Darwin: The Father of Modern Racism? Today's video features Denis Alexander. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here. Editor's Note: The popular commentator Glenn Beck referred to Charles Darwin as "the father of modern-day racism. " Certainly, Beck's sentiments are nothing new; links between Darwin and racism, as well as to eugenics and other destructive ideologies, are mentioned constantly by opponents to the modern theory of evolution. But are these links valid? Alexander notes that while the biological theory of evolution is not itself an ideology, it has been used for ideological purposes since 1859 to defend everything from eugenics to capitalism to racism to atheism.
Similarly, Alexander notes that the fact that evolution admits there are variations between people in regards to genetics has been used to justify racist ideology. UPDATE: Michael Zimmerman has just posted another article on the topic. Simon Conway Morris: Darwin was right. Up to a point. What, one wonders, would Charles Darwin or indeed his pugnacious supporter Thomas Henry Huxley have made of the recent rash of posters aimed at those who have nothing better to do than look at the sides of buses? These now serve to inform the world at large that, by the way, there may not be a God (although if you keep staring at buses you may also read precisely the opposite message). With atheist banners passing him by Darwin, I imagine, would have harrumphed and in his characteristic manner passed the problem to his devoted chum. Huxley, I further suspect, would have quietly deplored the fact that the lower orders might take this sort of thing seriously, but would probably also look on it as another useful opportunity to further his secular agenda.
So what's new? Darwinian has reached near saturation and among the customary pieties there is little doubt that it will conveniently serve as a love-in, with much mutual self-congratulation, for atheism. Convergence? But there is more. Darwin's Dilemma. Evolution News & Views: About That Arsenic-Gobbling Microbe...Bad News for Darwinists? NASA's discovery of an arsenic-ingesting microbe in California's forbidding Mono Lake looks, on the surface, like bad news for Darwinists hopeful to show what a no-big-deal it is for a planet to bring forth life unguided. The bacterium evidently uses arsenic for purposes that all other known organisms would use phosphorus, including incorporating it in DNA.
A reporter for Nature News cites UC Santa Barbara geomicrobiologist David Valentine as observing that the discovery may mean "you can potentially cross phosphorus off the list of elements required for life. " That's interesting. Under Darwinian assumptions, the observation that such an alternative life chemistry is possible means that some planets previously assumed to be inhospitable to life, due to being poor in phosphorus, would now turn out after all to be potential theaters for life's presumed spontaneous arising. Well, maybe yes or maybe no. Darwinism - 4k intro by Archee for Breakpoint 2010. Darwin Day 2008 - Evolved virtual creature compilation video. Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty.