Race, language, and mental evolution in Darwin's descent of man
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4004501 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stephen G Alter (Gordon College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 239-255 |
| Publication date | 2007-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-5061 • E-ISSN: 1520-6696 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/jhbs.20238 |
| PMID | 17623873 |
| OpenAlex | W2036374216 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 14 |
Charles Darwin was notoriously ambiguous in his remarks about the relationship between human evolution and biological race. He stressed the original unity of the races, yet he also helped to popularize the notion of a racial hierarchy filling the gaps between the highest anthropoids and civilized Europeans. A focus on Darwin's explanation of how humans initially evolved, however, shows that he mainly stressed not hierarchy but a version of humanity's original mental unity. In his book The Descent of Man, Darwin emphasized a substantial degree of mental development (including the incipient use of language) in the early, monogenetic phase of human evolution. This development, he argued, necessarily came before primeval man's numerical increase, geographic dispersion, and racial diversification, because only thus could one explain how that group was able to spread at the expense of rival ape-like populations. This scenario stood opposed to a new evolutionary polygenism formulated in the wake of Darwin's Origin of Species by his ostensible supporters Alfred Russel Wallace and Ernst Haeckel. Darwin judged this outlook inadequate to the task of explaining humanity's emergence. (c) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc
Darwin (ADL) · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Genealogy · Hierarchy · Human evolution · Humanity · Political science · Race (biology) · Sociology · Theology · Anthropology · Evolution and Science Education · Gender Studies · History · Law · Origins and Evolution of Life · Philosophy
Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection
On the Origin of Species
The Idea of Race in Science
Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior
Race, culture, and evolution
Victorian anthropology
The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex
From Savage to Scotsman
"The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from the Theory of "Natural Selection
From 'savage' to 'primitive
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,29 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2025 (17) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |