Darwinism's Skeletons in the Closet

The Weekly Standard's web site has a great article at the link above on the text book involved in the famous Scopes evolution trial.

As the article points out, the dark legacy of early Darwinist literature was racism. If different groups of people evolved separately some might be more evolved than others or "fitter" than others. That notion fit in well with paternalistic, segregationist, imperialist, and eugenic ideas that were wrong and all too common in the pre-war (WW II) west. Evolution has not been the font of human rights. Instead, it is belief in the idea that all humans were literally "created equal" - as the same kind of thing, with equality before God and the law - that has been the basis for historic recognition of human rights.