{"id":399,"date":"2019-03-12T17:28:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T17:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/?p=399"},"modified":"2019-03-12T17:28:38","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T17:28:38","slug":"using-history-for-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/2019\/03\/12\/using-history-for-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Using History for Science"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Historically, the US and the rest of the world have struggled with the concept of race and have made huge strides and bounds to change the ideology surrounding race. Race is fixed in biology and is merely a social construct that can be identified through culture, along with a plethora of facets. The idea that racial differences amount to a social hierarchy used to be the predominant thought that led to many atrocious histories of minorities and foreigner being subjected to verbal, physical and mental subjugation. The civil rights movement in the US aimed to attack this ideology with science and morality and pushed vehemently for equality under the idea that we are all humans and all come from the same place. Skin color should not divide us and we are all inherently the same. This history is filled with the suppression and control over minority races and the fight for equality looked to flip the script onto its head.<\/p>\n

Dr. Mukharji’s talk on the “re-biologization” of race was extremely compelling and reminded me of the plight of racial segregation and suppression that our country was founded on. Mukharji focused on the topic of the Indian Genome Variation and explained that diversity did not necessarily mean that we are all different. There is a sense of unity within the diversity found in genomic differences of people in India. The talk took an interesting turn when Mukharji pointed out that we may need to return to research about genealogies of difference in order to progress our current knowledge on the subject. Research on genealogy has been repeated over and over again to create the foundation of knowledge that we have today. Ethnic makeup is a complex science and we must continue to understand it at deeper levels with new and progressive technology and processes, without falling for the same traps that led to the negative impacts of data collection pertaining to genomic research. The past is important to study in order to move forward, however, there is a lot of fallacies in methods conducted in the past which must be studied and understood fully so that we do not fall for the same mistakes made in the past.<\/p>\n

One of the most compelling and sad moments of the talk was when Mukharji recounted the history of bad science that was conducted to support false claims of inferior race. The idea that scientists actually lied and collected false samples of bones to justify their conclusions was disgusting and eye-opening. This was in the past but I do not question for a second that something like this could occur again in modern science if we do not keep a vigilant eye out for scientific methods being conducted and for what purpose. Furthermore, the samples that were obtained in unethical ways only represented a small amount of skewed data which was then analyzed and applied to entire communities\/swathes of people. This information that was collected was some of the only information available to operate under which raise further questions of doubt and misleadingness.<\/p>\n

Overall, I thought this talk was the best and most interesting talk that we had thus far. Racial inequality is something that our nation has dealt with extensively and continues to fight against. The world is filled with people who act under bad intention in an attempt to divide the people of our nation and our world. It is important to take due diligence to fight back against these notions so that we can operate under real science that is unadulterated by falsifications and hate.<\/p>\n

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Historically, the US and the rest of the world have struggled with the concept of race and have made huge strides and bounds to change the ideology surrounding race. Race is fixed in biology and is merely a social construct that can be identified through culture, along with a plethora of facets. The idea that … <\/p>\n

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