The Role of Science in "Justifying" Racism and Inequality
...d directly attributing it to their genetic or ethnic make up. They are not looking at all the possible variables for their situation, such as how they grew up and economic situation as a child. There are two sources of data that have been used to support these ideas “craniometry and certain psychological testing.” Craniometry is a process in which skull size is measured in order to determine the size of one’s brain which they believed directly related to a person’s intelligence. Scientists would collect skulls from different “races” and measure them in order to tell them which race is superior. This idea which had no backing scientifically was extremely popular in the 18th century. Samuel George Morton who was one of the biggest advocates of craniometry used it extensively in his work. He based most of his ideas of certain “races” being less equal than others on his findings which were eventually found out to be full of errors. Craniometry was the main source of “proof” for superior and inferior races in the 18th century, and so intelligence quotients or IQ tests are the standard in the 19th and early 20th centuries. IQ tests were used to determine people’s intelligence and were also used to support white “superiority”. The same IQ tests were given to everyone from immigrants and slaves to natural born citizens. The problem with them was they were usually in English and based on American culture so if they had not lived here they would not know certain terms and other things, thus making the tests erroneous. With the introduction of Evolution came more “support” for racism. Many scientists said that African-Americans were still evolving from apes into Caucasians. They used ideas like these as justifications for the abuse and racism towards African-Americans. Another theory they used to support their ideas was recapitulation. Recapitulation how they used it was the idea that s...