Is Science Colour Blind?

Two talks, at the Science Museum's Dana centre next month, will consider science & race -

16 October Scientific Racism: A history
Where id the concept of race come from? How and why did 19th C science divide people into races? .... the role of science in the system of slavery, domination and power .... historians, geneticists, and scientific objects from history..

and

30 October
How inclusive is science?

Might race have a useful role to play in contemporary science? ...... legacies of scientific racism today ... mental healthcare and genetics ...

This is interesting because in some areas we have scientists arguing that primates, with just 1% DNA difference from humans, should be given the same rights as humans - which human though? The Indian Dalit class, or women in some societies with very little rights? Others are advising that furture robots should be accorded the same legal rights as those given to a human - which? Their human creator?

Sounds fascinating. Any links? (Sadly, too many scientists nowadays tell you they have these hugely important finds that everyone should take to heart, but at the same time charge exorbitant amounts for people to access their articles for just a day. As an encyclopaedia compiler I find that troublesome.)

Encyclopedia compiler? Fascinating ...

HH_pink wrote:Encyclopedia compiler? Fascinating ...

Yup... I read up stuff like, "There is an animal that lives on lobsters' lips and in its final life stage, dies when its intestine rips free to become its offspring."

Incidentally, I didn't make that up. You really get things like that in the North Sea.

.

Inconceivable, isn't it? Though I feared something similar would happen to me once after I'd consumed about four dozen cherries.

6 cherries are missing.

doremi wrote:6 cherries are missing.

I'd rather not discuss those.

Well, cherrie-o then.

mynah wrote:Inconceivable, isn't it? Though I feared something similar would happen to me once after I'd consumed about four dozen cherries.

Yes, but it's conceived, in weird fashion. That's what baffles me.

Ay. Why there are, for example, enough critters in the world who would preferentially mate with hagfish or cockroaches to keep their respective lineages alive for hundreds of million years is truly strange.

Oh, yes, and there is something else that is quite peculiar about the males of these thingies...

Link

Don't make me bring in smiley quotas...

Dello wrote:Don't make me bring in smiley quotas...

You looked, didn't you?

mynah wrote:Sounds fascinating. Any links? (Sadly, too many scientists nowadays tell you they have these hugely important finds that everyone should take to heart, but at the same time charge exorbitant amounts for people to access their articles for just a day. As an encyclopaedia compiler I find that troublesome.)

Mynah:

This is the link to the London's Science Museum's Dana Centre: http://www.danacentre.org.uk/


I can tell you more about those two lectures once I've been but here's a link to the note on the first - Scientific Racism:
http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2007/10/16/162

and for the second - Is Science Colour Blind?:
http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2007/10/30/327


(there's an evening with Nobel Prize winner James Watson, 19 October, at the centre, though I receive email-notification wasn't able to secure a ticket, such is his fame/interest in listening to him).

Will Watson bring his shot of Crick?

lardbucket wrote:Will Watson bring his shot of Crick?

Probably. He lix it a lot.

lardbucket wrote:Will Watson bring his shot of Crick?

Don't know, won't be there

WideWally wrote:

lardbucket wrote:Will Watson bring his shot of Crick?

Probably. He lix it a lot.

Silly twisted boy.

Where did the concept of race come from? How and why did nineteenth-century science divide people into races? Investigate the role of science in the system of slavery, domination and power with historians, geneticists and scientific objects from history. Come and share your views.

This event is part of Black History Month 2007.

One could ask, in the light of the parts in bold (my emphasis), Are they in favour of the concept of race, or not?

Certainly many historical notions about race would now be laughable if they weren't so tragic.

I must say recent research, or the lack of it, into race also raises some serious questions. For many years, geneticists have been startlingly ignorant about the human traits that don't make us sick, like the colour of our eyes and the texture of our hair. Things have changed a bit, lately, with some findings, all reassuringly neutral, coming through on skin colour, etc. What I find suspect is that no-one would know anything about a race-related gene, and then suddenly one publication would be followed by a flurry of others - as if a lot of people had been working secretly in the background, and only revealed what they'd found if it proved to be totally uncontroversial.

Any race-related findings of a controversial nature are either shot down in flames by other scientists as well as politicians, or misused by the same to "prove" prejudices that are often way beyond the original findings.

One may well ask not only whether science is biased on the question of race, but whether it should be or not. Most importantly, one may ask who has the right to make these decisions, and why...

I struggle to see how science can be considered biased or racist in any way. Science involves peer scrutiny of provable predictions. A theory that doesn’t hold up to this scrutiny is then discarded.

People may misconstrue a theory, but then it ceases to be science.

Invader Zim wrote:I struggle to see how science can be considered biased or racist in any way. Science involves peer scrutiny of provable predictions. A theory that doesn’t hold up to this scrutiny is then discarded.

People may misconstrue a theory, but then it ceases to be science.

Thing is, zimmy, that science is easily bent to whatever preconceptions a researcher may have and has been much abused in the support of racist ideas.

Even recently "science" has been used to back the theory that African poverty is a problem of genetics . . . disgusting.

Why is it disgusting already - it 'could' possibly be a valid claim?

HH_pink wrote:Why is it disgusting already - it 'could' possibly be a valid claim?

I've read the "science" and it is disgusting. Culturally specific IQ testing was used to show that average IQs in Africa were lower than in European nations and thus poverty is a product of genetic stupidity . . . etc.

Invader Zim wrote:I struggle to see how science can be considered biased or racist in any way. Science involves peer scrutiny of provable predictions. A theory that doesn’t hold up to this scrutiny is then discarded.

People may misconstrue a theory, but then it ceases to be science.

Depends on who is paying the scientists!

tac wrote:

HH_pink wrote:Why is it disgusting already - it 'could' possibly be a valid claim?

I've read the "science" and it is disgusting. Culturally specific IQ testing was used to show that average IQs in Africa were lower than in European nations and thus poverty is a product of genetic stupidity . . . etc.

Aye. Guns, germs and steel ...