I know that true Sci­ence­blog­gers don’t link to Bil­ly D’s blog, but there’s just too much amuse­ment to be had there. His lat­est shows that not only did he clear­ly fail biol­o­gy (and math), but lit­er­a­ture isn’t his thing either. Bil­ly explains:

The Nazi empha­sis on prop­er breed­ing, racial puri­ty, and weed­ing out defec­tives come from tak­ing Darwin’s the­o­ry seri­ous­ly and apply­ing it at the lev­el of society.

Those of you who do remem­ber high school will remem­ber quotes like these from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prej­u­dice:

He was at the same time haughty, reserved, and fas­tid­i­ous, and his man­ners, though well-bred, were not inviting.

This is clear­ly a cryp­tic fore­run­ner of the Lebens­born.

That is my idea of good breed­ing; and those per­sons who fan­cy them­selves very impor­tant, and nev­er open their mouths, quite mis­take the matter.

Or:

Noth­ing less than the com­plai­sance of a courtier could have borne with­out anger such treat­ment; but Sir William’s good breed­ing car­ried him through it all;

Or indeed:

“I am the less sur­prised at what has hap­pened,” replied Sir William, “from that knowl­edge of what the man­ners of the great real­ly are, which my sit­u­a­tion in life has allowed me to acquire. About the court, such instances of ele­gant breed­ing are not uncommon.”

Tru­ly, this will not do, for the hate sim­ply goes on. Jane Austen, who died when Dar­win was just 8, is clear­ly the first in a line of ide­o­logues that end­ed in Hitler and Mengele.

We must instant­ly ban “Austenism” from the schools, to be replaced by “Intel­li­gent Lit­er­a­ture.” Such lit­er­a­ture would con­sist of more than just mar­riage plots, and would delve into issues of greater sub­stance. Fine works that would doubt­less meet Bil­ly’s scrupu­lous con­cern for breed­ing, racial puri­ty and care for “defec­tives” might include Oth­el­lo or per­haps Verdi’s excel­lent Otel­lo. Richard III would be anoth­er excel­lent choice.

It’s a shame that much of Amer­i­can his­to­ry could not be dis­cussed in Bil­ly’s ide­al world. Why did the rumors that Alexan­der Hamil­ton was a mulat­to, or the fact of his bas­tard birth, keep him from the pres­i­den­cy? In Bil­ly’s world, such con­cerns orig­i­nat­ed with a book pub­lished in 1859, and could not pos­si­bly have played a role in late 18th cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can politics.