Note: this video contains images which viewers will find disturbing. It may be omitted without disturbing the narrative flow of the album.
This track speaks to the negative consequences of social darwinism, including the Nazi holocaust. It is currently fashionable to blame Darwin, or at least Darwinism, for the rise of Hitler. However, it is hard to see how any direct blame for the Holocaust can be laid at Darwin’s door, particularly as he has nothing to say about Jews or Judaism in any of his published work. It is clear that Darwin was a man of his time in believing that there were important differences in intellectual and biological status among human races, and in confusing biological with social differences, although little or none of this finds its way into his master work, the Origin of Species.
This track takes its title from an article in Dinosaur in a Haystack written by the great evolutionist, Stephen Jay Gould, himself Jewish, lamenting the fact that the Nazis cited the principle of Natural Selection at the Wannsee conference, at which the mass murder of the Jews was planned. The Wannsee protocols attempted to justify mass murder rather than mere persecution on the grounds that if a remnant of the European Jewish population survived persecution, it would have thereby been strengthened by the process of natürliche Verminderung ( “natural selection” or "natural attrition", but, pace Gould, the usual German term for Natural Selection is natürliche Selektion) .
The mournful melody is taken from the Jewish prayer, the Kol Nidre, which is recited on the Day of Atonement. The melody has been set to classical music by Bruch in his piece Kol Nidre.
Images of the Wannsee villa and the Wannsee protocols, followed by images from the Holocaust and of Holocaust memorials. Closing image is a NASA satellite image of Israel/Palestine.