racism

Something you probably already suspect: It happened many times: The presence of these chunks, making up 2%, on average, of the genome of anyone with roots in Europe, Asia, Australia or the Americas, pointed to a single period of intermingling – probably 50,000 to 60,000 years ago – not long after Homo sapiens emerged from Africa. But that simple story was complicated by the discovery that people in East Asia have up to 20% higher Neanderthal ancestry than present-day Europeans. … Evidence for multiple matings already exists, in the form of a 40,000 year old human fossil from Romania with a recent Neanderthal ancestor, whose Neanderthal DNA nonetheless did not become part of modern-day human genomes.Dyani Lewis, “Humans and Neanderthals Read More ›

J. R. Miller offers some thoughts on the recent book, Spectacle, and the documentary, Human Zoos: The recent book, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga, by Pamela Newkirk shows how Darwin’s theory of universal common descent led to the dominant scientific view that blacks were lower on the scale of evolution and a missing link between ape and humanity. In 1906, Benga was put on display in the monkey house of the Bronx Zoo as a symbol of scientific progress toward proving human origins. … In addition to the book, the recent documentary, Human Zoos, illustrates the life of Benga and how these same leading scientists were instrumental in the founding of the eugenics movement which was determined to Read More ›

America’s Forgotten History of Scientific Racism is now available on DVD: From IMDB: Human Zoos tells the story of how thousands of indigenous peoples were put on public display in America in the early decades of the twentieth century. Often touted as “missing links” between man and apes, these native peoples were harassed, demeaned, and jeered at. Their public display was arranged with the enthusiastic support of the most elite members of the scientific community, and it was promoted uncritically by America’s leading newspapers. The documentary also tells the story of a courageous group of African-American ministers who tried to stop one such ‘Human Zoo’ in New York City. The documentary features Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Pamela Newkirk, author of Spectacle: Read More ›