pithecophobia en · NOUN
Etymology
From pitheco- + phobia. Coined by American zoologist William King Gregory (1876–1970) in an 1927 article in Science (see quotation).
Meanings
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(uncountable) The denial of or a discomfort with the scientific notion that humans evolved from apes.
Anthropocentric pithecophobia has been hypothesized as an influence on late twentieth-century primate classification. Morris Goodman attributed the tendency of anthropologists to continue classifying humans and great apes into the separate families Hominidae and Pongidae […] to an anthropocentric bias.
2016 August, Eric L. Thomas, “Anthropocentric Rhetorical Discourse in Popular Science Writing about Human Evolution”, in Theology and Science, volume 14, number 3, published 22 August 2016, →DOI, page 354:Eliade […] possibly struggled to find a balance between his fascination with antidarwinian evolutionary biology and the outright rejection of evolution for all things human, which ultimately led to his quasi-theological view of an orthogenetic, teleological evolutionary path. As a result, he developed what can be called a sort of peculiar pithecophobia[…].
2016 May, Leonardo Ambasciano, “Mind the (Unbridgeable) Gaps: A Cautionary Tale about Pseudoscientific Distortions and Scientific Misconceptions in the Study of Religion”, in Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, volume 28, number 2, published 11 May 2016, →DOI, pages 162–163:Nevertheless I beg your indulgence for describing a new kind of phobia which is now widely prevalent among the American public. It may be named pithecophobia, or the dread of apes—especially the dread of apes as relatives or ancestors. During the past few years this phobia has become almost pandemic; perhaps we have not yet passed the peak of its incidence, especially in rural communities.
[1927 June 24, William K. Gregory, “Two Views of the Origin of Man”, in Science, volume 65, number 1695, →DOI, page 601:Accordingly this little book can hardly expect much popularity either in Tennessee, where the very idea of evolution is anathema, or in the metropolitan strongholds where pithecophobia is still prevalent and man’s complete superiority to the all too man-like apes is somewhat nervously stressed.
1929, William K. Gregory, “Preface”, in Our Face from Fish to Man, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →OCLC, pages viii–ix: