Week5
Prompt:
Human bodies are unusual scientific objects in that they are capable of speaking on their own behalf, but (like all scientific objects) can also be made to speak through various forms of examination and manipulation. Using materials from this unit, identify and discuss a specific historical context of producing scientific evidence from a human body or bodies.
Response: (226 words)
The human body is unique in scientific research: not only can it express itself, but it can also “speak” through scientific testing. This phenomenon makes the human body a complex object of study. The next section explores how science has produced evidence from the human body through nineteenth-century craniometry, reflecting social and scientific perceptions of the time. Skull measurements were used as scientific evidence of racial differences, and scientists classified people into races by measuring the length, width, and cranial capacity of their skulls. Samuel George Morton of making a foolish mistake by comparing samples of skulls from different races, claiming that By comparing cranial samples from different races, Samuel George Morton claimed that the cranial capacity of Caucasians was greater than that of African American, and thus incorrectly concluded that Caucasians were intellectually superior to African American. (Gould, S. Jay. 1996)At the time this erroneous scientific statement was published, it would lead to racial discrimination against blacks in society, which would lead to social injustice. These scientific practices reveal the complexity of the human body as a scientific object: human beings are not only a collection of biology, but their physical characteristics are closely related to social identity and racial identity. Scientific operations, such as skull measurements, while providing data on human diversity, may also be used to support social structures of inequality and discrimination.
Reference:
Gould, S. Jay. (1996) The mismeasure of man / by Stephen Jay Gould. Revised&expanded edition. New York ; W.W. Norton.
