The Conservatism Of Darwin

Derb discusses evolution and creationism:

It cannot be denied...that Darwinism’s metaphysical implications are hard to square with any view of human nature not flatly biological; and this applies as much to the “blank slate” egalitarianism of the irreligious Left as to the soul-based universalism of the religious Right. This is inevitable. As an empirical view of living matter, chasing down its truths one by one through thickets of patient observation, Darwinism is bound to offend systems derived from introspection, revelation, or social approval.

Which is why, of course, Darwin was, in some respects, a conservative in the classical sense. Once you grasp that, as Derb has, you realize how far contemporary American right has strayed from conservatism's skeptical, empirical roots.

(Hat tip: Frank Wilson. Photo: A path in the grounds of Down House that Darwin regularly walked along and called his "Thinking Path".)