REVIEW- 19

Review- 19

Title: WHO WAS MORE IMPORTANT: LINCOLN OR DARWIN?

Link: http://www.newsweek.com/id/143742

Newspaper: Newsweek

Date of Publication: July 14^th,2008

This year was the bicentennial of the births of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Both were born on February 12, 1809. Both played leading roles in the struggles for human equality, Lincoln directly, Darwin in establishing that all human beings are members of one species, with common ancestry.

Though Lincoln and Darwin never met or corresponded directly, Darwin came from one of the foremost abolitionist families in Great Britain. Both his maternal and paternal grandfather were leaders in the British Society for the Suppression of the Slave Trade. Darwin followed the course of the civil war, and in letters to Harvard botanist Asa Gray, expressed his wish for union victory and the abolition of slavery. Just as Lincoln’s political and military leadership resulted in the abolition of direct slavery, Darwin’s publication of the Descent of Man provided the scientific basis establishing that all humans are members of one species, Homo sapiens, and are descended from common ancestors. This was key to undermining the various pseudo-scientific theories, promoted by the pro-slavery forces, that Negros, Mongols, Jews, Native Americans and other non-Caucasians, represented separate species. That view, that different human groups were created separately, was a keystone in early colonial policies justifying differential treatment of Indians, Africans, Maoris, and other colonized peoples.

Both figures had very different lives as well. Lincoln was born in a one-room Kentucky log cabin and was the first president born outside the original 13 colonies. His family was not wealthy. Opposite, Darwin was born into an affluent English family at The Mount in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He studied theology at Cambridge University at the urging of his father but never became a clergyman. For all their differences, Darwin and Lincoln’s lives also had some striking similarities. Both men were children when their mothers died. Both lost young children of their own.

Anyone can say who the most important is. But only, it can be appreciated their great contribution to humanity as rebels.