Thread by @Anthrofuentes

1/ Yet again, let me be clear, my editorial was about "Descent". I did not read "Descent" as if it were produced in our own awakened intellectual environment. I read it as a scholar of evolutionary science and an anthropologist. A thread

2/ My goal with the editorial was to reflect on how societal biases of racism and sexism are so powerful that they can facilitate even such a spectacular scientist as Darwin to be blind to the data in front of him.

3/Darwin comes close to refuting races as products of selection and having functional differences and yet he still, without evidence and in spite of the data he has compiled, makes incorrect assertions about relative cognitive abilities, capacities and ranks of peoples.

4/ He also, briefly in the 1st edition but more emphatically in the 2nd, outlines the “naturalness” of Europeans outcompeting/being "fitter" than other races as explanation for the outcomes of colonial contact.

5/ The bottom line is that I am not assessing Darwin “out of time.” I am assessing him as one of the greatest minds of the 19th century, and very much in his time (he is a hero of mine- one can critique their heroes, and should).

6/ By the 1850s he was so remarkable a scientist that he was able to see beyond his colleagues, his training, his church and his society to assemble, validate and present a novel, sensational break with his "time" in regard to the processes and patterns of the natural world.

7/ However, in spite of this incredible intellectual capacity for insight and analyses, and his own life experience of exposure to humans from “other races” and his deep reliance on and care for the women in his family, he did not move the dial in regards to racism and sexism.

8/ This is the issue I think is important, as it demonstrates why scientists need to be so aware of their context, history and biases and recognize the power of racism and sexism as structuring processes, not just "patterns of the time."

9/ Why does this matter? Because "Descent" is written by the scholar we accurately recognize as genius and the father of our understanding of the processes of life.

10/ Because when reading “Descent,” those who are not white and not male encounter again and again assertions about their lower value as humans, their cognitive deficiencies and their being “less than” European men.

11/ Because such a set of assertions, if not clarified and corrected, is a gut punch, a rejection and a clear sign that some of us do not belong.

12/ This is why I think we need to teach the flaws and mistakes in "Descent" alongside the amazing insights. We owe that to all students.

13/ We owe it to society to publicly/clearly describe why racist assertions, even those made by icons, are incorrect and how a contemporary understanding of evolutionary processes and patterns rejects racism and sexism and complexifies the glorious mess that is the human.

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