What is "polygenism"

Polygenism \Po*lyg"e*nism\ (p[-o]*l[i^]j"[-e]*n[i^]z'm), n. [Cf. F. polyg['e]nisme.] (Biol.) The doctrine that animals of the same species have sprung from more than one original pair.

n. (context ethnology English) The belief that humans descended from more than one ancestral pair.

Polygenism is a theory of human origins positing that the human races are of different origins (polygenesis). This is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no longer favor this model, with the monogenic "Out of Africa" theory being the most widely accepted model for human origins.