Darwin’s Sad Legacy

Most people, when asked what they consider to be Charles Darwin’s legacy, would quickly say “evolution.” Indeed, evolution and Darwin are virtually synonymous, especially this year, as evolutionists worldwide are celebrating his 200th birthday. But what is not so commonly known is that there have been adverse parts of Darwin’s legacy that many of his followers have either denied or kept from public knowledge.

Ideas, it is said, have consequences. What people believe about their origins and the purpose and meaning of life affects their entire worldview. It molds how they view themselves . . . and others.

Darwin’s ideas concerning “molecules-to-man” evolution have left a significant negative legacy on society. For many secularists, his ideas were ammunition to eliminate any consideration of the supernatural. For example, in Darwin’s house (now a museum) in England, there is an exhibit which comments on our Creator:

“. . . [E]very living creature looked the way it did because God had designed it that way. Darwin’s theory made nonsense of all of this.”

The exhibit declares there is no God connected to why and how life exists. This idea dominates America’s science classrooms. God has been outlawed there. “Science” is now defined as “naturalism” (really atheism)—it’s the only explanation for the origin of life currently allowed. Any hint of the supernatural is not permitted.

The situation in public schools has only gotten worse in recent decades. Witness the recent Texas board of education ruling on the state’s science curriculum, largely dictating that evolution cannot be questioned.

If we continue to have generations of students going through a public education system that teaches them they are just animals and the result of natural processes (a Scientific American article stated, “We are all animals, descendants of a vast lineage of replicators sprung from primordial pond scum”1), we will continue to see a growing moral collapse in society.

The horrible school shooting in Finland in 2007 is a prime example. The killer stated: “I am prepared to fight and die for my cause, . . . I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection. . . . I am just an animal, a human, an individual, a dissident . . . . It’s time to put NATURAL SELECTION & SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST back on tracks!”2

Herein lies Darwin’s terrible legacy, which has affected all modern cultures.

This student was only carrying out in practice what he had been taught concerning origins, as well as the lack of purpose and meaning he found in life. Herein lies Darwin’s terrible legacy, which has affected all modern cultures.

Consider the continuing problem of racism. Darwin wrote that within the human kind, some people groups were closer to their supposed ape-like ancestors than others. No wonder the late evolutionist Stephen J. Gould stated: “Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.”3

An increase in abortion has gone hand in hand with the growing acceptance of evolution. Over the years, some women have told us that people at abortion clinics told them that when they get rid of their “unwanted” baby, it’s okay because it’s just an animal. Some have been told that the baby as it develops in the womb retraces its evolutionary ancestry (e.g., saying that at a certain stage, they would just be getting rid of a “fetus” in its “reptile” stage).

We should not be shocked when we see students only becoming more consistent in carrying out evolutionary beliefs. After all, they are acting out what they have been taught they are—animals. Such things in the culture remind me of Judges 17:6: “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”