Page 12 - The Dark Spell of Darwinism

I magine yourself meeting a person who seems very reasonable and

cultured. You'd naturally think that whatever this person says is a
reflection of the culture and intelligence you assume him to have.
But when he begins to speak, even though you perceive no other change in
his reasonable demeanor, he startles you with his incredible nonsense. He
may insist that white is just a lighter shade of black, for example, or claim
that the clouds in the sky are simply huge bunches of cotton. He believes
things that no reasonable person with normal awareness and judgment
could believe. He claims it is raining even though the sun is shining; and if
you take him outside and show him the evident sunlight, still he persists in
his claim that rain is falling and he even declares that he's getting wet! If you
saw such a person, you could describe him in several ways. You might say
he was being illogical, deluded, or even that he'd lost his mind, or even that
he was crazy. You might even say that he seemed to be under a spell and to
have no clear view of reality.
This term "under a spell" is very significant. Some ordinary people re-
sort to various kinds of magic spells and incantations to make others do
something they wouldn't ordinarily want to do; to control them; make them
believe irrational things, get them to harm another person; and to put them
into something akin to a state of hallucination where they remain unaware
of what they're doing. In short, the whole purpose of a spell is to bring some-
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