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  3. Darwin and Lincoln Are Strangely Fit Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born in the same year, on the same day: Feb. 12

Darwin and Lincoln Are Strangely Fit Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born in the same year, on the same day: Feb. 12

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问题                     Darwin and Lincoln Are Strangely Fit
    Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born in the same year, on the same day: Feb. 12, 1809. How’s this for a coincidence? 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 exactly at the same age. Rather, it’s because the scientist and the politician each touched off a revolution that changed the world.
    Lincoln and Darwin were both revolutionaries, in the sense that both men upended realities that prevailed when they were born.They seen—and sound—modern to us, because the world they left behind them is more or less the one we still live in. So, considering the joint magnitude 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, it bears pondering, all the more if you turn the question around and ask, what might have happened if one of these men had not been born? Very quickly the balance tips in Lincoln’s favor. Great as Darvin’s book on evolution is, it does no harm to remember that he hurried to publish "The Origin of Species" because he thought he was about to be scooped (抢先) by his fellow naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who had independently come up with much the same idea of evolution through natural selection. In other words, there was a certain inevitability to Darwin’s theory. Ideas about evolution surfaced thoroughout the first part of the 19th century, and while none of them was as conclusive as Darwin’s, 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. If Darwin were not so irreplaceable as Lincoln, that should not deny his accomplishment. No one could have formulated his theory any more elegantly—or anguished more over its implications. Like Lincoln, Darwin was brave. He risked his health and his reputation to advance the idea that we are not over nature but a part of it. Lincoln prosecuted a war—and became its ultimate casualty—to ensure that no man should have dominion over another. 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.
From the last paragraph, we can learn that______.
选项 A、Lincoln seemed to have made greater effort for his achievement
B、Darwin’s accomplishment cannot be compared with that of Lincoln’s
C、the author holds a strong prejudice against Darwin’s accomplishment
D、the author makes an objective comment on Darwin’s accomplishment
答案D
解析 推理判断题。根据题干关键词last paragraph定位到原文最后一段。由第四、五、六这三句If Darwin were not so irreplaceable as Lincoln，that should not deny his accomplishment．No one could have formulated his theory any more elegantly．．．Darwin was brave．．．可知，即使达尔文并不像林肯那样不可替代，却并不能因此否定他的成就。没有人能比他更凝炼地阐述他的理论——(当然)也没有人比他更痛苦于该理论所隐含的意义。达尔文同林肯一样勇敢，可见作者一分为二地客观评价了达尔文，故选[D]项。[A]项“林肯似乎为他的成就付出更多”，文中未提及;[B]项“达尔文的成就无法与林肯比”，不符合作者观点;[C]项“作者对达尔文的成就有严重的偏见”与事实不符。
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