THINKING ABOUT RACE — WASHBURN 377 



no more consideration than the operations which created it. Whether 

 we call the Australian race "mixed" or "pure," the same operations are 

 used to create our description. Whether the Nordic race is called 

 "mixed" or "pure," it is still an arbitrarily limited creation of the 

 imagination. Only when one studies how races are created and in 

 what situations these concepts are useful, does the vast difference be- 

 tween Australian and Nordic become apparent. The crucial point is, 

 not that the Nordic race is mixed, but that there is no evidence that 

 there ever was a group of human beings who had the characters of 

 Nordics, and who passed these traits along to their children. 



The first step in racial analysis is to find out whether there is a self- 

 perpetuating group of human beings who actually have the characters 

 of the race. The second is to see what methods were used to describe 

 and delimit the race. 



It is only by knowing how particular races are described that one 

 can decide which ones are useful categories and which are useless. 

 Below is an analysis of one race. 



Race : Pure Nordic. 

 Location: Nowhere. 

 Method : Imagination. 

 Result : Nonsense. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 



The conclusions of this paper may be briefly summarized as follows : 



1. Racial classification is an anatomical concept and is useful for 

 anatomical purposes. 



2. The fossil record shows that the living races are extremely mod- 

 ern from a biological point of view, having had most of their human 

 ancestry in common. 



3. Keeping purpose and method constantly in mind removes much 

 of the confusion which exists in current thought about race. 



4. To understand race, a knowledge of human biology is necessary. 

 Because words are only symbols, a knowledge of the things symbolized 

 is imperative for proper understanding. It is here that the science 

 teacher has a great contribution to make in both fact and method. 



LITERATURE CITED 

 Benedict, R. 



1940. Race : Science and politics. Modern Age Books, New York. 

 Brtdgman, P. W. 



1936. The nature of physical theory. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 

 Caldwell, W. E., Moloy, H. C, and D'Esopo, D. A. 



1934. Further studies on the pelvic architecture. Amer. Journ. Obst. and 



Gynecol., vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 482-498. 

 1938. Studies on pelvic arrests. Amer. Journ. Obst. and Gynecol., vol. 36, 

 No. 6, pp. 928-960. 

 Candela, P. W. 



1942. The introduction of blood-group B into Europe. Human Biol., vol. 14, 

 No. 4, pp. 413-443. 



