Degeneration Theory
Blumenbach and other monogenists such as Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon were believers in the "degeneration theory" of racial origins. Blumenbach claimed that Adam and Eve were Caucasian (Georgian) and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors such as the sun and poor dieting—for instance, he claimed Negroid pigmentation arose because of the result of the heat of the tropical sun, while the cold wind caused the tawny colour of the Eskimos, and the Chinese were fair skinned compared to the other Asian stocks because they kept mostly in towns protected from environmental factors. He believed that the degeneration could be reversed if proper environmental control was taken and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to the original Caucasian race.
Blumenbach did not consider his "degeneration theory" as racist and sharply criticized Christoph Meiners, an early practitioner of scientific racialism as well as Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring who concluded from autopsies that Africans were an inferior race.
He also wrote three essays claiming non-white peoples are capable of excelling in arts and sciences in reaction against racialists of his time who believed they couldn't.
Read more about this topic: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
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