24. Attacks on Darwin have not eased with the passage of time
Since the appearance of On the Origin of Species, and increasing with Darwin’s later work, The Descent of Man, attacks on both his science and his philosophy have been common. Most of his science has withstood the tests of time and pressure from later scientific thought, which is the reason his views are widely accepted in the scientific community. But for those who viewed Darwin through the veil of religious opposition to his work, he remained a dangerous threat to their security. Creationists continued to attack him, and denigrate his work, for over one and a half centuries.
Darwin’s work was called racist, and teaching Darwin’s evolutionary work and natural selection in schools was decried as teaching racism to children. Some creationists claimed that racism in America was the result of teaching evolution in public schools. Attacks on Darwin’s character were also common, and continue to be, with creationists claiming that it was the scientist’s bitterness towards God following the death of a young daughter which drove him to attempt to disprove the creation story of Genesis.
