February 12, 2010: Darwin year is over

Hey, we’ve just completed the year-long celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin, with all the accompanying triumphalist Darwinian hoopla, and guess what? God still exists!

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The blogger OneSTDV writes:

Darwin is one of the apotheosized heroes of leftism, mainly because liberals see evolution as the ultimate undermining of religion. Nonetheless, their acceptance of evolution is quite limited due to their political and social bias, namely the notion that race and racial differences don’t exist. Ironically, Darwin, amongst other leftist demi-gods, held many views on race and society that modern liberals would find repugnant. I wrote about Darwin here, including a quote that illustrates his heretical ideas on human biodiversity:

The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties.

LA replies:

You know what? I think that if Darwin were to return to earth today, given his social class, progressive beliefs, and general disposition, he would switch and come over to the liberal side on race. The fact that Darwin in the 19th century asserted race differences could be seen as an artifact of that period. The belief in race differences was considered normal and ok back then. Today it is considered evil. Darwin, a man of moderate instincts, would adjust to the social and ideological climate in which he found himself, and thus become a liberal in the contemporary sense.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 12, 2010 04:07 PM | Send