Existing comment:
Human (mis)measure:
Although scientists did not invent the concept of race, the history of science includes many attempts to rationalize and justify race and racial hierarchies:
1735: Linneaus's Systema Naturae:
Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus develops a system for classifying all living things, grouping humans into four basic races. The influence of this work remains with us today.
1792: The racial angle:
Dutch anatomist Petrus Camper introduces the facial angle, a measurement of the relative flatness of the face. In 1799, physician Charles White will use the facial angle to rank animals and people in a hierarchical scheme, with Europeans at the top.
"[I]mmediately upon inclining the facial line forward, I obtained a head like that of the ancients; but when I inclined that line backwards, I produced a Negro physiognomy, and definitely the profile of an ape, of a Chinese, of an idiot in proportion as I inclined this same line more or less to the rear."
-- Petrus Camper, "On the Natural Difference in Facial Traits" (1792)
1795: Four races to five:
German physician Johann Blumenbach uses comparative skull measurements and skin colors to divide the world's people into five "principal varieties": "Caucasian," "Mongolian," "Malayan," "Negro," and "American." Although Blumenbach believes in the mental and moral equality of all people, his work is later used to help justify the opposite.
"[N]o variety exists, whether of colour, countenance, or stature, etc., so singular as not to be connected with others of the same kind by such an imperceptible transition, that it is very clear they are all related, or only differ from each other in degree."
-- Johann Blumenbach, "On the Natural Varieties of Mankind" (1795) |