Why Have We Unlearned What We Knew in 1900?
Why Have We Unlearned What We Knew in 1900?
Some years ago evolutionary psychologist J. Philippe Rushton asked me, as a historian, the following question:
Why have modern historians ‘unlearned’ so much that was known and understood in 1900? Why has knowledge about the evolutionary basis of race regressed while the understanding of other matters has increased?
I did not have a good answer at the time, but I’d like to try again. Let me begin with a brief summary of the prevailing wisdom of 1900. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859, and by 1900 his theory of evolution had become the dominant opinion in academic and scientific circles. In 1900, most scholars understood evolution in terms of the sub-title of Darwin’s book: The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.[1]
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