DNA Demystified by Alan McHughen

Author:Alan McHughen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

You might think that, no, there wouldn’t be any descendants of Henry Sherman, but someone else would have stepped in to fill those historical roles or, alternatively, that the world would simply have evolved along a different track. Well, perhaps, or perhaps not. It is difficult to imagine some other random person handy at the time having the courage of Roger Sherman or Robert Treat Paine to sign the Declaration of Independence. Or lead the women’s suffrage movement as effectively as Susan B Anthony. Or lead the United Kingdom through World War II like Winston Churchill. Or paint like Norman Rockwell, or write like John Steinbeck, or run a business like William Durrant. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to appreciate the contributions of Robert Goddard to the space program. These descendants were not as easily replaceable or interchangeable as a 16th century factory worker in one of the Sherman family clothing lines might have been. And it is curious to ponder what “might have been,” what the world would look like today, without the descendants of Henry Sherman, Sr.

Henry Sherman’s genetic legacy attracts attention for at least a couple of reasons. The more obvious one—and that likely to be covered by popular celebrity magazines—is that fact that all these remarkably famous people are cousins (or closer, as in the case of Presidents Bush I and II), even though they may have virtually nothing else in common. Less frequently noted—but perhaps far more important—is the fact that not one of these people would have lived if an obscure English clothier had died in childhood or otherwise not had children. If Henry Sherman Sr. had died childless, the world as we know it would be a very different place. This leads us to the question of what, if anything, was “special” about Henry Sherman’s DNA?

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.