Download Lecture 9. Cautionary tale

Lecture 9. Cautionary tale - the Races of Man
The fact that cultures evolve in different places and at different rates tends to segregate man into
distinct groups. The presence of distinct groups tends to lead to genetic divergence.
These two facts are both plausible, but the second does not necessarily follow from the first. A
group of animals that cannot, or normally does not breed with another group to produce fertile
offspring is defined as a species. Often we have to infer this with fossils, until better evidence
comes along. Yet we have seen gradual transitions between say habilis and erectus, and only
recend DNA analysis suggests that Neanderthals didn’t breed with sapiens to produce troublesome intermediate types. As far as we know all groups of modern man have always been able to
interbreed, and have interbred where this is Geographically feasible. Overlap has produced hybridisation - there are no pure races of man.
But there are still major groupings of interrelated people possessing distinctive physical traits
which are the result of inheritance. If I say to you Negro, or Chinaman, or Aborigine, or Amerindian a picture appears of distinct facial and body type. General anatomical relationships indicate
common ancestry. In 1961 this table was published in Anthropology Made Simple.
At present our view
of these racial groupings is a snapshot: a
snapshot taken a
hundred years ago
and one taken in a
hundred years time
would be very different. Races are changing, and always have. They are probably changing now faster than ever
before.
We have seen that what would probably nowadays be called racial differences were present be-
tween different forms of habilis, of erectus and the early sapiens types: so it is not surprising
that they are
present today. But these differences within populations make it difficult to trace exactly where
modern man came from and when.
Molecular data, such as blood grouping, DNA analysis and linguistic studies all point to an African origin for man, as indeed does the fossil record. However the timing and pattern of the
subsequent spread are as controversial as ever. Also molecular and morphological traits are not
necessarily coupled: a tool which gives a 99% likeness between man and chimp is obviously not a
good discriminator, and the molecular data may well be recording the earlier spread of H erectus
early sapiens out of Africa rather than the radiation of modern man. DNA data relies on the rate
of mutation of its bases: if DNA evolution is constant then the differentiation of modern
populations must have been >0.25 - 0.75 mya - i.e. in the erectus phase. If DNA evolution is not
constant we can’t use it as a tool.
There are also problems with the data. The original ‘out of Africa’ hypothesis was based upon
phylogenetic trees which in turn reflected the DNA structure of population from all over the
world. A shortest possible tree was constructed to relate all these samples to each other. Subsequent re-analysis has shown at least 10,000 other possible trees with 5 less steps than the original
- some not based on Africa. So there are two more problems: the shortest tree isn’t and there are
another 10,000 choices, all as good as each other. Also the preferred trees do not reflect similarities in morphological traits.
So, we don’t have a detailed pedigree of where we came from, and we know that races are changing. But how do we account for the sets of characteristics which define a Chinese or a Red Indian? As Biologists we can sort out some likely causes:
1. Mutation. Changes occur in the structure of the genetic material
2. Natural selection. Such changes may have survival value
3. Genetic drift: if a breakaway group has some genetic characters unlike those of a main popu-
lation, then after a time divergence may occur
4. Population mixture will bring in different genes.
What do we choose as racial characteristics? Taking Anthropology Made Simple as a guide we
can say usually things that are biologically trivial, and usually things that are very visible.
Skin Colour
Probably the most visible characteristic is skin colour. Historically long standing division into
white, yellow and black. This is probably due originally to mutation: the classic story says that a
darker pigment will give more protection against the sun. Probably more likely, if we believe an
out of Africa scenario is that mutation giving a less pigmented skin allowed greater synthesis of
vitamin D from the rather reduced sunshine of northern areas. Anyway, there was presumably a
selective advantage. Skin colour is therefore a good racial classifier, highly visible, not terribly
accurate (some Caucasoid races are darker than some Negroids and there is a huge range of
variation).
Eye colour
All non-Caucasoid populations have a dark brown or a black iris: Caucasoids have a range from
light blue to brown. Many Asiatics have an epicanthic fold over the inner cornea of the eye which
gives there appearance of a slant
Hair colour and texture
Hair is dark and woolly in Negroids, straighter and lighter coloured in most Caucasoids, black and
flat in cross section in Chinese.
Other indices
Cephalic index has also been used i.e. relative broadness of the head. This is not really useful
because of inter-group variability. Stature, nose shape, lips, ears and body hair have also been
used. Blood groups are useful - Caucasians and Asiatics have a very similar distribution, American Indians are largely O
Overlaps
Of course these are generalisations and there is much variation: Swedes are tall, fair haired and
blue eyed aren’t they? Well 11% of them are according to the Swedish army recruiting figures.
But even allowing for overlaps and generalisations and mixtures we can classify three broad racial
types in the modern world.
Caucasoids. 1,000 million people with variable skin colour; white-dark brown. Hair variable,
never woolly, body hair often thick. Lips tend to be thin. Three subdivisions exist, the Nordic, the
Mediterranean and the Alpine.
The Nordic group are often tall, blonde and narrow headed - Scandinavia, Baltic, Germany,
France, Britain
The Mediterranean group (Southern France, Spain, Italy and oddly, Wales Egyptians, Semites,
Persians, Afghans and some Indians. Lighter in body build, dark and narrow headed.
The Alpine group extends from the Mediterranean to Asia. Broad headed, square jaws, olive skin,
brown hair.
Mongoloids Most numerous of the present day populations, split into three groups
The Eastern Siberians, Eskimos and the Northern American Indians
The Japanese, Koreans, Chinese
The Indonesians and Malays
Negroids 100 million from Africa south of the Sahara and Melanesians of the S Pacific.
Others. We also have to fit in somewhere the Central African pigmies, the Bushmen and the
Australoids.
Racialism
Noting that there are differences between men from different areas is a very different thing from
implying any judgement. Today there is a politically correct view that all men are equal. This is
undoubtedly biologically correct too.
But lets go back to our Phoenician merchant travelling a world which varies culturally from his
own comfortable and advanced society to the stone age. Let us get into the shoes of a Catholic
missionary in South America in the fifteenth century, or a Methodist in nineteenth century Africa.
These good people saw a stone age culture around them, believed implicitly in good faith that
their version was better and drew the inevitable conclusion that the ‘natives’ who lived in ‘savagery’ were indeed savages and must be inferior because they had done nothing about it.
We thus see the beginnings of a feeling that members of other races, handily identified by visible
characteristics, were inferior or even subhuman.
Once implanted such a belief is difficult to eradicate.
Lets take up this belief at an arbitrary point, before
Darwinism (so that we can see what impact the
theory of evolution and the descent of man, and the
introduction of quantitative science made) and in
an arbitrary place,
America (because there
were two ‘inferior’ racial
groups there, the Indians
and the Blacks).
In America at this time the general view was Indians below whites and blacks below everyone
else. This was part of a general view of white supremacy Perhaps the truth was unintentionally
amended to make the point (the chimp skull has too large a braincase, the Negro a much extended
jaw) but the picture was clear. Hard liners said that Blacks were inferior and their biological
status justified enslavement: soft liners (such as Jefferson ) said that Blacks were inferior but that
was not sufficient reason to enslave them. Soft liners differed in their views - some said that
proper education would improve the Blacks, others that the ineptitude was inbuilt. The most
liberal thinkers had an attitude which would today embarrass all of us
‘ And while we are clearing America of woods and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter light why
should we.. darken its people? Why increase the sons of Africa by planting them in America, where we have so fair
an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawneys, of increasing the lovely whites and red?’
That was Benjamin Franklin: at least he was pro-Indian.
Thomas Jefferson, another American hero:
‘I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race or made distinct by
time and circumstance, are inferior to the whites in the endowment of both body and of mind’.
Abraham Lincoln:
‘There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races
living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain
together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favour of having
the superior position assigned to the white race’
All leading scientists followed these views. Linnaeus described Homo sapiens afer as
‘ruled by caprice’ Homo sapiens europaeus as ‘ruled by customs’. Of African women he wrote
Femnis sine pudoris: mammae lactanes prolixae - women without shame, breasts lactate profusely.
The men, he added, are indolent and anoint themselves with grease.
Cuvier, the founder of Geology Palaeontology and comparative Anatomy considered blacks:-
‘the most degraded of human races, whose form approaches that of the beast and whose intelligence is nowhere
great enough to arrive at regular government’
Charles Darwin, as liberal and abolitionist as any man alive at the time wrote about a future time
when the gap between man and apes would be increased by the extinction of “intermediates” such
as the chimpanzee and Hottentot. Man would be isolated by the gap between Caucasian and
baboon, not by that between ‘ Negro or Australian and the gorilla’.
So how do we, as pre Darwinians, explain the inferiority of some races, or the superiority of
others? Again there were two views. The first, very Christian suggested a single Adam and Eve
who were, before the Fall, perfect. Modern races have degenerated since Eden, but to greater or
lesser extents. Climate was seen as the most likely agent. Some argued that change was irreversible, some that remedial action was possible: Stanhope Smith, President of Princeton hoped that
American Blacks, in a climate more suited to Caucasian temperaments, would soon turn white.
The harder argument held that human races were separate biological species, descendants of
different Adams. Degeneration was the most popular view, not least because scripture was not to
be discarded lightly. Moreover inter fertility of races made them more like a single species.
Some people managed to sit quite firmly on fences. Serres, a French medical anatomist wrote:
‘Their conclusion is that the Negro is no more a white man than a donkey is a horse or a zebra - a theory put into
practice in the United States of America, to the shame of Civilisation’
Yet he managed to hold the view that recapitulation was the answer, and that Blacks were like
white children and Mongolians like white adolescents. He had some trouble getting his data to
agree with this hypothesis but settled on the distance between navel and penis ‘that inefficable
sign of embryonic life in man’. This distance is small relative to body height in man, and the navel
migrates upward in fetal life, but to a lesser extent in Blacks and more in whites than Asiatics.
David Hume (the Scottish philosopher) took the alternative view, that man was disparate:
‘I am apt to suspect the Negroes and in general all the other species of man (for there are four or five different
kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilised nation of any other complexion than
white.
Others were less rational in their criteria. Charles White, an English surgeon , wrote that only in
the white man would one find:
‘that nobly arched head, containing such a quantity of brain... where that variety of features and fullness of
expression, those long, flowing graceful ringlets, that majestic beard those rosy cheeks and coral lips? Where,
except on the bosom of the European woman, two such plump and snowy white hemispheres, tipt with vermilion ‘
Now the first important fact about the polygenic theory is that is was American: it was referred
to as the American school of anthropology. It came from a nation practising slavery and at the
same time expelling its aboriginal natives from their homelands. The second important fact is
that is was, at first, a non-scientific theory. Scientific respectability was added by two great
American anthropologists Agassiz and Morton
Agassiz was in fact a Swiss, converted to polygeny after his first encounters with American
Blacks. He was also a creationist - but everyone was before 1859. He maintained his beliefs
however and remained a leading anti-evolutionist.
In studying animals and plants Agassiz formed a view that there were centres of creation and that
organisms didn’t generally wander far away. He classified geographical races as separate species,
each created at a different centre of origin and exploiting environmental differences. Man was a
startling exception.
‘Here is revealed anew the superiority of the human genre and its greater independence in nature. Whereas the
animals are distinct species in the different zoological provinces to which they appertain, man, despite the diversity
of his races, constitutes one and the same species all over the surface of the globe’
But Agassiz had probably never met a Black in Switzerland., or indeed in Europe. When he
moved to Philadelphia he was seized by a visceral revulsion and changed his tune. He never
produced any data but felt:
‘It is impossible for me to repress the feeling that they are not of the same blood as us.
....their black faces with thick lips and grimacing teeth, the wool on their heads, their bent knees, their elongated
hands, their large curved nails and especially the livid colour of the palms of their hands’
Strong stuff. Agassiz rationalised the separateness of the Blacks like this. The Christian doctrine
of Adam refers, of course, only to Caucasians. The bible does not speak of things not known to
the ancients. Negroes and Caucasians areas distinct in Egyptian mummified remains (3,000BC) as
they are today. The chronology of the Bible puts creation at 4004BC. Surely if they diverged so
much in the first 1,000 years they would have diverged much further since. So, the racial groups,
occupying distinct geographical areas (albeit with some migration) are distinct species, created at
separate centres of origin.
Allied to separateness, of course, was a pecking order and, of course, the Negroes were at the
bottom. Because of this interbreeding must be discouraged., as unnatural and repugnant. The fact
that interbreeding occurred was, of course, due to the sexual receptiveness of housemaids and
the naiveté of young, white, Southern gentlemen. The servants says Agassiz are halfbeeds already
(although how the parents overcame their natural repugnance is not stated) and the young men
respond aesthetically to the white half while a degree of blackness loosens the natural inhibitions
of the higher race.
All this, remember, and no data. Data was supplied by Morton, who had a large collection of
skulls, over 1,000 by the time he died. Why? because he had a hypothesis that the ranking of the
races could be proved by the structure of the brain, as reflected in the skull. He measured the
cranial capacity with mustard seed, and later, because that was not totally satisfactory, with lead
shot. He produced clean, objective data
reinforcing prejudice and putting the
white man on top.
The odd thing is that these summary
tables are derived from raw data, which
he also published, and which said no such
thing. There is no reason
to suspect Morton as a
faker - if so why publish
the raw data, but unconsciously data was massaged to fit prejudice.
With statistics in its infancy he did not understand the weighting of sub samples to make an average. He was choosy about who was in and who was out: Peruvians (who lowered the Indian
mean) were in, Hindus (who lowered the Caucasian) were out. Changing from seed (where
results are rather unpredictable) to shot (where results are repeatable) made a difference, but not a
consistent one. Using shot instead of seed shifted the black average by 5.4cu in but the Caucasian
by only 1.8: the Blacks fared the worst when results could be (unconsciously) biased by packing
in more seed. Means were never computed by sex or stature: the Negroids from Egypt contained
more (smaller) females, not more stupid blacks.
But craniology was not dead - it was the coming thing.