biography

So what, in the end, can be said for Darwin's Sacred Cause? To Desmond and Moore's credit, they do a fine job of explaining how Darwin ended, pretty much once and for all, the old monogenist/polygenist controversy over human origins. But, as mentioned earlier, this was already known. Their critical thesis, namely, that Darwin's anti-slavery views were integral to the development of his evolutionary theory remains questionable, but perhaps more significantly, irrelevant.