After the world wars and the racial tragedies that followed, scientists agreed to rethink the concept of race. In 1949, UNESCO together with scientists, anthropologists, diplomats and international policy experts gathered in Paris to re-examine the concept of race. As a result, in 1950 UNESCO issued a statement that race is a flawed and unscientific concept.
However, the agreement still maintains the classification of human types that existed at that time (Mongoloid, Negroid and Caucasoid). At the same time, the classification is not based on a stable and permanent racial understanding, but on a long process of biological evolution, so that the classification is subject to change.
Scientists also reject the idea that a population's physical characteristics are related to its level of intelligence, cognitive ability, and mental capacity. Significant findings stick out decades later. In 1972, a geneticist named Richard Lewontin proved how flawed the concept of race is. Lewontin collected genetic data samples from around the world with the aim of examining the relationship between genetic variation and generally accepted racial classifications. The study found that only 6% of genetic diversity is related to race. Instead of finding variations between “racial” groups, variations were found to be more within one “race” group. This means that racial classification cannot be used as a model to explain human diversity.
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In his study report "The Apportionment of Human Diversity" (1972) published in the journal Evolutionary Biology, Lewontin concluded that race is a concept that infiltrates social and political practice into the realm of "science", not the other way around. Lewontin concluded unequivocally that race had no scientific basis and needed to be abandoned. “Human racial classification has no social value and has a markedly destructive impact on social relations,” Lewontin wrote, concluding his report.
The problem is, after decades of rejection of the concept of race, some scientists are still adamant in defending race as something natural. The Persistence of Racism in Science Alan Goodman in another article published by Sapiens said that there are still many scientists and doctors who believe in the concept of race. In the medical world, Goodman noted that doctors in America often diagnose patients based on race. In fact, biologically the concept of race is not recognized. One example, according to Goodman, is the notion among doctors and health care workers that black people don't get bone disease, so they don't need a bone density test.
Goodman cites a survey conducted by a group of researchers from East Carolina University. The study showed data from 531 female patients who underwent bone mineral density testing, only 75 (15%) were black women. Interestingly, this study found that access to health services was not a problem, as black women were noted to visit the clinic more frequently. Researchers believe that the inequality that appears is more likely to be caused by the health care sector which from the start has been racially biased.
After many scientists debunked the myths related to race decades ago, in fact the understanding of race as something natural is still entrenched today in the scientific community itself. Angela Saini, a British science journalist, in her book Superior: The Return of Race Science (2019) points out the fact that for almost a century since the scientific community succeeded in dismantling the myth about race, some scientists still believe in it. According to Saini, even today the concepts of race and racism in the academic world seem to be strengthening.
Post-World War II, scientists who supported the concept of race continued to network and publish various publications. One of the most controversial publications is the journal Mankind Quarterly, which has existed since 1960 and has survived to this day. From Saini's observations, this journal contains themes around the biological proof of race and inequality due to genetic differences between races. Now the journal Mankind Quarterly talks a lot about segregation and anti-immigration issues. Many of his contributors are known to the public as supporters of white supremacy. One of them is Jared Taylor, who is also the founder of the extreme right magazine American Renaissance. Taylor supported racial segregation and considered race to be a sub-species. According to him,a subspecies should not live in the same geographic area.
Interestingly, some of the scientists involved in this racist conspiracy have also infiltrated mainstream scientific publishers. Two of the scientists involved in Mankind Quarterly, Richard Lynn and Gerhard Meisenberg, were editors of the journal Intelligence under renowned publisher Elsevier. According to Saini, the problem of scientific racism does not lie only in its controversial ideas. Scientific racism is also problematic in terms of method.
The scientific community at large has been critical of the methods and analyzes used by this group, dating back over a century. Although many have been attacked and labeled as pseudoscience. Scientific racism persists. Professor of anthropology from the University of North Carolina Jonathan Marks, in an interview with Saini said the concepts of race and racism persist in the academic world because of the support of right-wing groups who fund research to find racial differences between humans. The findings of this difference are used as the basis for the claim that humans are divided into naturally and permanently unequal races. "Finally, politics has always been an inherent feature of science, it has always been," writes Saini. “If in the past the background was slavery and colonialism, now it is immigration and segregation. This is today's right-wing agenda."
source : tirto.id - Social Culture
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