Evolution is not materialism, it is a subpart of biology. Materialism is a worldview and is not limited to the strict holding that only what exists is real. See Websters. Anyone can and will corrupt something to foster the shaping of the world to goals of their own will. Whether it's materialism, theology, biology, or anything else.
"not in matters technical, nor in matters of the humanities"
Biology, of which evolution is a subpart, is technical. There is no place in it for the humanities.
As far what is to be gained by evolution. It covers the relationships of structure and composition of organisms. Because my body is and has components related to other organisms, I can use an animal physiology text to learn about my own components. That is of course if I heed my relative position on the evolutionary tree. I can also do so to with any animal, as long as I heed the tree.
"Then there is the wonderful impact upon schoolchildren, by telling them repeatedly that they are animals and forget about an afterlife"
That is a corruption. There is no valid reason for addressing an afterlife in a public school whatsoever. In fact, they don't tell them that there is no afterlife, they tell them that they will- just go to a nice place, where they can do whatever makes them happy with others like them. Religion should be kept out, just as politics should be kept out. There is no justification for using the public schools as a socialist indoctrination center as they are.
This is pretty much impossible, spunkets. There is no content-neutral education. Supreme Court Justice Scalia was wise enough to note this about public education. There is no content-neutral education. We are human beings and only through analysis do we separate what in real life exists integrally. Your earlier response was good, and I concur with your sentiments about Ridley, that he abuses science and that he misapplies its principles. It is also possible to swing another way, to pretend like Patrick Henry that the principles of science "is what it is." Science, as in physics or biology, is the product of an interaction of human thinking about something else.
If we can fault Ridley for thinking mind is the extension of body, we could also fault (as does general_re) for making body the extension of mind. We rarely want to confess to the same error that we've seen in others. There is no pure science that can be equated with isness. If you do, you collapse the distinction between mind and body, you make them coeval. Raising phenomena to the status of law may be useful, but it is an abuse of reason to equate that law with isness. For science is partial. It cannot be equated with an "is what it is." Sometimes scientific theories mate happily with the things it studies, sometimes not. But they are not one and the same, otherwise the mind loses its object. It's quite possible to come close to objectivity by getting rid of the objects.