Wow. That's like something straight out of the 1880's, lousy biology and all. That's quite the throwback.

"Nonetheless, it has been quite some time since anyone threatened that they are all going to die if they don�t do it our way"

Actually Peter you must not read the consistent essays by OJ, directed at secular Europeans, because that is exactly what he is saying.

Live by the Whig Theory of History and you die with it.

Oh, but h-man, surely we all realize that, while this dude was talking short term physical survival, Orrin is speaking wistfully and allegorically about long term cultural and demographic trends that are socio-economic in nature and completely unrelated to actual physical....

(Has the weekend started yet?)

Once again we see the insidious conflation of human rights with racial or "voelkisch" values.

Weigh the question preesented by the Australian article: are those Australians of aboriginal descent who choose not to make the best adaptation to reality justified in imposing the cost of that choice on others?

The other issue raised is no less germane. If child-rape is part of the culture of individuals who call themselves aborigines, may we not say that severely punishing child-rapists is part of ours?

Native American cultures faced an adapt or die situation long before Darwin.

Most died.

Peter
No allegory in what OJ says or the man in the article. If people choose bad ideas or design their society around bad premises, then they will not thrive. Same for Aborigines, Amish, Southern Baptist, Orthodox Jews, secular European Societies and myself. The man may be wrong, and if you have some special affection for aborigines or even Europeans it may discomfit you but in no way do I see what he says as threatening. Unless you feel reducing welfare as threatening, which I don't.

I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for
the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember
what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being
overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The
more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow
in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant
date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been
eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world. Letter
to W. Graham July 3rd, 1881

http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/letters/letters1_08.html

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the
civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace,
the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the
anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no
doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will
then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised
state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a
baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the
gorilla. The Descent of Man (1882)

Charles
Nice of you to visit, but I'm afraid there is nothing here to interest you. Apparently a man in Australia used your concept of "survival of the fitess" to chastize Aborigines for their bad behavior, saying that their life would be better if they changed their behavior. (BTW Charles you stole that concept from Adam Smith. We all know that) (also you sound obnoxious in the above quote) Bye have a nice day.

Anon: Ultimately, all cultures fail an adapt or die test.

I must disagree with Mr. Burnet. My key point would be that "adapt" and "adopt" are not at all the same thing and much misery has been foisted on insular and aborginal cultures through the confusion of these two concepts. The Amish have certainly adapted in response to modern civilization, but they have not adopted it.

AOG/h-man

There would have been nothing paricularly offensive about the speech if Mundine had talked about thriving, growing, prospering, etc.,, although his confident certainty that he held the key in the face of unanimous aboriginal opposition would still have been amusing--these guys exist to thwart the Mundines of the world and they are very good at it. But he chose to speak of survival, which is both empirical nonsense (they are masters at survival)and ominous. I certainly have been brought to the point of rage many times by the endless blame game and victim talk, but to go whole hog the other way and hide historical slaughter, prejudice, theft, bureaucratic oppression and complicity in social pathology behind wispy exculpatory abstracts like "failure to adapt" is more than a little rich. I have no magic solutions, but a little concrete talk would be helpful as a start.

Is what way did the Amish "adapt?" They maintained the same piety and and industry they had from the year dot and we didn't destroy them. What has adaptation got to do with it? Would you argue that European Jewry didn't "adapt"?

David: "Ultimately" has theological implications. In the short term, and short-term could be tens of thousands of years, cultures may pass the test.

They do this by adopting adaptiviity and thereby become themselves the test by which others are proved.

The attidude of gloom and doom--Jimmy Carter's "malaise"--is the path to extinction.

Lou: "Tens of thousands of years" is necessarily a statement of faith.

David: Just so. It is the loss of that faith and will that is the harbinger of defeat and downfall.

For my part, I would make no such prediction. How the dice will fall in the future is unknown to us, all we may do is fight for our country and believe that we shall win.