Robert Boyle, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Gregor Mendel, and Charles Darwin

A review of the history of the science relating to human biology, genetics and race. From the 1600s, when what we now recognize as science was first taking shape, we track the thoughts of a series of eminent, distinguished White thinkers who accepted the biological reality of race as part of the reality of life that they observed and were determined to understand and explain.

Much of the critique of race concerns the broad use and significance of the term. A contemporary definition which fits the nature of the concept well enough has been stated by Steve Sailer:

A racial group is an extended family that is inbred to some degree.

That’s it—just an “extended family that is somewhat inbred.” There’s no need to say how big the extended family has to be, or just how inbred.

Race and genetics, at Wikipedia, expresses the more prevalent viewpoint today, acknowledging the genetic evidence, but euphemizing the concept of race, confining it to the crudest, coarsest possible sense:

Today it is possible to determine, by genetic analysis, the geographic ancestry of a person and the degree of ancestry from each region. Such analyses can pinpoint the migrational history of a person’s ancestors with a high degree of accuracy.

Discussion proceeds to Robert Boyle, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (and Lamarckism), Gregor Mendel (and Mendelian inheritance), Charles Darwin (and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex).

The podcast will be broadcast and available for download on Tuesday at 9PM ET.

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