Scientific racism

Scientific racism is a pejorative term used against controversial works dealing with race and often intelligence. The terms imply that the claims of such works are motivated more by political opinions than scientific observations.

Often when works purporting to be scientific examinations of racial questions are put out, there is debate over whether or not they are works of "legitimate science" or are simply "scientific racism": the former implying that they contain "objective," non-politically motivated research, and the latter implying that they do not. Often the line between "scientific racism" and "legitimate science" can be exceptionally blurry at the time of initial controversy.

As a term, it originated primarily to describe historical works which purported to be scientific in nature but were often simply veneers of objectivity placed over personal political beliefs. In the USA, works by early 20th century eugenicists are often labeled with this term, as are the theoretical justifications of the 20th century racial hygiene movement which flourished in Germany under the Nazis.

Since the Holocaust and the American Civil Rights Movement, the term has come into use as a common attack on works claiming scientific proof of innate racial differences, especially in the area of intelligence. Among those most prominently attacked as "scientific racists" have been Arthur Jensen, J. Philippe Rushton (IQ and the Wealth of Nations), and Richard Herrnstein (The Bell Curve), among others. Many scientists working in the areas of genetics, human individual differences, and anthropology, however, regard claims about race made in the name of science as fallacious and usually politically motivated. These authors and their supporters generally maintain that the attacks themselves are politically motivated or an overextension of political correctness.

The concept of race is regarded by many as having little use in modern science; see the article on race for the arguments for and against this position.

When the term is applied to modern works, it is often in reference to previous works which are generally agreed upon to be manipulations of statistical or scientific data in order to justify prejudices, such as much of the work done by Cesare Lombroso and Madison Grant. To call much earlier works in science "scientific racism," however, runs the risk of ahistoricism. Some of the work of Charles Darwin, for example, contains many statements which would be considered racist (or "scientific racism") in the current scientific and cultural context, but in their time were only to be expected, historically, from a 19th-century British scholar.

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