It's inane because it's identical to the argument that guns cause murders.
If you are a conservative, which I seriously doubt, you believe people are responsible for their behavior. You do not allow people to blame others for their actions.
Saying that bad people have used ideas in support or thir bad behavior is inane. there is no widespread idea, secular or religious, that has not been used in support of bad behavior.
It's not identical. It's not even close, in fact. The argument that evolution can be used to support essentially philosophical positions such as racism or eugenics, is far closer in type to the arguments that form the philosophical basis of the Declaration of Independence. Whereas the latter presupposes the existence of "self evident" and "unalienable" rights, the former invokes observed principles of evolution to proclaim that some races are better than others.
By contrast, you're describing an attempt to anthropomorphise an inanimate object into something that has the ability to act as a moral agent. That's a completely different argument.
With that distinction in hand, we can address the topic of the article. Although Darwin certainly didn't cause something like Hitler's eugenics program, the ideas he formalized were certainly part of the philosophical underpinnings of it. One need not invoke "cause" when "influence" is enough.
If you are a conservative, which I seriously doubt, you believe people are responsible for their behavior. You do not allow people to blame others for their actions.
I always expect you to toss in a snide little insult -- and as usual I am not disappointed. As it happens, I am a conservative. It just so happens that my brand of conservatism is intellectually curious enough to want to understand the roots and precepts of ideas with which I disagree.
Saying that bad people have used ideas in support or thir bad behavior is inane.
No more inane than the idea the good peoople have used good ideas to support their good behavior. The Founders were probably the foremost examples in all of human history on the matter of putting good ideas to work. Are you suggesting that it's inane to characterize their efforts in that way?
there is no widespread idea, secular or religious, that has not been used in support of bad behavior.
Well, yes. And that, sir, is precisely the point.