Page 180 - Confessions of the Evolutionists
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CHAPTER 28.
CHAPTER 28.
EVOLUTIONISTS' CONFESSIONS
REGARDING DARWINISM'S NEGATIVE
EFFECT ON MORAL VALUES
I n the 19 century, the theory of evolution began to exert an in-
I
th
fluence over a wide sphere, beyond such branches of science as
biology and paleontology, extending from human relations to the
analysis of history, from politics to society. Efforts were made to adapt
Darwin's idea of the struggle for survival in nature-as a result of which the
fittest would survive while the weak were eliminated-to human thought
and behavior. Applying Darwin's claim that nature was a battleground to
human societies served as a justification of class conflicts, a social order in
which the strong oppressed the weak, racism, colonialism, exploitation,
repression and other forms of inhumanity.
Reading between the lines, even evolutionists admit the inhumanity
that Darwinist ideas continue to inflict on societies.
Theodosius Dobzhansky is a geneticist and evolutionary biologist
at Columbia University:
Natural selection can favor egoism, hedonism, cowardice instead of
bravery, cheating and exploitation, while group ethics in virtually all so-
cieties tend to counteract or forbid such "natural" behavior, and to glorify
their opposites: kindness, generosity and even self-sacrifice for the good
of others of one's tribe or nation and finally mankind. 462
P. J. Darlington is of Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard
University, Cambridge:
The first point is that selfishness and violent are inherent in us, inherited
from our remotest animal ancestors.... Violence is, then, natural to man,
a product of evolution. 463