HUMANIST SOCIETY OF WEST YORKSHIRE
Affiliated to the British Humanist Association

NEWSLETTER (116), APRIL 2009

 AGM 7.30 to 9.30 Tuesday 28th April at Room 02 Swarthmore

Your chance to have your say, all offices are up for grabs!.  After the formal part of the evening there will be drinks and nibbles in the Café followed by a light-hearted talk “How I Became a Humanist” by Douglas Dale

Change of Meeting Dates.  From October they will be on the second THURSDAY of the month!Rooms 02 and 03 are not available on Wednesdays.  So next term they will be 08/10/09, 12/11/09 & 10/12/09.

March meeting “Ashley Montagu as Humanist Critic of Darwin”  Gregory Radick

We had about 20 members present.  Ashley Montague  was an unpaid Lecturer at Rutgers University, New Jersey from 1949 to 1955.  At that time Darwin was quoted in support of competition, free enterprise and even for waging war as the means of human progress..  In 1952 he published “Darwin - Competition  and Co-operation” that was a rebuttal of competition as the way to progress.  His post at Rutgers was intended to set up a centre for Anthropology to study stress and strain in human society and show cooperation and peace was the way forward.  However, the grant that was expected to come with his appointment never arrived and so his post was ended after six years.  In 1949 he had stated in an article that “All races are equal in capacity, all are educable” not a popular idea in the USA at that time. He later wrote “On being Human” then “The Natural Superiority of Woman” stating that women are more humane and that “ man is only an incomplete woman”. 
‘Social Darwinism’ had support at that time with the argument “struggle in nature is good, so struggle in society is good”.  Montagu wrote a book “The Darwinian Fallacy”  attacking the belief that animals and humans are born competitive.  It was already accepted that many animals live in groups surviving by co-operation.  He  said  Darwin lived in the era of Victorian capitalism and had applied it to nature; Darwin acknowledged that his theory owed much to Malthus, that when reproduction outstripped  resources they were put in balance by war.  Montagu wrote that Darwin was the great liberator, from one prison to another, missing the principle of co-operation.
Although Montagu’s views may now seem Marxist, he saw Marx as part of the problem and distanced himself from Marxism, communism and Lysenkoism (inheritance of acquired characteristics).  He was investigated by the FBI, but they found no evidence of communism..  A letter exists that was sent in 1953 to the President of Rutgers complaining that in a talk on human nature given by Montagu in Milwaukee, he attacked Senator McCarthy (the State Senator) and so caused uproar, adding that his conduct besmirched Rutgers.  Even so, the speaker did not think that is why Montagu was sacked - it had more to do with his wanting a stipend and a pension arrangement.
Montagu tried to show that Darwin did not see humans as basically war-like but as co-operative.  The purpose of sociology is to promote altruism and co-operation.  A counter-view was that co-operation is parasitic on competition.  Montagu approved of eugenics providing it was completely non-racist.
The resulting discussion included whether seemingly altruistic behaviour is truly altruistic or actually enlightened self-interest.  The general opinion was that it had been an interesting and well presented talk.

Leeds Skeptics meet at 2pm on Saturday 18th April and Sat. 16th May at ‘Carpe Diem’, on Great George St. across Calverley St. from east side of the Town Hall.

Leeds U. U. Atheist Society will be holding their ‘Rationalist Week’ from Mon. 20th to Fri. 24tth April.

Diary; all meetings at 7.30 (coffee from 7.00), Swarthmore, 2-7 Woodhouse Sq LS3 1AD

Tue 2nd  June .  “The coming crisis and how we might survive the challenge  of peak oil”  Colin Campbell.  Please note the second change of date!   
Sat 4th July.   Outing to Cliffe Castle  Museum, Keighley.  Meeting there at 11.00am. Details in next Newsletter