Why Do People Reject Evolution?

3quarksdaily wonders why people reject evolution, reflecting on the issue of chance, as pharyngula  then majikthise consider the question of random evolution and purpose.  

It is possibly futile to start analyzing the minds of those who 'reject evolution' using polling methods, in a context where  pegging evolution one to one with natural selection is taken as assumed. I certainly wouldn't reject polling methods, far from it, but the question of what people think about evolution is not so simple.
The question goes back to the French Revolution, the moment the idea of
evolution was born, with the radical Lamarck, and the progressivist Erasmus Darwin. 

 At the time of the first reviewers of Darwin's bestseller many DID accept evolution, but threw up their hands at the oversimplification of natural selection. Before Darwin, evolution had a radical underground following, due to its radical associations, and was rejected by the Restoration establishment, then after Darwin, who was quite clever, and long silent in this atmosphere, scored a coup as he, along with Herbert Spencer, conservatized the idea in the context of classical liberalism and it became an establishment science mantra in the vein of Huxley and the professionalization of science. Before that the runaway bestseller Vestiges of Creation showed that there was an undercurrent in
favor of the idea. Huxley, btw, brought into existence the style of the
condescending sneer at skeptics, now pervasive among Darwin/Dawkins groupies, and the Darwin blogosphere, where the theory is maintained via vituperation of the opponents, it seems. Huxley, we should note, was enthusiastic about evolution, but warned Darwin on the eve of publication of the problems with natural selection. The subsequent fate of the idea is complex, and the question of Social Darwinism enters. A figure such as William Jennings Bryan wasn't just a creationist yahoo, but a populist democrat who knew what he was talking about when he denounced the Social Darwinism that led to the first World War. Thus, in
any case, there is a class basis lurking in the Darwinian version of evolution.
Marx was well aware of this fact, but his views were smothered by the leftist embrace of Darwinian scientism in the period of Engels. 

In general the beliefs people have about evolution have a twisted history and it is doubtful if Darwinists are competent to study the question. If you think Darwin had a theory of evolution by natural selection you are under suspicion of being a victim of one or more strains of deception here. As we can see the question of class and exploitation enters the picture, and quite apart from anything else anyone styled the 'common man' ought to be wary of the social Big
Shots promoting Darwin. They wish to decide about your survival and fitness. Anyone who lived in the slums of New Orleans, for example, would do well to consider what the poor white trash in political establishment thinks about Darwin's theory. Unfortunately, the layers of deception are too deep to figure it out from public statements, many of these Social Darwinists fronting their religious devotion before the microphone. These days they may hype Intelligent Design.
But the sudden appearance of social disorder in New Orleans lets the cat out of the bag, as perhaps in New Orleans during Katrina. 

The Darwin intelligentsia gives a free propaganda ride to these elites who really grove on Darwin because it gives perfect legitimation to a whole series of world views about economy, globalization, and much else. 

Meanwhile lunatics with PhD's must always be suspected, because the obvious wish to proceed with eugenic projects is lurking in the background. Those lunatics are no myth, as the case of Hitler makes clear.  Everyone is very nice and scientific during the quiet periods. What is really a foot is visible during periods of disorder, witness the Thirties.

Moral: Darwinism is an armed and dangerous theory, a permanent accident waiting to happen.

So people would have an easier time with evolution if Darwinists didn't forever bungle the job of presenting the idea, and ply their obsessive theoretical goof as science, the perennial problem and new source myth, natural selection.

A natural intuition about how things work makes people skeptical evolution works that way. Darwin's theory is a 'free lunch' claim, the original crank theory, one that managed the piece de resistance of convincing the most intelligent, while the dummies remain properly skeptical, or so it seems. What a disaster. 

So the popular view seems to reflect that inevitable doubt, then confusing the question with the fact of evolution itself. 

One reason for that is that Darwinists themselves often yield to the idea that people are rejecting evolution, if they reject the mechanism.
It would make life a lot easier for everyone if scientists simply presented the facts of evolution, and said that the question of theory is much more difficult and unknown at this time, perhaps unknowable altogether. Herbert Spencer made this point, whatever his other sins of theory/propaganda, echoing Kant, that evolution has a kind of noumenal aspect. 

Darwinists are strange people, they think their opponents stupid, when in fact it is they who are confused, and I mean really confused.
Theories of evolution are impostors and ideological football. 

Anyway, the theory of natural selection is at fault, but the runaway freight train of scientists confused here seems to lead naturally to distancing of people from the wrong science. 

You can analyze the question ad infinitum. The main point is the falsity of Darwin's theory. For a falsification of the idea of random evolution with respect to visible world history and the descent of man, check out my

http://www.history-and-evolution.com/