1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,520 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey 2 00:00:06,559 --> 00:00:10,120 Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vogl Bam here. If you've ever watched 3 00:00:10,119 --> 00:00:12,680 Speaker 1: a police procedural, you've probably heard a description of a 4 00:00:12,680 --> 00:00:15,159 Speaker 1: suspect that goes something like this. The suspect is a 5 00:00:15,240 --> 00:00:19,280 Speaker 1: six ft pound Caucasian male wearing a white T shirt, jeans, 6 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:24,360 Speaker 1: and so on. But what does Caucasian really mean. It's easy, 7 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:27,320 Speaker 1: of course, to equit Caucasian with white, but that one 8 00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:30,800 Speaker 1: word Caucasian touches on issues much deeper than skin color. 9 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:34,000 Speaker 1: It kindles questions of race and the very origin of humans. 10 00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:37,320 Speaker 1: It even exposes the topic of whether race exists outside 11 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:41,599 Speaker 1: of our own weird minds. Spoiler, in humans, no genetic 12 00:00:41,640 --> 00:00:45,880 Speaker 1: basis exists to separate our species into races. We spoke 13 00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:49,200 Speaker 1: with Joseph Graves, a professor of nanoengineering and the intern 14 00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:52,479 Speaker 1: dean at the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering in Greensboro, 15 00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:57,040 Speaker 1: North Carolina. He said, there's no scientific justification for use 16 00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:00,880 Speaker 1: of the term Caucasian. It's actually a nineteenth century anthropological 17 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:03,320 Speaker 1: idea that was based around a false conception that the 18 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:06,200 Speaker 1: origin of the human species was in the Caucus Mountains. 19 00:01:07,240 --> 00:01:09,480 Speaker 1: The Caucus Mountains run from the Black Sea to the 20 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:11,800 Speaker 1: west to the Caspian Sea on the east, in an 21 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:14,639 Speaker 1: area that's considered by many as the crossroads between Eastern 22 00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:18,000 Speaker 1: Europe and Western Asia. These mountain ranges, two of them, 23 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:20,880 Speaker 1: the Greater and Lesser, are due east of Italy, due 24 00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:24,520 Speaker 1: north of Iraq, and due west of India. The southern 25 00:01:24,520 --> 00:01:26,840 Speaker 1: tip of Russia lies to the north of the Caucus Mountains. 26 00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:30,160 Speaker 1: To the immediate south as Georgia, a former Soviet republic, 27 00:01:30,640 --> 00:01:36,320 Speaker 1: This is where Caucasians, true Caucasians call home. People from Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan, 28 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:40,959 Speaker 1: and Armenia hail from that area. But Caucasians, as first 29 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:44,640 Speaker 1: identified by German anthropologist Jonan Frederick Blumenbach, and as some 30 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:46,959 Speaker 1: still think of the group today, lay claim to a 31 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:50,960 Speaker 1: lot more real estate than that. In sevente in the 32 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:53,480 Speaker 1: third edition of his book titled On the Natural Varieties 33 00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:57,160 Speaker 1: of Mankind, Blumenbach, building on work by Swedish scientist Carolus 34 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:00,600 Speaker 1: Linnaeus and others, used the word Caucasian to describe one 35 00:02:00,600 --> 00:02:04,040 Speaker 1: of his five races of man. He determined each through 36 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:07,040 Speaker 1: scientific methods like the measuring of skulls, and tied each 37 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:11,520 Speaker 1: to distinct geographic regions. Caucasians were, as Bloombach presented them, 38 00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:14,280 Speaker 1: the white race, and included people not only from the 39 00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:17,400 Speaker 1: Caucus region, but also those from Europe, Northern India, and 40 00:02:17,480 --> 00:02:21,280 Speaker 1: parts of northern Africa. The other groups Bloombach identified tied 41 00:02:21,360 --> 00:02:26,040 Speaker 1: loosely to skin color were Malaysian, Ethiopian, Native American, and Mongolian. 42 00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:30,400 Speaker 1: Though Bloommbuch found that the quote many varieties of man 43 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:33,919 Speaker 1: are as present known to be one and the same species, 44 00:02:34,360 --> 00:02:37,120 Speaker 1: his work nonetheless was seen as giving scientific credence to 45 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:40,799 Speaker 1: the concept of biological race. Over the years, that notion 46 00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:43,080 Speaker 1: has been abused in order to separate groups of people, 47 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:46,400 Speaker 1: often by skin color, and to declare, through some bastardization 48 00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:50,760 Speaker 1: of science, the superiority of one race over others. Also, 49 00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:53,760 Speaker 1: years after bloom Back, scientists found that the earliest humans 50 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:56,280 Speaker 1: didn't come from the Caucus, but from Africa in modern 51 00:02:56,360 --> 00:03:01,639 Speaker 1: day Ethiopia. Classifying humans into races, whatever blooming Box intentions, 52 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:05,560 Speaker 1: continues today. The term Caucasian is still rolled out occasionally, 53 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:09,400 Speaker 1: and not only on TV police dramas. The Graves said, 54 00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:11,720 Speaker 1: I was just at a conference here in Minnesota where 55 00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:14,200 Speaker 1: a researcher from South Africa kept referring to herself and 56 00:03:14,280 --> 00:03:17,360 Speaker 1: others in her country as Caucasians. I think it is 57 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:21,280 Speaker 1: very very much a white supremacist, racist ideology. I think 58 00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:24,240 Speaker 1: it has to do with euro Centric racial ideology. People 59 00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:27,120 Speaker 1: wish to hold onto the special designation exemplified by this 60 00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:32,320 Speaker 1: term Caucasian beyond Caucasian. The U. S Census Bureau has 61 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:35,680 Speaker 1: its own definition of race quote a person's self identification 62 00:03:35,720 --> 00:03:38,880 Speaker 1: with one or more social groups, and it asks respondents 63 00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:44,000 Speaker 1: to choose from its own categories white, Black, or African American, Asian, American, Indian, 64 00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:48,440 Speaker 1: and Alaska Native, Native, Hawaiian, and other Pacific islander. The 65 00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:51,360 Speaker 1: census allows those survey to choose some other race as well. 66 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,440 Speaker 1: The Census bureaus definition of race that it's self identified 67 00:03:55,480 --> 00:03:58,000 Speaker 1: and based on social groups is different than blooming box 68 00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:01,240 Speaker 1: and that it's notably social, not sig sientific, and it 69 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:03,920 Speaker 1: supports the now widely accepted finding that race is not 70 00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:08,120 Speaker 1: something that's supported by science. Genetically speaking, someone can't be 71 00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:10,400 Speaker 1: of the white race, or the Caucasian race, or the 72 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:14,440 Speaker 1: Mongolian race. We are of one species, according to the 73 00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:19,960 Speaker 1: National Human Genome Research Institute, humans are identical in genetic makeup. 74 00:04:21,279 --> 00:04:24,680 Speaker 1: Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at Canada's Brock University, 75 00:04:24,880 --> 00:04:29,000 Speaker 1: explained in psychology today, scientists generally do not recognize races 76 00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:33,640 Speaker 1: as biologically meaningful. Yet scientists, including me, discuss race and 77 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:36,919 Speaker 1: describe the racial composition of our samples. To be clear, 78 00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:40,240 Speaker 1: I am not advocating that we ignore race. In fact, 79 00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:42,880 Speaker 1: there are many dangers in ignoring races a social topic. 80 00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:47,360 Speaker 1: Race is real, but race is socially real, not biologically real. 81 00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:52,680 Speaker 1: Yet the term Caucasian, despite its problems, has proven stubbornly resilient. 82 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:56,120 Speaker 1: Some people perceive it as being more scientific or dispassionate 83 00:04:56,160 --> 00:04:58,840 Speaker 1: than saying white, even though the exact opposite is true. 84 00:04:58,839 --> 00:05:02,040 Speaker 1: Based on the words origin from a provenly incorrect hypothesis 85 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:06,080 Speaker 1: and later used to perpetuate prejudice. In two thousand four, 86 00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:08,640 Speaker 1: Graves wrote a book called The Race Myth. Why we 87 00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:12,960 Speaker 1: pretend race exists in America? From the introduction quote, we 88 00:05:13,080 --> 00:05:16,240 Speaker 1: must recognize that the underlying biological diversity of the human 89 00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:20,360 Speaker 1: species cannot be artificially apportioned into races because races are 90 00:05:20,400 --> 00:05:24,400 Speaker 1: simply not biologically justified. If we can understand that all 91 00:05:24,440 --> 00:05:28,240 Speaker 1: allegiance to racism is ideological, not scientific. Then we may 92 00:05:28,279 --> 00:05:30,480 Speaker 1: be able to silence the bigots once and for all. 93 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:37,960 Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by 94 00:05:37,960 --> 00:05:40,480 Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. The brain Stuff is a production of iHeart 95 00:05:40,520 --> 00:05:42,560 Speaker 1: Radio as how Stuff Works. For more on this and 96 00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:44,919 Speaker 1: lots of other social topics, visit our home planet has 97 00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:47,520 Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com and for more podcasts. For my 98 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:50,560 Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or 99 00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:52,120 Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.