The rise of the US Christian right.
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How much should we fear the rise of the US evangelical right and the removal, already, in some countries, of Darwinism from schools?
Of course it’s a concern but the modern theory of genetics and evolution isn’t really the same thing as ‘Darwinism’ – there’s nothing about DNA in the work of Darwin (or Wallace).
So, because he came before later discoveries, which do not refute his theory of descent through modification in the least, Darwin is to be rejected?
So we might as well not mind the evangelists, who, after all, do not have a problem with DNA?
There’s nothing about DNA in Marx either, and Kepler never mentioned quantum mechanics, so he is now void too.
Subject for The Socialist Standard: Is Darwin still valid?
The state boards that have discontinued the teaching of evolution haven’t done so because of post-Darwin discoveries. They’ve done it because they find human kinship with other animals repugnant. (Indian official: “No one ever saw a monkey become a human!”)
The scientists of every country nonetheless work with the realities of natural selection, in spite of schoolboard pundits.Dawkins:
Genetics and DNA science CONFIRM and BUILD UPON Darwin and Mendel.
These days if someone is using the term “Darwinism’ they are more likely to be a creationist than an evolutionary biologist. If “Darwinism'” is used by scientists usually it will be referencing a historic period rather than evolutionary biology in general.
More reading:
https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-008-0111-2None of this is why evolution is being banned from schools. The reason is that creationists would want it banned whatever name it was given.
The word “evolutionist” is just as open to misinterpretation, and Darwin didn’t like it.
I will continue, with Dawkins and Gould, to call myself a Darwinist, as we call ourselves Marxist – another word that absolutely festers with misinterpretation, and by most people too.Obviously the religious fundamentalists don’t like evolutionary theory is because it undermines their literal translation of the bible, obviously.
The question to ask is why is religious fundamentalism gaining ground in some countries (another example is Indonesia) while some others are becoming more and more irreligious (the UK and the Netherlands for example).
Well, i don’t know what is the case with Indonesia. Muslim fundamentalism? South Korea is perplexing. It’s mostly Catholic, i thought, and Rome cunningly got out of the creationism/evolution conflict in the 1950s thanks to its Jesuitical mastery of difficult situations. So Rome “accepts” evolution.
The biggest surprise for me is India. Hinduism should have no problem with evolution and nonhuman/human kinship, and i believe most Hindus don’t. But Modi’s govt seems to. Bizarre.I have a theory as to why the US is obsessed with creationist Christianity, and it goes back to the 1600s.
My theory is that when English puritans went to America, it removed them from the political environment in England which had created their movement. In America they faced a totally different environment, akin in their imagination to Genesis. In England puritanism developed politically and became deism and finally rationalism. In America it could not develop, but fossilised as Christian fundamentalism.It goes hand in hand with the wild frontier vs God’s “chosen” and hence also the obsession with guns, hunting, Old Testament justice and suspicion of “city folk.”
Long since migrating to the towns in order to “correct” sinners and convert them, it is primarily an anglophone movement, and the Asian and African countries which also host it are the mostly anglophone ones.
I think astually what you are seeing is not a rise in the religious right, it’s a sign of the desperation of religion in the US, trying to recreate their previous power.
Thankfully they are pissing wind:
Your personal theory does not hold water. For a start, the transition from Protestantism to Deism as the last stop before atheism did take place in America. The most well-known deists are in fact some of the founding fathers of the American Republic such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin. To which can be added Thomas Paine.
A comrade on that continent wants to draw attention to this alternative theory which seems to have the advantage of being based on actual research:
The comrade also mentions this:
It seems that yet again things are not as bad as you like to think.
Then what’s with the claim that 42% of Americans are Young Earth creationists?
Yep, here’s the 2014 poll!
Although I doubt much has changed in the past decade,https://news.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx
Looking at the figures, assuming things have not changed is the last thing I would be doing!
Given the gap between 18-29 year olds believing in creationism 28% and the numbers in other cohorts
Between 44 to 50%, depending on cohort, I think it is reasonable to expect that after 10 years that trend would continue.If the current 18-29 year olds follow the trend and there is a halving of creationist belief they might be at around 15%, a very promising statistic.
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