On What's So Scary About Darwin? Short answer: He dethroned us.

Charles Darwin

People rarely read Darwin today, but his books are thoughtful and not threatening, especially "On the Origin of Species." Darwin is careful in his exposition in the theories that are filled with personal, scientific examples. His books are as fascinating to read in the same way that the viewing the great naturalist's etchings from that same period are. Darwin, for me, was a great, albeit gentle, awakening. It was my road to a sense of peace as to who we are and where we fit in. It was my 'road to Damascus.'

John Derbyshire On What's So Scary About Darwin? | VDARE.com
By John Derbyshire on June 28, 2012

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are assembled here this weekend to discuss the future of the study of human biodiversity, which I think all of us here customarily abbreviate to "HBD."

HBD is of course merely a subtopic within the larger subject of bio-diversity in general—"BD," if you like—a subject that began to pass from the realm of observation, classification, and speculation into the realm of rigorous scientific inquiry when Charles Darwinpublished his book On the Origin of Species 153 years ago. Twelve years later Darwin ventured into the subtopic of HBD with another book, The Descent of Man.

Both books generated much vexation and controversy. Many people are still vexed today, over a century later. Why? What's so scary about Darwin?

1. Short answer: He dethroned us.

The world used to be for us and about us. I have remarkedelsewhere that “the ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, social, and personal.”

The rise of science removed us from our central position in creation, not once but again and again. René Descartes lamented (well, it always strikes me as a lament) in 1642 that:

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