Question: I am a student teacher enrolled at the University of ______ and currently doing an assignment on racism. I came across an exchange on your website (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/1520.htm ) which addresses racism toward Aborigines in the context of Darwin and evolutionary theory. The exchange mentions 'Creation Ex Nihilo Vol 14, no. 2' 'Darwin's Bodysnatchers'.

Would you be able to tell me where I could obtain the orginal article? I have searched for /Creation Ex Nihilo /through EBSCO Host, but have been unable to locate a journal by that name.

Ken Smith's response:

Your request comes at a rather opportune time, Elizabeth. I've just been engaged in a discussion on an Internet newsgroup over claims that evolution was the basis for racism.

In fact, it seems more likely that racism, particularly in the southern States in USA, may well lie at the base of opposition to evolution. After all, if we can sho that Negroes aren't really human beings, by discrediting Darwin's support for the unity of all human races, we'll be able to continue selling and buying Negroes just as we do other animals.

But let me warn you: you may be letting yourself in for a lot of reading.

Firstly, to answer your question, Creation Ex Nihilo was published by the Australian group Answers in Genesis, but this renamed itself Creation Ministries International due to disputes with the USA branch. Their website goes by the name creationontheweb, but I can't remember whether it's .com or .org, or whether .au needs to be attached. I suggest you feed Creation Ministries International into Google and take it from there. Much of their stuff is online, so you should be able to get at it. I stopped subscribing some years ago, so it's unlikely that I've got a copy.

However a book by Adrian Desmond and James Moore was published in January this year: "Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution".

However you should have a look at Darwin's "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex". This was reprinted recently.

But many of Darwin's writings are now available online and this might be better.

This contains a number of references deploring slavery, and insisting that all the races of man are one species.

There was much argument over monogenism versus polygenism (I think I've got the spellings of those terms right), i.e., did humans descend from just one original (hence Negroes should be treated the same as whites)

or from many originals (in which case whites races are superior to those others, who aren little better than animals).

The phrase which stuck in my mind is something along the lines of "Monogenism will eventually be accepted when, as I think inevitable, evolution is fully accepted."

Ken Smith 9 June 2009