This Week in God (Maddow Blog)

[onager]

10. Best explanation I've read for that...

Ronald Bailey's article Origin of the Specious: Why do neoconservatives doubt Darwin? Appeared in the old-line conservative magazine "Reason," way back in 1997. So it's nearly 20 years old, but still useful.

The article points out that many of the loudest anti-Darwinists, like Irving Kristol, are/were probably atheists themselves:

Gross believes that the conservative attack on Darwin may be a case of tactical politics. Some conservative intellectuals think religious fundamentalists are "essential to the political program of the right," says Gross. As a gesture of solidarity, he says, these intellectuals are publicly embracing arguments that appear to "keep God in the picture."

The end of the Cold War may also be a factor. Marx fell with the Soviet Union; Freud has been discredited by modern psychology and neuroscience. The last standing member of the 19th century's unholy materialist trinity is Darwin. Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial, makes the connection clear: "Darwinism is the most important of the materialist ideologies--Marxism, Freudianism, and behaviorism are others--which have done so much damage to science and society in the 20th century." Kristol agrees. "All I want to do," he told his AEI audience, "is break the bonds of Darwinian materialism which at the moment restrict our imagination. For the moment that's enough."

http://reason.com/archives/1997/07/01/origin-of-the-specious