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The Problem of Race: Junk Science, Faulty Metaphor
Scientists have revealed the fallacy of employing race to classify human beings. Still, the metaphor of color remains a strong societal force. Prejudice requires no reason—only willingness to believe despite evidence. Thus the metaphor of color continues to influence human relationships and cheapen the culture.
The Junk Science of Race
Early in the nineteenth century, Samuel Morton, a Philadelphia physician, who was considered an important scientist, formulated the theory of “race” based on his collection of skulls.
Skulls from the collection of Samuel Morton, the father of scientific racism, illustrate his classification of people into five races—which arose, he claimed, from separate acts of creation. From left to right: a black woman and a white man, both American; an indigenous man from Mexico; a Chinese woman; and a Malaysian man. —Photo by Robert Clark, Penn Museum
Measuring the skulls, Morton called his procedure “craniometry” and claimed that this procedure determined that there are five races, and each race represented a different level of intelligence:
- Caucasians (white) stood at the top of Morton’s hierarchy
- Mongolians (yellow) came second
- Southeast Asians next (olive), followed by
- American Indians (aka Native Americans) (red) with
- Ethiopians (black) bringing up the rear and the lowest level of intelligence.
Morton’s racial classifications along with their intelligence markers that placed whites at the top and blacks at the bottom found favor with promoters of slavery in the United States before the American Civil War (1861-1865).
According to Paul Wolff Mitchell, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, “[Morton’s race theory] had a lot of influence, particularly in the South.”
Morton’s pernicious legacy stemmed from the lack of scientific knowledge at the time regarding human DNA and how physical characteristics are passed on from one generation to the next. Upon Morton’s death in 1851, the Charleston Medical Journal in South Carolina lauded the doctor for “giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race.”
Nearly two centuries later, through the many gains in scientific knowledge, scientists have debunked Morton’s theory, and currently he is considered to be the “father of scientific racism”:
To an uncomfortable degree we still live with Morton’s legacy: Racial distinctions continue to shape our politics, our neighborhoods, and our sense of self. This is the case even though what science actually has to tell us about race is just the opposite of what Morton contended. [1]
The Human Genome
In June 2000, at a groundbreaking announcement ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, scientists Francis Collins and Craig Venter revealed that “the completion of a draft sequence of the human genome” had been accomplished.
The project’s purpose was to aid in understanding the nature of human biology in order to assist public health and medical professionals in preventing and treating diseases. Additionally, on the issue of race, Dr. Venter reported the following:
On that day Venter and Collins emphasized that their work confirmed that human genetic diversity cannot be captured by the concept of race and demonstrated that all humans have genome sequences that are 99.9% identical. …Venter said “the concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis.” [2]
Scientists Call for Race Categories To Be “Phased Out”
Regarding the concept of race, Michael Yudell, professor of public health at Drexel University claims,
It’s a concept we think is too crude to provide useful information, it’s a concept that has social meaning that interferes in the scientific understanding of human genetic diversity and it’s a concept that we are not the first to call upon moving away from. [3]
As Professor Jan Sapp, Biology Department at York University, Toronto, has stated, “Science has exposed the myth of race.”
In his review of two recent books on the issue, Race?: Debunking a Scientific Myth, by Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle, and Race and the Genetic Revolution: Science, Myth, and Culture, edited by Sheldon Krimsky and Kathleen Sloan, Professor Sapp offers the following summary of the two works:
Although biologists and cultural anthropologists long supposed that human races—genetically distinct populations within the same species—have a true existence in nature, many social scientists and geneticists maintain today that there simply is no valid biological basis for the concept. The consensus among Western researchers today is that human races are sociocultural constructs. Still, the concept of human race as an objective biological reality persists in science and in society. It is high time that policy makers, educators and those in the medical-industrial complex rid themselves of the misconception of race as type or as genetic population. (4)
Many contemporary scientists are insisting that “racial categories are weak proxies for genetic diversity” and are calling for categories on race to be “phased out.” The scientific community, including those associated with the Human Genome Project and other geneticists point out that most of the US population are immigrants from various “homelands.”
Thus, describing groups of people becomes a complex task. And they insist that “race”—that is, grouping folks as Caucasian, Asian or African—is not scientifically useful:
the most immediately obvious characteristic of “race’ is that describing most of us as Caucasian, Asian or African is far too simple. Despite attempts by the US Census Bureau to expand its definitions, the term “race” does not describe most of us with the subtlety and complexity required to capture and appreciate our genetic diversity. Unfortunately, this oversimplification has had many tragic effects.
Thus, these scientists are calling for the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to assemble a group of experts in biology and social science to study the issue and formulate a better concept for addressing the useless racial category that interferes with research in genetics [5].
Ashley Montagu’s Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race
After earning a PhD in anthropology at Columbia University in 1936, widely noted scientist Ashley Montagu studied Australian aboriginal culture and in 1949 founded and chaired the anthropology department at Rutgers University. But Montagu had written and published his seminal work, Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, in 1942.
The following excerpt from that work demonstrates Montagu’s reasoning in determining that race is a social construct rather than a scientific fact:
As far as research and observation have been able to prove, the chromosome number of all the human races is the same, and all of the five, seven, or ten races (depending on who we follow) are inter-fertile. The blood of all races is built of the same pattern of agglutinins and antigens, and the appropriate blood type from one race can be transfused into any other without untoward effect. Thus in spite of the questionable physical differences between groups of people, an imposing substrate of similarity underlies these differences.
Montagu’s work was so controversial at the time that academia turned against him, but his ideas have influenced succeeding generations of scientists [6].
Even though “race” remains a strong societal influence, especially for those who have managed to gain financially through identity politics and political correctness, the world of hard science continues to unearth examples of the dangers of relying on race as reality in distinguishing differences between and among human beings.
The Faulty Metaphor of Color
The poetic device “metaphor” is employed mostly by poets in their poems. A metaphor says that one thing is another very different thing for literary effect, for example, Robert Frost’s speaker in his poem “Bereft” describes the activity of leaves with the following metaphor:
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed
Blindly struck at my knees and missed.
Frost is metaphorically saying that leaves are a snake. But no human being has ever insisted that “leaves” are the same as “snakes,” yet that is exactly what has happened to the metaphor of color.
Science is demonstrating more and more clearly that there is only one “race”—the human race, and I would like to offer the suggestion that, after the metaphor of color has been correctly interpreted, it becomes obvious that there is only one skin color: brown, ranging from light brown to dark brown.
The various skin “colors”—white, yellow, red, olive, and black—are only exaggerations of the actual shades, hues, and tones of human skin. This exaggeration functions in the current vernacular as a metaphor. Human skin is never literally “white,” “black,” “red,” “olive,” or “yellow.”
From so-called “white Caucasians” to supposedly “black Africans,” the range of skin tones may resemble the color of winter grass to a deep chocolate, but no human being ever appears with skin that can be described literally by the prevailing metaphor of colors.
Skin Color: An Insidious Classification
Possibly influenced by Samual Morton’s 5-race theory, the currentrace count usually stands at three: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid [7]. But identifying members of each of these so-called races becomes impossible, as many scientists have asserted.
The most insidious as well as the most popular quality used in the attempt to classify human beings according to race is skin tone: black, white, yellow, red, olive. Yet, as I suggest, there is not one single individual on this planet whose skin color is literally black, white, yellow, red, or olive.
The skin color of all human beings, that is, members of the only true scientific race—”human race, homo sapiens“— is brown: from light brown, metaphorically called “white” to dark brown, metaphorically called “black.”
And all shades, hues, and tones in between, some of which are metaphorically called “yellow,” “red,” and sometimes “olive.” Even the lightest skin tone is not literally “white,” and the darkest “skin tone” is not literally black.
The Equator and Skin Tone
The closer the individual lives to the Equator the darker the skin tone. This fact is common sense. The stronger the sun’s rays striking the skin, the more melanin is made by the body. Melanin protects the skin from the sun:
Melanin, the skin’s brown pigment, is a natural sunscreen that protects tropical peoples from the many harmful effects of ultraviolet (UV) rays. [8]
Clearly, not all Caucasoids are “white,” that is, light brown; not all Negroids are “black,” that is, dark brown. The Mongoloid skin tone also exhibits a wide range of brown hues—none literally yellow or red.
The metaphor of color has served only to segregate and denigrate groups of people. In time, perhaps science will prevail and the metaphor of color will be interpreted to be what it is, only a metaphor.
Race Often Confused with Religion and Nationality
The terms “race” and “racism” have virtually lost meaning in current parlance [9]. However, “race” refers only to the major three classes: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. But as already noted, these categories of race have been debunked as non-scientific.
“Religion” refers to faith traditions of the five major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, [10] along with the various branches that have grown from these major categories.
By recategorizing the followers of Judaism as a “race,” Adolf Hitler and the Nazis exerted their political power to exterminate their own Jewish German citizens. That redefinition and misidentification led directly to the Holocaust [11]. The fact that the Judaic ethnicity was recategorized as a “race”—and widely accepted—offers further evidence of the unreality of the racial concept.
“Nationality” refers to the region of the earth that individuals inhabit, particularly the nation or country. Again, misidentification occurs with such claims as some “whites” are “racist” against Hispanics. But “Hispanic” refers to nationality, not race.
A Hispanic may be of any of the so-called races. The country from which an individuals originate does not dictate their “race.” Both Jews and Hispanics (or Latinos, Latinas) may be of any of the race classes.
A Negroid individual may be Jewish, if Judaism is his religion, for example, the late famous singer/actor Sammy Davis, Jr., was a black man of the Jewish faith. Also any individual will be Hispanic, if he is a native of Spain or Latin America.
The confusion of race with religion and nationality reveals the fact that human classifications, as they currently exist, are inadequate because they are too often inaccurate.
As with the Hitlerian Nazis, those classifications have foisted upon humanity worldwide holocausts [12] and other pogroms [13]. If humanity must classify itself, perhaps it should be on the look out for a better criterion for classification than that of race.
Neo-Racism on the Rise
While racism was on the wane in America, especially after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a new wave of the racist plague has begun to increase, ironically becoming especially pronounced after the election of Barack Obama, America’s first black president [14].
The irony of deteriorating race relations in America after twice electing a black president speaks volumes for the insidiousness of the emphasis placed on race and skin color.
Also, the rise in popularity of race huckster Ibram X. Kendi and the fallacious ideology of critical race theory (CRT) have taken center stage in the identity politics area, turning the racial divide on its head, revising the history of racism with alarming and dangerous falsehoods.
As Christopher Rufo explains, “Kendi is a false prophet — and his religion of ‘antiracism’ is nothing more than a marketing-friendly recapitulation of the academic left’s most pernicious ideas.”
According to Kendi, “When I see racial disparities, I see racism.” Asked to define racism, he opined in a circular and tautological fashion, “a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas” [15].
An important rule of rhetoric is that a term cannot be defined by using the same term; thus, Kendi simply goes on a merry-go-round of word salad employing repeatedly the term he is pretending to define. He feigns a definition of “racism” by essentially saying, “Racism is racism.”
Even as Kendi has revealed himself as a lightweight in the struggle against racism, the result of identity politics taken to extremes with CRT has become the scapegoating of the “white race.”
Instead of arguing for equality for all people, CRT hucksters are demanding the abolishing of “whiteness” [16], including the goal of terminating “white” people [17], just as the Nazis attempted to wipe out the Jews.
As the so-called “white race” now becomes the target for denigration, segregation, and ultimate elimination, the unfortunate fact remains that human beings are still in the misguided process of judging, hating, and killing one another because of the misuse of a metaphor.
Sources
[1] Elizabeth Kolbert. “There’s No Scientific Basis for Race—It’s a Made-Up Label.” National Geographic. The Race Issue.
[2] Michael Yudell. “A Short History of the Race Concept.” Gene Watch. CRG – Council for Responsible Genetics. July August 2009.
[3] Megan Gannon. “Race Is a Social Construct, Scientists Argue.” Scientific American. February 5, 2016.
[4] Jan Sapp. “Race Finished.” American Scientist.
[5] Ari Patrinos. “‘Race’ and the human genome.” Nature: Genetics. November 2004.
[6] Ashley Montagu. Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. AltaMira Press, 6th edition. November 26, 1997. Print.
[7] M. Nei. “Abstract: Evolution of Human Races at the Gene Level.” NIH: National Library of Medicine. 1982,
[8] Curators. “Modern Human Diversity – Skin Color.” Smithsonian Natural Museum of Natural History. Site Last Updated: September 17, 2019.
[9] John McWhorter. “Words Have Lost Their Common Meaning.” The Atlantic. March 31, 2021.
[10] Mary Gormandy White. “5 Main World Religions and Their Basic Beliefs.” Yourdictionary. Accessed January 31, 2023.
[11] Curators. “Nazi Racism.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed January 30, 2023.
[12] Editors. “The 10 Worst Genocides In History.” World Atlas. Accessed January 30, 2023.
[13] Editors. “Modern Jewish History: Pogroms.” Jewish Virtual Library. Accessed January 30, 2023.
[14] Harry Khachatrian. “A Complete Timeline of Race Relations Under Obama.” The Daily Wire. January 9, 2017.
[15] Christopher F. Rufo. “Ibram X. Kendi Is the False Prophet of a Dangerous and Lucrative Faith.” July 22, 2021.
[16] Mark LeVine. “Abolishing Whiteness Has Never Been More Urgent.” Aljazeera. November 17, 2010.
[17] Rod Dreher. “Damon Young: To Stop White Supremacy, Eliminate Whites.” The American Conservative. March 18, 2021.
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