unless waving your hands and saying, “Well, God brought ethics into being via magic”, is a valid answer

You’re complaining about other peoples’ philosophical naivete, and you turn around and present that as an accurate characterization of the best theistic moral philosophy?

Exactly, and neither does the theory of evolution (per se)! It is true that Darwinism has been incorporated into some nasty worldviews (as has ballistics, I’m sure), but it is not a worldview in and of itself, and it tells us nothing about morality or metaphysics.

I take it that you consider evolutionary psychology / sociobiology to be a nasty worldview rather than part of Darwinism? Because that field most definitely focuses on morality/religion type issues. Are you saying that every journal article E.O. Wilson, Steven Pinker, etc have published on the topic is metaphysics and not science? Also, it hardly started with them. Darwin himself tried to use his theory as an explanation for morality.

Ballistics doesn’t claim to be an all-encompassing view of origins, defining the nature of life and humanity.

Exactly, and neither does the theory of evolution (per se)! It is true that Darwinism has been incorporated into some nasty worldviews (as has ballistics, I’m sure), but it is not a worldview in and of itself, and it tells us nothing about morality or metaphysics. It’s just a scientific theory–nothing more, nothing less. Is that the picture painted by “Expelled”? I haven’t seen the film yet, but somehow I doubt it.

The question, “if materialistic evolution is true, then where do ethics come from?” is a live issue. You might think there’s an answer, but you must at least acknowledge there’s a question.

Even if I were to concede your conflation of “materialistic evolution” and the scientific theory of evolution, the question you pose is open regardless of whether or not materialistic evolution is true, and theism does no better than materialistic evolution in answering it (unless waving your hands and saying, “Well, God brought ethics into being via magic”, is a valid answer). People are simply less critical when it comes to the sorts of answers theism can get away with.

The question, “if ballistics is true, then where do ethics come from” hasn’t really made much of a splash. I think you can see the reason the two are different.

The difference is superficial and political, and it stems from serious philosophical naivete. Darwinism, per se, is every bit as irrelevant to ethics as ballistics.

The question, “if materialistic evolution is true, then where do ethics come from?” is a live issue. You might think there’s an answer, but you must at least acknowledge there’s a question.

The question, “if ballistics is true, then where do ethics come from” hasn’t really made much of a splash. I think you can see the reason the two are different.

Darwin’s theory does not entail such eugenic racism, to be sure, but it doesn’t contain any decent corrective to it, either.

Ballistics does not entail shooting children & puppies, to be sure, but it doesn’t contain any decent corrective to it, either. Therefore… what?

Based on what Darwin wrote here, I think he made a manful attempt to hold on to a human ethic. I do not think he succeeded, however. It was the rest of his theory that proved his undoing. Succeeding thinkers took his fundamental theory, saw where it led, and followed it there: to the erasure of distinctions between humans and other organisms. Others took his theory and co-opted it for racist purposes. Darwin’s theory does not entail such eugenic racism, to be sure, but it doesn’t contain any decent corrective to it, either.

I don’t accuse Darwin of any of the ethical failures that followed upon him–only of opening the door for them.