polygenist
- noun
- /ˌpɒlɪˈdʒɛnɪst/
- Archaic
- Like polygenists, monogenists drew on medical science, phrenology, pathology, and the medical gaze to support their theories.
Examples
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The environment proved ineffectual against the force of innate constraints, nor could it influence what many polygenists considered impossible to alter.
Academic text (1996) -
Stories told by polygenists underwrote the expansive ideology of Manifest Destiny.
Academic text (1996) -
Most of the polygenists believed the Indians would never change because they could not.
Academic text (1996) -
In their attack on environmentalism as an agent for change, polygenists denied change itself.
Academic text (1996) -
Most polygenists saw education and philanthropic attempts to civilize Indians as doomed to failure and viewed the impending extinction of the Indian as perhaps tragic but inevitable.
Academic text (1996) -
For Morton and other polygenists of the so-called "American School of Anthropology," not only could the cranium articulate information about the individual, it also spoke "truths" about the individual's race.
Academic text (1996) -
Polygenist theories like Knox's, in contrast, claimed that the races of humankind each derived from a separate origin and that their distinguishing traits were thus innate and possibly unalterable.
Academic text (2007) -
The polygenist argued that human races evolved independently in different environments.
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Many polygenists proposed theories that emphasized the inherent differences among various racial groups.
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In a debate about human origins, the polygenist maintained that evolution had occurred separately for each race.
Surface Forms
Morphology
polygenist = poly + gen + ist
Although the spelling suggests a compositional form, the theory-specific meaning 'a believer in separate human origins' is not readily inferable from the parts by an average learner.
Etymology
Polygenist comes from the Greek parts poly- 'many' and gen (seen in generation or genesis) meaning 'birth' or 'origin'. So a polygenist is a person who believes that human groups have 'many origins' instead of one common origin.