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

达尔文的人类进化论在19世纪挑战美国宗教思想的科学思想中位居榜首。达尔文主义争议的大量史学专著垄断了我们对科学和宗教之间历史关系的理解，以至于关于人类起源、物种起源的激烈辩论的存在几乎逃过了人们的注意。许多年前，威廉·斯坦顿在他的著作《豹的斑点》中讲述了种族起源多基因理论的兴起。尽管他认为，在南北战争之前的几十年里，这种关于不同人类种族或“人类类型”的不同起源的理论主导了科学思维，但自斯坦顿的工作以来，很少有人关注多基因或围绕多基因的争议。这篇论文的研究项目摘自斯坦顿的作品，并将对他的故事提供两个重要的更正。首先，它将审查他的说法，即新教美国人发现一元论与他们的神学和对圣经的理解太背道而驰，不能以任何方式支持它。斯坦顿提供的微不足道的证据不能支持如此广泛的说法。进一步的怀疑产生于这样一个事实，即前亚达米德教，神学的多起源科学的孪生兄弟，是由某些保守的福音派在世纪末和二十世纪使用，以适应人类史前历史的日益增长的证据。其次，斯坦顿声称达尔文主义的兴起削弱了多基因主义的影响，这一说法已经受到了几位历史学家的质疑。这项研究将描述在达尔文主义出现之后很久以前多基因现象及其对立的命运。这项研究也将在方法论上背离斯坦顿的观点。他考察了知识分子的工作。通过对流行的宗教期刊，主要是宗教周报的广泛调查，将试图评估和描述普通人所理解的“团结”辩论。一元论不仅挑战了他们对宗教和圣经的传统观点，而且还涉及到当时一些最关键的社会问题，如奴隶制和“印第安人”问题，因此没有被限制在内部的科学争端中。由于周报针对的是特定的读者，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、新教徒的反应及其不同的教派风格。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的宗教文化中发生了什么。

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.