Historical Perspectives on Human Variation and Race

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Historical Perspectives on Human Variation and Race

  • Lecture 12

Learning Objectives

  • Review the history of the development of the field of human biology

  • Discuss how historical context influenced past explanations of human biological variation:

    • Common themes in human variation:

    • Classifying variation vs. understanding the origins of variation

    • Examining power dynamics within knowledge production

European Colonialism and Documenting Human Variation

  • Historical Beginning: 1600s

    • European explorers document and describe the peoples and environments encountered

    • Ethnocentrism:

    • Defined as the tendency to view one’s own culture as superior

    • Leads to judgment of culturally distinct people by one's own cultural standards

Historical Documentation and Colonization

  • Explorers’ descriptions justifying the establishment of colonies

  • Ethnographic collections from this period found in various museums

Competing Ideas in the 1700s

  • Human Variation Beliefs:

    1. Human variation is ancient, permanent, and divinely ordained

    • Example: The Great Chain of Being:

      • Concept that all living creatures occupy a position on a continuous scale

    1. Human variation is a product of natural causes:

    • Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)

      • Viewed humans as natural beings akin to other animals

      • Included humans in his classification system:

        • Genus: Homo

        • Species: sapiens

        • Varieties: American, European, Asian, African

        • Reflected changes due to external factors such as temperature, climate, and geography

Understanding Human Variation

  • Competing ideas regarding human variation highlight the distinction between classifying and understanding its origins

Early Writings on Race

  • Influential Figures:

    • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

    • Known for significant contributions to philosophy

    • Famous for teachings on Anthropology, categorizing humanity based on skin color and hair texture

    • Asserted these categories correlate with behavioral and physical traits, with fixed classifications implying the superiority of whites

    • Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840)

    • Founder of physical anthropology

    • Proposed five racial categories: Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malay

    • Suggested environmental factors led to differences in appearance, tracing them back to a common ancestor

Scientific Racism Origins

  • Rise of belief that classifications were rigid categories linking behavioral and physical characteristics

  • Implied inequality and the beginnings of scientific racism, which assumes races are natural categories and tries to explore differences among them

Slavery and Race

  • 1700s-1800s: Descriptions of human variation used to justify slavery

  • Recommended Podcast: "Speaking of Race, Episode 5"

Polygenism vs. Monogenism

  • Late 1700s - Early 1800s

  • Calculation by James Ussher and John Lightfoot posited creation of Earth in 4004 BC

  • Question: How did all human races emerge in just 6,000 years?

    • Polygenism:

    • Doctrine holding that human races are separate biological species descended from different "Adams"

    • Monogenism:

    • Doctrine asserting all human races share a single origin as stated in Scriptures

    • Changes in traits result from various factors including climates and lifestyles

    • Charles Darwin as a proponent of monogenism, indicating belief in an older Earth than 6,000 years

Typology and Racism

  • Definition of Typology:

    • A method popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s that reduces spectrum of variation into smaller sets of categories

    • Assumes the existence of "ideal types" representative of certain groups

  • Problems with Typology:

    • Difficulty in identifying an "ideal type" for groups

    • Focus on averages disregards actual variation and its origins

  • Earnest Hooton (1887-1954):

    • American physical anthropologist who trained many students

    • Writings suggest the existence of “pure” unmixed races with homogenous characteristics

  • Anthropometric Traits:

    • Types of traits utilized for racial distinctions included:

    • Measurements of body, head, and face

    • Examples of indices include:

      • Cranial Index:
        ext{Cranial Index} = rac{ ext{Maximum breadth of the skull} imes 100}{ ext{Maximum length of the skull}}

      • Today's understanding indicates no correlation between cranial index and intelligence

      • Cephalic Index uses Cranial Index as a basis

Eugenics Movement

  • Originated in the late 1800s, seeking to improve human species and maintain racial purity via planned breeding

  • Proposal by US Immigration Commission in 1908 to evaluate the influence of new immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe

Contributions of Franz Boas

  • Biography: Franz Boas (1858-1942)

    • Born in Germany, migrated to the US amid rising antisemitism

    • Engaged with US Immigration Commission, studying phenotypic plasticity related to environmental changes

    • Plasticity refers to an organism's ability to adapt its biology or behavior based on environmental influences

    • Considered the “Father of American Anthropology”

    • Involved in all four anthropology subfields: biological, linguistic, cultural, and archaeology

  • Impact on Anthropology:

    • Trained several prominent anthropologists including:

    • Ruth Benedict

    • Margaret Mead

    • Zora Neale Hurston

    • Edward Sapir

Limitations of Anthropometric Measures

  • Challenges in delineating racial groups include:

    • Influence of environmental factors

    • Independent inheritance of traits

    • Principle of discordance in traits

  • Cline/Clinal Distribution:

    • A plot or map demonstrating changes in allele, genotype, or phenotype frequencies across geographic areas

Genetics and Race

  • Shift in scientific focus to genetics for defining races

  • Quote by Dobzhansky:

    • “Races are defined as populations differing in the incidence of certain genes, but actually exchanging or potentially able to exchange genes across whatever boundaries that separate them.”

  • Attempt to establish a biochemical race index based on A, B, and O blood group distribution failed to yield clear patterns

Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis

  • Initiated in 1932 by the US Public Health Service collaborating with Tuskegee Institute

  • Goal: Study the natural course of syphilis in African American men

  • Recruitment: 600 African American male sharecroppers from Macon County, AL, including 399 with syphilis and 201 without

  • Participants were misled to believe they were being treated for “bad blood”

  • 1940s saw penicillin become standard treatment, but participants did not receive it

  • 1972 developments:

    • US Public Health whistleblower led to the cessation of the study

    • Out of 399 participants with syphilis, only 74 were alive; 28 died of syphilis, and 100 from related complications

  • Legislative Response:

    • 1974 National Research Act passed, mandating the establishment of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to oversee federally funded research involving human subjects

    • Today, IRBs review all human subjects research projects

Calls to End Race-Based Systems

  • By mid-1900s, some scientists began advocating against race classification as a means to study human variation:

    • Ashley Montagu (1942): Argued against clear boundaries in the continuous nature of human variation

    • Sherwood Washburn (1951): Promoted focus on the evolutionary origins of variation in “The New Physical Anthropology”

    • Frank Livingston (1962): Wrote on the non-existence of human races

Current Understanding of Race

  • Key Takeaways:

    • Races cannot be defined by specific genes

    • Greater genetic diversity exists within groups than between major geographical divisions

    • Race is socially constructed, lacking biological foundation

Lecture 12 Question

  • Which of the following statements about race is true?
    A. Two people of the same race are more likely to be genetically similar to each other.
    B. Race is a social construct – an idea created and accepted by a society.
    C. Biological variation can be categorized into racial groups.
    D. Some races are biologically superior to other races in certain ways.

Additional Learning Resources

  • Recommended PBS Movie: "Race: The Power of an Illusion - Episode 3: The House We Live In"

  • Available at: https://www.kanopy.com/product/race

Upcoming Assignments and Readings

For Today:

  • 12- WATCH - The Story About Race

  • Lecture 12 Question

  • 12 - READ - History of Race Timeline

  • 12- ANSWER - Reading Questions
    For Next Time:

  • 13-READ - Graves, 2005 A+

  • 13-WATCH - How Racism Makes Us Sick

  • 13- ANSWER - Reading Questions

Key Terms and Concepts

  • Classifying vs. understanding human variation

  • The Great Chain of Being

  • Carolus Linnaeus

  • Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

  • Ethnocentrism

  • Scientific racism

  • Polygenism vs. monogenism

  • Typology

  • Eugenics

  • Cranial Index

  • Anthropometry

  • Franz Boas

  • Plasticity

  • Cline

  • Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis

  • Institutional Review Board