Scientific racism facts for kids

Scientific racism is a false idea that tries to use science to say that some human races are better than others. Real science, using the scientific method, only looks at differences without saying one group is "better" or "worse."

This term is often used for old theories from fields like anthropology. These theories tried to divide people into "races" and then claim that some races were more advanced or "superior." Most of these ideas were popular between 1880 and 1930, during a time called New Imperialism.

What is Scientific Racism?

Scientific racism is the wrong idea that you can use scientific methods to prove that one human group, or "race," is naturally better than another. It's not true science. Real science looks for facts and evidence. It does not try to prove that one group of people is superior.

Why it's Not Real Science

True science uses careful steps to study things. This is called the scientific method. It involves making observations, asking questions, doing experiments, and checking results. Scientific racism does not follow these steps. Instead, it starts with the idea that races are different and then tries to find "evidence" to support that idea. This is not how real science works.

A Look at History

Many ideas about scientific racism became popular a long time ago. This was especially true from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. During this time, some people tried to use measurements of skulls or other body parts to "prove" their ideas about race. However, these methods were flawed and biased. Today, scientists agree that these ideas are not based on real science. They are harmful and wrong.

Images for kids

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  Robert Boyle

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  Henry Home, Lord Kames

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  Homo monstrosus, or Patagonian giants, from Voyage au pole sud et dans l'Océanie (Voyage to the South Pole, and in Oceania), by Jules Dumont d'Urville

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  John Hunter. Painted by John Jackson in 1813, after an original by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who exhibited his painting at the Royal Academy in 1786.

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  Charles White

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  Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

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  Christoph Meiners

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  Georges Cuvier

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  Arthur Schopenhauer

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  A late-19th-century illustration by H. Strickland Constable shows an alleged similarity between "Irish Iberian" and "Negro" features in contrast to the higher "Anglo-Teutonic".

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  Portrait of Arthur de Gobineau by the Comtesse de la Tour, 1876

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  Charles Darwin in 1868

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  Herbert Hope Risley

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  Ernst Haeckel

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  Pieter Camper

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  Racialist differences: "a Negro head ... a Caucasian skull ... a Mongol head", Samuel George Morton, 1839

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  Cephalic Index. William Z. Ripley's European cephalic index map, The Races of Europe (1899).

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  Joseph Deniker

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  Madison Grant, creator of the "Nordic race" term

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  Samuel Cartwright, M.D.

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  Francis Galton in his later years

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  The Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology, founded in 1922, was the world's first government-funded institute performing research into racial biology. It was housed in what is now the Dean's house at Uppsala and was closed down in 1958.

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  Nazi poster promoting eugenics

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  Lothrop Stoddard (1883–1950)

See also

In Spanish: Racismo científico para niños