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The Times touches on the evolution debate again, relating that it has opend some fissures within conservative circles:
(Source: Patrical Cohen for The New York Times)
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The Times touches on the evolution debate again, relating that it has opend some fissures within conservative circles:
Evolution has long generated bitter fights between the left and the right about whether God or science better explains the origins of life. But now a dispute has cropped up within conservative circles, not over science, but over political ideology: Does Darwinian theory undermine conservative notions of religion and morality or does it actually support conservative philosophy?One is reminded that conservatives at the turn of the twentieth century had really taken to evolution, but turned it into Social Darwinism, distorting evolution theory into a scientific validation of the worst forms of racism and power politics, and that it is from this checkered history that conservatives have come to shy away from Darwin. Still, it knocks me back in the chair to hear that three Republican candidates for the presidency said they did not believe in evolution in a televised debate. But maybe that shouldn't be shocking, since we already have a president who does not believe in it.
... For some conservatives, accepting Darwin undercuts religious faith and produces an amoral, materialistic worldview that easily embraces abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other practices they abhor. As an alternative to Darwin, many advocate intelligent design, which holds that life is so intricately organized that only an intelligent power could have created it.
Yet it is that very embrace of intelligent design — not to mention creationism, which takes a literal view of the Bible’s Book of Genesis — that has led conservative opponents to speak out for fear their ideology will be branded as out of touch and anti-science.
Some of these thinkers have gone one step further, arguing that Darwin’s scientific theories about the evolution of species can be applied to today’s patterns of human behavior, and that natural selection can provide support for many bedrock conservative ideas, like traditional social roles for men and women, free-market capitalism and governmental checks and balances.
(Source: Patrical Cohen for The New York Times)