What Kuhn brings up is something that should be brought up, but that doesn't mean it holds up under scrutiny or holds any validity. Could you give some examples of scientific studies being skewed because someone lacked the belief in a god(s)? Why would someone skew results because of a lack of belief? What are they achieving by doing this?
Maybe you wouldn't consider Darwin to be a true scientist...but his work would be an example to me...he considered other races inferior!
What other races? Races outside of Caucasians?
What is the basis for calling Darwin a racist? Could you show me something that proves this, or are you just making baseless claims that add nothing to the discussion?
The fact of the matter is this: Darwin was very concerned and worried about the idea of eugenics and about the potential misunderstandings that could arise from his proposals (survival of the fittest for example). He did not promote eugenics; in fact, he was very much opposed to the idea of using his discoveries to "perfect" the human race.
He was even offered the chance to co-release a report on eugenics with Francis Galton (the father of the idea of eugenics) this scene unfolded:
"When Galton suggested that publishing research could encourage intermarriage within a "caste" of "those who are naturally gifted", Darwin foresaw practical difficulties, and thought it "the sole feasible, yet I fear utopian, plan of procedure in improving the human race", preferring to simply publicise the importance of inheritance and leave decisions to individuals."
It is quite obvious he was not a proponent of eugenics or a proponent of exterminating other races to achieve human racial perfection. His entire theory of evolution revolves around NATURAL selection, not artificial selection or genetic engineering.
But please, do feel free to post some accurate information backing up your claim that he was a racist and supported artificially perfecting the human race. I'm very interested to hear it.
OK, I did some research..(accepted your challenge)
http://darwin-online.org.uk/contents.html and found that darwin was in fact an abolitionist...He was less racist than the society he was in which still had slavery...the English people of that day considered cultures who didn't sit and drink tea as savages. Here is an interesting quote from
Travels in Brazil (quote)Two very different feelings are excited in the observer when he beholds the children of Africa placed amidst the more exalted relations of European civilisation; on the one hand he remarks with joy the traces of humanity which gradually develop in the negro by his intercourse with the whites* while on the other hand he cannot but grieve that means so cruel, so contrary to the rights of mankind as the slave trade, were required to afford to that unhappy race, degraded even in their own native country, the first school of moral, education. These feelings affected us still more deeply when we were obliged to go to the slave-market to look for, and purchase, a young negro for ourselves.(end quote)
I did find though that other scientists took his ideas and perverted them to promote their racist agendas...(yes, even Hitler) One person I read said that many of the early evolutionists were outspoken racists. Maybe Darwin has been lumped in with them?
On another perhaps unrelated note...I think it is sad that people who
claimed to be Christians have used God and the Bible to rationalize and support their atrocities throughout history. It seems to me that Christians should be less racist than anyone else because they believe we all came from a common ancestor.