February 15, 2010
Darwin Versus Lincoln: Who Won?
A little more than a year ago we asked: Who Was More Important? Abraham Lincoln or Charles Darwin? It seems like an odd question, but since they were both born on the same day—February 12, 1809—we thought we’d give the thought experiment a try. Two Smithsonian editors argued for Lincoln and two others for Darwin. We then asked you, our readers, to weigh in.
Who won? Well, Darwin edges out Lincoln in our poll (and you’re welcome to vote even now). I guess my powers of persuasion won out. Or perhaps we stacked the deck by placing such a debate on a science blog.
***
Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
July 4, 1826 – another date shared by two influential men, Jefferson and John Q. Adams….the day both of them died…within hours of each other. Is there a universal message in this and in the shared date of birth of Darwin and Lincoln? Or, is “serendipity” becoming more and more precise?