Comments on: Book review – Superior: The Return of Race Science/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/Reviewing fascinating science books since 2017Thu, 05 Dec 2024 15:19:32 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/By: Book review – The Man Who Organized Nature: The Life of Linnaeus | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-95132Thu, 05 Dec 2024 15:19:32 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-95132[…] both positively and negatively, but refrains from passing judgement himself. Furthermore, Linnaeus has been charged with laying the foundation for racist pseudoscience by creating categories for different human […]

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]]>By: Book review – Cro-Magnon: The Story of the Last Ice Age People of Europe | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-94808Fri, 15 Mar 2024 14:52:07 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-94808[…] the discovery of the first Cro-Magnon and Neandertal remains, but also the historical baggage of race science in anthropology and how there never was any agreement on how many races there were or how they were […]

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]]>By: Book review – Science in Black and White: How Biology and Environment Shape Our Racial Divide | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-12849Wed, 09 Sep 2020 14:58:27 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-12849[…] time after I reviewed Angela Saini’s book Superior, I was contacted by medical anthropologist and science writer Alondra Oubré, offering me the […]

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]]>By: Book review – The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-12363Fri, 28 Aug 2020 15:57:11 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-12363[…] concept (see e.g. The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea and Superior: The Return of Race Science). Moffett largely sidesteps the issue by contending that in the context of societies of people of […]

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]]>By: Book review – Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-12362Fri, 28 Aug 2020 15:55:35 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-12362[…] A far darker chapter that Switek tackles with panache is the heritage of anthropology. The pseudoscience of phrenology (where measurements of the bumps on a skull supposedly predicted someone’s mental capacities and traits) was long used to justify white man’s superiority. As he mentions, anthropology may not have invented racism, but it certainly fueled it through the 19th and 20th century. Switek is deeply troubled by the resurgence of the idea that race is biologically meaningful. As has been documented at length, there is more variation within populations than between populations, and the overlap between what we thought of as races is enormous (see strident takedowns in The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea and Superior: The Return of Race Science). […]

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]]>By: Book review – Rage Inside The Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms, and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-11957Wed, 12 Aug 2020 18:51:29 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-11957[…] which is still with us today, is the intelligence quotient (IQ) test. It has been used to prop up racism and sexism for decades. Less well-known is that other statistical tools had equally less salubrious […]

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]]>By: Book review – Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-8603Sun, 22 Mar 2020 15:40:01 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-8603[…] (IQ) test. It has been used to prop up racism and sexism for decades (see also my review of Superior: The Return of Race Science). Less well-known is that other statistical tools had equally less salubrious origins, with links […]

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]]>By: Book review – Rage Inside The Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms, and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-7104Tue, 03 Dec 2019 12:38:13 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-7104[…] (IQ) test. It has been used to prop up racism and sexism for decades (see also my review of Superior: The Return of Race Science). Less well-known is that other statistical tools had equally less salubrious origins, with links […]

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]]>By: Book review – The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-4782Tue, 09 Jul 2019 11:53:08 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-4782[…] useful concept (see e.g. The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea and Superior: The Return of Race Science). Moffett largely sidesteps the issue by contending that in the context of societies of people of […]

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]]>By: Book review – Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone | The Inquisitive Biologist/2019/07/08/book-review-superior-the-return-of-race-science/comment-page-1/#comment-4781Tue, 09 Jul 2019 11:48:08 +0000http://inquisitivebiologist.wordpress.com/?p=3800#comment-4781[…] A far darker chapter that Switek tackles with panache is the heritage of anthropology. The pseudoscience of phrenology (where measurements of the bumps on a skull supposedly predicted someone’s mental capacities and traits) was long used to justify white man’s superiority. As he mentions, anthropology may not have invented racism, but it certainly fueled it through the 19th and 20th century. Switek is deeply troubled by the resurgence of the idea that race is biologically meaningful. As has been documented at length, there is more variation within populations than between populations, and the overlap between what we thought of as races is enormous (see strident takedowns in The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea and Superior: The Return of Race Science). […]

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