RESEARCH TOPIC

RACE AND SCIENCE

Research Topic Description: This topic consists in exploring how science has been used to establish or undermine the authority of particular views about various ethnic or racial groups in the United States, the role of those groups in formulating scientific discourse, and the rhetorical strategies used to transform social agendas into scientific fact. Students should begin with an introductory section that outlines the main themes by looking at how scientific theories of race are a part of our everyday experience and a historical overview of some of the main theories of race. Three subsequent segments should each focus on a particular point at which theories of race and the practice of science come into contact: biological theories of race and intelligence, theories of race and sexuality, and the role of different racial groups in the scientific establishment. In each of these segments, students will begin by reading and discussing a work or small group of works that highlight the nature of the controversies in the area under discussion. These will provide a theoretical framework within which to consider the more specific research areas that address specific historical or contemporary situations.

Suggested Sources:

Part 1: Theories of race in historical and cultural context. The sources below concern the history of theories of race and their role in contemporary American life, and the relationship between scientific theories of race and racial prejudice.

Omi and Winant, _Racial Formation in the United States_, Parts I-III.

See also _Discover_ special issue: "The Science of Race."


Part 2. Biological theories of race and intelligence. This segment considers the history of biological theories of the nature of race and its relationship to intelligence, such as work on craniometry, craniology, eugenics and intelligence testing, philosophical challenges to the coherence of the notions of race and intelligence as they are used in this debate, and the rhetorical significance of contemporary appeals to scientific evidence about race and intelligence.

Craniometry, craniology, and the scientific construction of race. Gould _The Mismeasure of Man_ chs. 1-2. Harding _The "Racial" Economy of Science_, pp. 116-141. Kevles _In The Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity_ ch. 1.

Measuring heads and bodies; race, gender and the role of analogy in science. Gould _The Mismeasure of Man_ chs. 3-4. Harding _The "Racial" Economy of Science_, pp. 359-376.

Eugenics and the hereditarian theory of IQ. First paper due. Gould _The Mismeasure of Man_ pp. 146-174. Kevles _In The Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity_ chs. 4-9.

Terman, Yerkes and the politics of IQ. Gould _The Mismeasure of Man_ pp. 174-233. Jacoby and Glauberman _The Bell Curve Debate_, pp. 510-582.

Burt, Jensen, and Herrnstein: the reification of intelligence. Gould _The Mismeasure of Man_ pp. 234-296, 317-336. Harding _The "Racial" Economy of Science_, pp. 142-160. Jacoby and Glauberman _The Bell Curve Debate_, pp. 599-639.

Current controversy over race and intelligence. Kevles _In The Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity_ chs. 17-18. Murray and Hernstein _The Bell Curve_ introduction, and chs. 13-14.

Responding to _The Bell Curve_. Jacoby and Glauberman _The Bell Curve Debate_, selections.


Part 3. Who gets to do science? This segment takes a comparative and historical approach to the question of the role of different racial groups in the practice of science, both in the formulation of scientific discourse and the conduct of scientific research. The principal focus is on the role of European Americans and African Americans in the scientific establishment. Some attention will also be given to an international perspective on American science, comparing the culture and values of European American, Asian American and Japanese physicists.

The rejection of scientific racism. Harding _The "Racial" Economy of Science_, pp. 161-200.

The experience of black scientists. Harding _The "Racial" Economy of Science_, pp. 201-258. Douglass "The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered"

Primatology and physics in a multicultural field. Harding _The "Racial" Economy of Science_, pp. 259-267, 377-407.

Science, race, and morality. Harding _The "Racial" Economy of Science_, pp. 275-286, 341-358, 440-471.