ABSTRACT
A duality of thought in the study of physical anthropology can be traced to the 18th century in the works of the Count de Buffon and Carolas Linnaeus. Both were interested in the works of Nature; but the former was interested in describing and explaining it; while the latter was interested principally in classifying it. This approach carried over into their studies of human variation: Buffon described it and invented a theory of microevolution to explain it; while Linnaeus classified humans into subspecies. This duality of thought remains into the 20th century, when, largely due to the reaction against Carleton Coon’s 1962 book, physical anthropology moved from a “Linnaean” to a “Buffonian” approach to human variation.
