The problem is, ToE was not co-opted by it's earliest proponents, they were the ones who defined it and made it public through their writings. They taught the ideas, they coined the phrases. The age old idea that blacks are inferior to caucasions, that they are part ape, was one of, if not the, reason the idea ever existed in the very first place.

It's a very very old idea, that certain races are inferior to other races. It's even mentioned in the Koran, that jews are monkeys.

Come about the american revolution, the idea that all men are created equal with liberty and justice for all, the insurmountable numbers of sermons preached on that subject alone from protestant american pulpits, and the strong but troubled consciences of many people in regard to the issue of slavery, and only then do we see 'scientific' efforts to prove the idea that blacks are not equal to whites biologically, that God did not create them as men as he created white men. Not to disprove the idea, Linda, to prove the idea for the main part.

If you fail to recognize that you and I, and our forefathers are the same people that inhabitated these shores and Europe before that, of the same mind more or less, and of the same customs and traditions more or less, regardless of miles and years, perhaps simply look at the costumes worn by the KKK, albeit 200-300 years later, they are the same costumes worn by the inquisitor executioners of the catholic church. People are slow to forget the things that have been seared into their consciousness for generations upon generations. The Salem witch trials, which you love to mention, are nothing more than the baggage of a european people who knew no other means of solving certain problems, this was their tradition and way of life, regardless of miles and years, regardless of their so-called Christian ethics. Your ancestors may have left rome, but the discrimination, behaviors and blood lust of the colliseum never really died, it lived on in catholicism... your ancestors may have left the bloody catholic streets of europe but the discrimination the behaviors and bloodlust of the inquisitors never really died, it came to america just like everything else came to america and every now and then it's ugly face pops up quite recognizably.

If you want to try to claim that thousands of years of bloodlust and powerlust have suddenly disappeared completely from human consciousness, i wish you luck.

The fact that the idea of evolution and eugenics led quite obviously to the mass slaughter of millions of so-called non-arayans by the Nazis and their allies during WWII speaks for itself. It is not even that far behind us. especially considering the fact that quite a number of Nazi scientists and doctors were recruited by the USA after WWII.

Historically speaking, it's quite recent that the scientific community in this respect has been taken to task concerning ideas of racism inherent in the theory of evolution.

You cannot avoid it, it is the foundation of the idea itself, and that foundation is centuries older than the attempts to whitewash it.

Numerous inhumane medical experiments have been conducted on various populations right here in America as well, led by ideas of ToE and eugenics. And these things are still going on.

So... good luck denying it.

A modern evolutionist by the name of Gould has written somewhat about it also. You grew up in the post civil rights age of the USA. I did not, not completely anyway. And I know full well what I was taught about blacks, what was commonly taught about blacks, well into the early 1970's or so. And I also know it was taught in textbooks.