scientific racism

  • Biology, Race, and “Orientalism”

    Edward Said published Orientalism in 1978 and is highly influential in postcolonial studies and social theory. Said argues that through the construction of the ‘Orient’ (the East) and the other, the ‘Occident’ (the West) defines itself. Western representations of the Orient are merely a pseudo-intellectual endeavor of justifying and exalting its own existence instead of a sincere

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  • Populations, Race, and The Sorites Paradox

    The sorites paradox (also called the paradox of the heap) refers to a particular logical contradiction that arises from the analysis of vague terms (Sainsbury, 2009). Terms like ‘heap’, ‘bald’, and ‘tall’ all fall into this category. We know a tall or bald person when we see one, but what are the necessary and sufficient

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  • A Brief History of Race in the Western Thought

    Race, as a concept, has an important ontology in American society. In order to understand the relationship between race, genetic research, and the American class structure, it is necessary to first understand the historical production of race. The following section does not intend to be a comprehensive history of race but merely highlights trends in

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  • Abstract for “Geno-colonisation: How science executes structural violence”

    Social institutions such as healthcare and education have been examined through a lens of structural violence— the systematic ways by which social institutions place certain members at a disadvantage thus causing various types of harm. However, science has escaped such scrutiny. In a post-colonial world, new forms of colonisation have taken the place of traditional

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  • Book Review: Is Science Racist?

    Is Science Racist: Debating Race, by Jonathan Marks- Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, was released in the midst of a societal reexamination of the pervasiveness of and value ascribed to race in America. As a new generation is being reacquainted with racial disparities that have existed in perpetuum in the

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  • Profiles in Scientific Racism: Francis Galton

    When one thinks of scientific racism, the first thing that may come to mind is eugenics- “the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage.”1 One may then immediately think of the atrocities carried out by the Nazi regime

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