Is Science Racist? PDF

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Carson Montana Dr. Kissel ANT- 11/17/Concept of Race As a Social ConstructThroughout history, as concepts of race and racism developed, they became inseparable from western science. The development of the west was built on worldviews that offered justification for conquering and expansion. An early ...

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Carson Montana Dr. Kissel ANT-2230 11/17/2019

Concept of Race As a Social Construct

Throughout history, as concepts of race and racism developed, they became inseparable from western science. The development of the west was built on worldviews that offered justification for conquering and expansion. An early example of using science for justification is Carolus Linnaeus, an eighteenth-century Swedish botanist credited with inventing the species classification system. He was the first to group humans into four different variations: Americanus, Asiaticus, Africanus, and Europeaeus (Chuhan). He not only defined these groups by physical characteristics but by behavioral ones as well. His descriptions of the three non-white races contain almost exclusively negative attributes, whereas Europeans are muscular, acute, and civilized. In this paper, I’ll discuss the concept of race as a social construct, and the role social and cultural surroundings play in individual human variances. Genetic differences do have biological foundations, sure, but everything about genetics has proven that humans are far more alike than we are different,

no matter our physical differences (Graves). In an article by National Geographic, There’s No Scientific Basis for Race—It's a Made-Up Label, Kolbert discusses the concept of race and genetics. According to Kolbert, Science today tells us that the visible differences between peoples are accidents of history. They reflect how our ancestors dealt with sun exposure and not much else. Genetics show mixture and displacement have happened repeatedly and “that our pictures of past ‘racial structures’ are almost always wrong” (Reich). People are not born racist. They are not even born with a sense of race. Our instinct to distinguish ourselves from others and treat them differently is learned. If racial categories were written into laws used in the past to keep people separate and later changed to prohibit discrimination of people based on skin color, how could the concept of race NOT be socially constructed? Journalist Angela Saini published an article condemning the use of science to justify racial discrimination. In Superior: The Return of Race Science, Saini says that race, nationality, and ethnicity are “ephemeral, real only inasmuch as we have made them real by living in the cultures we do, with the politics we have.” Anthropologist Jonathan Marks also claims that studying human biological variation and studying race is to examine two different things. Marks perfectly explains that biological variation has to do with science, while race has to do with all aspects outside the scope of science.

Scientific explanations for differences in humans aren’t limited to our physical differences but are used to explain human behavior as well. Biological explanations for criminality, homosexuality, and drunkenness, among other human behaviors, completely ignores the importance of one’s cultural environment. While all human behaviors are driven in some way by our genetic makeup, the majority of differences in humans result from a person’s social, environmental, and cultural exposure. According to Robert Sussman, “The anthropological concept of culture is extremely important and often misunderstood because many of the things that are assumed to be biologically determined are behaviorally and societally defined." Although race may be a social construct, it is still made very real by the ideologies that created and legitimized it for centuries. It affects the way we see society, the way we live, and the way we think about those around us. Racial and social biases are ingrained in all of us, whether we see it or not, and this includes areas of study such as psychology, anthropology, medicine, and genetic engineering. Culture and environment must be understood as essential components when explaining human differences to avoid perpetuating existing racist and prejudice worldviews in the name of science.

Works Cited Chuhan, K. The Development of Racist Theories and Ideas. Retrieved from http://revealinghistories.org.uk/legacies-stereotypes-racism-and-the-civil-rights-m ovement/articles/the-development-of-racist-theories-and-ideas.html

Gannon, Megan. “Race Is a Social Construct, Scientists Argue.” Scientific American, Future, 5 Feb. 2016, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-ar gue/

Graves, Joeseph. “If Race is a Social Construct What’s Up With DNA Ancestry Testing.” Teaching Tolerance, http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/Race%20does%2 0not%20equal%20DNA%20-%20TT50.pdf.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. “There's No Scientific Basis for Race-It's a Made-Up Label.” There's No Scientific Basis for Race- It's a Made-Up Label, National Geographic Magazine, 12 Mar. 2018, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-genetics-scie nce-africa/.

Marks J. (2017). Is Science Racist? Malden, MA: Polity. Saini A. (2019). Superior: The return of race science. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Sussman, R. (n.d.). The Relationship of Human and Non-Human Modes of Social Transmission to Culture. Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2013/webprogram/Paper8433.html...