The polygenic theory of the races of Samuel George Morton
Since its inception, modern science has formulated different theories about the origin of human beings, as well as several explanations about what makes us different from each other. With the paradigm of the natural sciences that dominated the production of scientific knowledge in the United States and Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, these explanations were strongly focused on finding genetically and biologically predetermined differences within the same species.
This is how one of the theoretical models that until recently dominated a large part of scientific knowledge and that had important repercussions in different spheres of social life was generated: the polygenic theory of races . In this article we will see what this theory is about and what some of its consequences have been in everyday life.
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What does the polygenic theory of races posit?
The polygenic theory of races, also known as polygenism, postulates that from our origins, human beings are genetically differentiated in different races (subdivisions determined biologically within our same species).
These subdivisions would have been created separately, with which each one would have fixed differences from its origin. In this sense, it is a theory opposed to monogenism , that postulates an origin or a unique race for the human species.
The origins of polygenism and intellectual differences
The greatest exponent of polygenism was the American physician Samuel George Morton (1799-1851), who postulated that, as was the case with the animal kingdom, the human race could be divided into subspecies which were later called "races" .
These races would have constituted the humans from their origin, and being a biologically pre-established differential condition, also the study of the anatomical characteristics of each subspecies could account for other intrinsic characteristics, for example, of the intellectual capacities.
Thus, along with the rise of phrenology as an explanation of personality, Morton said that the size of the skull could indicate types or levels of intelligence different for each race. He studied skulls of different people around the world, among which were native American people, as well as African and Caucasian whites.
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From monogenism to the polygenist theory
After having analyzed these bony structures, Morton concluded that blacks and whites were already different from their origins , more than three centuries before these theories. The foregoing supposed a theory contrary to what was accepted at that time, and that lay between biology and Christianity, a theory based on the fact that the entire human species had derived from the same point: the sons of Noah who, according to the biblical account They had arrived only a thousand years before this time.
Morton, still resistant to contradict this story, but later supported by other scientists of the time such as the surgeon Josiah C. Nott and the Egyptologist George Gliddon, concluded that there were intrinsic racial differences to human biology, with which , these differences were from their origins. The latter was called polygenism or polygenic theory of races.
Samuel G. Morton and scientific racism
After stating that each race had a different origin, Morton postulated that intellectual capacities were in descending order and differentiated according to the species in question. Thus, he placed Caucasian whites on the top rung of the hierarchy, and blacks at the bottom, including other groups in the middle.
This theory had its peak a few years before the Civil War began, or the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, and which partly exploded as a result of the history of slavery in that country. The theory of intellectual differences by race, where the highest link is occupied by Caucasian whites and the lowest by blacks, It was quickly used by those who justified and defended slavery .
The results of his investigations not only alluded to intellectual differences. They also made reference to aesthetic characteristics and personality traits, which are more valued in Caucasian whites than in other groups. The latter impacted both the beginnings of the Civil War and the social imaginary of racial superiority / inferiority.Likewise, it had an impact on subsequent scientific research, and on access policies to different areas of public life.
This is why Morton and his theories are recognized as the beginnings of scientific racism, which consists of use scientific theories to legitimize racist practices of discrimination ; what also includes that the scientific theories and investigations themselves are often crossed by important racial biases; as it happened with the postulates of Samuel G. Morton and other doctors of the time.
In other words, the polygenic theory of races is proof of the two processes that make up scientific racism. On the one hand, it exemplifies how scientific research can be easily exploited to legitimize and reproduce stereotypes and conditions of inequality, discrimination or violence towards minorities, in this case racialized. And on the other hand, they are an example of how scientific production is not necessarily neutral, but can hide racist biases that, for that reason, make it easily exploitable.
From the concept of "race" to that of "racialized groups"
As a consequence of the above, and also as a result of the fact that science has been constantly expanding and questioning both its paradigms and its criteria of validity and reliability, Morton's theories are currently discredited. Today the scientific community agrees that it is not possible to sustain scientifically the concept of "race" .
Genetics itself has rejected this possibility. Since the beginning of this century, research has shown that the concept of race lacks a genetic basis, and therefore its scientific basis has been denied.
In any case, it is more convenient to speak of racialized groups, since although the races do not exist, what there is is a constant process of racialization; which consists in legitimizing the structural and daily conditions of inequality towards groups that, due to their phenotypic and / or cultural characteristics, are attributed certain socially devalued skills or values.
Bibliographic references:
- Blue Globe (2018, August 12). Scientific Racism. [Video]. Recovered from //www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaO2YVJqfj4.
- Wade, P, Smedley, A and Takezawa, Y. (2018). Race. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved August 23, 2018. Available at Globo Azul (2018, August 12). Scientific Racism. [Video]. Recovered from //www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaO2YVJqfj4.
- Herce, R. (2014). Monogenism and polygenism. Status Quaestionis, Scripta Theologica, 46: 105-120.
- Sánchez, J.M (2008). Human biology as an ideology. Journal of Theory, History and Foundations of Science, 23 (1): 107-124.
