From the Cutting Room Floor: On Racism, Religion, and Science

I've been working on a Science for the Church newsletter, which will be posted soon, and here are a few ideas that left on the cutting room floor. 

The topic is the history of scientific racism.

First: We could of course talk about how our earliest American Christian leaders had racist ideologies—and I’ll pick on one of my heroes from the 1700s, Jonathan Edwards who brilliantly integrated his theology with natural philosophy (or science) also owned slaves. Here's a bit more nuance to that statement: 

"Though he recognized the cruelty of the slave trade and considered enslaved people his spiritual equals, Edwards himself owned slaves throughout his life and career." Princeton & Slavery

Second: We can't forget the extension of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection into social Darwinism, the theory that “sociocultural advance is the product of intergroup conflict and competition and the socially elite classes (such as those possessing wealth and power) possess biological superiority in the struggle for existence.” Darwin himself repudiated social Darwinism, but his cousin Francis Galton who coined the term "eugenics" in 1883 certainly launched a social Darwinist experiment in England and the United States.

Third: The implicit racism of anti-immigration sentiment today is shocking, but it's not new. When the restrictive 1924 Immigration Act allegedly sought to restore the racial composition of the United States, it set those standards on a census over four decades old, the 1880 census, before many Southern and Eastern Europeans had emigrated to America, who were not considered the same “race” as their Anglo-Saxon counterparts.

Fourth: Note Webster’s updating of their definition of racism to include systemic racism. 

Fifth: My grandfather Nicholas Kutsonas, escaping persecution as a Greek in Turkish-occupied Macedonia, fled to this country as a teenager in 1915. He was considered, as a Southern European, to be the kind of “race” that the United States didn’t want. It’s no surprise, that when the 1924 Immigration Act went into effect, it led to a net decrease of Eastern and Southern European immigrants. Put another way, because race has little or no basis in science, and particularly in genetics, it’s a concept that’s malleable and can be manipulated to serve racist ends. Nichole Phillips, Emory University theologian, recently spoke against “colorism”--the prejudice that privileges lighter skin over darker and that leads to racism, 

Racism and Science: Still Bubbling Around and Not Going Away

This is another adapted excerpt from my book, Negotiating Science and Religion in America, which I felt I had to post in light of George Floyd's killing and dialogue about racism in our country. 

In this book, I noted a few places where the construction of race, and especially racial superiority, has been tied to science; for that reason it’s also promoted as “scientific racism.” 

The status of race as a scientific category has been significantly questioned—for example, in the influential work of Alan Templeton. In this respect we—and by “we” I mean those who want to bring together religious and scientific insight (and who are often white and male)—have to grapple with race as a social construction.

And with race arrives many other ills. One of the surprises of cultural life in contemporary America is the return of white supremacists and nationalists, and along with them, the anti-immigration rhetoric that highlights certain countries (in this case, Latin American ones) and religions (Islam). I am concerned about the rhetoric against the immigrant that led to Donald Trump’s election as President and how it mirrors the social concerns of the early twentieth century. And, I am horrified at the killing of George Floyd and what that means about the bubbling caldron of racism that is exploding right now in the United States. 

Racism and bigotry make many claims.

“The essence of bigotry, including racism, is the belief that easily identified categories reliably predict behavior, intelligence, and character,” Dave Unander.  

Marouf A. Hasian, Jr., in his 1996 The Rhetoric of Eugenics, had already

noted a “revival of eugenics” twenty-five years ago. I see no reason to miss the same parallel in post-Trump America:

"Just as Americans in the 1990s are confronted with the specter of armies of homeless, dependent AIDS patients, and violent inner-city gangs, in the 1910s and 1920s the nation was concerned with what it termed problems of the feeble-minded, the congenital defectives, and other degenerates." Marouf A. Hasian, Jr.

In his study of race and eugenics in the southern states, Edward Larson examines how southern eugenicists were vexed about “the deterioration of the Caucasian race than about any threat from the African race” and then presents this 1919 quotation from a white Louisiana physician: “What language can express the humiliation we should feel at seeing [our] race, physically, mentally and morally, slowly going to decay?”

As a California child in 1960s and early 1970s grade schools, I remember growing up and learning about three primary human races: “Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid.” How confusing those easy distinctions have become in light of the reality of mixed racial compositions and the fact that the relevant sciences don’t support commonly held discriminating features distinctions based on race.

“Genomics—reading DNA—is showing that all human populations carry most of the same genetic variations, contrary to what we would expect if ‘races’ existed.” Dave Unander

In a related vein, Templeton concluded his study of any biological basis for race with this, 

“Humans are an amazingly diverse species, but this diversity is not due to a finite number of subtypes or races. Rather, the vast majority of human genetic diversity reflects local adaptations and, most of all, our individual uniqueness.” Alan Templeton

At this critical time for our country, my hope is that skilled and informed contributors to this conversation will rise up to address the links between racism and the use of science. May it be so.

Science Used in the Service of Racism: Will It Ever Go Away?

One more of my Eleven Topics in Science and Religion, this post is adapted from my book Negotiating Science and Religion in America.

#9. Race and a possible redux of eugenics

In this book, I noted where the construction of race in the United States, and especially racial superiority, has been tied to science and thus scientific racism. On the one hand, I’m hearing a serious questioning of the status of race as a biological category. As biologist Dave Unander has made clear.

“Genomics—reading DNA—is showing that all human populations carry most of the same genetic variations, contrary to what we would expect if ‘races’ existed.” (Dave Unander).

In this respect we—and by “we” I mean those of religious and scientific insight— have to grapple with the social construction of race. (And many specialists science and religion, it should be added, are predominantly and disproportionately white, which further complicates these topics.)

In doing my research over the past two years, I was entirely surprised to find that, in the early 20th century, it was progressive or modernist Christian pastors that gave sermonic voices to proclaiming eugenics. That historical fact was a little difficult to wrap my head around. Didn't their theology teach something about God's creation of a unified humanity? Didn't they know better? And how could they do this? 

As Christine Rosen has written about this very period in Preaching Eugenics:

"Certain kinds of religious leader gravitated toward eugenics in the early twentieth century, ministers anxious about the changing culture but also eager to find solutions to its diagnosable ills. Theirs was a practical spirituality better understood in terms of worldviews than theologies." Christine Rosen, Preaching Eugenics

I mentioned "on the one hand" above, the questioning of race as a definitive biological category. It is, however, a powerful cultural category. Somewhat recently, that is, in the 1990s, Marouf A. Hasian, Jr. already noted a “revival of eugenics” in his The Rhetoric of Eugenics in Anglo-American Thought. Now about thirty years later, one of the surprises of cultural life in post-Trump America is the return of white supremacists and nationalists. Even more, today’s anti-immigration rhetoric highlights certain countries (in this case, Latin American ones) and religions (Islam). These are resonant with eugenicist themes.

My hope is that skilled and informed Christian contributors to this conversation will emerge, including those who understand religious sensibilities and theological beliefs. At any rate, race and the specter of eugenics will continue to rise in importance for science and religion. It's worth being prepared.

What the Science of Race Doesn't Show

As a part of my research on science and religion in America over the past two years, which resulted in my book coming out next month, I came to take in the recalcitrant history of the science of race.

And, of course, one all-too-common result has been--and still is--racism, which represents another indelible feature of our country and which some have called "America's original sin."

Maybe you know something about this topic already, but I was woefully underprepared. If you'd like a brief intro, here are three articles from the BioLogos website that offer a solid overview of the topic (and are brief enough that you don't have to do copious reading). 

Here are the links to the mini bibliography:

1. Dave Unander, "Race: A Brief History of its Origin, Failure and Alternative" 
2. Deborah Haarsma, "One Human Family" 
3. Brad Kramer, "Science, Race, and the Bible: Coming to Terms with a Messy History"
4. In addition to these thoughtful pieces that offer an overview, here's a scholarly article: Alan Templeton's “Biological Races in Humans” in the 2013 Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, 44 (2013): 262–71

The bottom line (or at least, one critical takeaway) from this research is summarized well by Deborah Haarsma:

No genetic basis for race” is referring to the way we define “race” in our culture. When the census asks you to identify as “white”, “black”, “asian”, etc., those are cultural categories, not scientific categories. While some aspects of these cultural categories (e.g. skin color) are genetic traits, those traits are a small part of all the genes that differ between any two individuals. Yes, there is a genetic basis for the many local ancestry groups. But as geneticist Alan Templeton points out, “If every genetically distinguishable population were elevated to the status of race, then most species would have hundreds to tens of thousands of races.” BioLogos President Deborah Haarsma

I'd be interested to hear your comments.

P.S. While I'm at it, I'll link one more article, this by Karen Norrgard, "Human Testing, the Eugenics Movement, and IRBs."