The decisive culture war of the 21st century is likely to be between the Darwinian fundamentalists and those who believe in God and the significance of human life. It will be prolonged and bitter. Culture wars do not usually end in bloodshed but they break hearts and minds and bring terrible sufferings to the losers (and to many of the winners too). Most observers today would put their money on the Darwinians. They already control the universities of the West, or at least their science departments, and persecute with ferocity any who deviate from their narrow orthodoxies. Such heretical scholars — whatever their qualifications or the strength of their arguments — are simply labelled ‘creationists’ and dismissed or barred from academic posts. Intelligent Christians are lumped with the Mad Mullahs or the Bible-thumpers of the Midwest, and are marginalised in the media and public debate.
The rise of Darwin’s reputation and the power of Darwinism have proceeded without interruption for nearly a century and a half. As early as 1880, when Darwin himself was still alive, Leslie Stephen predicted in the Fortnightly Review, in an article called ‘An Attempted Philosophy of History’, that the new science of life would conquer all. ‘Darwinism,’ he wrote, ‘has acted like a leaven, affecting the whole development of modern thought…. We classify the ablest thinkers by the relation which their opinions bear to it and, whatever its ultimate fate, no one can doubt that it will be the most conspicuous factor in the history of modern speculation.’
All this has proved to be true. Darwinism is an imperialist doctrine which has successfully subordinated mathematics, sociology and other disciplines, and is currently conquering philosophy. Although, unlike medicine, chemistry, physics and other sciences, it has little or nothing to offer the human race in terms of better conditions or a more secure future, it is automatically accorded priority in scientific discourse in academia.
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