Beck Blames Darwin for Modern Racism

On the Huffington Post, Michael Zimmerman confronts Glenn Beck's assertion that Charles Darwin's famous theory of natural selection provides the basis for modern racism.  Like his confusion with history, Beck lacks the understanding of evolution and of Charles Darwin to actually make such a claim.  Yet, he does.


I have heard that Darwin inspired racism before.  Most just point to the title of his famous book: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races.  He screams racism on the front cover.  However, in this case he simply refers to the variation among individuals in the same species- not specifically humans, who he only mentions once in the whole book.  Humans, being such a young species, show so little variation that many scientists disagree that we even have different races- and thus would not apply to the title.  So much for that line of reasoning.


"But what does science say about race?"  Well, if you look at any other member of this species, you will share about 99.9% of the same DNA, regardless of race, nationality, religion, etc.  Even though people descended from the same continent will be more similar, any population contains 85% of all variation in our species.  We simply haven't had enough separation between tribes to lead to different races.  Even in geographically seperated groups, humans migrate and intermingle so much that our genes have spread across the entire globe.  No single gene isolates any population from another population.  As we learn more about genetics and human evolution, we find more similarities than differences.  We are more common than we think.


"Well, that was modern science, Darwin himself was racist."  In modern-day ideas, he may have been slightly racist.  But in the 1700's, his hatred of slavery and promotion of common decent among all humans placed him on the liberal side of the issue (similar to Thomas Jefferson).  When Darwin witnessed a slave trade, he became a staunch abolitionist and favored the notion that we are all related to each other.  Such ideas seemed heretical at the time.  Charles Darwin had nothing to do with implementation of eugenics and other racial problems- which were developed after his death.  I have never understood blaming the person who came up with idea for the crimes committed by people who misunderstood their work.  


Darwin, if anything, should lead to less racism.  As we understand our genetics and common ancestry, we see different peoples as part of humanity- all for one and one for all.