Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
David N. Livingstone
Queen’s University Belfast
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
Genetics, Genesis and Genealogy
“…all human beings,
despite differences in
external appearance, are
really members of a single
entity that’s had a very
recent origin in one place.
There is a kind of
biological brotherhood
that’s much more profound
than we ever realized”
Stephen Jay Gould
We are all
Africans at the
Y chromosome
level and we
are really all
brothers
Peter Underhill
“the Bible is the
history of OUR
people – the White
people of the race
that loosely we
group under the
term Anglo-Saxon”
Bertrand Comparet
(1901-1983)
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
Genetics, Genesis and Genealogy
Adam’s Ancestors
• Monumental Heresy
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
Genetics, Genesis and Genealogy
Adam’s Ancestors
• Monumental Heresy
• Defenders and Detractors
“… tho’ it be a little
Heterodox, I am
persuaded the black
and white Race
have, ab origine,
sprung from
different-coloured
first Parents”
John Atkins (1735)
“If we admit that such great
varieties can be produced in
the same species as we find
to exist in man, it would be
easy to maintain the
probability that several
species of simiae are but
varieties of the species Man
… And if the argument be
still further extended, almost
all the animal kingdom might
be deduced from one pair,
and be considered as one
family; than which a more
degrading notion certainly
cannot be entertained”
Charles White (1799)
“I must repeat here an observation which I
made in the beginning of this essay … that
the denial of the unity of the human species
tends to impair, if not entirely destroy, the
foundations of duty and morals, and, in a
word, of the whole science of human
nature. No general principles of conduct, or
religion, or even of civil policy could be
derived from natures originally and
essentially different from one another, and,
afterwards, in the perpetual changes of the
world, infinitely mixed and compounded …
But when the whole human race is known
to compose only one species, this
confusion and uncertainty is removed, and
the science of human nature, in all its
relations, becomes susceptible of system.
The principles of morals rest on sure and
immutable foundations”
Samuel Stanhope Smith (1810)
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
Genetics, Genesis and Genealogy
Adam’s Ancestors
• Monumental Heresy
• Defenders and Detractors
• Preadamites as Peacemakers
Some of Lane’s artwork from
Description of Egypt
Edward William Lane
in Turkish costume
“ with magnanimity
and
abnegation… they
generously disclaim
the honour of this
simial relationship,
and benevolently
bestow it upon poor
Quashee”
Thomas Verner Moore
(1852)
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
Genetics, Genesis and Genealogy
Adam’s Ancestors
• Monumental Heresy
• Defenders and Detractors
• Preadamites as Peacemakers
• Darwinian Mutations
“The time arrived, at length, when, under
the law of progressive development, a
grade had been reached nearly on a
level with that of modern civilized man, in
respect to native capacities. Now
appeared the founder of the Adamic
family. His home was in central Asia”
Alexander Winchell
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
Genetics, Genesis and Genealogy
Adam’s Ancestors
• Monumental Heresy
• Defenders and Detractors
• Preadamites as Peacemakers
• Darwinian Mutations
• Preadamism, Fundamentalism and Anti-Evolutionism
Sir Ambrose Fleming
Sir Arthur Keith
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
Genetics, Genesis and Genealogy
Adam’s Ancestors
• Monumental Heresy
• Defenders and Detractors
• Preadamites as Peacemakers
• Darwinian Mutations
• Preadamism, Fundamentalism and Anti-Evolutionism
Wider Domains
• Harmonising Strategies
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
Genetics, Genesis and Genealogy
Adam’s Ancestors
• Monumental Heresy
• Defenders and Detractors
• Preadamites as Peacemakers
• Darwinian Mutations
• Preadamism, Fundamentalism and Anti-Evolutionism
Wider Domains
• Harmonising Strategies
• Cultural Politics
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
Genetics, Genesis and Genealogy
Adam’s Ancestors
• Monumental Heresy
• Defenders and Detractors
• Preadamites as Peacemakers
• Darwinian Mutations
• Preadamism, Fundamentalism and Anti-Evolutionism
Wider Domains
• Harmonising Strategies
• Cultural Politics
Adam’s Long Shadow
ADAM’S LONG SHADOW
“Simply but dramatically put, Adam
has played a crucial part in giving
us science and our selves”
Adam’s Bloodline:
Genesis Race and Human Origins
David N. Livingstone
Queen’s University Belfast