Weikart-Ruse Debate in STANFORD REVIEW
|April 26, 2008||Posted by William Dembski under Evolution, Expelled, Intelligent Design|
This just published at the STANFORD REVIEW:
The Impact of Darwinism
By Tristan Abbey
With the premiere of Ben Stein’s new movie, Expelled, many people are pondering the long-term impact of Darwinism on society. We touched base with two experts on the subject. Arguing that Darwinism has had a largely positive impact on society is Michael Ruse, the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. Arguing that Darwinism has had a largely negative impact on society is Richard Weikart, Professor of History at California State University, Stanislaus. . . .
ACCORDING TO WEIKART: “[I]n the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries most leading Darwinists, including Darwin, tended to stress human inequality more than equality, in part because evolution requires biological variability. Darwin stated in The Descent of Man: “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” By the mid-twentieth century and thereafter most Darwinists abandoned racial inequality, stressing the common ancestry of all humans. . . .”