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Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism ( racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or
racial superiority Supremacism is the belief that a certain group of people is superior to all others. The supposed superior people can be defined by age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, language, social class, ideology, nation, culture ...
.. "Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within." Historically, scientific racism received credence throughout the scientific community, but it is no longer considered scientific. The division of humankind into biologically distinct groups, and the attribution of specific traits both physical and mental to them by constructing and applying corresponding explanatory models, i.e. racial theories, is sometimes called racialism, race realism, or race science by its proponents. Modern scientific consensus rejects this view as being irreconcilable with modern
genetic research Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar working i ...
.Templeton, A. (2016). EVOLUTION AND NOTIONS OF HUMAN RACE. In Losos J. & Lenski R. (Eds.), ''How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society'' (pp. 346–361). Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. . That this view reflects the consensus among American anthropologists is stated in: See also: Scientific racism misapplies, misconstrues, or distorts
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
(notably
physical anthropology Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
),
anthropometry Anthropometry () refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various atte ...
,
craniometry Craniometry is measurement of the cranium (the main part of the skull), usually the human cranium. It is a subset of cephalometry, measurement of the head, which in humans is a subset of anthropometry, measurement of the human body. It is disti ...
, evolutionary biology, and other disciplines or pseudo-disciplines, in proposing anthropological typologies supporting the classification of human populations into physically discrete human races, some of which might be asserted to be superior or inferior to others. Scientific racism was common during the period from the 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 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 The Race Question is the first of four UNESCO statements about issues of race. It was issued on 18 July 1950 following World War II and Nazi racism to clarify what was scientifically known about race, and as a moral condemnation of racism.< ...
" (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.” Since that time, developments in
human evolutionary genetics Human evolutionary genetics studies how one human genome differs from another human genome, the evolutionary past that gave rise to the human genome, and its current effects. Differences between genomes have anthropological, medical, historical and ...
and
physical anthropology Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
have led to a new consensus among anthropologists that
human races A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
are a sociopolitical phenomenon rather than a biological one. The term ''scientific racism'' is generally used pejoratively when applied to more modern theories, such as those in '' The Bell Curve'' (1994). Critics argue that such works postulate racist conclusions, such as a genetic connection between
race and intelligence Discussions of race and intelligence – specifically, claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines – have appeared in both popular science and academic research since the modern concept of race was first introduced. With the inc ...
, that are unsupported by available evidence. Publications such as the '' Mankind Quarterly'', founded explicitly as a "race-conscious" journal, are generally regarded as platforms of scientific racism, because they publish fringe interpretations of
human evolution Human evolution is the evolutionary process within the history of primates that led to the emergence of ''Homo sapiens'' as a distinct species of the hominid family, which includes the great apes. This process involved the gradual development of ...
, intelligence, ethnography, language, mythology,
archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscape ...
, and race.


Antecedents


Enlightenment thinkers

During the
Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
(an era from the 1650s to the 1780s), concepts of
monogenism Monogenism or sometimes monogenesis is the theory of human origins which posits a common descent for all human races. The negation of monogenism is polygenism. This issue was hotly debated in the Western world in the nineteenth century, as the ...
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.Jen E. Boyle (2010), "Anamorphosis in Early Modern Literature: Mediation and Affect", Ashgate, p. 74


François Bernier

François Bernier François Bernier (25 September 162022 September 1688) was a French physician and traveller. He was born in Joué-Etiau in Anjou. He stayed (14 October 165820 February 1670) for around 12 years in India. His 1684 publication "Nouve ...
(1620–1688) was a French physician and traveller. In 1684, he published a brief essay dividing humanity into what he called “races,” distinguishing individuals, and particularly women, by skin color and a few other physical traits. The article was published anonymously in the ''
Journal des Savants A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization * Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, ...
'', the earliest academic journal published in Europe, and titled “New Division of the Earth by the Different Species or 'Races' of Man that Inhabit It.” In the essay, he distinguished four different races: 1) The first race included populations from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, India, south-east Asia, and the Americas; 2) the second race consisted of the sub- Saharan Africans; 3) the third race consisted of the east- and northeast Asians; and, 4) the fourth race were Sámi people. A product of French Salon culture, the essay placed an emphasis on different kinds of female beauty. Bernier emphasized that his novel classification was based on his personal experience as a traveler in different parts of the world. Bernier offered a distinction between essential genetic differences and accidental ones that depended on environmental factors. He also suggested that the latter criterion might be relevant to distinguish sub-types.Joan-Pau Rubiés, «Race, climate and civilization in the works of François Bernier», L'inde des Lumières. Discours, histoire, savoirs (XVIIe-XIXe siècle), ''Purushartha'' 31, París, Éditions de l'EHESSS, 2013, pp. 53–78. His biological classification of racial types never sought to go beyond physical traits, and he also accepted the role of climate and diet in explaining degrees of human diversity. Bernier had been the first to extend the concept of "species of man" to racially classify the entirety of humanity, but he did not establish a cultural hierarchy between the so-called 'races' that he had conceived. On the other hand, he clearly placed white Europeans as the norm from which other 'races' deviated.Stuurman, S. (2000), "François Bernier and the invention of racial classification", ''History Workshop Journal'', 50, pp. 1–21. The qualities which he attributed to each race were not strictly Eurocentric, because he thought that peoples of temperate Europe, the Americas, and India—although culturally very different from one another—belonged to roughly the same racial group, and he explained the differences between the civilizations of India (his main area of expertise) and Europe through climate and institutional history. By contrast, he emphasized the biological difference between Europeans and Africans, and made very negative comments towards the Sámi (Lapps) of the coldest climates of Northern Europe, and about Africans living at the
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...
. For example, Bernier wrote: “The 'Lappons' compose the 4th race. They are a small and short race with thick legs, wide shoulders, a short neck, and a face that I don't know how to describe, except that it's long, truly awful, and seems reminiscent of a bear’s face. I've only ever seen them twice in Danzig, but according to the portraits I've seen, and from what I've heard from a number of people, they're ugly animals.” The significance of Bernier’s ideology for the emergence of what Joan-Pau Rubiés called the “modern racial discourse” has been debated, with Siep Stuurman considering it the beginning of modern racial thought, while Joan-Pau Rubiés believes it is less significant if Bernier's entire view of humanity is taken into account.


Robert Boyle vs. Henri de Boulainvilliers

An early scientist who studied race was Robert Boyle (1627–1691), an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher,
chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...
,
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
, and inventor. Boyle believed in what today is called 'monogenism,' that is, that all races, no matter how diverse, came from the same source:
Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...
. He studied reported stories of parents' giving birth to differently coloured
albinos Albinism is the congenital absence of melanin in an animal or plant resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and pink or blue eyes. Individuals with the condition are referred to as albino. Varied use and interpretation of the term ...
, so he concluded that Adam and Eve were originally white, and that whites could give birth to different coloured races. Theories of Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton about color and light via optical dispersion in physics were also extended by Robert Boyle into discourses of polygenesis, speculating that perhaps these differences were due to “seminal impressions.” However, Boyle's writings mentioned that at his time, for “European Eyes,” beauty was not measured so much in colour, but in “stature, comely symmetry of the parts of the body, and good features in the face.” Various members of the scientific community rejected his views, and described them as "disturbing" or "amusing." On the other hand, historian
Henri de Boulainvilliers Henri de Boulainvilliers (; 21 October 1658, Saint-Saire, Normandy – 23 January 1722, Paris) was a French nobleman, writer and historian. He was educated at the College of Juilly; he served in the army until 1697. Primarily remembered as an ea ...
(1658–1722) divided the French into two races: (i) the
aristocratic Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word's ...
"French race," descended from the invader Germanic Franks; and (ii) the indigenous Gallo-Roman race (the political
Third Estate The estates of the realm, or three estates, were the broad orders of social hierarchy used in Christendom (Christian Europe) from the Middle Ages to early modern Europe. Different systems for dividing society members into estates developed and ...
populace). The Frankish aristocracy dominated the Gauls by innate
right of conquest The right of conquest is a right of ownership to land after immediate possession via force of arms. It was recognized as a principle of international law that gradually deteriorated in significance until its proscription in the aftermath of Wor ...
. In his time,
Henri de Boulainvilliers Henri de Boulainvilliers (; 21 October 1658, Saint-Saire, Normandy – 23 January 1722, Paris) was a French nobleman, writer and historian. He was educated at the College of Juilly; he served in the army until 1697. Primarily remembered as an ea ...
, a believer in the “right of conquest,” did not understand "race" as biologically immutable, but as a contemporary cultural construct. His
racialist Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies can be more ex ...
account of French history was not entirely mythical; despite "supporting"
hagiographies A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...
and
epic poetry An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...
, such as '' The Song of Roland'' (''La Chanson de Roland'', c. 12th century), he sought
scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence f ...
legitimation by basing his racialist distinction on the historical existence of genetically and linguistically distinguished Germanic and Latin-speaking peoples in France. His theory of race was distinct from the biological facts manipulated in 19th-century scientific racism (cf.
Cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture. Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to argue that the norms and values of one culture should not be evaluated ...
).


Richard Bradley

Richard Bradley (1688–1732) was an English naturalist. In his book titled ''Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature'' (1721), Bradley claimed there to be “five sorts of men” based on their skin colour and other physical characteristics: white Europeans with beards; white men in America without beards (meaning Native Americans); men with copper-coloured skin, small eyes, and straight black hair; Blacks with straight black hair; and Blacks with curly hair. It has been speculated that Bradley’s account inspired Linnaeus' later categorisation.


Lord Kames

The Scottish lawyer
Henry Home, Lord Kames Henry Home, Lord Kames (169627 December 1782) was a Scottish writer, philosopher, advocate, judge, and agricultural improver. A central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, a founding member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and a ...
(1696–1782) was a
polygenist Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no ...
; he believed God had created different races on Earth in separate regions. In his 1734 book ''Sketches on the History of Man'', Home claimed that the environment, climate, or state of society could not account for racial differences, so the races must have come from distinct, separate stocks.


Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), the Swedish physician, botanist, and zoologist, modified the established
taxonomic Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. A ...
bases of
binomial nomenclature In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
for fauna and flora, and also made a classification of humans into different subgroups. In the twelfth edition of ''
Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial ...
'' (1767), he labeled five " varieties" of human species. Each one was described as possessing the following physiognomic characteristics “varying by culture and place”: * The ''Americanus'': red, choleric, upright; black, straight, thick hair; nostrils flared; face beat; beardless; stubborn, zealous, free; painting himself with red lines, and regulated by customs. * The '' Europeanus'': white, sanguine, fleshy; with yellowish, long hair; blue eyes; gentle, acute, inventive; covered with close vestments; and governed by laws. * The ''Asiaticus'': yellow, melancholic, stiff; black hair, dark eyes; austere, 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; sly, lazy, negligent; 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 wolf boy); the ''Juvenis hannoveranus'' ( Hannoverian boy); the ''Puella campanica'' ( Wild-girl of Champagne); the agile, but faint-hearted ''Homo monstrosus'' (''Monstrous man''); the
Patagon The Patagones or Patagonian giants were a race of giant humans rumoured to be living in Patagonia and described in early European accounts. They were said to have exceeded at least double normal human height, with some accounts giving heights of ...
ian giant; the Dwarf of the Alps; and the
monorchid Monorchism (also monorchidism) is the state of having only one testicle within the scrotum. Terminology An individual having monorchism can be referred to as ''monorchid''. Causes This can be due to: * One testicle not descending into the sc ...
Khoikhoi Khoekhoen (singular Khoekhoe) (or Khoikhoi in the former orthography; formerly also '' Hottentots''"Hottentot, n. and adj." ''OED Online'', Oxford University Press, March 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/88829. Accessed 13 May 2018. Citing G. S. ...
(Hottentot). In ''Amoenitates academicae'' (1763), Linnaeus presented the mythologic ''Homo anthropomorpha'' (''Anthropomorphic man''), or humanoid creatures, such as the troglodyte, the
satyr In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, σειληνός ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, ex ...
, the hydra, and the phoenix, incorrectly identified as
simian The simians, anthropoids, or higher primates are an infraorder (Simiiformes ) of primates containing all animals traditionally called monkeys and apes. More precisely, they consist of the parvorders New World monkeys (Platyrrhini) and Cat ...
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 colour. Renato G. Mazzolini argued that classifications based on skin colour, at its core, were a white/black polarity, and that Linnaeus’ thinking became paradigmatic for later racist beliefs. On the other hand, Quintyn (2010) points out that some authors believed that Linnaeus’ 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 as superior, but his motives for the classification of human varieties were not race-centered. Paleontologist
Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Goul ...
(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 theory of humors, which said that a person's temperament may be related to biological fluids. In a 1994 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 hierarchical.” In a 2008 essay published by the
Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature coll ...
, 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, Skuncke considers Linnaeus' view as merely "
eurocentric Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western worl ...
," arguing that Linnaeus never called for racist action, and did not use the word "race," which was only introduced later “by his French opponent, Buffon.” However, the anthropologist
Ashley Montagu Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu (June 28, 1905November 26, 1999) — born Israel Ehrenberg — was a British-American anthropologist who popularized the study of topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. He ...
, in his book ''Man's Most Dangerous Myth: the Fallacy of Race'', points out that Buffon, indeed “the enemy of all rigid classifications,”Montagu, A. (2001 edition) ''Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race''. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 69. 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”; however, modern critics regard Linnaeus’ classification as obviously
stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for exampl ...
d and erroneous for having included
anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
, non-biological features, such as customs or traditions.


John Hunter

John Hunter (1728–1793), a Scottish surgeon, believed that the Negroid race was originally white at birth. He thought that over time, because of the sun, the people turned dark-skinned, or "black." Hunter also stated that blisters and burns would likely turn white on a Negro, which he asserted was evidence that their ancestors were originally white.


Charles White

Charles White (1728–1813), an English physician and surgeon, believed that races occupied different stations in the “
Great Chain of Being The great chain of being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals and plants to minerals. The great ...
,” and he tried to scientifically prove that human races had distinct origins from each other. He speculated that whites and Negroes were two different species. White was a believer in polygeny, the idea that different races had been created separately. His ''Account of the Regular Gradation in Man'' (1799) provided an empirical basis for this idea. White defended the theory of polygeny by rebutting French naturalist
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent ...
's interfertility argument, which said that only the same species can interbreed. White pointed to species hybrids, such as foxes,
wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...
, and
jackal Jackals are medium-sized canids native to Africa and Eurasia. While the word "jackal" has historically been used for many canines of the subtribe canina, in modern use it most commonly refers to three species: the closely related black-backed ...
s, which were separate groups that were still able to interbreed. For White, each race was a separate species, divinely created for its own geographical region.


Buffon and Blumenbach

The French naturalist
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent ...
(1707–1788) and the German anatomist Johann Blumenbach (1752–1840) were proponents of
monogenism Monogenism or sometimes monogenesis is the theory of human origins which posits a common descent for all human races. The negation of monogenism is polygenism. This issue was hotly debated in the Western world in the nineteenth century, as the ...
, the concept that all races have a single origin. Buffon and Blumenbach believed a "degeneration theory" of the origins of racial difference. Both asserted that
Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...
were white, and that other races came about by degeneration owing to environmental factors, such as climate, disease, and diet. According to this model, Negroid pigmentation arose because of the heat of the tropical sun; that cold wind caused the tawny colour of the
Eskimos Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik (or Yuit) of eastern Siberia and Alaska. A related ...
; and that the Chinese had fairer skins than the Tartars, because the former kept mostly in towns, and were protected from environmental factors. Environmental factors, poverty, and hybridization could make races "degenerate," and differentiate them from the original white race by a process of "raciation." Interestingly, both Buffon and Blumenbach believed that the degeneration could be reversed if proper environmental control was taken, and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to the original white race. According to Blumenbach, there are five races, all belonging to a single species: Caucasian, Mongolian, Negroid,
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
, and the
Malay race The concept of a Malay race was originally proposed by the German physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), and classified as a brown race. ''Malay'' is a loose term used in the late 19th century and early 20th century to describe the ...
. Blumenbach stated: “I have allotted the first place to the Caucasian for the reasons given below, which make me esteem it the primeval one.” Before
James Hutton James Hutton (; 3 June O.S.172614 June 1726 New Style. – 26 March 1797) was a Scottish geologist, agriculturalist, chemical manufacturer, naturalist and physician. Often referred to as the father of modern geology, he played a key role ...
and the emergence of scientific geology, many believed the earth was only 6,000 years old. Buffon had conducted experiments with heated balls of iron, which he believed were a model for the earth's core, and concluded that the earth was 75,000 years old, but did not extend the time since
Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
and the origin of humanity back more than 8,000 years—not much further than the 6,000 years of the prevailing Ussher chronology subscribed to by most of the monogenists. Opponents of monogenism believed that it would have been difficult for races to change markedly in such a short period of time.


Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush Benjamin Rush (April 19, 1813) was a Founding Father of the United States who signed the United States Declaration of Independence, and a civic leader in Philadelphia, where he was a physician, politician, social reformer, humanitarian, educa ...
(1745–1813), a
Founding Father of the United States The Founding Fathers of the United States, known simply as the Founding Fathers or Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the war for independence from Great Britai ...
and a physician, proposed that being black was a hereditary skin disease, which he called "negroidism," and that it could be cured. Rush believed non-whites were actually white underneath, but that they were stricken with a non-contagious form of
leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria '' Mycobacterium leprae'' or '' Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve d ...
, which darkened their skin color. Rush drew the conclusion that “whites should not tyrannize over lacks for their disease should entitle them to a double portion of humanity. However, by the same token, whites should not intermarry with them, for this would tend to infect posterity with the 'disorder'… attempts must be made to cure the disease.”


Christoph Meiners

Christoph Meiners (1747–1810) was a German
polygenist Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no ...
, and believed that each race had a separate origin. Meiners studied the physical, mental, and moral characteristics of each race, and built a race hierarchy based on his findings. Meiners split mankind into two divisions, which he labelled the “beautiful white race” and the “ugly
black race Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in s ...
.” In his book titled ''The Outline of History of Mankind'', Meiners argued that a main characteristic of race is either beauty or ugliness. Meiners thought only the white race to be beautiful, and considered ugly races to be inferior, immoral, and animal-like. Meiners wrote about how the dark, ugly peoples were differentiated from the white, beautiful peoples by their "sad" lack of virtue and their “terrible vices.” According to Meiners:
The more intelligent and noble people are by nature, the more adaptable, sensitive, delicate, and soft is their body; on the other hand, the less they possess the capacity and disposition towards virtue, the more they lack adaptability; and not only that, but the less sensitive are their bodies, the more can they tolerate extreme pain or the rapid alteration of heat and cold; when they are exposed to illnesses, the more rapid their recovery from wounds that would be fatal for more sensitive peoples, and the more they can partake of the worst and most indigestible foods ... without noticeable ill effects.
Meiners hypothesized about how the Negro felt less pain than any other race, and lacked in emotions. Meiners wrote that the Negro had thick nerves, and thus, was not sensitive like the other races. He went so far as to say that the Negro possessed “no human, barely any animal, feeling.” Meiners described a story where a Negro was condemned to death by being burned alive. Halfway through the burning, the Negro asked to smoke a pipe, and smoked it like nothing was happening while he continued to be burned alive. Meiners studied the
anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having i ...
of the Negro, and came to the conclusion that Negroes were all
carnivores A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other so ...
, based upon his observations that Negroes had bigger teeth and jaws than any other race. Meiners claimed the skull of the Negro was larger, but the brain of the Negro was smaller than any other race. Meiners theorized that the Negro was the most unhealthy race on Earth because of its poor diet, mode of living, and lack of morals. Meiners also opined about how the "
Americans Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many dual citizens, expatriates, and permanent residents could also legally claim Ame ...
" were an inferior stock of people. He claimed they could not adapt to different climates, types of food, or modes of life, and that when exposed to such new conditions, they lapsed into a “deadly melancholy.” Meiners studied the diet of the Americans, and said they fed off any kind of “foul
offal Offal (), also called variety meats, pluck or organ meats, is the organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, which varies by culture and region, but usually excludes muscle. Offal may also refe ...
,” and consumed copious amounts of alcohol. He believed their skulls were so thick that the blades of Spanish swords shattered on them. Meiners also claimed the skin of an American is thicker than that of an ox. Meiners wrote that the noblest race was the
Celts The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient ...
. This was based upon assertions that they were able to conquer various parts of the world, they were more sensitive to heat and cold, and their delicacy is shown by the way they are selective about what they eat. Meiners claimed that
Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
are an inferior race, “less sensitive and content with eating rough food.” He described stories of Slavs allegedly eating poisonous fungi without coming to any harm. He claimed that their medical techniques were also counterproductive; as an example, Meiners described their practice of warming up sick people in ovens, then making them roll in the snow. In Meiners' large work titled ''Researches on the Variations in Human Nature'' (1815), he studied the
sexology Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behaviors, and functions. The term ''sexology'' does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sexuality, such as social criticism. Sexologists ap ...
of each race. He claimed that the African Negroids had unduly strong and perverted sex drives, whilst only the white Europeans appropriate levels of libido.


Later thinkers


Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
(1743–1826) was an American politician, scientist, and slave owner. His contributions to scientific racism have been noted by many historians, scientists, and scholars. According to an article published in the ''McGill Journal of Medicine'': “One of the most influential pre-Darwinian racial theorists, Jefferson's call for science to determine the obvious ‘inferiority’ of African Americans is an extremely important stage in the evolution of scientific racism.” Writing for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
,'' historian Paul Finkelman described how as “a scientist, Jefferson nevertheless speculated that blackness might come ‘from the color of the blood,’ and concluded that blacks were ‘inferior to the whites in the endowments of body and mind’.” In his “
Notes on the State of Virginia ''Notes on the State of Virginia'' (1785) is a book written by the American statesman, philosopher, and planter Thomas Jefferson. He completed the first version in 1781 and updated and enlarged the book in 1782 and 1783. It originated in Jeffers ...
,” Jefferson described black people as follows:
They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labor through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But, this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection... Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory, they are equal to the whites; in reason, much inferior, as I think one lackcould scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination, they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous... I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.
However, by 1791, Jefferson had to reassess his earlier suspicions of whether blacks were capable of intelligence when he was presented with a letter and almanac from
Benjamin Banneker Benjamin Banneker (November 9, 1731October 19, 1806) was an African-American naturalist, mathematician, astronomer and almanac author. He was a landowner who also worked as a surveyor and farmer. Born in Baltimore County, Maryland, to a fr ...
, an educated black mathematician. Delighted to have discovered scientific proof for the existence of black intelligence, Jefferson wrote to Banneker:
No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, & that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa & America. I can add with truth that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstance which cannot be neglected, will admit.


Samuel Stanhope Smith

Samuel Stanhope Smith (1751–1819) was an American Presbyterian minister and author of the ''Essay on the Causes of Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species'' (1787). Smith claimed that Negro pigmentation was nothing more than a huge freckle that covered the whole body as a result of an oversupply of bile, which was caused by tropical climates.


Georges Cuvier

Racial studies by
Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...
(1769–1832), the French naturalist and
zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...
, influenced both scientific polygenism and scientific racism. Cuvier believed there were three distinct races: the Caucasian (white), Mongolian (yellow), and the Ethiopian (black). He rated each for the beauty or ugliness of the skull and quality of their civilizations. Cuvier wrote about Caucasians: “The white race, with oval face, straight hair and nose, to which the civilised people of Europe belong, and which appear to us the most beautiful of all, is also superior to others by its genius, courage, and activity.” Regarding Negroes, Cuvier wrote:
The Negro race … is marked by black complexion, crisped or woolly hair, compressed cranium, and a flat nose. The projection of the lower parts of the face, and the thick lips, evidently approximate it to the monkey tribe: the hordes of which it consists have always remained in the most complete state of barbarism.
He thought
Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...
were Caucasian, and hence, the original race of mankind. The other two races arose by survivors escaping in different directions after a major catastrophe hit the earth approximately 5,000 years ago. Cuvier theorized that the survivors lived in complete isolation from each other, and developed separately as a result. One of Cuvier's pupils, Friedrich Tiedemann, was among the first to make a scientific contestation of racism. Tiedemann asserted that based upon his documentation of craniometric and brain measurements of Europeans and black people from different parts of the world, that the then-common European belief that Negroes have smaller brains, and are thus intellectually inferior, was scientifically unfounded, and based merely on the prejudice of travellers and explorers.


Arthur Schopenhauer

The German philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...
(1788–1860) attributed civilizational primacy to the white races, who gained sensitivity and intelligence via the refinement caused by living in the rigorous Northern climate:
The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient
Hindus Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
and
Egyptians Egyptians ( arz, المَصرِيُون, translit=al-Maṣriyyūn, ; arz, المَصرِيِين, translit=al-Maṣriyyīn, ; cop, ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, remenkhēmi) are an ethnic group native to the Nile, Nile Valley in Egypt. Egyptian ...
, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste, or race, is fairer in colour than the rest, and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the
Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers ( ...
s, the
Inca The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts",  "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The adm ...
, and the rulers of the
South Sea Islands Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
. All this is due to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention, because those tribes that emigrated early to the north, and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual powers, and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want, and misery, which, in their many forms, were brought about by the climate. This they had to do to make up for the
parsimony Parsimony refers to the quality of economy or frugality in the use of resources. Parsimony may also refer to * The Law of Parsimony, or Occam's razor, a problem-solving principle ** Maximum parsimony (phylogenetics), an optimality criterion in p ...
of nature, and out of it all came their high civilization.


Franz Ignaz Pruner

Franz Ignaz Pruner (1808–1882) was a German physician, ophthalmologist, and anthropologist who studied the racial structure of Negroes in Egypt. In a book Pruner wrote in 1846, he claimed that Negro blood had a negative influence on the Egyptian moral character. He published a monograph on Negroes in 1861. He claimed that the main feature of the Negro's skeleton is
prognathism Prognathism, also called Habsburg jaw or Habsburgs' jaw primarily in the context of its prevalence amongst members of the House of Habsburg, is a positional relationship of the mandible or maxilla to the skeletal base where either of the jaws pr ...
, which he claimed was the Negro's relation to the ape. He also claimed that Negroes had brains very similar to those of apes and that Negroes have a shortened big toe, a characteristic, he said, that connected Negroes closely to apes.


Racial theories in physical anthropology (1850–1918)

The
scientific classification Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
established by Carl Linnaeus is requisite to any human racial classification scheme. In the 19th century,
unilineal evolution Unilineal evolution, also referred to as classical social evolution, is a 19th-century social theory about the evolution of societies and cultures. It was composed of many competing theories by various anthropologists and sociologists, who belie ...
, or classical social evolution, was a conflation of competing sociologic and anthropologic theories proposing that Western European culture was the acme of human socio-cultural evolution. The proposal that social status is unilineal—from primitive to civilized, from agricultural to industrial—became popular among philosophers, including
Friedrich Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...
,
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
, and
Auguste Comte Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense ...
. The Christian Bible was interpreted to sanction
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
and from the 1820s to the 1850s was often used in the
antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ar ...
Southern United States, by writers such as the Rev.
Richard Furman Richard Furman (9 October 1755 – 25 August 1825) was a Baptist leader from Charleston, South Carolina, United States. He was elected in 1814 as the first president of the Triennial Convention, the first nationwide Baptist association. Later h ...
and
Thomas R. Cobb Thomas Reed Cobb (July 2, 1828 – June 23, 1892) was an American lawyer and politician who served five terms as a U.S. Representative from Indiana from 1877 to 1887. Biography Born in Springville, Lawrence County, Indiana, Cobb attended Indi ...
, to enforce the idea that Negroes had been created inferior, and thus suited to slavery.


Arthur de Gobineau

The French aristocrat and writer
Arthur de Gobineau Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping to legitimise racism by the use of scientific racist theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Aryan ...
(1816–1882), is best known for his book '' An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races'' (1853–55) which proposed three human races (black, white and yellow) were natural barriers and claimed that race mixing would lead to the collapse of culture and civilization. He claimed that "The white race originally possessed the monopoly of beauty, intelligence and strength" and that any positive accomplishments or thinking of blacks and Asians were due to an admixture with whites. His works were praised by many white supremacist American pro-slavery thinkers such as Josiah C. Nott and Henry Hotze. Gobineau believed that the different races originated in different areas, the white race had originated somewhere in Siberia, the Asians in the Americas and the blacks in Africa. He believed that the white race was superior, writing: Gobineau later used the term " Aryans" to describe the Germanic peoples (''la race germanique''). Gobineau's works were also influential to the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
, which published his works in German. They played a key role in the
master race The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative "Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans"). T ...
theory of
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...
.


Carl Vogt

Another
polygenist Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no ...
evolutionist was
Carl Vogt August Christoph Carl Vogt (; 5 July 18175 May 1895) was a German scientist, philosopher, popularizer of science, and politician who emigrated to Switzerland. Vogt published a number of notable works on zoology, geology and physiology. All h ...
(1817–1895) who believed that the Negro race was related to the ape. He wrote the white race was a separate species to Negroes. In Chapter VII of his ''Lectures of Man'' (1864) he compared the Negro to the white race whom he described as "two extreme human types". The difference between them, he claimed are greater than those between two species of ape; and this proves that Negroes are a separate species from the whites.


Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
's views on race have been a topic of much discussion and debate. According to Jackson and Weidman, Darwin was a moderate in the 19th century debates about race. "He was not a confirmed racist — he was a staunch abolitionist, for example — but he did think that there were distinct races that could be ranked in a hierarchy." Darwin's influential 1859 book ''
On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...
'' did not discuss human origins. The extended wording on the title page, which adds ''by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'', uses the general terminology of biological races as an alternative for " varieties" such as "the several races, for instance, of the cabbage", and does not carry the modern connotation of human races. In ''
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex ''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' is a book by English natural history, naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, ...
'' (1871), Darwin examined the question of "Arguments in favour of, and opposed to, ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species" and reported no racial distinctions that would indicate that human races are discrete species. The historian Richard Hofstadter wrote: According to the historian
Gertrude Himmelfarb Gertrude Himmelfarb (August 8, 1922 – December 30, 2019), also known as Bea Kristol, was an American historian. She was a leader of conservative interpretations of history and historiography. She wrote extensively on intellectual history, ...
, "The subtitle of 'The Origin of Species''made a convenient motto for racists: 'The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.' Darwin, of course, took 'races' to mean varieties or species; but it was no violation of his meaning to extend it to human races.... Darwin himself, in spite of his aversion to slavery, was not averse to the idea that some races were more fit than others." On the other hand, Robert Bannister defended Darwin on the issue of race, writing that "Upon closer inspection, the case against Darwin himself quickly unravels. An ardent opponent of slavery, he consistently opposed the oppression of nonwhites... Although by modern standards ''The Descent of Man'' is frustratingly inconclusive on the critical issues of human equality, it was a model of moderation and scientific caution in the context of midcentury racism."


Herbert Hope Risley

As an exponent of "race science", colonial administrator
Herbert Hope Risley Sir Herbert Hope Risley (4 January 1851 – 30 September 1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of the Bengal Presidency ...
(1851–1911) used the ratio of the width of a nose to its height to divide
Indian people Indians or Indian people are the citizens and nationals of India. In 2022, the population of India stood at over 1.4 billion people, making it the world's second-most populous country, containing 17.7 percent of the global population. In ...
into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.


Ernst Haeckel

Like most of Darwin's supporters,
Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new s ...
(1834–1919) put forward a doctrine of evolutionary polygenism based on the ideas of the linguist and polygenist August Schleicher, in which several different language groups had arisen separately from speechless prehuman ''Urmenschen'' (German for "original humans"), which themselves had evolved from simian ancestors. These separate languages had completed the transition from animals to man, and, under the influence of each main branch of languages, humans had evolved as separate species, which could be subdivided into races. Haeckel divided human beings into ten races, of which the Caucasian was the highest and the primitives were doomed to extinction. Haeckel was also an advocate of the out of Asia theory by writing that the origin of humanity was to be found in Asia; he believed that
Hindustan ''Hindūstān'' ( , from '' Hindū'' and ''-stān''), also sometimes spelt as Hindōstān ( ''Indo-land''), along with its shortened form ''Hind'' (), is the Persian-language name for the Indian subcontinent that later became commonly used b ...
(South Asia) was the actual location where the first humans had evolved. Haeckel argued that humans were closely related to the primates of Southeast Asia and rejected Darwin's hypothesis of Africa. Haeckel also wrote that Negroes have stronger and more freely movable toes than any other race which is evidence that Negroes are related to apes because when apes stop climbing in trees they hold on to the trees with their toes. Haeckel compared Negroes to "four-handed" apes. Haeckel also believed Negroes were savages and that whites were the most civilised.
Gustav Jahoda Gustav Jahoda, FBA, FRSE (11 October 1920 – 12 December 2016) was an Austrian psychologist and writer. He was educated in Vienna, then subsequently in Paris and London. He studied sociology and psychology at London University before obtaining a ...
, ''Images of Savages: Ancients icRoots of Modern Prejudice in Western Culture'', 1999, p. 83


Nationalism of Lapouge and Herder

At the 19th century's end, scientific racism conflated
Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...
eugenicism with
Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton, FRS FRAI (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist, Anthropology, anthropologist, tropical Exploration, explorer, geographer, Inventio ...
's concept of voluntary
eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...
to produce a form of coercive, anti-immigrant government programs influenced by other socio-political
discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...
s and events. Such institutional racism was effected via
phrenology Phrenology () is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking." In ''Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience'', pp. 195–203. C ...
, telling character from physiognomy; craniometric skull and skeleton studies; thus skulls and skeletons of black people and other colored ''volk'', were displayed between apes and white men. In 1906, Ota Benga, a Pygmy, was displayed as the "Missing Link", in the
Bronx Zoo The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and is the largest metropolitan zoo in ...
, New York City, alongside apes and animals. The most influential theorists included the anthropologist Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936) who proposed "anthroposociology"; and
Johann Gottfried Herder Johann Gottfried von Herder ( , ; 25 August 174418 December 1803) was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the Enlightenment, '' Sturm und Drang'', and Weimar Classicism. Biography Born in Mohr ...
(1744–1803), who applied "race" to
nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
theory, thereby developing the first conception of
ethnic nationalism Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various politi ...
. In 1882,
Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote in ...
contradicted Herder with a nationalism based upon the "will to live together", not founded upon ethnic or racial prerequisites (see
Civic nationalism Civic nationalism, also known as liberal nationalism, is a form of nationalism identified by political philosophers who believe in an inclusive form of nationalism that adheres to traditional liberal values of freedom, tolerance, equality, i ...
). Scientific racist discourse posited the historical existence of "national races" such as the '' Deutsche Volk'' in Germany, and the "French race" being a branch of the basal "
Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern ...
" extant for millennia, to advocate for geopolitical borders parallel to the racial ones.


Craniometry and physical anthropology

The Dutch scholar
Pieter Camper Petrus Camper FRS (11 May 1722 – 7 April 1789), was a Dutch physician, anatomist, physiologist, midwife, zoologist, anthropologist, palaeontologist and a naturalist in the Age of Enlightenment. He was one of the first to take an interest in ...
(1722–89), an early craniometric theoretician, used "craniometry" (interior skull-volume measurement) to scientifically justify racial differences. In 1770, he conceived of the
facial angle Facial Angles refers to the content of two lectures on this subject by the Amsterdam professor of anatomy Petrus Camper on the 1st and 8 August in 1770 to the Amsterdam Drawing Academy called the ''Teken-akademie''. Background Camper was a compet ...
to measure intelligence among species of men. The facial angle was formed by drawing two lines: a horizontal line from nostril to ear; and a vertical line from the upper-jawbone prominence to the forehead prominence. Camper's craniometry reported that antique statues (the Greco-Roman ideal) had a 90-degree facial angle, whites an 80-degree angle, blacks a 70-degree angle, and the
orangutan Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genu ...
a 58-degree facial angle—thus he established a racist biological hierarchy for mankind, per the Decadent conception of history. Such scientific racist researches were continued by the naturalist
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (15 April 177219 June 1844) was a French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He was a colleague of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theories ...
(1772–1844) and the anthropologist
Paul Broca Pierre Paul Broca (, also , , ; 28 June 1824 – 9 July 1880) was a French physician, anatomist and anthropologist. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that is named after him. Broca's area is involve ...
(1824–1880).


Samuel George Morton

In the 19th century, an early American
physical anthropologist Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
, physician and polygenist
Samuel George Morton Samuel George Morton (January 26, 1799 – May 15, 1851) was an American physician, natural scientist, and writer who argued against the single creation story of the Bible, monogenism, instead supporting a theory of multiple racial creations, poly ...
(1799–1851), collected human skulls from worldwide, and attempted a logical classification scheme. Influenced by contemporary racialist theory, Dr Morton said he could judge racial intellectual capacity by measuring the interior
cranial capacity The size of the brain is a frequent topic of study within the fields of anatomy, biological anthropology, animal science and evolution. Brain size is sometimes measured by weight and sometimes by volume (via MRI scans or by skull volume). Neur ...
, hence a large skull denoted a large brain, thus high
intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator o ...
capacity. Conversely, a small skull denoted a small brain, thus low intellectual capacity; superior and inferior established. After inspecting three mummies from ancient Egyptian catacombs, Morton concluded that Caucasians and Negroes were already distinct three thousand years ago. Since interpretations of the bible indicated that
Noah's Ark Noah's Ark ( he, תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: ''Tevat Noaḥ'')The word "ark" in modern English comes from Old English ''aerca'', meaning a chest or box. (See Cresswell 2010, p.22) The Hebrew word for the vessel, ''teva'', occurs twice in ...
had washed up on
Mount Ararat Mount Ararat or , ''Ararat''; or is a snow-capped and dormant compound volcano in the extreme east of Turkey. It consists of two major volcanic cones: Greater Ararat and Little Ararat. Greater Ararat is the highest peak in Turkey and th ...
only a thousand years earlier, Morton claimed that Noah's sons could not possibly account for every race on earth. According to Morton's theory of polygenesis, races have been separate since the start.David Hurst Thomas, ''Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, And The Battle For Native American Identity'', 2001, pp. 38–41 In Morton's ''Crania Americana'', his claims were based on
craniometry Craniometry is measurement of the cranium (the main part of the skull), usually the human cranium. It is a subset of cephalometry, measurement of the head, which in humans is a subset of anthropometry, measurement of the human body. It is disti ...
data, that the Caucasians had the biggest brains, averaging 87 cubic inches, Native Americans were in the middle with an average of 82 cubic inches and Negroes had the smallest brains with an average of 78 cubic inches. In ''
The Mismeasure of Man ''The Mismeasure of Man'' is a 1981 book by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The book is both a history and critique of the statistical methods and cultural motivations underlying biological determinism, the belief that "the social and economic ...
'' (1981), the
evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life for ...
and historian of science
Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Goul ...
argued that Samuel Morton had falsified the craniometric data, perhaps inadvertently over-packing some skulls, to so produce results that would legitimize the racist presumptions he was attempting to prove. A subsequent study by the
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...
John Michael found Morton's original data to be more accurate than Gould describes, concluding that " ntrary to Gould's interpretation... Morton's research was conducted with integrity". Jason Lewis and colleagues reached similar conclusions as Michael in their reanalysis of Morton's skull collection; however, they depart from Morton's racist conclusions by adding that "studies have demonstrated that modern human variation is generally continuous, rather than discrete or "racial", and that most variation in modern humans is within, rather than between, populations". In 1873, Paul Broca, founder of the Anthropological Society of Paris (1859), found the same pattern of measures—that ''Crania Americana'' reported—by weighing specimen brains at
autopsy An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any d ...
. Other historical studies, proposing a black race–white race, intelligence–brain size difference, include those by Bean (1906), Mall (1909), Pearl (1934), and Vint (1934).


Nicolás Palacios

After the
War of the Pacific The War of the Pacific ( es, link=no, Guerra del Pacífico), also known as the Saltpeter War ( es, link=no, Guerra del salitre) and by multiple other names, was a war between Chile and a Bolivian–Peruvian alliance from 1879 to 1884. Fought ...
(1879–83) there was a rise of racial and national superiority ideas among the Chilean ruling class. In his 1918 book physician Nicolás Palacios argued for the existence of Chilean race and its superiority when compared to neighboring peoples. He thought Chileans were a mix of two
martial race Martial race was a designation which was created by army officials in British India after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, in which they classified each caste as belonging to one of two categories, the 'martial' caste and the 'non-martial' caste. ...
s: the indigenous
Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...
s and the
Visigoth The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kn ...
s of Spain, who descended ultimately from
Götaland Götaland (; also '' Geatland'', '' Gothia'', ''Gothland'', ''Gothenland'' or ''Gautland'') is one of three lands of Sweden and comprises ten provinces. Geographically it is located in the south of Sweden, bounded to the north by Svealand, wit ...
in Sweden. Palacios argued on medical grounds against immigration to Chile from southern Europe claiming that
Mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though thei ...
s who are of south European stock lack "cerebral control" and are a social burden.


Monogenism and polygenism

Samuel Morton's followers, especially Dr Josiah C. Nott (1804–1873) and George Gliddon (1809–1857), extended Dr Morton's ideas in ''Types of Mankind'' (1854), claiming that Morton's findings supported the notion of polygenism (mankind has discrete genetic ancestries; the races are evolutionarily unrelated), which is a predecessor of the modern human multiregional origin hypothesis. Moreover, Morton himself had been reluctant to espouse polygenism, because it
theologically Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
challenged the Christian
creation myth A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it., "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develo ...
espoused in the Bible. Later, in ''
The Descent of Man ''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biol ...
'' (1871), Charles Darwin proposed the single-origin hypothesis, i.e.,
monogenism Monogenism or sometimes monogenesis is the theory of human origins which posits a common descent for all human races. The negation of monogenism is polygenism. This issue was hotly debated in the Western world in the nineteenth century, as the ...
—mankind has a common genetic ancestry, the races are related, opposing everything that the polygenism of Nott and Gliddon proposed.


Typologies

One of the first typologies used to classify various human races was invented by Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936), a theoretician of
eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...
, who published in 1899 ''L'Aryen et son rôle social'' (1899 – "The
Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...
and his social role"). In this book, he classified humanity into various, hierarchized races, spanning from the "Aryan white race, dolichocephalic", to the "brachycephalic", "mediocre and inert" race, best represented by Southern European, Catholic peasants". Between these, Vacher de Lapouge identified the "'' Homo europaeus''" (Teutonic, Protestant, etc.), the "'' Homo alpinus''" ( Auvergnat, Turkish, etc.), and finally the "''
Homo mediterraneus The Mediterranean race (also Mediterranid race) was a historical race concept that was a sub-race of the Caucasian race as categorised by anthropologists in the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. According to various definitions, it was said to be ...
''" (
Neapolitan Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to: Geography and history * Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city * Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and Hig ...
, Andalus, etc.) Jews were dolichocephalic like the Aryans, according to Lapouge, but exactly for this reason he considered them to be dangerous; they were the only group, he thought, threatening to displace the Aryan aristocracy. Vacher de Lapouge became one of the leading inspirators of
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
and Nazi racist ideology. Vacher de Lapouge's classification was mirrored in William Z. Ripley in ''The Races of Europe'' (1899), a book which had a large influence on American white supremacism. Ripley even made a map of Europe according to the alleged cephalic index of its inhabitants. He was an important influence of the American eugenist Madison Grant. Furthermore, according to John Efron of
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...
, the late 19th century also witnessed "the scientizing of anti-Jewish prejudice", stigmatizing Jews with male menstruation, pathological hysteria, and nymphomania.Richard Bodek.
Review of John M. Efron, ''Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors & Race Science in Fin-de-Siècle Europe''"
H-SAE,
H-Net __NOTOC__ H-Net ("Humanities & Social Sciences Online") is an interdisciplinary forum for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. It is best known for hosting electronic mailing lists organized by academic disciplines; according to the o ...
Reviews, May 1996
At the same time, several Jews, such as
Joseph Jacobs Joseph Jacobs (29 August 1854 – 30 January 1916) was an Australian folklorist, translator, literary critic, social scientist, historian and writer of English literature who became a notable collector and publisher of English folklore. Jacobs ...
or Samuel Weissenberg, also endorsed the same pseudoscientific theories, convinced that the Jews formed a distinct race.
Chaim Zhitlovsky Chaim Zhitlowsky (Yiddish: חײם זשיטלאָװסקי; russian: Хаим Осипович Житловский) (April 19, 1865 – May 6, 1943) was a Jewish socialist, philosopher, social and political thinker, writer and literary critic born ...
also attempted to define ''
Yiddishkayt Yiddishkeit ( yi, ייִדישקייט ) literally means "Jewishness", i.e. "a Jewish way of life". It can refer to Judaism or forms of Orthodox Judaism when used by religious or Orthodox Jews. In a more general sense, it has come to mean the "Je ...
'' (Ashkenazi Jewishness) by turning to contemporary racial theory.
Joseph Deniker Joseph Deniker (russian: Иосиф Егорович Деникер, ''Yosif Yegorovich Deniker''; 6 March 1852, in Astrakhan – 18 March 1918, in Paris) was a Russian and French naturalist and anthropologist, known primarily for his attempts t ...
(1852–1918) was one of William Z. Ripley's principal opponents; whereas Ripley maintained, as did Vacher de Lapouge, that the European populace comprised three races, Joseph Deniker proposed that the European populace comprised ten races (six primary and four sub-races). Furthermore, he proposed that the concept of "race" was ambiguous, and in its stead proposed the compound word "
ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
", which later prominently featured in the works of
Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. ...
and
Alfred C. Haddon Alfred Cort Haddon, Sc.D., FRS, FRGS FRAI (24 May 1855 – 20 April 1940, Cambridge) was an influential British anthropologist and ethnologist. Initially a biologist, who achieved his most notable fieldwork, with W.H.R. Rivers, C.G. Seligman ...
. Moreover, Ripley argued that Deniker's "race" idea should be denoted a "type", because it was less biologically rigid than most racial classifications.


Ideological applications


Nordicism

Joseph Deniker's contribution to racist theory was ''La Race nordique'' (the
Nordic race The Nordic race was a racial concept which originated in 19th century anthropology. It was considered a race or one of the putative sub-races into which some late-19th to mid-20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race, claiming tha ...
), a generic, racial-stock descriptor, which the American
eugenicist Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
Madison Grant (1865–1937) presented as the white racial engine of world civilization. Having adopted Ripley's three-race European populace model, but disliking the "Teuton" race name, he transliterated ''la race nordique'' into "The Nordic race", the acme of the concocted racial hierarchy, based upon his racial classification theory, popular in the 1910s and 1920s. The
State Institute for Racial Biology The State Institute for Racial Biology (SIRB, sv, Statens institut för rasbiologi, SIFR) was a Swedish governmental research institute founded in 1922 with the stated purpose of studying eugenics and human genetics. It was the most prominent ...
(Swedish: ''Statens Institut för Rasbiologi'') and its director
Herman Lundborg Herman Bernhard Lundborg (April 7, 1868 in Väse in Värmland, Sweden – May 9, 1943 in Östhammar in Uppland, Sweden) was a Swedish physician and a race biologist. Biography He graduated in medicine at the Karolinska Institutet in 1895, and r ...
in Sweden were active in racist research. Furthermore, much of early research on Ural-Altaic languages was coloured by attempts at justifying the view that European peoples east of Sweden were Asian and thus of an inferior race, justifying colonialism, eugenics and racial hygiene. The book '' The Passing of the Great Race'' (Or, The Racial Basis of European History) by American eugenicist, lawyer, and amateur anthropologist Madison Grant was published in 1916. Though influential, the book was largely ignored when it first appeared, and it went through several revisions and editions. Nevertheless, the book was used by people who advocated restricted immigration as justification for what became known as scientific racism.


Justification of slavery in the United States

In the United States, scientific racism justified Black African slavery to assuage moral opposition to the
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and ...
. Alexander Thomas and Samuell Sillen described black men as uniquely fitted for bondage, because of their "primitive psychological organization." In 1851, in antebellum Louisiana, the physician
Samuel A. Cartwright Samuel Adolphus Cartwright (November 3, 1793 – May 2, 1863) was an American physician who practiced in Mississippi and Louisiana in the antebellum United States. Cartwright is best known as the inventor of the 'mental illness' of drapetomania ...
(1793–1863) wrote of slave escape attempts as " drapetomania," a treatable
mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitt ...
, that "with proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented." The term ''drapetomania'' (mania of the runaway slave) derives from the Greek δραπέτης (''drapetes'', "a runaway
lave ''Lave'' was an ironclad floating battery of the French Navy during the 19th century. She was part of the of floating batteries. In the 1850s, the British and French navies deployed iron-armoured floating batteries as a supplement to the wooden ...
) and μανία (''mania'', "madness, frenzy"). Cartwright also described '' dysaesthesia aethiopica'', called "rascality" by overseers. The
1840 United States Census The United States census of 1840 was the sixth census of the United States. Conducted by the Census Office on June 1, 1840, it determined the resident population of the United States to be 17,069,453 – an increase of 32.7 percent over the 12 ...
claimed that Northern, free blacks suffered mental illness at higher rates than did their Southern, enslaved counterparts. Though the census was later found to have been severely flawed by the
American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...
, it became a political weapon against
abolitionists Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The Britis ...
. Southern slavers concluded that escaping Negroes were suffering from "mental disorders."Higgins, 1994 At the time of the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
(1861–65), the matter of
miscegenation Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") ...
prompted studies of ostensible physiological differences between Caucasians and
Negro In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
es. Early
anthropologists An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
, such as Josiah Clark Nott,
George Robins Gliddon George Robbins Gliddon (1809 – November 16, 1857) was an English-born American Egyptologist. Biography He was born in Devonshire, England. His father, a merchant, was United States consul at Alexandria where Gliddon was taken at an early age. ...
, Robert Knox, and
Samuel George Morton Samuel George Morton (January 26, 1799 – May 15, 1851) was an American physician, natural scientist, and writer who argued against the single creation story of the Bible, monogenism, instead supporting a theory of multiple racial creations, poly ...
, aimed to scientifically prove that Negroes were a human species different from the white people; that the rulers of Ancient Egypt were not African; and that mixed-race offspring (the product of miscegenation) tended to physical weakness and infertility. After the Civil War, Southern (Confederacy) physicians wrote textbooks of scientific racism based upon studies claiming that black freemen (ex-slaves) were becoming extinct, because they were inadequate to the demands of being a free man—implying that black people benefited from enslavement. In ''Medical Apartheid'', Harriet A. Washington noted the prevalence of two different views on blacks in the 19th century: the belief that they were inferior and "riddled with imperfections from head to toe", and the idea that they did not know true pain and suffering because of their primitive nervous systems (and that slavery was therefore justifiable). Washington noted the failure of scientists to accept the inconsistency between these two viewpoints, writing that: Even after the end of the Civil War, some scientists continued to justify the institution of slavery by citing the effect of topography and climate on racial development.
Nathaniel Shaler Nathaniel Southgate Shaler (February 20, 1841 – April 10, 1906) was an American paleontologist and geologist who wrote extensively on the theological and scientific implications of the theory of evolution. Biography Born to a slave-holding fa ...
, a prominent geologist at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
from 1869 to 1906, published the book ''Man and the Earth'' in 1905 describing the physical geography of different continents and linking these geologic settings to the intelligence and strength of human races that inhabited these spaces. Shaler argued that North American climate and geology was ideally suited for the institution of slavery.


South African apartheid

Scientific racism played a role in establishing
apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
in South Africa. In South Africa, white scientists, like Dudly Kidd, who published ''The essential Kafir'' in 1904, sought to "understand the African mind". They believed that the cultural differences between whites and blacks in South Africa might be caused by physiological differences in the brain. Rather than suggesting that Africans were "overgrown children", as early white explorers had, Kidd believed that Africans were "misgrown with a vengeance". He described Africans as at once "hopelessly deficient", yet "very shrewd". The
Carnegie Commission on the Poor White Problem in South Africa "The Poor White Problem in South Africa: Report of the Carnegie Commission" (1932) was a study of poverty among white South Africans that made recommendations about segregation that some have argued would later serve as a blueprint for Apartheid ...
played a key role in establishing apartheid in South Africa. According to one memorandum sent to Frederick Keppel, then president of the
Carnegie Corporation The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establis ...
, there was "little doubt that if the natives were given full economic opportunity, the more competent among them would soon outstrip the less competent whites". Keppel's support for the project of creating the report was motivated by his concern with the maintenance of existing racial boundaries. The preoccupation of the Carnegie Corporation with the so-called poor white problem in South Africa was at least in part the outcome of similar misgivings about the state of poor whites in the southern United States. The report was five volumes in length. Around the start of the 20th century, white Americans, and whites elsewhere in the world, felt uneasy because poverty and economic depression seemed to strike people regardless of race. Though the ground work for apartheid began earlier, the report provided support for this central idea of black inferiority. This was used to justify
racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
and discrimination in the following decades. The report expressed fear about the loss of white racial pride, and in particular pointed to the danger that the poor white would not be able to resist the process of "Africanisation". Although scientific racism played a role in justifying and supporting
institutional racism Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health ...
in South Africa, it was not as important in South Africa as it has been in Europe and the United States. This was due in part to the "poor white problem", which raised serious questions for supremacists about white racial superiority. Since poor whites were found to be in the same situation as natives in the African environment, the idea that intrinsic white superiority could overcome any environment did not seem to hold. As such, scientific justifications for racism were not as useful in South Africa.


Eugenics

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Goul ...
described Madison Grant's '' The Passing of the Great Race'' (1916) as "the most influential tract of American scientific racism." In the 1920s–30s, the German
racial hygiene The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an animal ...
movement embraced Grant's
Nordic theory Nordicism is an ideology of racism which views the historical race concept of the "Nordic race" as an endangered and superior racial group. Some notable and seminal Nordicist works include Madison Grant's book '' The Passing of the Great Race'' ...
. Alfred Ploetz (1860–1940) coined the term ''Rassenhygiene'' in ''Racial Hygiene Basics'' (1895), and founded the German Society for Racial Hygiene in 1905. The movement advocated
selective breeding Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant ...
,
compulsory sterilization Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
, and a close alignment of
public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...
with
eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...
. Racial hygiene was historically tied to traditional notions of public health, but with emphasis on
heredity Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic informa ...
—what philosopher and historian
Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...
has called state racism. In 1869,
Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton, FRS FRAI (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist, Anthropology, anthropologist, tropical Exploration, explorer, geographer, Inventio ...
(1822–1911) proposed the first social measures meant to preserve or enhance biological characteristics, and later coined the term "eugenics". Galton, a statistician, introduced
correlation In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistic ...
and
regression analysis In statistical modeling, regression analysis is a set of statistical processes for estimating the relationships between a dependent variable (often called the 'outcome' or 'response' variable, or a 'label' in machine learning parlance) and one ...
and discovered
regression toward the mean In statistics, regression toward the mean (also called reversion to the mean, and reversion to mediocrity) is the fact that if one sample of a random variable is extreme, the next sampling of the same random variable is likely to be closer to it ...
. He was also the first to study human differences and
inheritance of intelligence Research on the heritability of IQ inquires into the degree of variation in IQ within a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population. There has been significant controversy in the academic community about the h ...
with statistical methods. He introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys to collect data on population sets, which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for anthropometric studies. Galton also founded
psychometrics Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and ...
, the science of measuring mental faculties, and
differential psychology Differential psychology studies the ways in which individuals differ in their behavior and the processes that underlie it. This is a discipline that develops classifications (taxonomies) of psychological individual differences. This is distingui ...
, a branch of psychology concerned with psychological differences between people rather than common traits. Like scientific racism, eugenics grew popular in the early 20th century, and both ideas influenced
Nazi racial policies The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legi ...
and
Nazi eugenics Nazi eugenics refers to the social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany, composed of various pseudoscientific ideas about genetics. The racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of ...
. In 1901, Galton,
Karl Pearson Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university st ...
(1857–1936) and Walter F.R. Weldon (1860–1906) founded the ''
Biometrika ''Biometrika'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Oxford University Press for thBiometrika Trust The editor-in-chief is Paul Fearnhead ( Lancaster University). The principal focus of this journal is theoretical statistics. It was ...
'' scientific journal, which promoted
biometrics Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify i ...
and statistical analysis of heredity.
Charles Davenport Charles Benedict Davenport (June 1, 1866 – February 18, 1944) was a biologist and eugenicist influential in the American eugenics movement. Early life and education Davenport was born in Stamford, Connecticut, to Amzi Benedict Davenport, ...
(1866–1944) was briefly involved in the review. In ''Race Crossing in Jamaica'' (1929), he made statistical arguments that biological and cultural degradation followed white and black
interbreeding In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in ...
. Davenport was connected to
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
before and during World War II. In 1939 he wrote a contribution to the ''festschrift'' for
Otto Reche Otto Carl Reche (24 May 1879 – 23 March 1966) was a German anthropologist and professor from Glatz (Kłodzko), Prussian Silesia. He was active in researching whether there was a correlation between blood types and race. During the Second World W ...
(1879–1966), who became an important figure within the plan to remove populations considered "inferior" from eastern Germany.


Interbellum to World War II

Scientific racism continued through the early 20th century, and soon
intelligence testing An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term ''Intelligenzq ...
became a new source for racial comparisons. Before World War II (1939–45), scientific racism remained common to
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
, and was used as justification for
eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...
programs,
compulsory sterilization Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
,
anti-miscegenation laws Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races. Anti-mi ...
, and immigration restrictions in Europe and the United States. The war crimes and
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
(1933–45) discredited scientific racism in academia, but racist legislation based upon it remained in some countries until the late 1960s.


Early intelligence testing and the Immigration Act of 1924

Before the 1920s, social scientists agreed that whites were superior to blacks, but they needed a way to prove this to back social policy in favor of whites. They felt the best way to gauge this was through testing intelligence. By interpreting the tests to show favor to whites these test makers' research results portrayed all minority groups very negatively. In 1908, Henry Goddard translated the Binet intelligence test from French and in 1912 began to apply the test to incoming immigrants on Ellis Island. Some claim that in a study of immigrants Goddard reached the conclusion that 87% of Russians, 83% of Jews, 80% of Hungarians, and 79% of Italians were feeble-minded and had a mental age less than 12. Some have also claimed that this information was taken as "evidence" by lawmakers and thus it affected social policy for years. Bernard Davis has pointed out that, in the first sentence of his paper, Goddard wrote that the subjects of the study were not typical members of their groups but were selected because of their suspected sub-normal intelligence. Davis has further noted that Goddard argued that the low IQs of the test subjects were more likely due to environmental rather than genetic factors, and that Goddard concluded that "we may be confident that their children will be of average intelligence and if rightly brought up will be good citizens". In 1996 the American Psychological Association's Board of Scientific Affairs stated that IQ tests were not discriminatory towards any ethnic/racial groups. In his book ''
The Mismeasure of Man ''The Mismeasure of Man'' is a 1981 book by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The book is both a history and critique of the statistical methods and cultural motivations underlying biological determinism, the belief that "the social and economic ...
'', Stephen Jay Gould argued that intelligence testing results played a major role in the passage of the
Immigration Act of 1924 The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
that restricted immigration to the United States. However, Mark Snyderman and
Richard J. Herrnstein Richard Julius Herrnstein (May 20, 1930 – September 13, 1994) was an American psychologist at Harvard University. He was an active researcher in animal learning in the Skinnerian tradition. Herrnstein was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psycholo ...
, after studying the
Congressional Record The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Inde ...
and committee hearings related to the Immigration Act, concluded "the ntelligencetesting community did not generally view its findings as favoring restrictive immigration policies like those in the 1924 Act, and Congress took virtually no notice of intelligence testing". Juan N. Franco contested the findings of Snyderman and Herrnstein. Franco stated that even though Snyderman and Herrnstein reported that the data collected from the results of the intelligence tests were in no way used to pass The Immigration Act of 1924, the IQ test results were still taken into consideration by legislators. As suggestive evidence, Franco pointed to the following fact: Following the passage of the immigration act, information from the 1890 census was used to set quotas based on percentages of immigrants coming from different countries. Based on these data, the legislature restricted the entrance of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe into the United States and allowed more immigrants from northern and Western Europe into the country. The use of the 1900, 1910 or 1920 census data sets would have resulted in larger numbers of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe being allowed into the U.S. However, Franco pointed out that using the 1890 census data allowed congress to exclude southern and eastern Europeans (who performed worse on IQ tests of the time than did western and northern Europeans) from the U.S. Franco argued that the work Snyderman and Herrnstein conducted on this matter neither proved or disproved that intelligence testing influenced immigration laws.


Sweden

Following the creation of the first society for the promotion of racial hygiene, the German Society for Racial Hygiene in 1905—a Swedish society was founded in 1909 as "''Svenska sällskapet för rashygien''" as third in the world. By lobbying Swedish parliamentarians and medical institutes the society managed to pass a decree creating a government run institute in the form of the Swedish
State Institute for Racial Biology The State Institute for Racial Biology (SIRB, sv, Statens institut för rasbiologi, SIFR) was a Swedish governmental research institute founded in 1922 with the stated purpose of studying eugenics and human genetics. It was the most prominent ...
in 1921. By 1922 the institute was built and opened in
Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the ca ...
. It was the first such government-funded institute in the world performing research into "''racial biology''" and remains highly controversial to this day. It was the most prominent institution for the study of "racial science" in Sweden. The goal was to cure criminality, alcoholism and psychiatric problems through research in
eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...
and racial hygiene. As a result of the institutes work a law permitting
compulsory sterilization Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
of certain groups was enacted in Sweden in 1934. The second president of the institute
Gunnar Dahlberg Gunnar Dahlberg (1893–1956) was a Swedish physician, eugenist Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter h ...
was highly critical of the validity of the science performed at the institute and reshaped the institute toward a focus on
genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar work ...
. In 1958 it closed down and all remaining research was moved to the Department of medical genetics at Uppsala University.


Nazi Germany

The
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
and its sympathizers published many books on scientific racism, seizing on the
eugenicist Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
and
antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Ant ...
ideas with which they were widely associated, although these ideas had been in circulation since the 19th century. Books such as ''
Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes ''Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes'' (English: ''Racial Science of the German People''), is a book written by German race researcher and Nazi Party member Hans Günther and published in 1922.Anne Maxwell. Picture Imperfect: Photography and Eugenic ...
'' ("Racial Science of the German People") by Hans Günther (first published in 1922) and ''Rasse und Seele'' ("Race and Soul") by (published under different titles between 1926 and 1934) attempted to scientifically identify differences between the German, Nordic, or
Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...
people and other, supposedly inferior, groups. German schools used these books as texts during the Nazi era. In the early 1930s, the Nazis used racialized scientific rhetoric based on
social Darwinism Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in We ...
to push its restrictive and discriminatory social policies. During World War II, Nazi racialist beliefs became anathema in the United States, and Boasians such as Ruth Benedict consolidated their institutional power. After the war, discovery of
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...
and Nazi abuses of scientific research (such as
Josef Mengele , allegiance = , branch = Schutzstaffel , serviceyears = 1938–1945 , rank = '' SS''-'' Hauptsturmführer'' (Captain) , servicenumber = , battles = , unit = , awards = , commands = , ...
's ethical violations and other war crimes revealed at the
Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...
) led most of the scientific community to repudiate scientific support for racism. Propaganda for the Nazi eugenics program began with propaganda for eugenic sterilization. Articles in ''
Neues Volk ''Neues Volk'' (, "New People") was the monthly publication of the Office of Racial Policy in Nazi Germany.Neues Volk< ...
'' described the appearance of the mentally ill and the importance of preventing such births. Photographs of mentally incapacitated children were juxtaposed with those of healthy children. The film '' Das Erbe'' showed conflict in nature to legitimate the
Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring (german: Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses) or "Sterilisation Law" was a statute in Nazi Germany enacted on July 14, 1933, (and made active in January 1934) which allowed the com ...
by sterilization. Although the child was "the most important treasure of the people", this did not apply to all children, even German ones, only to those with no hereditary weaknesses.
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
's racially based social policies placed the improvement of the
Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern ...
through eugenics at the center of Nazis ideology. Those humans were targeted who were identified as " life unworthy of life" (german: link=no, Lebensunwertes Leben), including but not limited to Jewish people, criminals, degenerate,
dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th ...
, feeble-minded,
homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...
, idle, insane, and the weak, for elimination from the chain of
heredity Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic informa ...
. Although they were still regarded as "Aryan", Nazi ideology deemed
Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
(i.e., Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, etc.) to be racially inferior to the Germanic
master race The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative "Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans"). T ...
, suitable for expulsion, enslavement, or even extermination.
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
banned
intelligence quotient An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term ''Intelligen ...
(IQ) testing for being "Jewish".


United States

In the 20th century, concepts of scientific racism, which sought to prove the physical and mental inadequacy of groups deemed "inferior", was relied upon to justify involuntary sterilization programs. Such programs, promoted by eugenicists such as
Harry H. Laughlin Harry Hamilton Laughlin (March 11, 1880 – January 26, 1943) was an American educator and eugenicist. He served as the superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office from its inception in 1910 to its closure in 1939, and was among the most a ...
, were upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in '' Buck v. Bell'' (1927). In all, between 60,000 and 90,000 Americans were subjected to involuntary sterilization. Scientific racism was also used as a justification for the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the
Immigration Act of 1924 The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
(Johnson–Reed Act), which imposed racial quotas limiting Italian American immigration to the United States and immigration from other southern European and eastern European nations. Proponents of these quotas, who sought to block "undesirable" immigrants, justifying restrictions by invoking scientific racism. Lothrop Stoddard published many racialist books on what he saw as the peril of immigration, his most famous being ''
The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy ''The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World-Supremacy'' (1920), by Lothrop Stoddard, is a book about racialism and geopolitics, which describes the collapse of white supremacy and colonialism because of the population growth amon ...
'' in 1920. In this book he presented a view of the world situation pertaining to race focusing concern on the coming population explosion among the "colored" peoples of the world and the way in which "white world-supremacy" was being lessened in the wake of World War I and the collapse of colonialism. Stoddard's analysis divided world politics and situations into "white", "yellow", "black", "Amerindian", and "brown" peoples and their interactions. Stoddard argued race and heredity were the guiding factors of history and civilization, and that the elimination or absorption of the "white" race by "colored" races would result in the destruction of Western civilization. Like Madison Grant, Stoddard divided the white race into three main divisions: Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean. He considered all three to be of good stock, and far above the quality of the colored races, but argued that the Nordic was the greatest of the three and needed to be preserved by way of eugenics. Unlike Grant, Stoddard was less concerned with which varieties of European people were superior to others (Nordic theory), but was more concerned with what he called "bi-racialism", seeing the world as being composed of simply "colored" and "white" races. In the years after the Great Migration and World War I, Grant's racial theory would fall out of favor in the U.S. in favor of a model closer to Stoddard's. An influential publication was '' The Races of Europe'' (1939) by
Carleton S. Coon Carleton Stevens Coon (June 23, 1904 – June 3, 1981) was an American anthropologist. A professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, lecturer and professor at Harvard University, he was president of the American Association of ...
, president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists from 1930 to 1961. Coon was a proponent of multiregional origin of modern humans. He divided ''Homo sapiens'' into five main races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid (including Native Americans), Australoid, Congoid, and
Capoid Capoid race is a grouping formerly used for the Khoikhoi and San peoples in the context of a now-outdated model of dividing humanity into different races. The term was introduced by Carleton S. Coon in 1962 and named for the Cape of Good Hope.'' ...
. Coon's school of thought was the object of increasing opposition in mainstream anthropology after World War II.
Ashley Montagu Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu (June 28, 1905November 26, 1999) — born Israel Ehrenberg — was a British-American anthropologist who popularized the study of topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. He ...
was particularly vocal in denouncing Coon, especially in his ''Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race''. By the 1960s, Coon's approach had been rendered obsolete in mainstream anthropology, but his system continued to appear in publications by his student John Lawrence Angel as late as in the 1970s. In the late 19th century, the '' Plessy v. Ferguson'' (1896)
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
decision—which upheld the constitutional legality of
racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
under the doctrine of "
separate but equal Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protec ...
"—was intellectually rooted in the racism of the era, as was the popular support for the decision. Later, in the mid-20th century, the Supreme Court's '' Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'' (1954) decision rejected
racialist Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies can be more ex ...
arguments about the "need" for racial segregation—especially in public schools.


After 1945

By 1954, 58 years after the ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' upholding of racial segregation in the United States, American popular and scholarly opinions of scientific racism and its sociologic practice had evolved. In 1960, the journal '' Mankind Quarterly'' was founded, which is commonly described as a venue for scientific racism and white supremacy, and as lacking a legitimate scholarly purpose. The journal was founded in 1960, partly in response to the Supreme Court decision '' Brown v. Board of Education'' which desegregated the American public school system. In April 1966,
Alex Haley Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992) was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book '' Roots: The Saga of an American Family.'' ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and ...
interviewed
American Nazi Party The American Nazi Party (ANP) is an American far-right and neo-Nazi political party founded by George Lincoln Rockwell and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The organization was originally named the World Union of Free Enterprise Nation ...
founder George Lincoln Rockwell for ''
Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...
''. Rockwell justified his belief that blacks were inferior to whites by citing a long 1916 study by G. O. Ferguson which claimed to show that the intellectual performance of black students was correlated with their percentage of white ancestry, stating "pure negroes, negroes three-fourths pure, mulattoes and quadroons have, roughly, 60, 70, 80 and 90 percent, respectively, of white intellectual efficiency". ''Playboy'' later published the interview with an editorial note claiming the study was a "discredited ... pseudoscientific rationale for racism". International bodies such as
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...
attempted to draft resolutions that would summarize the state of scientific knowledge about race and issued calls for the resolution of racial conflicts. In its 1950 "
The Race Question The Race Question is the first of four UNESCO statements about issues of race. It was issued on 18 July 1950 following World War II and Nazi racism to clarify what was scientifically known about race, and as a moral condemnation of racism.< ...
", UNESCO did not reject the idea of a biological basis to racial categories, but instead defined a race as: "A race, from the biological standpoint, may therefore be defined as one of the group of populations constituting the species Homo sapiens", which were broadly defined as the Caucasian,
Mongoloid Mongoloid () is an obsolete racial grouping of various peoples indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race. In the past, other terms ...
, Negroid races but stated that "It is now generally recognized that intelligence tests do not in themselves enable us to differentiate safely between what is due to innate capacity and what is the result of environmental influences, training and education." Despite scientific racism being largely dismissed by the scientific community after World War II, some researchers have continued to propose theories of racial superiority in the past few decades. These authors themselves, while seeing their work as scientific, may dispute the term ''racism'' and may prefer terms such as "race realism" or "racialism". In 2018, British science journalist and author Angela Saini expressed strong concern about the return of these ideas into the mainstream. Saini followed up on this idea with her 2019 book '' Superior: The Return of Race Science''. One such post-World War II scientific racism researcher is Arthur Jensen. His most prominent work is '' The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability'' in which he supports the theory that black people are inherently less intelligent than whites. Jensen argues for differentiation in education based on race, stating that educators must "take full account of ''all'' the facts of tudents'nature." Responses to Jensen criticized his lack of emphasis on environmental factors. Psychologist
Sandra Scarr Sandra Wood Scarr (August 8, 1936 – October 8, 2021) was an American psychologist and writer. She was the first female full professor in psychology in the history of Yale University. She established core resources for the study of development, ...
describes Jensen's work as "conjur ngup images of blacks doomed to failure by their own inadequacies". J. Philippe Rushton, president of the Pioneer Fund (''
Race, Evolution, and Behavior ''Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective'' is a book by Canadian psychologist and author J. Philippe Rushton. Rushton was a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario for many years, and the head of the controv ...
'') and a defender of Jensen's ''The g Factor'', also has multiple publications perpetuating scientific racism. Rushton argues "race differences in brain size likely underlie their multifarious life history outcomes." Rushton's theories are defended by other scientific racists such as Glayde Whitney. Whitney published works suggesting higher crime rates among people of African descent can be partially attributed to genetics. Whitney draws this conclusion from data showing higher crime rates among people of African descent across different regions. Other researchers point out that proponents of a genetic crime-race link are ignoring confounding social and economic variables, drawing conclusions from correlations. Christopher Brand was a proponent of Arthur Jensen's work on racial intelligence differences. Brand's '' The g Factor: General Intelligence and Its Implications'' claims black people are intellectually inferior to whites. He argues the best way to combat IQ disparities is to encourage low-IQ women to reproduce with high-IQ men. He faced intense public backlash, with his work being described as a promotion of eugenics. Brand's book was withdrawn by the publisher and he was dismissed from his position at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...
. Psychologist
Richard Lynn Richard Lynn (born 20 February 1930) is a controversial English psychologist and author. He is a former professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, having had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018. He is former assistant edit ...
has published multiple papers and a book supporting theories of scientific racism. In ''
IQ and the Wealth of Nations ''IQ and the Wealth of Nations'' is a 2002 book by psychologist Richard Lynn and political scientist Tatu Vanhanen.Lynn, R. and Vanhanen, T. (2002)IQ and the wealth of nations Westport, CT: Praeger. The authors argue that differences in nation ...
,'' Lynn claims that national GDP is determined largely by national average IQ. He draws this conclusion from the correlation between average IQ and GDP and argues low intelligence in African nations is the cause of their low levels of growth. Lynn's theory has been criticized for attributing causal relationship between correlated statistics. Lynn supports scientific racism more directly in his 2002 paper "Skin Color and Intelligence in African Americans", where he proposes "the level of intelligence in African Americans is significantly determined by the proportion of Caucasian genes." As with ''IQ and the Wealth of Nations'', Lynn's methodology is flawed, and he purports a causal relationship from what is simply correlation. Other prominent modern proponents of scientific racism include Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein ('' The Bell Curve''); and
Nicholas Wade Nicholas Michael Landon Wade (born 17 May 1942) is a British author and journalist. He is the author of numerous books, and has served as staff writer and editor for ''Nature'', ''Science'', and the science section of ''The New York Times''. ...
(''
A Troublesome Inheritance ''A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History'' is a 2014 book by Nicholas Wade, a British writer, journalist, and former science and health editor for ''The New York Times''. In the book, Wade argues that human evolution has been ...
''). Wade's book faced strong backlash from the scientific community, with 142 geneticists and biologists signing a letter describing Wade's work as "misappropriation of research from our field to support arguments about differences among human societies." On June 17, 2020, Elsevier announced it was retracting an article that J. Philippe Rushton and Donald Templer had published in 2012 in the Elsevier journal ''Personality and Individual Differences''. The article falsely claimed that there was scientific evidence that skin color was related to aggression and sexuality in humans. Clarence Gravlee writes that disparities in the incidence of such medical conditions as diabetes, stroke, cancer, and low birth weight should be viewed with a societal lens. He argues that social inequalities, not genetic differences between races, are the reason for these differences. He writes that genetic differences between different population groups are based on climate and geography, not race, and he calls for replacing incorrect biological explanations of racial disparities with an analysis of the social conditions that lead to disparate medical outcomes. In her book ''Medical Apartheid'' Harriet Washington describes the abuse of Black people in medical research and experimentation. Black people were tricked into participating in medical experiments through the use of unclear language on consent forms and a failure to list the risks and side effects of the treatment. Washington mentions that, because Black people were denied adequate health care, they were often desperate for medical help, and medical experimenters were able to exploit that need. Washington also emphasizes that when treatments were perfected and refined as a result of those experiments, Black people almost never benefited from the treatments.Mills, Malcolm. ''The Journal of African American History'', vol. 94, no. 1,
he University of Chicago Press, Association for the Study of African American Life and History He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
2009, pp. 101–03, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25610054.


See also

*
Bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group ...
* Biological determinism *
Environmental determinism Environmental determinism (also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism) is the study of how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular development trajectories. Jared Diamond, Jeffrey Herbst ...
*
Freak show A freak show, also known as a creep show, is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to in popular culture as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with ...
* History of the race and intelligence controversy * Human zoo *
Institute for the Study of Academic Racism The Institute for the Study of Academic Racism (ISAR) is an organization that monitors "changing intellectual trends in academic racism, biological determinism, and eugenics." ISAR states that in this capacity it "acts as a resource service for st ...
* Italian Fascism and racism * Italian racial laws *
Nazism and race The Nazi Party adopted and developed several pseudoscientific racial classifications as part of its ideology (Nazism) in order to justify the genocide of groups of people which it deemed racially inferior. The Nazis considered the putative " ...
*
Objectification In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person, as an object or a thing. It is part of dehumanization, the act of disavowing the humanity of others. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sex ...
* Pioneer Fund *
Racial policy of Nazi Germany The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legi ...
* Race and genetics * Race and health *
Race and intelligence Discussions of race and intelligence – specifically, claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines – have appeared in both popular science and academic research since the modern concept of race was first introduced. With the inc ...
*
Scientific imperialism Scientific imperialism is a term that appears to have been coined by Ellis T. Powell when addressing the Commonwealth Club of Canada on 8 September 1920. He defined imperialism as "the sense of arbitrary and capricious domination over the bodies a ...


References


Bibliography

* * * * * Detterman, Douglas K. 2006. "Intelligence." ''Microsoft Student 2007'' DVD. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation. * * * * * * * Higgins, A.C. n.d
"Scientific Racism: A Review of ''The Science and Politics of Racial Research'' by William H. Tucker"
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Accessed October 21, 2007. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * Alexander, Nathan G. (2019). ''Race in a Godless World: Atheism, Race, and Civilization, 1850–1914''. New York/Manchester: New York University Press/Manchester University Press. * * *


External links

*
Race, Evolution and the Science of Human Origins
by Allison Hopper, ''
Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'' (July 5, 2021).
Fact Sheet on Eugenics and Scientific Racism from the National Human Genome Research Institute

Scientific racism, history of
at
Encyclopedia.com Encyclopedia.com (also known as HighBeam Encyclopedia) is an online encyclopedia. It aggregates information from other published dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference works including pictures and videos. History The website was launched by ...
(
Cengage Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for the higher education, K-12, professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world.(Jun 27, 2014Global Publishing Leaders ...
)
The Mis-portrayal of Darwin as a Racist
nbsp;– Refutes claims that Darwin was a racist or that his views inspired the Nazis *
Reviews of ''Race: The Reality of Human Differences''


* Gardner, Dan

''
The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'', October 27, 1995.
Institute for the study of academic racism (ISAR)


From Race: The Power of an Illusion. PBS.
"How Can We Curb the Spread of Scientific Racism?"
a review of ''Superior: The Return of Race Science'' by Angela Saini * {{DEFAULTSORT:Scientific Racism Eugenics Pseudoscience Race and intelligence controversy Social problems in medicine Pseudoarchaeology