Doctoral Dissertation: Science, Religion, and the "Unity of Mankind" Debate in America

博士论文：科学、宗教和美国的“人类统一”辩论

• 批准号: 9818182
• 负责人: Ronald Numbers
• 金额: $ 0.8万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-05-01 至 2001-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9818182&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Science; Religion; Unity

Darwinian theories of human evolution top the list of scientific ideas that challenged the thinking of religious Americans in the nineteenth century. The sheer volume of historiography of the Darwinian controversies so monopolizes our understanding of the historical relationship between science and religion that the existence of a heated debate about human origins antedating Origin of Species has all but escaped notice. William Stanton told of the rise of polygenic theory of racial origins many years ago in his The Leopard's Spots. Though he argued that this theory of the separate origins of the various human races or "types of mankind" dominated scientific thinking in the decades before the Civil War, little attention has been paid to polygenism or the controversy around it since Stanton's work. This dissertation research project picks up from Stanton's work and will provide two important correctives to his story. First, it will examine his claim that Protestant Americans found polygenism too contrary to their theology and understanding of the Bible to favor it in any way. The meager evidence Stanton provided cannot support such a broad claim. Further doubt arises from the fact that pre-adamism, a theological twin to science of polygenesis, was used by certain conservative Evangelicals at the end of the century and into the twentieth century to accommodate the growing evidence of human prehistory. Second, Stanton's claim that the rise of Darwinism cut short influence of polygenism has already been questioned by several historians. This study will describe the fortunes of polygenism and its opposition well past the advent of Darwinism. This study will also depart from Stanton's in methodology. He examined the work of the intellectuals. By means of an extensive survey of popular religious periodicals, primarily the weekly religious newspapers, the attempt will be made to assess and describe the "unity" debate as it was understood by lay people. Polygenism not only challenged their conventional views on religion and the Bible, but it also bore on some of the most critical social issues of the day, slavery and the "Indian" issue, and thus was not contained within an intramural scientific dispute. Because the weekly newspapers targeted specific readers this approach will reveal the responses of blacks, whites, and natives Americans, northerners and southerners, Jews, Catholics, Protestants and their various denominational flavors. The objective is to understand what happened to polygenic race theory within popular religious culture both before and after the rise of Darwinism.

达尔文的人类进化理论在19世纪挑战美国宗教思想的科学思想中名列前茅。关于达尔文主义争论的大量史学著作垄断了我们对科学与宗教之间历史关系的理解，以至于在《物种起源》出版之前就存在着一场关于人类起源的激烈辩论，几乎没有引起人们的注意。威廉·斯坦顿在他的《豹子的斑点》一书中讲述了多年前种族起源的多基因理论的兴起。尽管斯坦顿认为，在南北战争前的几十年里，各种人类或“人类类型”的不同起源理论主导了科学思想，但自从斯坦顿的工作以来，人们很少关注多基因论或围绕多基因论的争议。本论文的研究项目从斯坦顿的工作中选取，并将提供两个重要的纠正他的故事。首先，它将检验他的说法，即新教美国人发现多基因论与他们的神学和对圣经的理解相抵触，因此不会以任何方式支持多基因论。斯坦顿提供的微弱证据不能支持如此宽泛的主张。更进一步的怀疑来自于这样一个事实，即前亚当论是多生论的神学双胞胎，在19世纪末和20世纪被某些保守的福音派教徒用来适应越来越多的人类史前证据。其次，斯坦顿声称达尔文主义的兴起缩短了多基因现象的影响，这一说法已经受到了几位历史学家的质疑。本研究将描述多基因论的命运和它的反对，早在达尔文主义出现之后。本研究也将在方法论上偏离斯坦顿。他检查了知识分子的工作。通过对大众宗教期刊，主要是宗教周报的广泛调查，将试图评估和描述外行人所理解的“合一”辩论。多基因论不仅挑战了他们对宗教和圣经的传统看法，而且还涉及当时一些最关键的社会问题，如奴隶制和“印第安人”问题，因此不属于内部科学争论的范围。由于周报针对特定的读者，这种方法将揭示黑人、白人和美国原住民、北方人和南方人、犹太人、天主教徒、新教徒及其各种教派的反应。目的是了解在达尔文主义兴起之前和之后，多基因种族理论在流行宗教文化中发生了什么。