Evolution: Scapegoat of the Right

by PraetorOne

When the far right goes looking for a scapegoat it doesn’t go halfway. The same people who talk about personal responsibility are the same people who blame evolution and the teaching of evolution in our class rooms for America’s social problems. That’s right friends and neighbors. The far right claims that if you teach children they are mammals they will somehow devolve into violent brutes and thugs. Additionally, many on he far right blame evolution for the eugenics and brutality of the the Third Reich and fascist Italy but that ignores the fact that those governments had hundreds of years of experience with conservative Christianity. In a similar vein those governments never completely rejected Christianity and merely adapted their versions of Christianity to adapt to the fascist regimes. In other words these were essentially Christian regimes

So what’s wrong with the far right’s take on evolution?

Well, to be perfectly frank it actually undermines the far right’s ideas about personal responsibility. Why should children bother to control themselves when the adults in their world are handing them a custom made excuse for bad behavior? “I can’t help being a violent, over-sexed thug–Charles Darwin made me do it.” Children need guidance, not excuses, and the far right, in its eagerness to blame evolution from everything from tooth decay to social decay, has managed quite nicely to provide a convenient excuse for violence and sexual promiscuity.

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