South Africans See Racism in New Evolutionary Find

Homo Naledi

Anti-apartheid activists in South Africa are criticizing those who are using the discovery of an allegedly new human ancestor (Homo Naledi) for racial jokes. African National Congress politician Zwelinzima Vavi twittered, “I am no grandchild of any ape, monkey or baboon.” He described being called a baboon by white racists during apartheid. As with all of the ape-men drawings since the days of Charles Darwin, Homo Naledi is depicted as half ape, half black man. Racism was an integral part of Darwinianism until the racial aspect became politically incorrect well into the twentieth century. Darwin’s prominent German disciple Ernst Haeckel said the tribes of Africa “have remained, down to the present day, at the lowest stage of human development, and made the smallest advance beyond the ape” (Mario Gregorio, From Here to Eternity, p. 247). Some of Haeckel’s charts depicted the supposed evolution of modern man from the lower “race” (Negroid) to the higher (Caucasians, and especially, of course, Germans). Haeckel made a drawing of a tree populated by a gorilla, an orangutan, a chimpanzee, and a Negro. He strongly believed in racial superiority, considering it a natural product of evolution. Henry Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History and discoverer of “Nebraska Man,” said, “The standard intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens” (“The Evolution of Human Races,” Natural History, Jan.-Feb. 1926). Osborn was one of the “experts” who presented evidence in favor of evolution at the Scopes Trial. For more on this see “Darwinian Racism” at the Way of Life web site.

(Friday Church News Notes, September 25, 2015, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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