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  3. How’s this for a coincidence? Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born in the same year, on the same day: Feb. 12, 1809. Alt

How’s this for a coincidence? Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born in the same year, on the same day: Feb. 12, 1809. Alt

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问题     How’s this for a coincidence? Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born in the same year, on the same day: Feb. 12, 1809. Although people hardly think of them in tandem, yet instinctively, we want to say that they belong together. It’s not just because they were both great men, and not because they happen to be exact contemporaries. Rather, it’s because the scientist and thepolitician each touched off a revolution that changed the world.
    They were both revolutionaries in the sense that both men upended realities that prevailed when they were born. They seem—and sound—modem to us, because the world they left behind them is more or less the one we still live in. So, considering the joint greatness of their contributions—and the coincidence of their conjoined birthdays—it is hard not to wonder: who was the greater man? It’s an apples-and-oranges—or Superman-vs.-Santa—comparison. But if you limit the question to influence, very quickly the balance tips in Lincoln’s favor.
    As great as his book on evolution is, it does no harm to remember that Darwin hurried to publish The Origin of Species because he thought he was about to be scooped by his fellow naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. In other words, there was a certain inevitability to Darwin’s theory. Ideas about evolution surfaced throughout the first part of the 19th century, and while none of them was as convincing as Darwin’s—until Wallace came along—it was not as though he was the only man who had the idea.
    Lincoln, in contrast, is unique. Take him out of the picture, and there is no telling what might have happened to the country. True, his election to the presidency did provoke secession and, in turn, the war itself, but that war seems inevitable—not a question of if but when. Once in office, he becomes the indispensable man. Certainly we know what happened once he was assassinated: Reconstruction was administered punitively and then abandoned, leaving the issue of racial equality to dangle for another century.
    If Darwin were not so irreplaceable as Lincoln, that should not negate his accomplishment. No one could have formulated his theory any more elegantly. Their identical birthdays afford us a superb opportunity to observe these men in the shared context of their time—how each was shaped by his circumstances, how each reacted to the beliefs that steered the world into which he was born and ultimately how each reshaped his corner of that world and left it irrevocably changed.
Alfred Russel Wallace is mentioned in order to show _____.
选项 A、Darwin’s The Origin of Species was about to be scooped
B、Darwin’s evolution theory was accepted among naturalists
C、Darwin might not be the only one who had the idea of evolution
D、Darwin’s achievement was founded upon natural researches
答案C
解析 事实细节题，考查例证细节。根据人名Alfred Russel Wallace定位到第三段。本题考查举这一例子是为了说明什么，这类题的答案一般出现在例子前后。此处作者举Wallace的例子是为了强调达尔文不是唯一一个提出进化理论的人，故选C项。
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