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名列前茅。达尔文争议的历史编纂如此之多，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》之前存在着关于人类起源的激烈辩论，但却没有引起注意。威廉·斯坦顿（William Stanton）在他的《豹子的斑点》（The Leopard's Spots）中讲述了多年前种族起源的多基因理论的兴起。虽然他认为这种不同人种或“人类类型”的独立起源理论在内战前的几十年里主导了科学思想，但自从斯坦顿的工作以来，很少有人关注多基因论或围绕它的争议。 本论文的研究项目从斯坦顿的工作，并将提供两个重要的更正他的故事。首先，它将审查他的主张，即新教美国人发现多种族主义太违背他们的神学和圣经的理解，以任何方式赞成它。斯坦顿提供的微薄证据无法支持如此广泛的主张。进一步的怀疑来自于这样一个事实，即前亚当主义，一个神学孪生兄弟的科学的多起源，是由某些保守的福音派在世纪结束时，并进入20世纪世纪，以适应越来越多的证据，人类史前。其次，斯坦顿声称达尔文主义的兴起缩短了多基因论的影响，这一说法已经受到了几位历史学家的质疑。这项研究将描述多基因论的命运和它的反对以及过去的达尔文主义的出现。本研究在方法论上也与斯坦顿的研究有所不同。他考察了知识分子的工作。通过对流行的宗教期刊，主要是每周宗教报纸的广泛调查，将试图评估和描述“团结”的辩论，因为它是由外行人理解。多基因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，因此不属于内部科学争议。由于周报针对特定的读者，这种方法将揭示黑人，白人和美国土著人，北方人和南方人，犹太人，天主教徒，新教徒和他们的各种民族风味的反应。目的是了解在达尔文主义兴起之前和之后，流行宗教文化中的多基因种族理论发生了什么。

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.