Darwinism's Ugly Side

On its face, Darwinian evolution is a simple theory about the changes that occur to biological species over the millennia as their members adapt to the demands of competition for limited resources. The survival of the fittest and their progeny is a reasonable foundation for understanding the changes (within a given species) that are observed in the fossil record.

Myth #2 is that Darwinism is and always has been the purest of sciences. But something horrible happened when this beautiful scientific theory was embraced by 19th and 20th century political philosophers who saw it as a way to remove God from the moral equation.

The materialist view is that all events are caused solely by the operation of mindless physical laws. A corollary embraced by many materialists and some with political motives was that “there are no inherent moral or ethical laws, no absolute guiding principles for human society.”

But the philosophical structure that supports liberal democracy hinges on the existence of ''natural rights'' emanating from a superior being. If the premise of God's existence disappears, the foundation of natural rights is eliminated and the door is flung open to all kinds of abuses.

Marxism, which denied the existence of natural rights, deprived millions of people of their property, executed and imprisoned millions of others because they were class enemies. Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-Tung, Kim Il-Sung and other murderous Communist despots were unencumbered by God or His natural rights.

Nazism, which also did not believe in natural rights, exterminated six million Jews and one million Gypsies and other minorities because there was no moral or philosophical impediment to curb it. Hitler’s ideology of a death struggle between superior and inferior races was based firmly on Darwin’s survival of the fittest and was widely echoed by Darwinist scientists, philosophers and ethicists.

Without inalienable rights and with no inherent moral or ethical laws, anything goes and might makes right. Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il are continuing examples of the type.

In his classic Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis argued that the idea of right and wrong is universal among people, a moral law they "did not make, and cannot quite forget even when they try." Unfortunately there are those who do try to forget in the name of moral relativism, the evolutionary descendent of social Darwinism.

Believers contend that one man’s evil is another man’s kindness; it all depends on one’s point of view or the viewpoint of society. They see a moral equivalence between terrorists and those who fight against them; between Palestine suicide bombers and Israeli soldiers; between al-Qaeda killers and American heroes.