polygenism

American  

[puh-lij-uh-niz-uhm] / pəˈlɪdʒ əˌnɪz əm /

noun

1. the theory that the human race has descended from two or more ancestral types.

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Other Word Forms

• polygenist noun
• polygenistic adjective

Etymology

Origin of polygenism

First recorded in 1875–80; poly- + -gen(y) + -ism

Example Sentences

Instead, they contended that black and white people were created separately and that black people were inferior, a theory called polygenism.

From New York Times

As Northerners, Agassiz and Morton went out of their way to say that polygenism in no way justified slavery.

From New York Times

For example, polygenism has been an excuse in the past to justify racism and tribal warfare between societies.

From Forbes

Among the biblical questions still being pondered by Catholic scholars is monogenism—the belief in one set of Adam-and-Eve "original parents"—as opposed to polygenism, the theory that evolution to human form occurred in many places at roughly the same time.

From Time Magazine Archive

But Jesuit Francis McCool of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome says that "the scientific evidence for polygenism seems to have increased," and he feels that the theory need not necessarily clash with the Scriptures.

From Time Magazine Archive