can argue that some people have used the idea of evolution to
justify heinous acts.  Some people have also used Christianity to justify the commission of atrocities.

The Christian religion speaks against "bearing false witness," yet that is
just what you are doing in your attempts to make Charles Darwin appear to be
a raging racist with your very careful selection of quotations.

Yet, somehow you seem to conveniently overlook some other words written by
the man.

Does the following sound like the words of a raging racist?

"On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil, I thank God, I
shall never again visit a slave-country ... Those who look tenderly at the
slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put
themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with
not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over
you, of you wife and your little children even the slave to call his own the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess
to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that
his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to
think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful
cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty: but it is a consolation to
reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by
any nation, to expiate our sin." ~ Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle
(1839), Chapter XXI

Darwin was almost put ashore at one point by the very Christian captain of
the HMS Beagle as a result of a vigorous disagreement:

"Fitz-Roy's temper was a most unfortunate one. ... We had several quarrels;
for when out of temper he was utterly unreasonable. For instance, early in
the voyage at Bahia in Brazil he defended and praised slavery, which I
abominated, and told me that he had just visited a great slave-owner, who
had called up many of his slaves and asked them whether they were happy, and
whether they wished to be free, and all answered 'No.' I then asked him,
perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the answers of slaves in the
presence of their master was worth anything. This made him excessively
angry, and he said that as I doubted his word, we could not live any longer
together. I thought that I should have been compelled to leave the ship; but
as soon as the news spread, which it did quickly, as the captain sent for
the first lieutenant to assuage his anger by abusing me, I was deeply
gratified by receiving an invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess
with them. But after a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his usual magnanimity by
sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I would continue
to live with him." ~ Charles Darwin, Autobiography of Charles Darwin
1809-1882

One of the hallmarks of creationist argument, I've found, is the ready
willingness to resort to any means, including lying, to forward the
creationist/religious agenda. But you do your cause little good when you do
the very things your Bible advises you against doing, such as "bearing false
witness," as you do with the subject of Charles Darwin and his supposed
"raging racism." I value honesty. Why would I want to take seriously someone
who seems so willing to NOT be completely honest? Why would I want to be
willing to join the cause of such a person?

As regards your statement, "It should be no surprise that no lesser racist
villain than Adolf Hitler picked up on Darwin's evolutionary theories,"
please direct me to any quotation made by Adolf Hitler in which he
specifically refers to Charles Darwin or Darwinism.

Yours in honesty

Geoff in Oregon

Postscript:  Geoff later commented on this article:

Mike...

I looked over the earlier emails from you.

Unless I am missing one, you have never previously asked about my age or my vocation. I did notice, however, that, in your website response to an
earlier communication, you mentioned that you had requested such
information, but again, I do not have any record of that. That's not to say
you didn't. I generally don't delete emails that are associated with an
ongoing conversation, but there's always that possibility.

In any event, I am 54 and happily retired. I have enjoyed a variety of
careers in my life, but my two major careers were in medicine and in
government. Neither involved teaching.

I, too, appreciate civility and, if we continue this discussion, expect to
remain reasonably civil, notwithstanding with a touch of passion now and
then. Nothing too abusive, I hope. You and I both have concerns that we feel
strongly about and it shows.

Most of all, I appreciate the fact that you have permitted me to express my
views on your website in their entirety, even though they may conflict with
your own. While I may have some serious disagreements with some of your
viewpoints, you have been kind and generous enough to permit a democratic
exchange of thoughts and opinions on your website. Thank you for that.

Wishing you well,

Geoff in Oregon

Would you like to see related letters and my comments?

--Mike Carrier (MA, NYU--Graduate School of Arts and Science)