Darwin and Lincoln: The Race Connection

by Ken Ham, President/CEO, AiG–U.S.

Exactly 200 years ago today, two very famous people were born. Both men greatly impacted the world, but their legacies were quite different.

Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on February 12, 1809. Among President Lincoln’s famous achievements, of course, was the abolition of slavery in several states during the Civil War. At this same time, Darwin’s famous book On the Origin of Species (published 1859) was gaining in popularity. But Darwin’s view of dark-skinned people like the former slaves was different from that of Lincoln.

The subtitle of On the Origin of Species gives a hint to his racist beliefs: The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Now, Darwin is known to have used the word races to apply to animals, but his use of the term races as it also relates to people became clear a few years later with his book The Descent of Man. In that book, Darwin called those with dark skin “degraded,” and wrote that he would rather be descended from a monkey than such a “savage.”

See also The Development and Deficits of Darwin's Theory and The Global Vision Channel's video series: Intelligent Design or Evolution?