Darwin, Charles: (1809-1882) British naturalist and creator of the theory of evolution. Unfortunately, Darwin did not anticipate how the metaphors of evolution would be used to create philosophical movements that compare bizarrely to natural philosophy, like a paint by numbers picture to the Sistine Ceiling. Thus evolution was applied like a crude wash of paint to 20th century politics (Nazism, Communism, Capitalism) and 21st century psychology (evolutionary psychology). With the political metaphors of Darwinism, it took more than a century (and untold death and destruction) for folks to recognize that they were nonsense. As evolutionary psychology becomes more and more employed to justify why people can't help being unthinking morons, we can expect history to repeat.
