Darwin dissed again and again by a Brit! (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, August 09, 2017, 09:10 (2663 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I didn't think this would happen. He [Darwin] is revered by many as if he leads a religious faith.

Which is not his fault, any more than it is his fault that both theists and atheists try to twist his theories to fit their own personal agenda.

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/it-s-time-charles-darwin-was-exposed-for-the...

DAVID: I have read all these criticisms before, but not in a British newspaper. Darwinism was clearly behind the Nazi extermination schemes, but not his fault they used his ideas.

Thank you for this very fair comment. I don't know why you're surprised. Religious and anti-religious bigotry is just as common over here as it is in the States. A.N. Wilson is a theist converted to atheism and then converted back to theism. He courts controversy, and the headline of the article is worth quoting in full to get the tone of his views:

"It’s time Charles Darwin was exposed for the fraud he was
Two of his theories about evolution were wrong – and one resulting ‘science’ inspired the Nazis"

This sort of sensationalism may sell books and bring the writer into the public eye, but to call someone who devoted his life to his science a “fraud” and to couple his name with Nazism is gutter journalism of the worst kind. (If he were alive today, Darwin would have every right to sue.) As you say, the criticisms aren’t new, though the vicious implication that somehow the theory reflects the theorist (“compassion and compromise are for cissies”) perhaps takes them to a new low. In any case, one can’t help wondering why anyone would devote their time to writing a biography of someone they so obviously despise. I wonder how A.N. Wilson would react to a biography of Jesus by Richard Dawkins, advertised with the headline: “Jesus was a fraud who inspired some of the worst cases of genocide in human history”. I’ll look forward to reviews of the book, and will let you know what they come up with.