It might seem as though the way we think about race now is how we’ve always thought about it—but it isn’t. Race was born out of the Enlightenment in Europe, along with the invention of modern western science. And it was tied to the politics of the age—imperialism and later slavery. This episode traces the origins of race science to the Enlightenment, examines how the Bible influenced racial theories, and considers how we still have a hard time letting go of the idea of race.
About Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race“Origin Stories” is Episode 1 of Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race, a podcast and magazine project that explores the historical roots and persistent legacies of racism in American science and medicine. Published through Distillations, the Science History Institute’s highly acclaimed digital content platform, the project examines the scientific origins of support for racist theories, practices, and policies. Innate is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
CreditsHosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago
Senior Producer: Mariel Carr
Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez
Assistant Producer: Padmini Ragunath
Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer
"Innate Theme" composed by Jonathan Pfeffer. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.
Special thanks to our colleagues, Jacqueline Boytim and James Voelkel, for their help with this episode.
Archaeology under the Blinding Light of Race, by Michael Blakey
Breathing Race into the Machine: the Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics, by Lundy Braun
Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science, by Terence Keel
Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century, by Dorothy Roberts
"Jesus Loves the little Children," song by Cedarmont Kids
Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Differences in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840, by Rana Hogarth
The Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel
Superior: The Return of Race Science, by Angela Saini
Find the full transcript here.
Where Have All the FEMA Trailers Gone?
Science and the Supernatural in the 17th Century
Distillations Turns 200
Acts of God, Acts of Men: When We Turn Nature into a Weapon
Old Brains, New Brains: The Human Mind, Past and Present
Fads and Faith: Belief vs. Fact in the Struggle for Health
Innovation and Obsolescence: The Life, Death, and Occasional Rebirth of Technologies
Trash Talk: The Persistence of Waste
Life with HIV: Success without a Cure?
Babies on Demand: Reproduction in a Technological Age
Fogs of War: The Many Lives of Chemical Weapons
Wake up and Smell the Story: Sniffing out Health and Sickness
The Teeth Beneath Your Feet: Oddities in Urban Archaeology
Intoxication and Civilization: Beer's Ancient Past
Alchemy's Rainbow: Pigment Science and the Art of Conservation
Meet Joe Palca: A Radio Story About Making Radio Stories
Drawing History: Telling the Stories of Science through Comics and Graphic Novels
Why the Chicken Became a Nugget and Other Tales of Processed Food
Digging Up the Bodies: Debunking CSI and Other Forensics Myths
Zombies! How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Zombie Apocalypse
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