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"Thus, America's leading biologist came down firmly on the wrong side of a
debate that had been raging in America for a decade before he arrived: Was
Adam the progenitor of all people or only of white people? Are blacks and
Indians our brothers or merely our look-alikes? The polygenists, Agassiz
among them, held that each major race had been created as a truly separate
species; the monogenists advocated a single origin and ranked races by
their unequal degeneration from the primeval perfection of Eden--the debate
included no egalitarians." Stephen J. Gould "Flaws in a Victorian Veil,"
The Panda's Thumb, p. 170-171
Does anyone know of sources where I can learn more of that debate Gould
speaks of? >>
A good start might be David N. Livingstone's book "Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
and the Culture of American Science" (1987, Univ. of Alabama Press).
Especially relevant is chapter 5 -- Science and Society: A Racial Ideology,
where he discusses the debate you asked about by using N.S. Shaler as an
example. Shaler was a student and colleague of Agassiz at Harvard and
followed Agassiz's lead in also being a polygenist concerning human origins.
All this is involved as part of Shaler's grander attempt to integrate his
natural theology with Darwinian evolution.
Livingstone also gives a number of references, so if he doesn't have what
you're looking for, then his sources might. Also, I don't have it handy but I
wonder if Gould's book "The Mismeasure of Man" might discuss the debate in
more detail.
Karl
Karl V. Evans
cmekve@aol.com