Did the arrival of Darwin’s theory of evolution put paid to a widespread belief in half-human creatures? http://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/sites/default/files/Fortean%2520Times%2520Werewolf.pdf
I grew up attending a little backwoods church where the name “Darwin” was pretty much synonymous with “Lucifer” and the Science teacher at the local school was part of some nefarious conspiracy to convince the wee little ones that God didn’t exist. Never mind that Darwin never said anything of the sort, nor did the teacher. Some people need an actual face to put upon their devil, and ol’ Charlie’s sufficed. But did Darwin also serve as something of a devil SLAYER? By shining the unblinking spotlight of scientific examination to all things living, did he help kill off such biological impossibilities as the werewolf?
Yes and no. Chuck may have convinced the general population that human beings were not physically transforming into lupine forms on a regular basis, or ever, but his newfangled “theory” also lent strength to the belief in, and credence to the possibilities of, the existence of other types of monsters. Sub-humans. “Ape-men.” Beast men that are primate rather than canine, but otherwise just as shaggy and fearsome. Also, by underscoring that Man is just an evolved animal, did he actually confirm the existence of the lycanthrope? Give it a new, more insidious form, one even more terrifying than the snarling brute?
