First, I don't think it's possible to make an honest distinction between Darwin and the Social Darwinists. One of my former profs, Edward T. Oakes, SJ, who has also written some devastating criticisms of the Intelligent Design movement, has a review of the sensationalistically-titled academic history "From Darwin to Hitler" in a forthcoming issue of First Things.
Secondly, I would sound a warning against believing that scientific theories are neutral things in themselves and do not reflect any cosmologies, politics, and so forth of the scientists who put them forward. What's more, they also shape any succeeding cosmologies or politics. The State of Nature theory which is one of the bases for Classical Liberalism reflects a Newtonian cosmology brought down to the political level. Locke himself was a buddy of Newton. Much of modern democracy and indeed modern intellectual inquiry takes as its inspiration Einstein's reflections on relativity and different observers' frames of reference. And I'd bet Einstein himself got some of those ideas from Kantian philosophy.
On interpretations of Scripture, there are also other timebomb passages, like the last lines of Genesis 1 that declare that no animal, including man, was given the right to eat meat, and I seem to recall that Isaiah's prophecy of the Lion lying down with the lamb is generally interpreted to be a recapitulation of the Garden of Eden as well as a foreshadowing of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Humans cry when someone dies not for the sake of the dead, but for ours. We will miss the person who has passed on.
This reduces crying to an excercise in self-referential masturbation. Why did Jesus weep for Lazarus?
The result is that our species is not likely to change very much, if at all, for a very long time.
How long is "very long"? Evolutionary change takes place over hundreds of thousands of years. Are you saying that mankind is now mostly immune to such history? Science and religion need to be united in order to defeat the forces of nihilism.
Arguably, the contemporary conception of science has inspired contemporary nihilism. The upcoming Oakes review I mentioned above reflects on Nietzsche's debt to Darwinism, and decades before either thinker John Stuart Mill advocated allowing "experiments in living" by applying "scientific" methods to social order and morals. Also, since science is incredibly provisional and religion is not supposed to be provisional but dogmatic, there is definitely a big tension in any alliance of both against nihilism.
Nihilism is based on the idea that human will endows the universe with meaning. This isn't a far cry from nominalism and the other anti-essentialist habits of thought that undergird the dominant philosophy of science, not to mention much of modern atheism.
Why not? You can't derive an "ought" from an "is."
Secondly, I would sound a warning against believing that scientific theories are neutral things in themselves and do not reflect any cosmologies, politics, and so forth of the scientists who put them forward.
Well, you are correct that scientific theories do reflect and affect these other things. The problem is that ethics cannot follow logically from any scientific theory, preciesly for the reason mentioned above: you cannot derive an ought from and is. Unfortunately, the temptation to do so is very strong, and not all scientists have successfully resisted it.
On interpretations of Scripture, there are also other timebomb passages, like the last lines of Genesis 1 that declare that no animal, including man, was given the right to eat meat,
I know of no such declaration. Care to give me the verse?
and I seem to recall that Isaiah's prophecy of the Lion lying down with the lamb is generally interpreted to be a recapitulation of the Garden of Eden as well as a foreshadowing of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Interpreting appocalyptic prophesies literally is very dangerous.
This reduces crying to an excercise in self-referential masturbation. Why did Jesus weep for Lazarus?
He missed him. Why is it masturbation to feel sad when you miss someone? I take serious issue with such a characterization.
Are you saying that mankind is now mostly immune to such history?
Largely. There modern technology has eliminated almost all selective pressure.
Arguably, the contemporary conception of science has inspired contemporary nihilism.
But it does not logically follow from science. Again, you can't derive an ought from an is. Many scientists, like Ken Miller and Stephen J. Gould, understand this. It is with these people that we need to form an alliance.