Polygenesis, Monogenesis, and Racism
Are all people the same?
I was inspired to write this after I saw a Twitter discourse about evolutionary biology justifying racism. The user’s argument is made clear by the image attached to their tweet:
Belief in Darwinian evolution obviously does not make one racist, yet it absolutely has racist implications that most of its adherents pretend do not exist. Belief in Darwinian evolution does make condemning racism impossible. To understand what this Twitter user was getting at, we need to understand polygenesis, monogenesis, and racism.
… [Darwinian evolution] absolutely has racist implications…
What is the difference between polygenesis and monogenesis?
Genesis is a word that refers to the creation of humanity (that is why the book of the Bible that details the creation of humanity is called Genesis).
Hopefully, we know what the prefixes mono- and poly- mean (in case you do not know, mono- means one and poly- means multiple). Monogenesis is the idea that all humans originated from one singular point (e.g., all people come from God); there is one (mono-) point of origin (genesis) for the human species. Polygenesis is the idea that humans have many different origins (e.g., White people originate in Europe while Black people originate in Africa); there are many (poly-) points of origin (genesis) for the human species. Obviously, these ideas contradict one another.
To be clear, the examples used to demonstrate polygenesis and monogenesis are not comprehensive. God theoretically could have made different kinds of people in different places, which would for all intents and purposes be polygenesis. Maybe all people did originate together (likely in Africa) and Darwinian evolution produced only cosmetic differences between different peoples.
Belief in Darwinian evolution does not technically require a belief in polygenesis. However, Darwinian evolution does get one right up to the precipice of polygenesis, and almost none of its adherents even notice the giant chasm they are about to step into.
What is so bad about polygenesis?
Polygenesis justifies racism, plain and simple.12 If the origins of people are as separate from one another as they are from any other creature then people are as equal to each other as they are to any other animal or living thing.
Adolf Hitler’s racial were extreme, but they were far from original. So-called intellectuals of the 19th and 20th centuries used so-called science to explain that races had real and significant differences between them, and that there was a hierarchy of races. Genocide and oppression are reasonable responses when people are as different as cats and dogs.
Interbreeding is evidence of nothing
Some readers may be thinking: “People obviously are not as different as cats and dogs, because people of different races can make more people!” This is obvious nonsense. The conclusion is correct, but being right for the wrong reasons is hardly being right.
Different species of animals interbreed all the time, and many of those hybrids can produce their own offspring. Biracial or multiracial people, under the view of polygenesis, are hybrids from the different races of people. Sometimes, totally different animals can produce offspring together, why could races not be the same?
People of all races can produce fertile offspring, yes, so can animals of different species, genus, or even families.
Darwinian evolution, polygenesis, and racism
The common narrative is that modern humans came out of Africa and began our global spread sometime between fifty- and one-hundred-thousand years ago. As recently as 500 years ago this spread continued when the Māori reached New Zealand. European colonization was the culmination of this global spread of humanity, as now the whole world has been mapped, and almost no piece of land is uninhabited.
Although all humans share African ancestors, White people did not leave Africa and all agree to settle in Europe, Indo-Aryans and Dravidians did not leave Africa and agree to settle in India, Arabs did not leave Africa and agree to settle in the middle east, Polynesians did not leave Africa and agree to settle in the Pacific, nor did Mississippian people leave Africa and agree to settle in North America. When humans left Africa, the races that they would become did not yet exist.
The different races of the world evolved only after leaving Africa. Given the origin point of humans is believed to be in the Horn of Africa, presumably all people were initially Black. Only after exiting Africa did people evolve pale skin or the ability to drink milk.34 The distinct eye shape shared by East Asians and others evolved only after humans exited Africa.56 Malarial resistance evolved in Africans only after people had already spread to the New World.7 The discrepancies between people that we call race only appeared after people came out of Africa.
Different races of people evolved into existence all around the world at the same time. This is the polygenesis of different races of people being created in different parts of the world.
How to subscribe to evolution and avoid racism
Declaring that race is merely a social construct and is therefore inconsequential shows only that one has never even considered what makes racism wrong. As discussed in my previous article, race is real; social constructs, like race, are still real things. One’s race is inconsequential, but not because it is a social construct.
Remember that Darwinian evolution requires neither polygenesis nor racism. Many proponents of evolution would argue the exact opposite, that Darwinian evolution necessitates monogenesis.
Reconciling evolution & monogenesis
Some readers have likely been screaming at their screens: “the monogenesis is in Africa! You literally said it when you said…”
…modern humans came out of Africa and began our global spread sometime between fifty- and one-hundred-thousand years ago.
Those readers would contend that all humans sharing one origin in Africa is monogenesis. This is a perfectly reasonable position, so long as one is willing to admit that all life on Earth shares a monogenesis. Darwinian evolution implies, and leading scientists mostly agree, that all life on Earth came from one common ancestor.
While it is perfectly reasonable to deny that Darwinian evolution necessitates polygenesis, doing so gives monogenesis exactly the same problem as polygenesis: what distinguishes people from animals - or even any other living organism?
If one can produce an answer to that question, avoiding racism is at least possible.
So What?
The meme posted to Twitter was the strawman version of this argument. The fair takeaway is that believers in Darwinian evolution cannot hold racism in and of itself to be evil or immoral. Evolved differences between the races is a perfectly reasonable take to have if one believes in evolution; perhaps it is not the best or most reasonable position, but it is a reasonable position.
Exasperation or accusation of immorality because of racism does nothing to deter thinking followers of Darwinian evolution from following the path of racism. I have mentioned several ways to square evolution and non-racism in this article; I outlined another simple way to argue against racism in the So What? section of my previous writing.
People are only nominally (taxonomically) animals. In every sense that matters, humans are not animals. Humans are endowed by their creator (natural or supernatural) with inalienable rights that animals cannot possess. Each individual person has infinite moral worth while animals in-and-of-themselves have little to no moral worth.
None of this is a concern without a belief in evolution. Only without a belief in evolution is condemnation of racism is reasonable.
Caspari, R. (2018). Polygenism. In The International Encyclopedia of Biological Anthropology (eds W. Trevathan, M. Cartmill, D. Dufour, C. Larsen, D. O?Rourke, K. Rosenberg and K. Strier). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118584538.ieba0579
Hedrick, P.W. Resistance to malaria in humans: the impact of strong, recent selection. Malar J 11, 349 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-11-349