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Articles on Charles Darwin

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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.
Darwin wondered: what if species change over time in response to their environment? Shutterstock

Curious Kids: how do scientists know evolution is real?

In science, we look at the evidence and try to find the theory that best explains it. And that’s what happened when it came to figuring out evolution.

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