Anti-evolutionism and slavery: God says it's ok

There's an interesting debate going on over at The Panda's Thumb seeking to establish a link between the religious basis for slavery and anti-evolutionism.

I have my own theories on why people are resistant to the theory of evolution, and I think they mainly stem from people's deeper worldview rather than just how to interpret scriptures.

In his excellent book Straw Dogs, the philosopher John Gray argues that the inevitable conclusion of Darwinism is a rather nihilistic worldview. I only agree with him up to a point, but it's easy to see how this would offend both moderate and fundamentalist religious people. As biologists we have our own worldviews that take joy in the beauty and origins of the natural world, but I've yet to read any work of popular science that effectively reconciles people's need for meaning in their lives with natural selection. I can't help feeling everybody falls into one camp or the other.