Polygenism
Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human
Origins
Many
An example may be found in the creation myth of the Asmat people, a hunter-gatherer tribe situated along the south-western coast of New Guinea. This creation myth asserts that the Asmat themselves came into being when a deity placed carved wooden statues in a ceremonial house and began to beat a drum. The statues became living humans and began to dance. Some time later, a great crocodile attempted to attack this ceremonial house, but was defeated by the power of the deity. The crocodile was cut into several pieces and these were tossed in different directions. Each piece became one of the foreign tribes known to the Asmat.[5]
The idea is also found in some ancient Greek and Roman literature. For example, the Roman Emperor
In early classical and medieval geography the idea of polygenism surfaced because of the suggested possibility of there being inhabitants of the antipodes (Antichthones). These inhabitants were considered by some to have separate origins because of their geographical extremity.[7]
The religion of the Ainu people claims that the ancestors of the Ainu people arrived on Earth from the skies separate from the other races. See Ainu creation myth.
Main beliefs
Traditionally, most Jews, Christians and Muslims have embraced
With the development of the evolutionary paradigm of human origins, it has become widely recognized within the scientific community that at no point did there exist a single "first man" and a single "first woman" who constituted the first true humans and to whom all lineages of modern humans ultimately converge. If Adam and Eve ever existed as distinct historical persons, they were members of a much larger population of the same species.[8] However, a common scientific explanation of human origins asserts that the population directly ancestral to all modern humans remained united as a single population by constant gene flow. Therefore, on the level of the entire human population, this explanation of human origin is classified as monogenism. All modern humans share the same origin from this single ancestral population.
Modern polygenists do not accept either theological or scientific monogenism. They believe that the variation among human racial types cannot be accounted for by monogenism or by evolutionary processes occurring since the proposed recent African origin of modern humans. Polygenists reject the argument that human races must belong to a single species because they can interbreed. There are several polygenist hypotheses, including biblical creationist polygenism and polygenist evolution.[9][10]
The Bible
To make polygenism compatible with the Biblical account in the early chapters of the Book of Genesis, some argument is needed to the effect that what is in the Bible is incomplete. Three standard positions are:
- Pre-Adamism;
- Co-Adamism;[11]
- incompleteness of the Table of Nationsin Genesis 10.
In Christian terms, polygenesis remained an uncommon Biblical interpretation until the mid-19th century, and was largely considered heretical; however, it has been pointed out by some modern scholars that, while Pre-Adamism was strongly rejected by most and deemed heretical, Co-Adamism was not received with the same degree of hostility.[12]
A major reason for the emergence of Biblical polygenism from around the 18th century was because it became noted that the number of races could not have developed within the commonly-accepted Biblical timeframe.
Polygenism was heavily criticized in the early 20th century by the
Pre-Adamism
Pre-Adamism claims there were already races of humans living before the creation of Adam. It traces back to Isaac La Peyrère in the 17th century.
Co-Adamism
Co-Adamism claims that there was more than one Adam – small groups of men, created at the same time in different places across the Earth – and therefore that the different races were separately created. The idea of co-Adamism has been traced back as far as Paracelsus in 1520.[13] Other 16th century advocates of co-Adamism included Thomas Harriot and Walter Raleigh, who theorised a different origin for the Native Americans.[14]
In 1591 Giordano Bruno argued that because no one could imagine that the Jews and the Ethiopians had the same ancestry, then God must have either created separate Adams or Africans were the descendants of pre-Adamite races.[15]
An anonymous Biblical paper supporting co-Adamism was published in 1732 entitled Co-adamitae or an Essay to Prove the Two Following. Paradoxes, viz. I. That There Were Other Men Created at the Same time with Adam, and II. That the Angels did not fall.[16]
Henry Home, Lord Kames was a believer in co-Adamism.[17] Home believed God had created different races on Earth in separate regions. In his book Sketches on the History of Man in 1734 Home claimed that the environment, climate, or state of society could not account for racial differences, so that the races must have come from distinct, separate stocks.[18]
Charles Hamilton Smith, a naturalist from England, was a polygenist: he believed races had been created separately. He published the book The Natural History of the Human Species in 1848. In the book he maintained that there had always been three fundamentally distinct human types: the Caucasian, the Mongolian and the Negro. He also referred to the polygenist Samuel George Morton's work in America.[21] Samuel Kneeland wrote an 84-page introduction to the American edition of the book where he laid out evidence which supports polygenist creationism and that the Bible is entirely compatible with multiple Adams.[22]
Colenso said: "It seems most probable that the human race, as it now exists, had really sprung from more than one pair". Colenso denied that polygenism caused any kind of racist attitudes or practices; like many other polygenists he claimed monogenesis was the cause of slavery and racism. Colenso claimed that each race had sprung from a different pair of parents, and that all races were created equal by God.[23]
Criticism of the Table of Nations
Biblical polygenists such as Colenso,
Nott argued that its authors' knowledge was limited to their own region, and that the Bible does not concern the whole of the Earth's population. According to Nott, there are no verses in the Bible which support monogenism; and that the only passage the monogenists use is Acts 17:26, where (he wrote) the monogenists are wrong in their interpretation of this verse because the "one blood" of Paul's sermon only includes the nations he knew existed, which were local.[24]
Atheist polygenism
According to Lansdown (2006), "Polygenism, the concept of different human species, was heretical and 'atheistic'; it was embraced only by the most isolated and heterodox thinkers".
The British atheist leader Charles Bradlaugh was also interested in the theory of polygenesis. He found it useful to undermine Genesis accounts of creation.[28]
Scientific polygenism
Scientific polygenism is a set of
During the late 17th century and early 18th century many countries first began to encounter different races from other countries due to
18th century
Polygenists of the 18th century included Voltaire and David Hume.[31] Voltaire in his 1734 book Traité de métaphysique wrote that "whites ... Negroes ... the yellow races ... are not descended from the same man".[32] Voltaire brought the subject up in his Essay on the Manner and Spirit of Nations and on the Principal Occurrences in History in 1756 (which was an early work of comparative history). He believed each race had separate origins because they were so racially diverse. Voltaire found biblical monogenism laughable, as he expressed:
It is a serious question among them whether the Africans are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beautify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for everything.[33]
When comparing Caucasians to those with dark skin, Voltaire claimed they were different species:
The negro race is a species of men different from ours as the breed of spaniels is from that of greyhounds. The mucous membrane, or network, which nature has spread between the muscles and the skin, is white in us and black or copper-colored in them.[34]
Historians have suggested that Voltaire's support for polygenism was shaped by his financial investments in French colonial companies, including the Compagnie des Indies.[35]
John Atkins, an English naval surgeon, was one of the earliest scientists to be a proponent of the polygenist theory. In his book A Voyage to Guinea (1723) he said "I am persuaded that the black and white race have sprung from different coloured parents."[32]
In the last two decades of the 18th century polygenism was advocated in England by historian
19th-century views
Polygenism was most widespread during the 19th century.
Georges Cuvier
Cuvier wrote regarding Caucasians:
The white race, with oval face, straight hair and nose, to which the civilised people of Europe belong and which appear to us the most beautiful of all, is also superior to others by its genius, courage and activity.[41]
Regarding those he termed "Ethiopian", Cuvier wrote:
The Negro race ... is marked by a black complexion, crisped or woolly hair, compressed cranium, and a flat nose. The projection of the lower parts of the face, and the thick lips, evidently approximate it to the monkey tribe; the hordes of which it consists have always remained in the most complete state of utter barbarism.[42]
Cuvier's racial studies held the main features of polygenism, which are as follows:[43]
- Fixity of species
- Strict limits on environmental influence
- Unchanging underlying type
- Anatomical and cranial measurement differences in races
- Physical and mental differences between racial worth
- Human races are all distinct
Prichard
Scientific polygenism became popular in France in the 1820s in response to
Retzius
Anders Retzius, a Swedish professor of anatomy, was a polygenist. Retzius studied many different skull types, and because the skulls were so different he believed that the races had a separate origin.[47]
Later European trends
Polygenist schools arose in the 1830s and 1840s across Europe. The Scottish anatomist and zoologist Robert Knox spent the latter half of his career advocating for polygenism; he argued in his 1850 work The Races of Men that "[r]acial natures ... were unchanging over thousands of years, and were so different that they should be called different species".[48] A colleague of Knox, James Hunt, was also a promoter of polygenism. In 1863, he published an article titled On the Negro's Place in Nature which was posthumously dedicated to Knox. In the controversial article, Hunt supported both polygenism and slavery in the Confederacy.[49]
John Crawfurd, a Scottish physician and colonial administrator, was a polygenist. He studied the geography of where different races were located, and believed that different races had been created separately by God in specific regional zones for climatic circumstance.[50]
American views
Charles Caldwell, born in 1772 and died in 1853, was one of the earliest supporters of polygenism in America. Caldwell attacked the position that environment was the cause of racial differences and argued instead that four races, Caucasian, Mongolian, American Indian, and African, were four different species, created separately by God.[51]
Charles Pickering (naturalist) was a librarian and curator of the Academy of Natural Sciences. In 1843, he traveled to Africa and India to research human races. In 1848, Pickering published Races of Man and Their Geographical Distribution, which enumerated eleven races.
Polygenism came into mainstream scientific thought in America in the mid 19th century with the work of several corresponding natural scientists such as
The archeologist
American Indians supported Morton's conclusions, whilst some white archaeologists supported Morton. Others such as William Pidgeon did not accept Morton's conclusions because at the time some white archaeologists such as Pidgeon could not believe that Native Americans had created the archaeological remains they saw around them; instead William Pidgeon wrote a book called Traditions of Dee-Coo-Dah and Antiquarian Researches in 1858.[55] In the book Pidgeon attempts to prove that a vanished race, culturally superior to and existing earlier than the American Indians, occupied America first and that The Mound Builders were not Native Americans. Pidgeon's book was revealed mostly to be a hoax. The famed archaeologist Theodore H. Lewis later revealed that Pidgeon had fabricated most of his research and distorted much of the rest of it, mapping mounds where none existed and changing the arrangement of existing mound groups to suit his needs.[56] Morton's work gained more support because his work was considered to be evidence of true objective science unlike others such as Pidgeon. Morton won his reputation as the great data-gatherer and objectivist of American Science. Oliver Wendell Holmes praised Morton for "the severe and cautious character" of his works, which "from their very nature are permanent data for all future students of ethnology".[57]
By 1850 Agassiz had developed a unique form of
Unlike Josiah Nott, the slave-owner from Alabama,[61] Agassiz was never a supporter of slavery. He claimed his views had nothing to do with politics.[62]
Effect of evolutionary ideas and debates from the 1860s
The notion that races were separate and came together by hybridism, rather than being variations from a common stock, was cast into doubt with the publication of
Georges Pouchet, the French naturalist and anatomist, was a polygenist. Pouchet made contributions in several scientific fields, and specialised in comparative anatomy of fishes and whales. He was a prime advocate of polygeny, and was the author of an anthropological work titled De la Pluralité des Races Humaines (1858), which was translated into English as The Plurality of the Human Race in 1864 by the Anthropological Society.
John Thurnam with Joseph Barnard Davis published a work in two volumes under the title of Crania Britannica in 1865, important for craniometry. Thurnam and Davis were both believers in polygenism, in the form that different races had been created separately. Davis was a collector of crania, and had over 1700 specimens.[65] Because of the racial differences of the crania, Davis and Thurnam believed that proofs of polygenism were to be found in studying the skull types of different races. Davis also wrote Thesaurus craniorum: catalogue of the skulls of the various races of man (1875).
Although it took many years, polygenism, which required species to be created in specific geographic locations and to remain immutable, has been almost entirely replaced among scientists by Darwin's theory of evolution from a common ancestor. Persistent antagonism to Darwinian theory is today primarily a matter of religious or political viewpoint.[66]
20th Century
At least as late as 1919, the Journal of the American Medical Association published articles that seriously engaged with the possibility that Black and White people might have had separate origins.[67]
Polygenist evolution
Polygenist evolution is the belief that humans evolved independently from separate species of apes. This can be traced back to
Carl Vogt believed that the inhabitants of Africa were related to the ape, and were separate from those of European descent. In Chapter VII of his Lectures of man (1864) he compared both ethnicities, describing them as "two extreme human types". The difference between them, he claimed, are greater than those between two species of ape; and this proves the two are a separate species altogether.[69]
In an unusual blend of contemporary evolutionary thinking and
Before Darwin published his theory of evolution and
In his work The Descent of Man (1871),
Alfred Russel Wallace was also an advocate of polygenist evolution, claiming that the physical differences in races must have occurred at such a remote time in the past before humans had any intelligence, when natural selection was still operative on human bodies. The differentiation into separate races with distinct physical traits must have happened so soon after humans had just appeared on Earth that for all practical purposes all races had always been distinct.[73]
In contrast to most of Darwin's supporters, Ernst Haeckel put forward a doctrine of evolutionary polygenism based on the ideas of the linguist and polygenist August Schleicher, in which several different language groups had arisen separately from speechless prehuman Urmenschen, which themselves had evolved from simian ancestors. These separate languages had completed the transition from animals to man, and, under the influence of each main branch of languages, humans had evolved as separate species, which could be subdivided into races. Haeckel divided human beings into ten races, of which the Caucasian was the highest and the primitives were doomed to extinction.[74]
Haeckel claimed that Africans have stronger and more freely movable toes than any other race, which he interpreted as evidence that members of the race were closely related to apes. Reasoning that apes use their toes to cling tightly to tree branches, Haeckel compared Africans to "four-handed" apes. Haeckel also believed that Blacks were savages and that Whites were significantly more civilized.[69]
Modern religious adherents
- A tenet of Raëlism holds that the different races of humans were created by separate teams of extraterrestrial scientists.[75]
- Several minor Christian groups still embrace Biblical polygenism (pre-Adamism or co-Adamism).[76]
See also
- Historical definitions of race
- Monogenism
- Multiregional origin of modern humans
- Polygenesis (linguistics)
- Nordic Indo-Germanic people
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External links
- "Darwin the liberator: How evolutionary thought undermined the rationale for slavery" Washington Post (February 15, 2009). (Review of book exploring Charles Darwin's opposition to polygenism.)