“You cannot lump all forms of eugenic thought into a single bag and hang that bag around the neck of Darwin. Darwin did not invent Natural Selection or attempt to apply its principles in an unnatural means to alter the composition of the human race.”
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True, Darwin did not invent natural (or man-made) selection. However, he did expect the “lesser races” and the “greater apes” to be soon “eliminated, leaving an even greater gap between man and his nearest relations than there is today.”
Further, Darwinist does not mean only of Darwin himself, but also his followers, who were not mere spectators, but, as noted, active agitators in ‘elimination.’ This is the ugly and inconvenient truth of Progressivism: national socialism (Nazis), international socialism (Communists), and democratic socialism (Progressives) are all the same people with different accents.
‘Defending Darwin from Luddite Fundamentalists’ is a straw man argument: what disturbs most people is not the science of genetics, which is hardly arguable, but the use of evolution to ‘disprove’ religious authority. This same authority, I should not have to tell you, is the basis of Natural Law.
Some of don't see evolution disproving religious authority and some religious authority doesn't see that either.
And this is why so many people feel justified in calling "Darwinianism" (and evolution generally) a religion. It's too late to deny that Darwinianism is a religion. Too many people have uttered too many philosophical and religious conclusions and value-judgments based on Darwinian thought, to now deny that it has become a philosophy, indeed, a religion.