Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

0ttr t1_ja9g1ix wrote

Reply to comment by popsickle_in_one in TIL John Scopes, a high school teacher in Tennessee, was arrested and tried for merely teaching the theory of evolution in 1925. by JesusLikesHisCheezIt

Well, of course the book is wrong, no one in 2023 is disputing that a book used by a teacher in the 1920s era is wrong!

Clergyman were indeed eugenicists. So were scientists. Bryan was a Christian who was not a eugenicist and made arguments based on those principles, just like some scientist made their arguments for and against. So to argue that science was not tainted by it is blatantly false. Henry F. Osborn was a eugenicist and president of the AMNH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fairfield_Osborn. Charles B. Davenport, zoologist, eugenicist. Henry Crampton, president NYAS, major evolutionary biologist, eugenicist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Crampton

So I think you need to adjust your thinking. The Nazis drew upon American eugenics research because it was so "thorough".

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alexjaness t1_ja9eqvb wrote

Reply to TIL In Approximately 241,000 years, Nanga Parbat #9 tallest mountain in the world located in Pakistan will overtake Everest and will become the tallest mountain in the world. by AdClemson

I don't think this is going to happen. At some point, the bodies of all the people who die trying to climb Everest will start stacking up higher and higher. Eventually the summit will be a flag planted into some dipshit named Craig's skull.

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TheInfamous313 t1_ja9djzi wrote

Reply to comment by SimonArgent in TIL that the Slurpee was invented by accident when a Dairy Queen owner would provide frozen soda, from a cooler, to customers when his soda fountain would break down. The owner, Omar Knedlik, improvised the Icee machine out of car parts, which was eventually licensed by 7-11, to become the Slurpee. by jdward01

Has one last summer, for the first time in about 15 years. I can confirm, It still is.

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popsickle_in_one t1_ja9d7u7 wrote

Reply to comment by 0ttr in TIL John Scopes, a high school teacher in Tennessee, was arrested and tried for merely teaching the theory of evolution in 1925. by JesusLikesHisCheezIt

The book is wrong. Evolution from the start discredited eugenics or any notion that there were superior races. How could there be if all types of humans had been evolving for the same amount of time?

People supported eugenics because they were racist, not because the theory of evolution ever taught them it was a good idea. People would have manipulated the ideas to fit racism, but it wasn't the cause, and studying it, even then, would have led to the opposite conclusion that the racists were trying to make.

People already knew about selective breeding, selecting against deformities in people has been present since ancient times. Darwin did not introduce this concept.

Also, the idea that Christian morality stood against eugenics at the time was laughable, since the both the British Eugenics Education Society, and the American Eugenics Society counted top clergymen among their members, and modified their message to appeal to Christians.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4001825/

Meanwhile eugenics was being consistently denounced by biologists and anthropologists, and they were especially concerned with the unscientific ideals eugenicists were spouting in order to propagate their message (such as picking undesirable 'traits' that weren't even biological in nature ie committing crimes)

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