Page 78 - The Intellectual Struggle Against Darwinism

76 THE INTELLECTUAL STRUGGLE AGAINST DARWINISM

dence, deception, fraud, forgeries, distortions, sleight of hand and
demagoguery. As a result, evolution began to receive general ac-

ceptance.
The support that Darwinism provided for atheism, first in
Britain and then in all of Europe and America, is described by
Professor Alister McGrath of Oxford University: "There is no
doubt that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution caused the smoul-
dering crisis of faith in Victorian England to burst into flames. If
any scientific development can be said to have converted the
Western world to atheism is the theory originated by the book
Origin of Species and subsequently developed by Darwin ..." 16
As the sections that follow shall detail, the theory of evolu-
tion, though discredited by science, is still highly influential in
many parts of the world today, especially in Russia, China and