The Tempered Gene

( Conclusion )

It was Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), botanist and considered the pioneer in physical anthropology who introduced the word "race" in 1775 as a classification for humans. His original racial classifications were: Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American and Malay based mostly on facial configurations and skin color. He lived at a time when Carl Von Linne (1707-1778) was making waves with what came to be known as the Linnaean system of classification of organisms (kingdom, phylum, etc.) which is used in taxonomy. This new way of classifying species made sense at a time when discoveries in natural history were taking root in the fields of learning even before Charles Darwin’s breakthrough evolutionary theory in his work, "The Origin of Species." I am not sure whether Blumenbach could have imagined how his attempts to make sense of things in natural history, particularly in physical anthropology, have made available to particular sets of people in later centuries, the natural license for imperialism and other forms of wholesale conquests where the supposed superiority of a people was used as a justification to conquer another.

Some scholars, a minority, rebel against what they say is a hasty dismissal of the biological basis of race. They argue using comparative studies on cranial size and say that there are significant differences among the Whites, Africans and Orientals. Other studies on cranial size involve taking 90 different measurements of the skull and on that basis, scientists say they can locate its continental origin which may be a broad substitute for "race." They also say self-reported ancestry in the field of medical science could help find the more appropriate treatment for certain diseases to which certain "races" are more susceptible. Scientists who present evidence for this claim say that to have a biological basis for "race" is no justification for superiority of one over another. They seem to think that not to acknowledge the biological basis of race as well as to acknowledge it and use it to serve social and political ends both sacrifice intellectual integrity which should not be so if they are to remain true to the scientific tradition.

But whichever scientific claim one subscribes to, knowing now that at the very least, we humans are 99.9 percent genetically alike, is too late. Too late for our profoundly wounded histories from wars over colors of skin, eyes and hair; too late for the children whose mixed racial parentage has labeled them "bastards," consequently dooming their futures; too late for the "noble savages" who largely suffered from the civilizing missions of the men who branded their burden as their holy assignment from their god; and too late for the lost rich traditions destroyed and buried in favor of the new ones dictated by the conquering race. Our history and the connotations of "race" have taken over too deeply in history and in the human psyche, for a belated, even this most valid insight in genetic science to change the way we view ourselves and our fellow human beings. One University of California anthropologist, H. Marks, had remarked, "Teaching racial categories lack biological validity can be as much of a challenge as teaching in the 17th century that the Earth goes around the sun." (And to even have the Catholic Church after over 300 years, finding it necessary to pardon Galileo for this discovery may be a useful reminder that science usually takes a backseat to the prevailing worldview of predominant institutions.)

But having confirmed that we are 99.9 percent alike and even more similar the more closely related we are, shifts our attention to the greater potency of what we can breed or unlearn by "nurture." Many scholars in the social sciences like Margaret Mead have long promoted the belief based on her participatory approaches to anthropology, that the most important differences among human beings are really shaped by their environment with which they interact to breed culture to form civilizations. In the Lessons of History, Will and Ariel Durant believed that if we found people in certain places who did not seem to have flourished in their civilizations, it is because the conditions of the environment have frustrated their efforts to do so. It is not because it was written in their fundamental biology that they blunt or fail mastery over their own destinies. Race, they said, does not make a civilization; rather it is the civilization that makes the race: "The Englishman does not so much make English civilization as it makes him; if he carries it wherever he goes, and dresses for dinner in Timbuktu, it is not that he is creating his civilization there anew but that he acknowledges even there, its mastery over his soul."

Although it is too late for those who have already suffered this kind of ignorance, there is always the nurturing that we can do now to create the conditions that will open young minds to yield the temperament that could transcend "race," whether as a biological fact or social concept. I embrace Ralph Waldo Emerson’s path to cultivating this temperament, this mastery over one’s soul. And this is through the love and dedication to liberally learn and share the lessons of discoveries and experience in the many fields of learning. We now know that we are not genetically programmed to hate others of a different color or face. We really have to be carefully taught to do so. Thus, it is equally true to teach the reverse. We have to acknowledge the real, great power of a broadened education to fight ignorance. Anyone who has been inspired by a great mind or shared in this passion to learn feel equally diminished when we see potentially great minds "standing on the brink of the ocean of thought and power" but who "never take a single step that would bring them there." And why don’t they make that step? I think it is because in our country, there is no one there. When we regard education and the community of learners as a sector we can opt out of or waive responsibility for, "considering everything else as real except teaching," we basically raise our hands and surrender our humanity to what the sciences have fought long and hard to free us from – this darkness of mind. Science turned on the light on the basic stuff we are all made of and more importantly, it showed us that this stuff is fundamentally the same for both emperor and slave. I believe that no emancipation act, declaration of independence or any political creed on equality could be more profound and liberating than this scientific discovery.