Scientific racism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
| Revision as of 14:51, 30 June 2020 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) ← Previous diff |
Current revision Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| + | {| class="toccolours" style="float: left; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5" | ||
| + | | style="text-align: left;" | | ||
| + | |||
| + | "As many schools of anthropology, as many divisions of human beings."--''[[Le Préjugé des races]]'' (1905) by Jean Finot | ||
| + | <hr> | ||
| + | "The term "[[scientific racism]]" is generally used pejoratively as applied to more modern theories, as in ''[[The Bell Curve]]'' (1994). Critics argue that such works postulate racist conclusions unsupported by available evidence such as a connection between [[race and intelligence]]."--Sholem Stein | ||
| + | |} | ||
| {{Template}} | {{Template}} | ||
| - | '''Scientific racism''' might refer to either [[obsolete scientific theories]] of the [[19th century]] or to historical and contemporary racist propaganda disguised as scientific research. However, both senses of the word sometimes overlap. | ||
| + | '''Scientific racism''', sometimes termed '''biological racism''', is a [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify [[racism]] (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or [[racial superiority]]. Historically, scientific racism received credence throughout the scientific community, but it is no longer considered scientific. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Scientific racism employs [[anthropology]] (notably [[physical anthropology]]), [[anthropometry]], [[craniometry]], and other disciplines or pseudo-disciplines, in proposing anthropological [[typology (anthropology)|typologies]] supporting the [[Historical definitions of race|classification of human populations]] into physically discrete human races, that might be asserted to be superior or inferior. Scientific racism was common during the period from [[17th century|1600s]] to the end of [[World War II]]. Since the second half of the 20th century, scientific racism has been criticized as obsolete and discredited, yet historically has persistently been used to support or validate racist world-views, based upon belief in the existence and significance of racial categories and a hierarchy of superior and inferior races. | ||
| + | |||
| + | After the end of World War II, scientific racism in theory and action was formally denounced, especially in [[UNESCO]]'s early [[Scientific anti-racism|antiracist]] statement "[[The Race Question]]" (1950): "The biological fact of race and the myth of 'race' should be distinguished. For all practical social purposes 'race' is not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth. The myth of 'race' has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years, it has taken a heavy toll in human lives, and caused untold suffering". Such "biological fact" has not reached a consensus as developments in [[human evolutionary genetics]] showed that human genetic differences are often gradual. | ||
| + | |||
| + | The term "scientific racism" is generally used pejoratively as applied to more modern theories, as in ''[[The Bell Curve]]'' (1994). Critics argue that such works postulate racist conclusions unsupported by available evidence such as a connection between [[race and intelligence]]. Publications such as the ''[[Mankind Quarterly]]'', founded explicitly as a "race-conscious" journal, are generally regarded as platforms of scientific racism for publishing articles on fringe interpretations of [[human evolution]], [[intelligence (trait)|intelligence]], [[ethnography]], [[language]], [[mythology]], [[archaeology]], and race subjects. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Antecedents== | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Enlightenment thinkers=== | ||
| + | During the [[Age of Enlightenment]] (an era from the 1650s to the 1780s), concepts of [[monogenism]] and [[polygenism]] became popular, though they would only be systematized epistemologically during the 19th century. [[Monogenism]] contends that all races have a single origin, while [[polygenism]] is the idea that each race has a separate origin. Until the 18th century, the words "race" and "species" were interchangeable. | ||
| ==See also== | ==See also== | ||
| - | * [[Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol]] (1847–1920, authored a booklet on "[[race and intelligence]]", inspirator of the [[Iron Guard]]) | + | * ''[[American Renaissance (magazine)|American Renaissance]]'' |
| - | * [[Albert Einstein's brain]] | + | |
| - | * [[American Renaissance (magazine)]], a monthly racialist magazine | + | |
| * [[Biological determinism]] | * [[Biological determinism]] | ||
| - | * [[Drapetomania]] | + | * [[Environmental determinism]] |
| - | * [[Eugenics]] | + | |
| * [[Institute for the Study of Academic Racism]] | * [[Institute for the Study of Academic Racism]] | ||
| - | * [[Mitochondrial DNA]] | + | * ''[[IQ and Global Inequality]]'' |
| + | * [[Italian Fascism and racism]] | ||
| + | * [[Italian racial laws]] | ||
| * [[Nazism and race]] | * [[Nazism and race]] | ||
| + | * [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany]] | ||
| * [[Pioneer Fund]] | * [[Pioneer Fund]] | ||
| - | * [[Psychometrics]] | ||
| * [[Race and genetics]] | * [[Race and genetics]] | ||
| - | * [[Race and intelligence]] | + | * ''[[Superior: The Return of Race Science]]'' |
| - | * [[Science Wars]] | + | * ''[[The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution]]''}} |
| - | * [[Melanin Theory]] | + | |
| * [[Scientific racism in the work of Carl Linnaeus]] | * [[Scientific racism in the work of Carl Linnaeus]] | ||
| - | |||
| - | [[Carl Linnaeus]] (1707–1778), the Swedish physician, botanist, and zoologist, modified the established [[Taxonomy (biology)|taxonomic]] bases of [[binomial nomenclature]] for fauna and flora, and also made a classification of humans into different subgroups. In the twelfth edition of ''[[Systema Naturae]]'' (1767), he labeled five "''[[Variety (botany)|varieties]]''" of human species. | ||
| - | Each one was described as possessing the following physiognomic characteristics ''"varying by culture and place"'': | ||
| - | * The ''Americanus'': red, choleric, righteous; black, straight, thick hair; stubborn, zealous, free; painting himself with red lines, and regulated by customs. | ||
| - | * The ''[[Ethnic groups in Europe|Europeanus]]'': white, sanguine, browny; with abundant, long hair; blue eyes; gentle, acute, inventive; covered with close vestments; and governed by laws. | ||
| - | * The ''Asiaticus'': yellow, melancholic, stiff; black hair, dark eyes; severe, haughty, greedy; covered with loose clothing; and ruled by opinions. | ||
| - | * The ''Afer'' or ''Africanus'': black, phlegmatic, relaxed; black, frizzled hair; silky skin, flat nose, tumid lips; females without shame; mammary glands give milk abundantly; crafty, sly, lazy, cunning, lustful, careless; anoints himself with grease; and governed by caprice. | ||
| - | * The ''Monstrosus'' were mythologic humans which did not appear in the first editions of ''Systema Naturae.'' The sub-species included the "four-footed, mute, hairy" ''Homo feralis'' (''Feral man''); the animal-reared ''Juvenis lupinus hessensis'' (Hessian [[Feral child|wolf boy]]), the ''Juvenis hannoveranus'' ([[Peter the Wild Boy|Hannoverian boy]]), the ''Puella campanica'' ([[Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc|Wild-girl of Champagne]]), and the agile, but faint-hearted ''Homo monstrosus'' (''Monstrous man''): the [[Patagon|Patagonian giant]], the Dwarf of the Alps, and the [[monorchid]] [[Khoikhoi]] (Hottentot). In ''Amoenitates academicae'' (1763), Linnaeus presented the [[mythology|mythologic]] ''Homo anthropomorpha'' (''Anthropomorphic man''), humanoid creatures, such as the [[Troglodytae|troglodyte]], the [[satyr]], the [[Lernaean Hydra|hydra]], and the [[phoenix (mythology)|phoenix]], incorrectly identified as [[Ape|simian]] creatures. | ||
| - | |||
| - | There are disagreements about the basis for Linnaeus' human taxa. On the one hand, his harshest critics say the classification was not only ethnocentric but seemed to be based upon skin-color. Renato G Mazzolini have argued the skin-colour based classification at its core were a white/black polarity, and that Linnaeus thinking became paradigmatic for later racist thinking. On the other hand, Quintyn (2010) points out that some authors believe the classification was based upon geographical distribution, being cartographically based, and not hierarchical. In the opinion of Kenneth A.R. Kennedy (1976), Linnaeus certainly considered his own culture better, but his motives for classification of human varieties were not race-centered. | ||
| - | |||
| - | Kenneth A.R. Kennedy (1976), "Human Variation in Space and Time". Wm. C. Brown Company, p. 25. Kennedy writes that while ''"Linnaeus was the first to use biological traits as a basis for further subdivisions of the species into varieties. It would be unfair to ascribe racist motives to this effort."'' | ||
| - | |||
| - | Paleontologist [[Stephen Jay Gould]] (1994) argued that the taxa was ''"not in the ranked order favored by most Europeans in the racist tradition"'', and that Linnaeus' division was influenced by the medical [[Humorism|theory of humors]] which said that a person's temperament may be related to biological fluids. In a 1997 essay, Gould added: "I don't mean to deny that Linnaeus held conventional beliefs about the superiority of his own European variety over others...nevertheless, and despite these implications, the overt geometry of Linnaeus' model is not linear or heirarchical." | ||
| - | |||
| - | In an 2008 essay published by the [[Linnean Society of London]], Marie-Christine Skuncke interpreted Linnaeus' statements as reflecting a view that ''"Europeans' superiority resides in "[[culture]]"'', and that the decisive factor in Linnaeus' taxa was "culture", ''not'' race. Thus, regarding this topic, they consider Linnaeus' view as merely "[[eurocentric]]", arguing that Linnaeus never called for racist action, and did not use the word "race", which was only introduced later "by his French opponent [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Buffon]]". | ||
| - | |||
| - | However, the anthropologist [[Ashley Montagu]], in his book ''Man's Most Dangerous Myth: the Fallacy of Race'', points out that Buffon, indeed "the enemy of all rigid classifications," was diametrically opposed to such broad categories and did not use the word "race" to describe them. "It was quite clear, after reading Buffon, that he uses the word in no narrowly defined, but rather in a general sense," wrote Montagu, pointing out that Buffon did employ the French word ''la race'', but as a collective term for whatever population he happened to be discussing at the time: for instance, "The Danish, Swedish, and Muscovite Laplanders, the inhabitants of Nova-Zembla, the Borandians, the Samoiedes, the Ostiacks of the old continent, the Greenlanders, and the savages to the north of the Esquimaux Indians, of the new continent, appear to be of one common race." | ||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | Scholar Stanley A. Rice agrees that Linnaeus' classification was not meant to "imply a hierarchy of humanness or superiority"; although modern critics see that his classification was obviously [[stereotype]]d, and erroneous for having included [[anthropological]], non-biological features such as customs or [[tradition]]s. | ||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Current revision
|
"As many schools of anthropology, as many divisions of human beings."--Le Préjugé des races (1905) by Jean Finot "The term "scientific racism" is generally used pejoratively as applied to more modern theories, as in The Bell Curve (1994). Critics argue that such works postulate racist conclusions unsupported by available evidence such as a connection between race and intelligence."--Sholem Stein |
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is a pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority. Historically, scientific racism received credence throughout the scientific community, but it is no longer considered scientific.
Scientific racism employs anthropology (notably physical anthropology), anthropometry, craniometry, and other disciplines or pseudo-disciplines, in proposing anthropological typologies supporting the classification of human populations into physically discrete human races, that might be asserted to be superior or inferior. Scientific racism was common during the period from 1600s to the end of World War II. Since the second half of the 20th century, scientific racism has been criticized as obsolete and discredited, yet historically has persistently been used to support or validate racist world-views, based upon belief in the existence and significance of racial categories and a hierarchy of superior and inferior races.
After the end of World War II, scientific racism in theory and action was formally denounced, especially in UNESCO's early antiracist statement "The Race Question" (1950): "The biological fact of race and the myth of 'race' should be distinguished. For all practical social purposes 'race' is not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth. The myth of 'race' has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years, it has taken a heavy toll in human lives, and caused untold suffering". Such "biological fact" has not reached a consensus as developments in human evolutionary genetics showed that human genetic differences are often gradual.
The term "scientific racism" is generally used pejoratively as applied to more modern theories, as in The Bell Curve (1994). Critics argue that such works postulate racist conclusions unsupported by available evidence such as a connection between race and intelligence. Publications such as the Mankind Quarterly, founded explicitly as a "race-conscious" journal, are generally regarded as platforms of scientific racism for publishing articles on fringe interpretations of human evolution, intelligence, ethnography, language, mythology, archaeology, and race subjects.
Antecedents
Enlightenment thinkers
During the Age of Enlightenment (an era from the 1650s to the 1780s), concepts of monogenism and polygenism became popular, though they would only be systematized epistemologically during the 19th century. Monogenism contends that all races have a single origin, while polygenism is the idea that each race has a separate origin. Until the 18th century, the words "race" and "species" were interchangeable.
See also
- American Renaissance
- Biological determinism
- Environmental determinism
- Institute for the Study of Academic Racism
- IQ and Global Inequality
- Italian Fascism and racism
- Italian racial laws
- Nazism and race
- Racial policy of Nazi Germany
- Pioneer Fund
- Race and genetics
- Superior: The Return of Race Science
- The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution}}
- Scientific racism in the work of Carl Linnaeus
