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Articles on Charles Darwin

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Human evolution is typically depicted with a progressive whitening of the skin, despite a lack of evidence to support it. Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov/Wikimedia Commons

Racist and sexist depictions of human evolution still permeate science, education and popular culture today

From Aristotle to Darwin, inaccurate and biased narratives in science not only reproduce these biases in future generations but also perpetuate the discrimination they are used to justify.
A man of genius – but his ideas were not to the benefit of all humankind. Mondadori Portfolio/Hulton Fine Art Collection via Getty Images

Francis Galton pioneered scientific advances in many fields – but also founded the racist pseudoscience of eugenics

Smart people can have really bad ideas – like selectively breeding human beings to improve the species. Put into practice, Galton’s concept proved discriminatory, damaging, even deadly.
W.E.B. Du Bois in his office at The Crisis in New York City, 1925. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries

W.E.B. Du Bois embraced science to fight racism as editor of NAACP’s magazine The Crisis

As editor of the magazine for 24 years, Du Bois featured articles about biology, evolution, archaeology in Africa and more to refute the rampant scientific racism of the early 20th century.
The role of women in futuristic drama TV series ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ makes references to Darwin’s writings on evolution. (Shutterstock)

How Darwin’s sexual selection theory co-stars in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

In the television show ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ Charles Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man’ makes a cameo — and its appearance makes a comment on how Gilead functions.

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