Darwinism, was, according to Darwin himself, most essentially natural selection, the survival of the fittest. He did not claim, nor ever have enough scientific foundation to claim, descent/ascent from apes to human beings, but his principles were eventually used for that purpose. A Christian for the most part, Darwin was confronting great doubts about many of his religious beliefs, in part because Christians felt threatened by the implications of evolution and regularly challenged Darwin. Nevertheless, a serious worldview began to emanate from Darwinian thought and increasing adherence to concepts and theories of evolution, which were further enhanced by advancements in medical and genetic theories which received their perhaps their greatest credence from the Nazis, who wanted to show the superiority of one race, and the subsidiarity and inferiority of all the others. This was a very serious enterprise in Nazi Germany, most dramatically in experimentation on human beings by non-ethical doctors such as Mengele. And these very experiments were being carried out in the concentration camps to which, Calmeyer knew, the people appealing to his legal skills would be condemned.

Eugenics, inspired by Darwin and promoted with fervor by Hitler (a Darwin fan) himself, was given a scientific mantle of credibility by the Nazis as never before. And despite the thorough trouncing of the Germans, Eugenics and its variable values of life persist today. Cold-blooded “objective” viewpoints of life, perhaps not after all coming as any gift of some creator, permeate modern societies, such that for instance there is no great value placed on life in the womb. Population growth leads many to wish to limit further lives to be added to the total. Deeper DNA analysis today is starting to reverse some of the misconceptions that have led to Darwinist mis-applications of the origin/linkage of all species, especially man and apes. But the damage has been done: the sanctity and specialness of human life has been undermined and the value of human life greatly diminished..