... or at least, according to the Discovery Institutes's own Michael Medved.
The idea of a distinctive, unifying, risk-taking American DNA might also help to explain our most persistent and painful racial divide - between the progeny of every immigrant nationality that chose to come here [the source of the distinctive american DNA signal], and the one significant group that exercised no choice in making their journey to the U.S. Nothing in the horrific ordeal of African slaves, seized from their homes against their will, reflected a genetic predisposition to risk-taking, or any sort of self-selection based on personality traits. Among contemporary African-Americans, however, this very different historical background exerts a less decisive influence, because of vast waves of post-slavery black immigration. Some three million black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean arrived since 1980 alone and in big cities like New York, Boston and Miami close to half of the African-American population consists of immigrants, their children or grandchildren. The entrepreneurial energy of these newcomer communities indicates that their members display the same adventurous instincts associated with American DNA.
Wow, what a twisted argument. It is wrong, it is based on a moronic idea of DNA, and it is internally inconsistent.
The source of this stupidity is here. A double hat tip to Pharyngula and Amused Muse, who have commented all over this thing like ugly on an ape. (Sorry apes.)
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At a time when the entire Discoverup Inst. propaganda machine has been playing a guilt by association game with evolution and social Darwinism, recently hired Discoverup fellow writes a piece advocating what is essentially social Darwinism. These people are parody proof.
You take millenniums old racist cant, infuse within it at key points the word "DNA", and you get a serious modern scientific theory about why Africans are just born failures, and white Americans are steeled risk-takers. Wow, Cool. And Obama's black!!! OMG OMG !!!
So a Disco Institute director has found Negroes, Orientals and native Europeans to be genetically inferior to us robust Americans (of European descent). Well, they are a scientific research organization, so their data must be impeccable.
Luckily the DI can put to rest those rumors that all such research is done by racist jackasses looking to paint a coat of legitimacy on their vile presuppositions.
I was under the impression that Michael Medved was an a--h--- so far to the right he's basically twisted into a pretzel. I wonder what the Discoveryless Institute is "doing" with him?
Social Darwinism - certainly not at its worst but close to. "Adventure DNA" and self-selecting groups of heroic risk-takers, who share the same genetic traits? That would be laughable, but the repeatedly used term "American DNA", which is described as "unifying" and "risk-taking", makes me cringe on the inside just a little bit. It somewhat reminds me of the creepy idea of a superior "German superrace", the idea of a people with superior abilities and special, unifying racial traits.
I happened to have read some of the "race theory"-cr*p that passed as science here in Germany 70 years ago, and it seems to be based on the exact same kind of thinking: The "Germanic" or "Teutonic" race had to live in the unfriendly, cold Northern environments for thousands of years - an environment in which only the strongest people could thrive and survive in, thus making "the race" grow stronger and more superior with each generation.
The same flawed logic seems to be the base of Medved's arguments. Note, that I am not calling him a Nazi (so Godwin's law does not apply), I am merely noting that his theory seems to be based on the exact same brand of Social Darwinism. Makes you wonder what Medved might think about Australians with European ancestors though. Do they share a common "criminal DNA", passed down by the first European criminals that were forced to emigrate? Just wondering....