David Koch (AP Photo/Peter
Kramer)
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History announced on Wednesday that multibillionaire and early Libertarian Party benefactor David H. Koch donated $30 million to fund a hall depicting human evolution.
Most of the money will finance the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins while the remainder will go toward a research chair endowment and education and outreach programs.
An article from Science Insider said the new hall "will focus on major milestones over our 6-million-year history—from when our ancestors first started walking upright through the development of language and symbols and beyond."
The hall will display fossil skull replicas representing various stages of human evolution, reconstructed human faces from different epochs, and exhibits showing how climate change and environmental conditions have impacted human evolution.
Older libertarians, however, will remember the impact Koch had on the still-fledgling Libertarian Party.
In 1980, the Libertarian Party selected Ed Clark as their presidential candidate and David Koch as his running mate. Under the campaign laws, this allowed Koch to contribute $1.6 million of his own money to the campaign, most of which went toward buying national network television ads.
The Clark-Koch ticket garnered 921,299 votes (1.06 percent), a record that still stands.
Forbes magazine currently ranks Koch, in a tie with his brother Charles, as the 9th wealthiest American. The pair own Koch Industries, a petroleum and energy conglomerate headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. It's the second largest privately held company in the US based on revenue.
Koch's personal commitment to libertarian philosophy combined with his appetite for philanthropy has caused him to donate significant funding for many prominent libertarian institutions over the years. These include the Reason Foundation (publisher of the libertarian movement's leading political journal, Reason Magazine) and the Cato Institute, a public policy think tank headquartered in Washington, DC. Koch still serves on their boards of directors.
The Advocates for Self-Government, a non-profit, non-partisan libertarian educational organization, profiles David Koch in their "Libertarian Celebrities & VIPs" section.
Comments
David Koch is one of the sorriest specimens of corporate greed and political backwardness on the American scene. He can't wash out that stain by donating his gains to the Smithsonian.
Good for him!
Too bad "Real Freedom" doesn't back up his claims with some facts and reasons. Sour grapes?
Wow, what an encomium! I clearly need to check David out, because if there is anything that cheers the day up it is finding a "sorry specimen of corporate greed and political backwardness" with thirty million to give away. I'm sure I shall like him excessively.
David, Thank you! Evolution all the way!
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