Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vogl Bam here. If you've ever watched
Speaker 1: a police procedural, you've probably heard a description of a
Speaker 1: suspect that goes something like this. The suspect is a
Speaker 1: six ft pound Caucasian male wearing a white T shirt, jeans,
Speaker 1: and so on. But what does Caucasian really mean. It's easy,
Speaker 1: of course, to equit Caucasian with white, but that one
Speaker 1: word Caucasian touches on issues much deeper than skin color.
Speaker 1: It kindles questions of race and the very origin of humans.
Speaker 1: It even exposes the topic of whether race exists outside
Speaker 1: of our own weird minds. Spoiler, in humans, no genetic
Speaker 1: basis exists to separate our species into races. We spoke
Speaker 1: with Joseph Graves, a professor of nanoengineering and the intern
Speaker 1: dean at the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering in Greensboro,
Speaker 1: North Carolina. He said, there's no scientific justification for use
Speaker 1: of the term Caucasian. It's actually a nineteenth century anthropological
Speaker 1: idea that was based around a false conception that the
Speaker 1: origin of the human species was in the Caucus Mountains.
Speaker 1: The Caucus Mountains run from the Black Sea to the
Speaker 1: west to the Caspian Sea on the east, in an
Speaker 1: area that's considered by many as the crossroads between Eastern
Speaker 1: Europe and Western Asia. These mountain ranges, two of them,
Speaker 1: the Greater and Lesser, are due east of Italy, due
Speaker 1: north of Iraq, and due west of India. The southern
Speaker 1: tip of Russia lies to the north of the Caucus Mountains.
Speaker 1: To the immediate south as Georgia, a former Soviet republic,
Speaker 1: This is where Caucasians, true Caucasians call home. People from Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan,
Speaker 1: and Armenia hail from that area. But Caucasians, as first
Speaker 1: identified by German anthropologist Jonan Frederick Blumenbach, and as some
Speaker 1: still think of the group today, lay claim to a
Speaker 1: lot more real estate than that. In sevente in the
Speaker 1: third edition of his book titled On the Natural Varieties
Speaker 1: of Mankind, Blumenbach, building on work by Swedish scientist Carolus
Speaker 1: Linnaeus and others, used the word Caucasian to describe one
Speaker 1: of his five races of man. He determined each through
Speaker 1: scientific methods like the measuring of skulls, and tied each
Speaker 1: to distinct geographic regions. Caucasians were, as Bloombach presented them,
Speaker 1: the white race, and included people not only from the
Speaker 1: Caucus region, but also those from Europe, Northern India, and
Speaker 1: parts of northern Africa. The other groups Bloombach identified tied
Speaker 1: loosely to skin color were Malaysian, Ethiopian, Native American, and Mongolian.
Speaker 1: Though Bloommbuch found that the quote many varieties of man
Speaker 1: are as present known to be one and the same species,
Speaker 1: his work nonetheless was seen as giving scientific credence to
Speaker 1: the concept of biological race. Over the years, that notion
Speaker 1: has been abused in order to separate groups of people,
Speaker 1: often by skin color, and to declare, through some bastardization
Speaker 1: of science, the superiority of one race over others. Also,
Speaker 1: years after bloom Back, scientists found that the earliest humans
Speaker 1: didn't come from the Caucus, but from Africa in modern
Speaker 1: day Ethiopia. Classifying humans into races, whatever blooming Box intentions,
Speaker 1: continues today. The term Caucasian is still rolled out occasionally,
Speaker 1: and not only on TV police dramas. The Graves said,
Speaker 1: I was just at a conference here in Minnesota where
Speaker 1: a researcher from South Africa kept referring to herself and
Speaker 1: others in her country as Caucasians. I think it is
Speaker 1: very very much a white supremacist, racist ideology. I think
Speaker 1: it has to do with euro Centric racial ideology. People
Speaker 1: wish to hold onto the special designation exemplified by this
Speaker 1: term Caucasian beyond Caucasian. The U. S Census Bureau has
Speaker 1: its own definition of race quote a person's self identification
Speaker 1: with one or more social groups, and it asks respondents
Speaker 1: to choose from its own categories white, Black, or African American, Asian, American, Indian,
Speaker 1: and Alaska Native, Native, Hawaiian, and other Pacific islander. The
Speaker 1: census allows those survey to choose some other race as well.
Speaker 1: The Census bureaus definition of race that it's self identified
Speaker 1: and based on social groups is different than blooming box
Speaker 1: and that it's notably social, not sig sientific, and it
Speaker 1: supports the now widely accepted finding that race is not
Speaker 1: something that's supported by science. Genetically speaking, someone can't be
Speaker 1: of the white race, or the Caucasian race, or the
Speaker 1: Mongolian race. We are of one species, according to the
Speaker 1: National Human Genome Research Institute, humans are identical in genetic makeup.
Speaker 1: Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at Canada's Brock University,
Speaker 1: explained in psychology today, scientists generally do not recognize races
Speaker 1: as biologically meaningful. Yet scientists, including me, discuss race and
Speaker 1: describe the racial composition of our samples. To be clear,
Speaker 1: I am not advocating that we ignore race. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are many dangers in ignoring races a social topic.
Speaker 1: Race is real, but race is socially real, not biologically real.
Speaker 1: Yet the term Caucasian, despite its problems, has proven stubbornly resilient.
Speaker 1: Some people perceive it as being more scientific or dispassionate
Speaker 1: than saying white, even though the exact opposite is true.
Speaker 1: Based on the words origin from a provenly incorrect hypothesis
Speaker 1: and later used to perpetuate prejudice. In two thousand four,
Speaker 1: Graves wrote a book called The Race Myth. Why we
Speaker 1: pretend race exists in America? From the introduction quote, we
Speaker 1: must recognize that the underlying biological diversity of the human
Speaker 1: species cannot be artificially apportioned into races because races are
Speaker 1: simply not biologically justified. If we can understand that all
Speaker 1: allegiance to racism is ideological, not scientific. Then we may
Speaker 1: be able to silence the bigots once and for all.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. The brain Stuff is a production of iHeart
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