The Science and Politics of Racial Research
A historical examination of how scientific research about racial difference has been used to justify political inequality. From slavery to eugenics and the Jensen controversy, it criticizes the biases that were advanced in the name of research.
Work Information
A reconsideration of the history of race research as a junction of science and politics.
The book re-situates debates about racial difference, often framed in the language of scientific objectivity, within a long historical arc. It follows concrete cases showing how research was used to justify social and political inequality.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Univ of Illinois Pr
- Published
- 1994-12-01
- Pages
- 384 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 16.51 x 2.54 x 24.13 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780252020995
- ISBN-10
- 0252020995
- Price
- 18870 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/History/Americas/United States
Unlike other critiques of the scientific literature on racial difference, The Science and Politics of Racial Research argues that there has been no scientific purpose or value to the study of innate differences in ability between groups. William Tucker shows how, for more than a century, scientific investigations of supposedly innate differences in ability between races have been used to rationalize social and political inequality as the unavoidable consequence of natural differences. Tucker structures his work chronologically, with each chapter describing how research on genetic difference was used in a particular era to support a particular political agenda. He begins with the use of science to support slavery in the mid-nineteenth century and ends with the effects of Jensenism in the 1970s. Highlights include one chapter describing a little-known but concerted attempt by a group of scientists to overturn the Brown v. Board of Education decision on the basis of "expert testimony" about racial differences, and another that presents a review of the eugenics movement in the twentieth century. The author also considers how to balance the rights and responsibilities of scientists, concluding that one generally neglected method is to strengthen the rights of research subjects.
William H. Tucker is an associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey.
Reviews
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The book arrived in good condition and was exactly as described. Thanks!
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Quite honestly, this text distorts the history of racial research in the worst way possible: by not even giving the opposing side a fair light.