Charles Darwin and the abolition of slavery

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In short, when Darwin began his Notebooks on the origin of species it appeared that the racial debates were going to be won by the polygenist camp, with the help of science. The only arguments in favor of "common descent" were from the bible. But the bible was no longer credible in the Age of Science. Appeals to a mythical Adam and Eve were just not persuasive to scientists waving tables of hard data on cranial measurements. Polygenesis was scientific and empirical. Monogenesis was superstitious and mythical.

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The Origin was published during a time when scientific racism was on the rise and Origin was the work that decisively demolished polygenist thinking in favor of "common descent."

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