Monogenism

Monogenism or sometimes monogenesis is the theory of human origins which posits a common descent for all humans. The negation of monogenism is polygenism. This issue was hotly debated in the Western world in the nineteenth century, as the assumptions of scientific racism came under scrutiny both from religious groups and in the light of developments in the life sciences and human science. It was integral to the early conceptions of ethnology.

Modern scientific views favor this theory, with the most widely accepted model for human origins being the "Out of Africa" theory.

In the Abrahamic religions

The belief that all humans are descended from Adam is central to traditional Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Christian monogenism played an important role in the development of an African-American literature on race, linked to theology rather than science, up to the time of Martin Delany and his Principia of Ethnology (1879). Scriptural ethnology is a term applied to debate and research on the biblical accounts, both of the early patriarchs and migration after Noah's Flood, to explain the diverse peoples of the world. Monogenism as a Bible-based theory required both the completeness of the narratives and the fullness of their power of explanation. These time-honored debates were sharpened by the rise of polygenist skeptical claims; when Louis Agassiz set out his polygenist views in 1847, they were opposed on biblical grounds by John Bachman, and by Thomas Smyth in his Unity of the Human Races.