WEBVTT - Lab 025: Skin Deep 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:03.360 Welcome back, everybody. It's semester three. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:06.400 We have been gone so long, but let me tell you, 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:09.000 we have missed you so much, and we have thought 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:10.720 of you every step of the way. 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:12.639 Right and you guys have been in our DM saying 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:15.720 the same thing. So we're just happy to be back. 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.160 A lot has happened in the first half of twenty twenty. 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.520 Six months in twenty twenty is the equivalent of ten 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.959 years in actual time, So congratulations to all of you 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:27.440 for making it this far. 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.040 Now that we're back, we're ready to dive right into 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:33.560 what has been going on. The main thing that's happening 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.520 in my life and on the timeline is Black lives matter, Yes, 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.640 and that's all black lives mattering. And you know, I 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.280 think a lot of people have been protesting in person. 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:50.360 Some people are protesting having digital efforts where they're spreading 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:54.320 information or they're donating or raising money or providing supplies 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:57.040 for other folks who are protesting. One of the things 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.440 that I've seen is people are asking, how do I 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:01.360 get involved? Don't know where to start, And I think 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.759 the key is to understand that white supremacy and systemic 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.840 racism are widespread. So it exists wherever you are. You 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.920 don't have to look far to get involved, and you 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:13.920 really can start writing your own backyard. 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.480 And our backyard is science. So we're pulling it up 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:19.760 by the route and examining the long intertwining history of 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:24.240 science and racism. I'm TT and I'm Zakijah and from 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:41.440 Spotify Studios. This is Dope Labs. 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:42.960 You hit the nail on the hill. You know you 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.479 said this episode we are going to be looking at 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.760 the intertwining history of science and racism, and I think 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:50.480 we really got to tell people how we got here. 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:55.800 So in twenty twenty, some of the deaths of black 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.480 people that have made national news. It started with a 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.760 mod Art who's a black man that was gunned down 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.400 by two white men while he was out for a run. 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:10.240 Breonna Taylor who was shot by police who entered her 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.160 home at night and it turned out to be the 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:18.079 wrong home. Christian Cooper who was confronted by a white 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.240 woman in Central Park who threatened to call the police 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.480 on him. George Floyd, who was murdered by the police 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.400 for allegedly using a counterfeit twenty dollars bill trans women, 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:34.640 Dominique Remy Fels and Rya Milton, and most recently Rashard Brooks, 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.680 who was killed by the police after he fell asleep 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:39.359 in his car at a Wendy's. 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.200 And there are countless other victims who don't get media 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.040 attention and we may never know their names. So tc. 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:47.760 How does this all connect to our backyard science? Why 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.200 are we focusing on racism and science specifically? 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.799 I think for the simple fact that a lot of 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.519 people don't know it still exists, or know the extent 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.400 that it even existed in the first place. Because I 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.120 think a lot of people think that signed is so 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:06.919 objective and like it's rooted in fact. So how could 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:13.240 racism permeate the scientific community if we're all like holding 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.960 this this beacon of light up, saying here is our 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.919 facts and there's nothing else that's influencing it. But that's 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:19.800 not true. 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.760 Yeah, the thing we know is that scientists are people. 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.359 Science isn't done in a vacuum, and it's always swayed 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.919 by the politics of the time. You know, even when 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.120 we think about this is not just a case for racism, 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:33.960 this or this is not just the case for what 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.120 we consider the interaction between race and science. Even as 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.800 we think about what is the next foray of science? 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.280 If you think back to stem cell therapy and then 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.120 the US government put a clamp on that, right, and 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.760 so you see how politics influenced science. This is not 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.320 new and so we're gonna hold up our well, I 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.800 don't know if we're going back in time. So it's 0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:03.400 an old school Anthony van Luhenhook micro scope and they're 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.760 going to peer right into there and see what happened 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:08.720 back in the day and how those things have effects 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:09.560 on us right now. 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:11.840 What's the key is saying is we're gonna live real, 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:12.440 real close. 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:14.080 That's right. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.880 What we know is is a system is often dictated 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.919 by its roots. So here we're digging up the soil 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.320 to see how the theories and actions of the past 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:25.839 led to us having tainted fruits today. 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:27.640 So let's get into the recitation. 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:30.280 So what do we know and what do we want 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:30.479 to know? 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.160 I think we want to all start at the same 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:37.839 place about understanding race. Like if you stop and think 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:39.360 what are the races? 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.320 Also ask yourself how many are there? And do those 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:47.840 categories that you think our race encompass everyone? Yeah, the 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:49.000 answers probably know. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.400 There are three main points we really want to think 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.120 about to help us really frame how we're what we 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.839 know about race, and how we'll use that information moving 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.320 forward to understand the intertwined nature of race and science 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.120 over time. So some of you may already know these 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.599 things and some of you may not. Either way, we're 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.400 not making any assumptions. First, there's no such thing as 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.080 biological race. Genetics shows us there are no discrete categories 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:14.720 of race. 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.719 Right, so there's no single gene that only appears in 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.640 one quote unquote race that doesn't appear in another quote 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:27.719 unquote race. Race is not a biological category. What most 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:32.279 of us think as race is actually culture and language, 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:37.040 and it's been long proven that biologically there are no 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.680 distinct quote unquote races as we understand the term now. 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.719 The second point is we're all members of the same species. 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:45.880 We're all Homo sapiens, and our roots can be traced 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.760 back to Africa. Those visible differences that you see are 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.080 due to founder effects, where a small group moves from 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.160 the larger population and they lose some of that genetic diversity. 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.560 And the third thing is that wherever there are multiple 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.080 groups of people and one group is oppressing another group, 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.599 there is a system in place so it doesn't necessarily 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:09.880 have to be race related. It could be religion, class, politics. 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.679 And what we find is is that history often repeats 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.760 itself and racism is one of those systems. And even 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.359 though we know there is no biological basis, it still 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.760 affects us because it affects our interactions day to day. 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.320 So now that we've all set the playing field here, 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:29.760 we're all working with the same set of information, let's 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.320 jump into what we want to know this episode. 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:34.280 One of the things that I want to know is 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.720 when did the concept of race and race science first originate? 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.840 Whose idea was this? And then I'm wondering, if we 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.040 know all of these things, like race is a social 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:50.320 construct and it's been debunked, why are people still looking 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.960 for these same types of groupings using these artificial categories. 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.240 Is it just the guilding of time? Have we all 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:58.039 been brainwashed? 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.359 And I want to know what are some of the 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:06.040 foundational scientific theories in science where race like played a part. 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.799 Who are some of the major players in science whose 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.360 work was predicated on race science? 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.560 Ooh, you're naming names. One of the classic examples of 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.320 racism and science is eugenics, and eugenics is a system 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.400 of ideas and practices aiming to genetically quote unquote purify 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.040 a population. I want to know who were the early 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.560 proponents of eugenics and what were their motivations. 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.880 I love that question. I also want to know where 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.760 do we see racism in science today? Is I feel 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.200 like a lot of people are going to say, oh, 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.400 that must have been during another time when people, you know, 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.320 weren't as informed and we didn't have the Internet. But 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.440 I know for a fact it still exists today, and 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.040 I want to know where it is. 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.160 Just like we look back and shame on eugenics in 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.040 fifty years, what will we look back on today and say, oh, 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:58.840 my gosh, I can't believe that was happening. 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.480 Yes, because I think that looking back on myself, I 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.000 wonder why I tweezed my eyebrows so much. 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.920 Those pictures of you and undergrad I understood it. I 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:14.160 too tweeze my eyebrows as thin as any. 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.120 I had six eyebrow hairs on each side, and I 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:18.320 thought I was killing it. 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.080 Well, I'm glad they made it back then. 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:21.320 Quarantine they all back. 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:24.520 All the hairs are back, okay. And I think the 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.160 final question is are we doomed to repeat ourselves over 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.160 and over. Understanding this, what can the scientific community do 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:31.920 to change course? 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:37.640 Let's get into the dissection. This episode, we're talking to 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.679 Angela Saani, a science journalist who tackles the issue of 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.959 racism and science, exploring how the two have co mingled 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:44.680 over the years. 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.880 I'm Angela Sani. I'm a science journalist based in the 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:54.000 United Kingdom, and I write books really that look under 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.560 the skin of science, so exploring the reasons why people 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.920 study what they do, what research tells us, the impact 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:06.080 of funding and bias and politics on science, looking at 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.280 both gender and more recently race. 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:10.640 So to start the dissection, it's important for us to 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.520 figure out how and where race science and the concept 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:14.439 of race started. 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.280 Race, of course, as a word has been around for 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.560 a very long time. The meaning that it has and 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:22.600 the way that we use it now is obviously not 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:24.600 the way that people have always used it in history. 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.000 In Superior Angela notes early uses of the term race, 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.400 dating back to the fifteen hundreds, were used to refer 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.520 to groups that were related, so a family or tribe. 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:37.200 It wasn't necessarily tied to physical characteristics, which are literally 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:38.280 skin deep. 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.479 So the way that we use it now to define 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.640 races like black, white, brown, or you know these kind 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:48.400 of big continental groups is relatively recent and it dates 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:53.079 from around the time of the European Enlightenment, when naturalists 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.800 and thinkers were starting to categorize. This is in Europe. 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:00.840 European thinkers were starting to categorize the natural world. They 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.280 were looking at flora and fauna and drawing up these taxonomies, 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:06.079 and they did the same with people. 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.199 The Age of Enlightenment in Europe was from the seventeenth 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.319 to nineteenth centuries and it was a time in Europe 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.840 when a lot of intellectual and philosophical advancements were being made. 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.960 Modern sociology, politics, and science emerged during this time, and 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:23.080 specifically in the scientific field, the biological taxonomy was developed. 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.240 Taxonomy is the science of naming, defining, and classifying groups 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.040 of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics. 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.640 If you have some background in biology, you may remember 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.280 the taxonomic classifications of genus and species. This is a 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.320 two name system, so think Homo sapiens for humans. That 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.160 was ushered in by Carl Linnaeus. It's a well known 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.960 and recognized system. We still use it today. While I 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.560 was taught that Linnaeus was the father of taxonomy. I 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.040 did not learn that he was the pioneer of race 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.079 as a categorization for humans. Did you know that, No, girl, 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.120 He started with four races based on geographical location and 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:58.079 skin color. 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.360 And other scientists built on what Linaea was teaching. And 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.520 you have to remember that we're talking about way way 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:06.600 back in the day, so you couldn't just hop on 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:08.800 a flight and check out Asia or check out South 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.760 America to see what the people were like. Information was 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.720 being exchanged about people purely on hearsay, and for a 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.000 lot of scientists of that time, it was a lot 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.000 of guessing about what people were like in other countries. 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:26.440 So we have these categories that were developed many, many 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:29.960 years ago. Since then, we understand that race has no 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.400 scientific basis. So remember at the top of the episode 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.360 we talked about that, and the question now is why 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.080 does race still rule everything around us? 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:37.439 Bream. 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.600 The weird thing is that we still live with these 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:45.240 categories now, we still use them. We have laid these 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:51.520 enormous sets of meaning on top of these very what 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.280 will always arbitrary categories and given them a power that 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.840 they never had to begin with. So the way those 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.440 categories were defined in the first place were very much 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:07.559 informed by the politics of the time, by slavery, by colonialism, 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:13.040 by this belief in European superiority, and the categories themselves 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.640 formed a hierarchy in the minds of these European thinkers 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.840 in which white male Europeans were at the top and 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.839 everybody else was kind of slotted below, and that became 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:27.000 the basis on which modern day Western science was done. 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.240 Considering all of this, we have to ask, why do 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.400 people still believe race is a thing even though it 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:33.079 was debunked decades ago? 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.320 Is it because there was something that was said over 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.000 and over again for a long time and people just 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:39.760 accepted it. 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.960 Angela explained to us why it's so difficult for people 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:43.880 to change their. 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.360 Minds, even though in the last seventy years or so, 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.240 scientists have shown quite categorically and it's very easy to 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.280 do this because, like I said, these categories were arbitrary 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:54.760 to begin with, so it's not you know, it doesn't 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.079 take a genius to then unpick the biology and figure 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.240 out that it's nonsense. That even though scientists have done that, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.440 they still have so much power even now because of 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.880 their political value. They still have political value. There are 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.360 still people who would like to be able to make 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.400 the case that the inequality that we see in society 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.880 is natural, that it's not because of historical factors, that 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.439 it's there, because it was always there and it always 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:22.040 will be there. 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.480 There are similar systems that uphold these hierarchies, like there's 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:31.120 class in the UK, there's caste in India, and religion 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.840 well everywhere all over the world. 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.359 So now we have an understanding of the earliest iterations 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.720 of race to classify groups of people and how those 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.360 classifications upheld the politics or agendas of European men during 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.720 the Enlightenment age. And we know that this is when 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.319 Western science, you know, as we know it was born. 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.400 So you got little baby science in the crib and 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.439 its favorite plush stuffed toy is racism. 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:01.040 Yes, so race is that little baby lullaby to go 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:01.839 to sleep at night. 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.240 So considering this scene at the birth of Western science, 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.360 we asked about some of the foundational scientific theories and 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.400 where a race might have come into play. 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:13.600 If you take into account the fact that modern day 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:19.320 Western science, Enlightenment science was predicated on this belief that 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.880 there were races number one, which we know now biologically 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.320 is not the case, and number two that there was 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.600 a hierarchy between these races that meant that some people 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:36.000 were in some ways even less human than others, certainly 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:41.280 less intelligent. In the nineteenth century, the idea came along 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.720 with Darwin that some were even maybe less evolved than others. 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.120 So if you take that as a starting point on 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.000 which the science of human difference is built, so biology, 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.880 all of biology is predicated on that assumption for at 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.560 least the first hundred to two hundred years. Then everything 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:01.760 that came up afterwards was guided by that. 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.880 And if you're thinking, well, surely they saw the error 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.040 in their ways, not really. 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:12.600 In the nineteenth century when science became professionalized, these ideas 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.160 didn't go away. All they did was they became more 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:20.040 codified and layers of meaning became built around them. 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.440 It was the case then and it's still the case today. 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.160 Using scientific language to describe something or to validate your 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.360 idea or belief always makes people take you just a 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.080 touch more seriously. 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.720 Right, Not many people will argue with someone who is 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.480 purporting information that is quote unquote scientific fact. 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.880 Race science at the time lent credibility to these awful, 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.560 incorrect ideas about superiority. And one of the well known 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:50.400 and documented executions of these legitimized sinister ideas is eugenics. 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:55.120 Eugenics really, for me, is the kind of manifestation or 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.680 almost the technology that comes out of race science, if 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:00.720 you want to think of it that way, because it's 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.680 essentially saying we know that these or we think we 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:08.600 know that these differences exist. Now, if some people are inferior, 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.400 genetically inferior to other people, then what can we do 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.320 about that? How do we improve the human stock or 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:20.160 the quality of the race? And Francis Golton, who was 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.040 a cousin of Childs Darwin. 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:24.800 Like his actual cousin, not his play cousin, like me 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:26.040 as a kia, was. 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.400 The man who came up with this idea, among many things. 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.280 He also coined the term nature versus nurture, which I 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:36.120 think is one of the worst races in scientific history, 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:38.640 because nature and nurture are not two separate things, they're 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:43.320 completely intertwined. Anyway. That aside, he also coined the term 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:49.440 eugenics and came up with this principle that people superior people, 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:52.320 So the smartest and most beautiful should be allowed to 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.080 breed more, and those who are inferior should be discouraged 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.600 from breeding. And if we do that, then we can 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.040 with the stock of in his case of British race. 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.680 And you have to ask who says the standard, who's 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:10.800 considered superior, who's the smartest by what measure? What's beautiful? Right? 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.240 Is it big eyes? Is it freckles? Is it long legs? 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:16.520 I know what you're thinking, I'm describing my friend as 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:16.840 a kia. 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:24.400 Those are moles, not freckles. I'll take it. 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:27.320 But it's all really subjective. 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.080 And let's be really clear. These ideas were popular. This 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.200 wasn't just at the fringe the outsiders thinking oh yes, 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:35.400 eugenics is the way to go. 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.399 It was completely mainstream on the right, on the left. 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:44.600 If anything, Socialists were more excited about it than anyone. 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.879 Virginia Wolf burned Shore. You know our big kind of 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:53.320 intellectual progressive heroes, many of them were eugenesis and very 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.240 firmly believed in this idea and we're behind it. 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.560 And eugenics was not like a few years of bad behavior. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.360 It was more like seventy to eighty years. We'll put 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.439 some resources on our website that can give you the 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.520 deep history. We could spend an entire episode on this. 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.840 Eugenics was first used to create the quote unquote perfect family. 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.320 This means having families without disabilities or deformities. And the 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.240 idea was that they would just eliminate these individuals that 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:25.359 they deemed unfit again subjective. And those efforts weren't only 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.320 in Britain. They were quickly adopted by scientists in the 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.280 United States. Not just ideas but action. 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:33.879 When we talk about eugenics, I think the first things 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.720 that pop in the folk's mind are Hitler, the Nazi Party, 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.040 and the Holocaust. But Hitler actually took his cue from 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:41.280 American eugenics. 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:47.520 Sterilizations in the US were adopted as policy in many states, 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:54.359 and they then became an inspiration for Adolf Hitler. 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.480 And this didn't stop in the nineteen thirties. After the war, 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.240 these scientists just rebranded, you know, like favorite influencers. 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.280 All Right, we're gonna take a break, and when we 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:10.320 come back, we'll look at racism and science Today. Hey, y'all, 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:12.240 it's TZI and I wanted to let you know that 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.800 I had the pleasure of co hosting Season six of 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.359 the podcast Dissect with Cole Kushna, and it is out 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.280 right now. Each season of Dissect examines a single album, 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.800 forensically dissecting one song per episode. Season six takes on 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:31.600 Beyonce's monumental visual album Lemonade. Through in depth musical and 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.520 lyrical analysis, we follow Beyonce on her transcendent journey from 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.920 subjugation to freedom. In past seasons, Cole has dissected Kanye 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.720 Kendrick Lamar, Laurence Hill, and a lot of your other 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.520 favorite artists. So make sure to check out Dissect on 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:56.560 Spotify today because great art deserves more than a swipe. 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.840 We're back and we've already looked at racism in the past, 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.760 but what about racism and science today? We asked our 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.720 guest expert Angela Sani, what will we look back on 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:07.960 in fifty years and say, ugh. 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.320 And we're not talking about those Janco genes you were 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:12.800 wearing during that emo period of your life in two 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:13.440 thousand and two. 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.920 I see it woven right through medicine. I mean so 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:21.920 many medical studies that take race as a biological variable 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:27.280 completely inappropriately. I mean it happens routinely that you know, 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:29.960 in my view, I wrote this for a piece for 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:34.359 the medical journal Lancet the other week. Medicine is almost 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:35.879 keeping race science alive. 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:38.920 And Angela tells us it's not just direct action that's 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.080 a threat either. It's also people turning a blind eye. 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:43.960 You know, it comes down to what are you willing 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:48.560 to excuse? When you're not the victim of somebody else's hatred, 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.800 then it's quite easy, actually to excuse that kind of behavior. 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.080 When you are the victim, it's impossible. And I think 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:58.919 that's the problem. Science looks the way it does because 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.240 all the people that excuse that kind of behavior stay 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.840 and all the people who can't leave, And that's why 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:06.960 science looks the way it does. 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.560 Yeah, that is so true. There are a lot of 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.960 people in the scientific community that look like well us. 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.159 Yes, the scientific community is not a reflection of the 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:18.160 general population. 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.199 People are so invested in things being innate, and I 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.520 think that lets us get comfortable with the systems that 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:29.000 exist and continue to marginalize different groups. Are we doomed 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.040 to repeat ourselves over and over? I really hope not. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:34.760 It does feel that way, and I certainly feel that 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:36.840 way sometimes. I mean, the number of my book came 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.959 out about a year ago, and the number of times 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.879 have had to explain from first principles why race is 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:47.680 a social construct, even to journal editors and science editors 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:51.359 and scientists, again and again and again. And what frustrates 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.480