THINKING ABOUT RACE — WASHBURN 365 



The usefulness of racial descriptions depends on the fact that the 

 majority of the people in the world can be easily classified. There 

 are intergrades between the types, but these people are less numerous 

 than those to whom the descriptions apply. It should be remembered 

 that classifications are not objective orderings of pure knowledge but 

 are made by men for some purpose. Racial classifications are made by 

 men who are trying to understand human anatomy. Since anatomi- 

 cal classifications have been made by many men in different periods, 

 a brief account of the history of attempts to classify man will prove 

 useful. In each era we will be concerned with purposes and methods 

 rather than nomenclature, because the names of races are only sym- 

 bols for describing results. 



The earliest racial classifications were the result of the discovery 

 that there was a variety of different kinds of men living in different 

 parts of the world. These long antedate Darwin and the rise of evolu- 

 tionary thought. Since these classifications were based on pictures 

 and what travelers saw, they were superficial and used such traits as 

 color and hair form only. Scientists saw that the populations in 

 various parts of the world were different and sought to give a few 

 characters by which the different peoples could be recognized. The 

 purpose of these classifications was to give a key to the varieties of 

 man. The method was to group like with like as any keen observer 

 could do without special training. Since the vast majority of people 

 believed in special creation and since the races of the world were so 

 incompletely known that they appeared discrete, the races were de- 

 scribed as separate species. 



The second stage in the history of anatomical classifications arose 

 in the latter part of the nineteenth century under the influence of 

 Darwinian evolution. The purpose of the classification of this period 

 was to describe the evolutionary history of man. The method was 

 that of detailed anatomical comparisons. Bodies of individuals in 

 different parts of the world were dissected. Great osteological col- 

 lections were built up. It soon became apparent that words like "tall," 

 "short," or "broad" led only to confusion, so various systems of meas- 

 urement were introduced. These became the basis of modern physical 

 anthropology. 



This second era marks enormous advance over the first from the 

 standpoint of both ends and means. However, the scientists of this 

 era knew nothing of genetics or of parallel or convergent evolution, 

 and few fossil men had been discovered. Also before the use of radio- 

 active minerals, the geological time scale was very short. The age 

 of the world was supposed to be only a few thousand years. 



The present era is hard to characterize briefly, because it is difficult 

 to keep a perspective on one's own time. The main differences between 



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