Darwin's Troubled Legacy

An episode of the Gresham College Lectures podcast, hosted by Gresham College, titled "Darwin's Troubled Legacy" was published on March 22, 2021 and runs 70 minutes.

March 22, 2021 ·70m · Gresham College Lectures

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Summary

Darwin's Descent of Man was dominated by the theory of sexual selection, which Darwin used to explain peacock's tails, but also to argue that white people were as superior to black ones as men were to women. For Darwin and his contemporaries, inequality between races and the sexes was one of the facts that science had to explain. Ever since Darwin, biology has been used to support racial prejudice and gender inequality, but - happily - has also been used to challenge both in the 150 years s...

Episode Description

Darwin's Descent of Man was dominated by the theory of sexual selection, which Darwin used to explain peacock's tails, but also to argue that white people were as superior to black ones as men were to women. For Darwin and his contemporaries, inequality between races and the sexes was one of the facts that science had to explain.

Ever since Darwin, biology has been used to support racial prejudice and gender inequality, but - happily - has also been used to challenge both in the 150 years since the Descent.

A lecture by Jim Endersby 22 March

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/darwin-legacy

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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