The Study of Racialism

fwsweet · Last edited by fwsweet on Thu 29 Nov 2007 14:19; edited 2 times in total

A Brief History of the "Race" Notion in Science

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

[music by George F. Root (1820-1895), lyrics by C. Herbert Woolston (1856-1927)]

The above children's hymn, by one of the most successful composers of the mid-19th century and his favorite lyricist, captures the simplicity of human classification as of the U.S. Civil War. It was a time when science had apparently solved the puzzle of subdividing our species into groups. The 16th- and 17th-century debate whether Native Americans were even human (having souls) had been put to rest by the Church. And the 17th- and 18th-century squabbles over each group's rank within the Great Chain of Being had been resolved by Darwin. As of 1865, educated people knew that there were just four "races," as named in the song.

Unfortunately, the period of simplicity did not endure. As data poured in from what are today Polynesia, Australia, Papua-New Guinea, northern Siberia, India and Pakistan, the need for replicable objectivity in classification forced scientists to add more and more "races" to the list. By the end of the 19th century the distinct identified "races" numbered in the dozens, with no end in sight.

Part of the problem was that most 19th-century scientists did not distinguish between learned cultural traits and hereditary physical traits. It may be an exaggeration to say that they believed that language and religion were genetic, but there is no doubt that they saw little contradiction in the phrase, "cats beget kittens, dogs beget puppies, and Muslims parents beget Muslim children." The confusion was resolved around the turn of the 20th century when Franz Boas (1858-1952) convincingly showed that adopted children learn their parents' cultural traits, regardless of actual heredity. (To which the New York Times book reviewer famously replied that Boas's book was "the desperate attempt of a Jew to pass himself off as white.") From then on, cultural anthropologists abandoned the "race" notion and it became the province of physical anthropology.

As physical anthropologists re-thought the "race" notion, it soon became clear that, before anyone could suggest how many "races" there actually were (between the song's four and the dozens identified by 1900), scientists had to agree on an objective way of measuring "racial" differences. The traits used by popular culture (skin tone, hair kinkiness, etc.) were clearly invalid because any possible combination of such traits was easily disproved as internally inconsistent. The solution? By the 1930s, anthropologists had settled on the only measure that offered a hope of replicable objectivity: craniofacial anthropometry (specific, methodical measurements of certain bones of the skull). At that point, science parted from the popular mythology enshrined in U.S. laws, never to rejoin.

By the 1950s, three trends had begun to weaken craniofacial anthropometry's grip on the scientific community. First, it became increasingly evident that, while craniofacial anthropometry was more objective and replicable than any other way of measuring a person's "race," its results were so counterintuitive as to make science appear ridiculous in the public mind. For instance, craniofacial anthropometry proves beyond any doubt that the inhabitants of Chad, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Somalia are true Caucasians, while the Bushmen of South Africa have Asiatic skulls.

The second problem faced by the new science of classification by skull-bones was that there was no clear cut-off as to what was a "race" and what was simply a regional variation. This soon led to a replay of the proliferation of dozens of "races" that had happened in the 19th century. By 1939, the greatest U.S. craniofacial antropometrist of all time, Carleton S. Coon (1904–1981) had showed unequivocally that there were over a dozen "races" inhabiting Europe alone.

The third trend that ended this period was that an increasing number of physical anthropologists, led by Ashley Montague (1905-1999) argued that the entire effort to classify humans objectively was doomed. They showed that when you come down to it, barring trivial differences among the extended families best called "regional populations," all members of our species are as alike as peas in a pod.

Finally, the decoding of the human genome ended the well-intentioned effort once and for all. It showed without doubt that all humans alive today descend from a population numbering in the mere thousands, or tens of thousands, that survived near-extinction about 100 kya. It also showed that everyone outside of Africa descends from a few hundred individuals who emigrated from Africa about 75 kya. Quite simply, there has not been nearly enough time for humans to have evolved any but the most superficial regionally varying differences.

Today, anthropologists are united in trying to undo the errors of the past. Educational efforts (see, for example, the American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race") focus on teaching that the "race" notion was just one of those scientific theories (like phlogiston and the aether) that simply did not pan out. Old habits die hard, however. U.S. popular culture, as enshrined in the nation's laws, continues frozen in a time-warp from 1865. And the efforts of scientists to educate the public are opposed by politicians who, knowing what the public wants, accuse the scientists of being trying to be "politically correct."

Well, there you have it. For decades, as evidenced by every current college-level introductory anthropology text without exception, anthropologists have been trying to inform a willfully ignorant public that the "race" notion just did not work. It is to be hoped that members of this discussion group will try to avoid bringing it back from its well-deserved grave.

William · Posted: Mon 27 Nov 2006 19:18 Post subject:

OTHER

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OTHER

fwsweet · Last edited by fwsweet on Thu 03 Jan 2008 19:07; edited 1 time in total

William · Posted: Thu 03 Jan 2008 16:38 Post subject:

Where were you, OTHER, 20+ years ago, when I was in high school?! I wish I'd had a teacher like you. My teachers in the science fields always wanted us students to follow what was in the textbooks exactly (despite contradictions), and didn't encourage the students to think critically. I'm ashamed to say I didn't really begin doing this until college, and I didn't get into it fully until I began to research things I was interested in on my own. After becoming acquainted with Frank's articles (which reflect critical thinking) on Interracial Voice, and then his posts on the ODR forum, this way of thinking became an indestructible part of me, and now I think critically about nearly everything. I no longer accept something as fact merely because expert so-and-so said so, but will review the evidence myself, if it is available.

OTHER

OTHER · Posted: Thu 03 Jan 2008 19:32 Post subject:

OTHER · Posted: Thu 03 Jan 2008 19:34 Post subject:

sagascend · Moderator Joined: 17 Jun 2006 {Posts: 2087 }

William · Posted: Thu 03 Jan 2008 20:12 Post subject:

I, too, was unaware of the sponge experiment. That is fantastic! That certainly does illustrate the point that our classifications exist in our heads, only.

I recall overhearing a conversation in a restaurant between two individuals on the layers of the atmosphere. The one individual commented on the discrepancies in various sources. He mentioned that some say there are the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere; others add an exosphere at the level closest to outer space; still others insert an ionosphere in between, sometimes omitting one or two of the central layers. He wanted clarification from his friend, who seemed like a professor. His friend replied by saying something like, "There is really only one atmosphere. Where we draw the lines to subdivide it is up to us, if we feel the need to subdivide it at all."

The same could be said of the discrepancies in sources as to whether or not there is an Antarctic Ocean. For that matter, we could ask the same question about the universally accepted oceans, as actually, there is really just one giant ocean. But the subdivisions are useful to us. We must, however, realize that they are solely our creations.

OTHER · Posted: Thu 03 Jan 2008 20:22 Post subject: