"Happy" Belated Darwin Day

The Naturalist's Views Have Brought Much Unhappiness

Just in case you missed it, “Happy” Darwin Day. February 12th, marking the day of the great natural philosopher’s birth, is one materialists celebrate worldwide by pondering Darwin’s great contributions to biology, science, and modernity. 

In spite of Darwin’s iconic stature – his is an easy birthday celebration to miss. Unlike the birth of Christ, there are no carols heralding Darwin’s birth, no wistful wishes of “peace on earth,” no talk of transcendental visitations, and certainly no musings of renewed hope for humankind. Those are all metaphysical aspirations. However, given Darwin’s materialism, it might be more appropriate to honor his memory without any metaphysics. In the most meaningless way then, and with the most materialistic voice I can marshal, I bid you once again, “Happy” Darwin Day. Hmm, still doesn’t sound right.

Like Christ, Darwin’s birth, words, and life influenced Western thought significantly; and like Christ, his philosophy comes complete with its own great commission: charging his faithful followers to take the “good” news of a less-than-noble human origins story to the whole world. And everywhere we find evidence of the success of Darwin’s message, as his proselytes have left no institutional stone unturned. As a testament to the triumph of the materialist’s messaging, public school students all over the world are treated to an abiotic and meaningless creation story in their biology textbooks – despite the lack of empirical evidence supporting it.

If only misleading biology textbooks were the end of the story. With its metastatic mission accomplished, the cancerous tentacles of Darwinism’s legacy have invaded not merely every domain of science, but, more dangerously, every domain of education, culture, and politics. If it were not for Darwin’s seemingly convincing narrative in The Descent of Man (1871) – positing humans are not all that different from animals – we might not have witnessed certain social-turned-political movements over the past one hundred years. Movements that undermined the civil liberties of countless people.

John G. West, in Darwin Day in America¹ (2015), uses the naturalists’ own words to shed light on his rather low view of humanity. Darwin lamented that the merciful institutions of civilized men got in the way of allowing natural selection to do its fine work of elimination. How so?

• by “build[ing] asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick,” 

• worse yet, by charging “our medical men [to] exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment,” 

• further allowing that “the weak[est] members of civilized societies [are enabled to] propagate their kind.” 

On this last point, borrowing from the lexicon of animal breeders, Master Darwin continues: “No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this [practice] must be highly injurious to the race of man,” and with the exception of humans, “hardly any one is so ignorant so as to allow his worst animals to breed.”

These statements, along with countless published others provided just the right talking points and a rich framework on which the godless practices of eugenics, genocide, and abortion were built, just to name a few.

In carrying his materialistic tenets to their logical conclusion, one must reckon that if humans are no more than animals, then we can treat them as animals. Since we do not hold animals morally responsible in any way for “cheating,” “infanticide,” or “rape,” – which are widely-used reproductive strategies that enhance Darwinian fitness – then to what extent can we hold the human animal responsible for committing these? For Darwin, “morality” was merely an evolved psychical construct that conferred fitness under certain contexts; yet under others, morality just gets in the way. 

Seems like a not so “Happy” Darwin Day. In light of the successful spread of Darwin’s views of the non-dignity of man, the joylessness and despair of our age is hardly surprising. Likely for most, the celebration of Darwin Day passes unnoticed, yet the impact of the naturalist’s philosophies do not. The 24-hour news cycle reminds us continually of the futility and despair Darwinism spreads… On that less-than-happy note, I think I’m ready for “peace on earth,” “good will to men,” and all the other hopeful refrains that come from the celebration of the birth of the Savior, who is the lover of men’s souls.

Notes:

1. Darwin’s full quote found on page 32, sourced originally from The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, (Princeton University Press, 1981).