The modern world is suffused with Charles Darwin and his thought. It’s in the air we breathe, and all of us are influenced by what he thought and taught, even when we fight against it.

Of course, Darwin is merely the modern manifestation of a much older thought process, that the world and life came to be over long periods by a natural sequence, natural here meaning without any intelligent or divine beginning or intervention.

At the same time, moral mandates are also part of the way we think. We may disagree about some of the details about what is right and what is wrong, but virtually no one thinks that there’s no right or wrong.

But that’s a clash with Darwin’s thought. And with all those who taught similar ideas before him.

Because in the west, morals have traditionally had a religious basis. Usually from a ten commandments structure (for Christians and Jews, and derivately, for Muslims), even for those who aren’t active believers.

“This is right.” “That is wrong.”

Most people operate as though these moral directives are correct. Which is good. Because it makes for a better world when we realize that it’s wrong to take human life. To know that we should respect marriages and families. To recognize that it’s wrong to steal. And so on.

What’s crucially dangerous is that when people want to consistently follow the underpinnings of their worldview, in this case Darwinism, they’re left with no basis for morality.

Because if everything we’re looking at is a result of selection by nature, without any intelligence or divine intervention, then there is no morality.

Because morality says that killing or theft or rape is wrong. Wrong not because I prefer it or because it makes society work better but because there’s a higher standard that says it’s wrong.

And if there’s no higher standard, then ultimately you may want people not to kill or steal or assault someone sexually, but there’s no reason someone else should have to agree with you. You may prefer something, society may even enforce a given behavior, but it’s ultimately no different from saying that I like cream in my coffee and you don’t.

Because in Darwinian thought, everything in our minds is just random chemical responses. Those responses may have come to be very complex but they’re still just random responses and whether I cure cancer or whether I am a serial killer, both of these behaviors are morally neutral. Neutral because there’s no morality in Darwinian thought.

There are huge numbers of problems with Darwin and his teaching, and morality is only one of those problems. But it’s a huge problem, and one that those who consciously follow his thought have to address.