Darwin proposed the extermination of the Negro and Australian peoples

Do people realize what Darwin meant by the survival of the fittest?

From the Philadelphia Inqurier , The real danger in Darwin is not evolution but racism.

Many who support the separation of church and state say that the intelligent design theory of creation ought not to be taught in public schools because it contains a religious bias. They dislike its suggestion that the evolutionary development of life was not the result of natural selection, as Charles Darwin suggested, but was somehow given purposeful direction and, by implication, was guided by God.

Arguing for what they believe is a nonprejudicial science, they contend that children in public schools should be taught Darwin's explanation of how the human race evolved, which they claim is value-free and depends solely on scientific evidence.
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Those who argue at school board meetings that Darwin should be taught in public schools seldom have taken the time to read him. If they knew the full title of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, they might have gained some inkling of the racism propagated by this controversial theorist. Had they actually read Origin, they likely would be shocked to learn that among Darwin's scientifically based proposals was the elimination of "the negro and Australian peoples," which he considered savage races whose continued survival was hindering the progress of civilization.

In his next book, The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin ranked races in terms of what he believed was their nearness and likeness to gorillas. Then he went on to propose the extermination of races he "scientifically" defined as inferior. If this were not done, he claimed, those races, with much higher birthrates than "superior" races, would exhaust the resources needed for the survival of better people, eventually dragging down all civilization.

Darwin even argued that advanced societies should not waste time and money on caring for the mentally ill, or those with birth defects. To him, these unfit members of our species ought not to survive.

The author Tony Campolo is professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University.

Hat tip Ed Driscoll, "If you think Darwin sounds like a Nazi, there's a connection."

UPDATE:  I've been convinced by a commenter to look at my cited article with a far more skeptical eye.  So I've spent much of the past hour doing so.  The 1859 edition of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was indeed subtitled "Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" which subtitle was dropped in later editions.

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I do not disparage the evolutionary process as it has been proven as fact.  I do not believe that evolution or chance explains the whole of Creation, especially the first mover, human consciousness and the laws of physics.  Darwin himself said
I feel most deeply that this whole question of Creation is too profound for human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton! Let each man hope and believe what he can.

While I do not believe that Darwin was a racist, witness his statement on slavery, I  have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character.

there is no doubt that he wrote in The Descent of Man, published in 1890
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… 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.

What I am certain of is that the implications of his theory of natural selection when applied to the human race that extremely  troubling, leading as they have to racism, imperialism, fascism, communism and eugenics. 

Whatever the scientific value of the theory of evolution and natural selection, the only moral basis in the human sphere in the end remains biblical, that all human life is sacred.

Genesis 1:27  God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.

You don't have to be a believer to absorb the benefits of civilization based on a Judeo-Christian foundation where all men and women are afforded human dignity because they are made in the image of God.