More Scholars Admitting Darwinism Is Harmful

Academics and others are increas-
ingly admitting that Darwinism has
had an adverse influence on society

Evolutionists Slowly Admitting
the Harm Caused by Their Theory

by Jerry Bergman, PhD

It is now slowly becoming mainstream for evolutionists to admit their origin story is not only wrong, but has caused enormous harm in society, not the least from eugenics. One excellent example is an article published online, which succinctly summarizes the enormous harm Darwinism has caused in the last century. The article by evolutionist and popular author/columnist William Tanner, in his column Tanner on Truth & Myths, was published January 4, 2026.[1] He does an excellent job acknowledging that, as stated in his title, “Darwin Helped Turn Racism Into Science. When natural selection became an excuse for empire, eugenics, and genocide.”[2] Rather than review the article, I excerpted several long quotes from it to allow the author to explain his conclusions in his own words. Tanner did not reference my work, but came to the same conclusion that I did.

Quotes by Tanner

1. Darwin came up with evolution by natural selection while having no idea how heredity actually worked — what alleles, genes, chromosomes, or DNA even were. But Darwin’s influence didn’t end with birds and bugs. He wrote about people, too — and he didn’t see everyone as equals.
2. Darwin’s theory became the golden excuse for racism, colonization, genocide, eugenics, and more. And the worst part is that it wasn’t all a misunderstanding of his scientific books, but rather an understanding of them correctly.
3. Darwin …. argued that some humans were [evolved] further along than others. “The civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world.” He’s basically saying all races but Whites will get wiped out — and he doesn’t seem too bothered by it. ….. He even said the gap between “a wild and a cultivated plant” was smaller than between a “savage” and an European.
4. “scientific racism.” [is] … using big words and fancy Latin to claim one group’s better than the rest. The great break in the organic chain… will then be between man in a more civilized state… and some ape as low as a baboon …. Letting only the “fit” reproduce was seen as a way to make evolution run its natural course…. Eugenics boiled down to this: we define who is “fit,” let the smart and strong breed, and stop the poor and the “unfit” from having kids.
5. The unfit included:

• • Black people
  • Indigenous people
  • Jews
  • Poor folks
  • Disabled folks
  • Anyone who didn’t fit the White, rich, healthy mold

6. This was all mainstream science, based on which the U.S. sterilized over 60,000 people. Canada did it too. Adolf Hitler praised American eugenics and copied it. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Japan, and Iceland deserve “honorary” mentions on this point. That’s how White supremacy used Darwin. It stopped being “we evolved differently.” It became “we evolved better.”
7. After Darwin died, his fans doubled down. They made charts of racial skull sizes. They measured noses. They ranked people like livestock. They called it “anthropometry.” They said science proved White Europeans were the smartest and the most evolved. And they used this to justify slavery, segregation, colonization, and genocide. This became Social Darwinism. A pseudoscience that claimed:

• • War was natural
  • Racism was biological
  • Poverty was deserved
  • White domination was inevitable

8. Darwinism… removes the moral brakes — Hitler, quoted in Hitler’s Table Talk. Darwin judged people by European standards, assuming that societies with books, laws, science, and industry were “more evolved.” Societies without those things were seen as “less evolved.”

Tanner concluded that “ Darwin chose his camp. He saw Whiteness as higher, and within Whites he believed males were superior to females. He talked about “lower races.” He praised “vigorous” White men. He believed “weaker” peoples would vanish.

Other Public Acknowledgements of the Adverse Influence of Darwinism

Tanner’s article is only one of many academics and others that acknowledge the fact that Darwinism had an adverse influence on society. A few other examples that do not shy away from discussing the negative influence of Darwinism even on Hitler. Some of these include:

1. British geneticist Adam Rutherford, who documented “how eugenics, ‘Darwin’s monster’, took over the world.” Rutherford’s conclusions were documented in my article “Historian Agrees: Darwin and Eugenics Led to the Holocaust. Historians Are Finally Coming Clean About How Darwinism Birthed Eugenics Spawned the Holocaust.”[3]
2. Even PBS, which often features broadcasts on evolution, has shown the excellent PBS documentary, The Eugenics Crusade, that begins by reviewing the influence of  Charles Darwin and his cousin, Francis Galton on rasism.[4]
3. The leading medical journal The Lancet, published a 73-page article written by 20 international experts, that was supported by 878 scholarly references documenting the central role Darwinism played in Nazi Crimes.[5]
4. John P. Slattery, Ph.D., member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, the most prestigious science body in the U.S.), in an essay in Commonweal, admits the major contribution Darwinian evolution made to racism and Nazism.[6]
5. Caltech has made an attempt to respond to their supporters who openly used Darwinism to support eugenics.[7]
6. Lastly, the fact that Darwin was a racist of the worst kind was documented in an article by a Princeton University professor and published in the most esteemed science journal in the world, Science. The author, Professor Agustín Fuentes, wrote that some of Darwin’s racist “assertions were dismally, and dangerously, wrong.”[8] Fuentes added that Darwin’s 1871 treatise, Descent of Man, a book venerated by many evolutionists today, “is often problematic, prejudiced, and injurious. Darwin thought he was relying on data, objectivity, and scientific thinking in describing human evolutionary outcomes. But for much of the book, he was not. ‘Descent,’ …  offers a racist and sexist view of humanity.”[9]

My Own Experience

This acknowledgement is in contrast to the once common condemnation of those who noted the relationship between Darwin and Nazism. For example, one of my most successful books is Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview: How the Nazi Eugenic Crusade for a Superior Race Caused the Greatest Holocaust in World History.[10]  WorldCat lists it in 106 major academic libraries worldwide. Amazon has 80 reviews (81 percent gave it 4- and 5-star ratings) and Goodreads lists 56 ratings, mostly very positive.

Evolutionists generally attempt to demolish the claims made in creation-friendly books, so I expected my book to be treated no differently. Of Amazon’s 80 reviews, 81 percent are positive. The negative reviews, though, are most telling about the attempt to excuse the harmful influence of Darwinism on society by personally attacking the writer:

1. Biased book written by an anti-evolution creationist. This is not a normal scholarly book about the Nazis, apparently it’s written by some sort of creationist who hates evolution. … to undermine the theory of evolution. I knew something was up when I read the introductions, and they were by people who equated … removal of Christian symbols in taxpayer-funded spaces was equivalent to burgeoning Nazism. Just a screed.
2. Anti-Evolution Propaganda. The author of the book is a noted creationist and anti-evolutionist. He is basically trying to slam Darwin and Evolution by tying it to the worst people in history, the Nazis. Hitler did have Darwinian beliefs, but they were very misguided and misunderstood. Darwin never was a “social Darwinist” and never even wrote or uttered the phrase “survival of the fittest.” This book is a hit job against Darwin and evolution.
3. Anybody have any tin foil? This book was referred to me by a good friend who happens to be very anti-evolution. …The author blames everything that ever happened bad on old Charles Darwin. …. by the time I had waded through this, I would not have been surprised to see that a tree fell on some guy’s house, and it was due to “DARWINISM.”

On the other hand, most of the reviews were positive, such as these:

1. Another important book by Dr. Bergman. It answers the all-important question, “How in the world could this evil have happened in an allegedly civilized world?”
2. Possibly one of the best books giving an all-encompassing view of the ideology of Hitler, the Nazi leaders, and Germany as a whole. It shows the great dangers of a Darwinian ideology. This is a must-read for everyone.
3. An eye-opening review of the uniquely Darwinian aspects of Nazi ideology. Many today act as if Evolution and eugenics are entirely separate pursuits. Dr. Bergman shows through a historical and scientific analysis, starting with Darwin himself, that the concept of molecule-to-man evolutionism has given rise everywhere it went with a eugenics strain.

Summary

I expect that, as more people recognize the harm that the Darwinian worldview has caused, creationists will be less likely be condemned for exposing the other side of Darwinism. The excerpts from the Tanner article accurately summarized this harm. Tanner also attempted to separate Darwinism from evolution by claiming that evolution is true, even though it was misused by Darwin and others. He does admit that it is not easy to cleanly separate the two.

See also: “Darwinism and Its “Pernicious Cultural Implications” by Emily Sandico
at Science & Culture Today, 11 Feb 2026.

References

[1] Tanner, W. 2026. How Darwin Helped Turn Racism Into Science. When natural selection became an excuse for empire, eugenics, and genocide https://tannerontruth.com/how-darwin-helped-turn-racism-into-science-7067c4356aea.

[2] Tanner, W. 2026.

[3] https://crev.info/2023/05/darwin-eugenics-holocaust/.

[4] https://crev.info/2019/02/pbs-unmasks-darwinian-eugenics/.

[5] https://crev.info/2023/11/darwinism-played-a-central-role-in-nazi-crimes/.

[6] https://crev.info/2020/02/evolutionist-admits-darwins-connection-to-racism/.

[7] https://crev.info/2021/11/caltech-cancels-eugenicists/.

[8] Fuentes, A., “The Descent of Man,” 150 years on, Science 372(6544):769, DOI: 10.1126/science.abj4606, 21 May 2021.

[9] Fuentes, A., “The Descent of Man,” 150 years on, Science 372(6544):769, DOI: 10.1126/science.abj4606, 21 May 2021.

[10] Bergman, J., Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview: How the Nazi Eugenic Crusade for a Superior Race Caused the Greatest Holocaust in World History, Joshua Press, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, 2012.

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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,900 publications in 14 languages and 40 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,800 college libraries in 27 countries. So far over 80,000 copies of the 60 books and monographs that he has authored or co-authored are in print. For more articles by Dr Bergman, see his Author Profile.