You can quote another book if you want, but "Origin of species", full title "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." clearly uses race in a different sense. From chapter 1, the first few uses:
Having alluded to the subject of reversion, I may here refer to a statement often made by naturalists namely, that our domestic varieties, when run wild, gradually but certainly revert in character to their aboriginal stocks. Hence it has been argued that no deductions can be drawn from domestic races to species in a state of nature. ...
Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable, that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil (in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the direct action of the poor soil), that they would to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock. . . .
When we look to the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants, and compare them with species closely allied together, we generally perceive in each domestic race, as already remarked, less uniformity of character than in true species. Domestic races of the same species, also, often have a somewhat monstrous character; by which I mean, that, although differing from each other, and from the other species of the same genus, in several trifling respects, they often differ in an extreme degree in some one part, both when compared one with another, and more especially when compared with all the species in nature to which they are nearest allied. With these exceptions (and with that of the perfect fertility of varieties when crossed, a subject hereafter to be discussed), domestic races of the same species differ from each other in the same manner as, only in most cases in a lesser degree than, do closely-allied species of the same genus in a state of nature. I think this must be admitted, when we find that there are hardly any domestic races, either amongst animals or plants, which have not been ranked by some competent judges as mere varieties, and by other competent judges as the descendants of aboriginally distinct species. If any marked distinction existed between domestic races and species, this source of doubt could not so perpetually recur. It has often been stated that domestic races do not differ from each other in characters of generic value. I think it could be shown that this statement is hardly correct; but naturalists differ most widely in determining what characters are of generic value; all such valuations being at present empirical. Moreover, on the view of the origin of genera which I shall presently give, we have no right to expect often to meet with generic differences in our domesticated productions. literature.org
That was just the first few, there's much more in that chapter, and the word is alway, obviously, used in a way where we would currently use breed or cultivar. I stand by "silly" as an appropriate characterization for trying to make something else of the usage of the term in Darwin's "seminal work".
I don't know what Darwin wrote about human evolution, but I certainly know that evolutionary ideas were abused by eugenicists and social Darwinists. If you believe in guilt by association, I guess this invalidates evolution and you got to replace it with thinly disguised creationism, aka "intelligent design". A lot of the originators of quantum mechanics might have had Nazi sympathies too, so maybe the ID types could branch out and replace quantum mechanics with "intelligent design" mechanics in their spare time. |
