In searching online for the photographs featured on this web page,

https://www.cfhu.org/news/the-little-known-einstein-an-ardent-defender-of-black-americans-against-racism/

I came across an article from Forbes which quoted Einstein as writing, in
one of his travel diaries that the prospect of the Chinese "supplanting all
other races" would be "unbelievably dreary" from his view.

It also noted that while he was outspoken about many forms of
racial injustice, he was silent about the internment of Japanese-Americans.

Against the first item offered as evidence, its easy enough for me
to defend Einstein. One race supplanting all the others is precisely
what the goal of racism is; preserving one's own race may be a goal
of racists, but preserving _all_ races, including one's own, is the proper
goal of those who oppose racism.

And Einstein's comments were no doubt a reaction to well-known
cultural, rather than genetic, characteristics of the Chinese;
Confucianism is well-known to have promoted a culture which
places a high value on conformity.

Against the second item - for one thing, he may have been
exercising discretiion, given the intensity of American feelings
around Pearl Harbor, and for another, for obvious reasons,
he would have percieved the prospect of an Axis victory as
even more of a threat than the typical American.

John Savard

I found this "misogynistic" quote from Einstein's travel diaries

"I noticed how little difference there is between men and women;
I don't understand what kind of fatal attraction Chinese women
possess which enthralls the corresponding men to such an extent
that they are incapable of defending themselves against the
formidable blessing of offspring."

in this article which discussed them...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-albert-einstein-diaries-racism-20180615-story.html

Okay, so he's _not_ a leg man.

But more seriously, putting aside issues of racism or sexism or
any other kind of politics, this comment seems to indicate a
woeful level of *scientific* ignorance on Einstein's part outside
his field of specialization!

Hadn't he heard of Charles Darwin's enormously successful theory
of Evolution by means of Natural Selection?

John Savard

If so, so what?

Is this not one of the few cases where the good a man does lives after him while the evil can be interred with his bones?

Or is there the idea that the Theories of Relativity are then not useful, being "jewish theories"... oh, wait, "racist theories"? In any case, are they not better than the theories of Newton, who actively tried to push a debased coinage onto Ireland, which would have increased the suffering there to enrich English investors?

--
-Jack

On Thu, 28 Oct 2021 09:20:25 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>I found this "misogynistic" quote from Einstein's travel diaries
>
>"I noticed how little difference there is between men and women;
>I don't understand what kind of fatal attraction Chinese women
>possess which enthralls the corresponding men to such an extent
>that they are incapable of defending themselves against the
>formidable blessing of offspring."
>
>in this article which discussed them...
>
>https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-albert-einstein-diaries-racism-20180615-story.html
>
>Okay, so he's _not_ a leg man.
>
>But more seriously, putting aside issues of racism or sexism or
>any other kind of politics, this comment seems to indicate a
>woeful level of *scientific* ignorance on Einstein's part outside
>his field of specialization!
>
>Hadn't he heard of Charles Darwin's enormously successful theory
>of Evolution by means of Natural Selection?

Perhaps he had /read/ Darwin who, if not racist himself, was deluded
into racism by his correspondents.

Or was he correct in asserted that the black Afrcian knee was
/intermediate/ between the gorilla knee and the white man's knee?

Information he got from a correspondent, not from personal
observation.

--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Friday, October 29, 2021 at 10:09:27 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:

> Or was he correct in asserted that the black Afrcian knee was
> /intermediate/ between the gorilla knee and the white man's knee?

I wouldn't be able to address this specific point.

However, since black Africans and white Europeans differ in a number
of physical characteristics, in some of them one might be closer to
the chimpanzee, and in others the other.

Thus, the white man is less prognathous, which was at one time
considered to be so fundamental as to be evidence black people
really were inferior, even though the size of the brains of black
people was still equal despite that; but, on the other hand, the
white man has more body hair.

So gorilla-like knees, if they really were present, would not mean
anything.

Now, Darwin was certainly _used_ to justify racism, but that's a
whole other question.

John Savard

On Friday, October 29, 2021 at 10:09:27 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:

> Perhaps he had /read/ Darwin who, if not racist himself, was deluded
> into racism by his correspondents.

This, however, is the principal point I need to address.

Einstein may have been writing in jest in his travel diary.

But certainly it would _not_ have been very... scientific...
of him to decide that, since Darwin made some racist lapses,
then the theory of evolution by natural selection must be
wrong... and thus become a Creationist.

And so I think that my comment still stands - that as it is
obvious there would be no warthogs in the world if boy
warthogs didn't find girl warthogs attractive, and Nature
takes care of this since only those boy warthogs that do
leave offspring to take after them, the same would apply to
the Chinese race, however unpreposessing he may have
found its women.

The basic principle of natural selection isn't invalidated
by lapses on the part of Darwin or others.

John Savard

In article <7242a6c7-47b0-41b5-8ec4-2ea78955d6a1n@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Friday, October 29, 2021 at 10:09:27 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:
>
>> Or was he correct in asserted that the black Afrcian knee was
>> /intermediate/ between the gorilla knee and the white man's knee?
>
>I wouldn't be able to address this specific point.
>
>However, since black Africans and white Europeans differ in a number
>of physical characteristics, in some of them one might be closer to
>the chimpanzee, and in others the other.
>
>Thus, the white man is less prognathous, which was at one time
>considered to be so fundamental as to be evidence black people
>really were inferior, even though the size of the brains of black
>people was still equal despite that; but, on the other hand, the
>white man has more body hair.
>
Black people's ancestors left Africa, where it gets HOT a lot,
much more recently. Their forebears needed to be able to sweat
and evaporate.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Fri, 29 Oct 2021 11:59:13 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Friday, October 29, 2021 at 10:09:27 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:
>
>> Perhaps he had /read/ Darwin who, if not racist himself, was deluded
>> into racism by his correspondents.
>
>This, however, is the principal point I need to address.
>
>Einstein may have been writing in jest in his travel diary.
>
>But certainly it would _not_ have been very... scientific...
>of him to decide that, since Darwin made some racist lapses,
>then the theory of evolution by natural selection must be
>wrong... and thus become a Creationist.
>
>And so I think that my comment still stands - that as it is
>obvious there would be no warthogs in the world if boy
>warthogs didn't find girl warthogs attractive, and Nature
>takes care of this since only those boy warthogs that do
>leave offspring to take after them, the same would apply to
>the Chinese race, however unpreposessing he may have
>found its women.

Alternative explanation. Einstein just plain didn't have any _taste_
in women.

>The basic principle of natural selection isn't invalidated
>by lapses on the part of Darwin or others.
>
>John Savard

On 2021-10-28 10:09 a.m., Quadibloc wrote:
> In searching online for the photographs featured on this web page,
>
> https://www.cfhu.org/news/the-little-known-einstein-an-ardent-defender-of-black-americans-against-racism/
>
> I came across an article from Forbes which quoted Einstein as writing, in
> one of his travel diaries that the prospect of the Chinese "supplanting all
> other races" would be "unbelievably dreary" from his view.

Pobody's nerfect. Einstein apparently had a strong aversion to modestly
endowed women.