Science is one of the most remarkable inventions of humanity. She has been a source of inspiration and understanding, lifted the veil of ignorance and superstition, proved to be a catalyst for social change and economic growth, and saved countless lives.
Yet history also shows us that science is an ambiguous thing. Some discoveries have done far more harm than good. There is one fact that you most likely never read about in the lists that present the biggest mistakes in science.
Worst mistakes in the history of science
The worst mistake in the history of science is undoubtedly the classification of people into different races.
Of course, there are other contenders for this dubious honor. These are such mistakes as the invention of nuclear weapons, the use of fossil fuels, chlorofluorocarbons, leaded gasoline. As well as shaky theories and dubious discoveries such as the expanding earth hypothesis, vitalism, phrenology, and the Piltdown man. And this is only a small part of the list.
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Major flaws in racial theory
But race theory stands out among all. This mistake has caused innumerable calamities. It has been used to justify barbaric acts of colonialism, slavery and even genocide. In addition, today it is still used to explain social inequality and continues to inspire far-right sentiment around the globe.
Take, for example, the 2014 controversy surrounding the work of writer Nicholas Wade, if you doubt that racial prejudice still matters to some people.
How the theory of the division of people into races appeared
The theory of human races was invented by anthropologists as early as the eighteenth century. They tried to classify the new groups of people encountered by the European colonialists.
From the outset, the arbitrary and subjective character of racial division was widely recognized. Most of the time, this was justified by cultural or linguistic differences between groups of people, not biological ones.
The existence of such races was taken for granted until the twentieth century, when anthropologists were busy describing them in order to find a biological explanation for differences in psychology, intelligence, education, and socio-economic characteristics of various groups of people.
Critics of the theory
However, there has always been a concern about racial division. Anthropologists were of the widespread belief that racial categories would be extremely difficult to apply in practice.
One of the famous critics of race theory was the American anthropologist Ashley Montague, who wrote in 1941: "An omelet called 'race' does not exist outside the statistical pan in which it is fueled by the imagination of anthropologists."
If race doctrine still has public and political resonance, what do scientists think of it? In particular, do anthropologists still believe that racial division exists?
Poll among anthropologists
The American Journal of Physical Anthropology recently published a survey of over 3,000 anthropologists. Survey author Jennifer Wagner and her team offer some valuable insight into core views and beliefs.
The survey was conducted among members of the American Anthropological Association, the largest professional organization of anthropologists in the world. They were asked to answer 53 questions, which were supposed to show whether races are real, whether they are determined by biology, whether they can play a certain role in medicine; highlight the role of race and lineage in commercial genetic testing, and whether the term “race” should continue to be used for humans.
results
The most indicative was the answer to the question of whether it is possible to divide the human population into biological races. 86% of respondents answered negatively.
When asked whether races are defined by biology, 88% of anthropologists strongly objected. 85% of respondents disagreed with this statement: "Most anthropologists believe that people can be divided into biological races."
What conclusion can we draw from this survey?
There is a clear consensus among anthropologists that races are not real because they do not reflect human biology. Most anthropologists believe that there is no place in science for the division of people into races.
However, the results of the survey also showed some disturbing conclusions. First of all, anthropologists from privileged groups (in the context of the United States, this means white men and women) were more inclined to accept races as reality than non-privileged groups.
These privileged scientists represent 75% of the anthropologists surveyed. They are the ones who mainly determine what research is done and who gets funding. In addition, they train the next generation of anthropologists and are public figures in this field, as well as experts whose opinion is taken into account on issues such as race.
The conclusions are clear. Like other humans, anthropologists are not immune to the unconscious influences of social status and culture in shaping beliefs about the issue of race.
Ironically, we need anthropology as a discipline to work with our own perspectives and culturally embedded beliefs, and to provide more voice to those scientists who belong to historically disadvantaged groups.
Nonetheless, this study makes a very powerful statement. This is a resounding rejection of race theory by those scholars whose discipline invented the very system of racial classification.
The study also marks the general acceptance by anthropologists of decades of genetic research that proves that humanity cannot be scientifically divided into races. Although, of course, one should not expect that the wider community will support the idea of abandoning racial theory anytime soon.
Anna Pismenna