Thursday, October 25, 2007

Doctor Watson's Race Problem


Why Nobel Laureate Dr Watson is wrong about race.

Stephen Jay Gould's take.

In Gould's own words.

Here's why the term "Caucasian" was coined by Friedrich Blumenbach:

"Caucasian variety - I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind."

Odd he thought his "race" the most beautiful, no?

Race: The Power of an Allusion.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Check out this for medical "race" usage:

The Medicalization of Race: Scientific Legitimization of a Flawed Social Construct.

http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/125/8/675