I Wish I Could Remember

I wish I could remember where I read that thing about scientific racism. If it was a book, I still might have it around somewhere but, if it was a magazine, I'm sure that I don't. What I do remember about it is that it featured reprints of articles that had been published in a scientific periodical back in the late 19th Century. It may have been the British magazine called "Nature", or some other one that has been around for a long time. With each article there were footnotes or something that explained what scientists believed at the time because, otherwise, the reader wouldn't know what they were talking about. One thing they said was that the term "scientist" was kind of new at the time, and some of the scientists didn't like it, preferring to be called, "men of science". Anyway, the Theory of Evolution was still pretty fresh in those days, and people were trying to make it apply to other things besides the origin of species. The term "survival of the fittest", which Darwin himself never used, was interpreted by some to imply something called "social Darwinism".

I was surprised when you said that sociology is not a science but, since you obviously know more about the subject than I do, I will take your word for it. This would explain your assertion that there is no scientific basis for racism, for racism is surely a sociological phenomenon. I don't think that anybody believes that one race is biologically superior to another anymore. Although people tend to classify others by appearance features like skin color, it's not the Black's appearance that bothers most people, it's their culture and social behaviors. Those differences are almost unnoticeable when you only have one Black guy living in a White neighborhood or army barracks, but they become more apparent as the percentage of Blacks in a group increases. If it was only one White guy living among all Black people, he would definitely be aware that there was something different about those dudes. Even you have admitted that you feel a little uncomfortable when traveling through an all Black neighborhood, but you don't mind mingling with them on your own turf. In a truly integrated society, the Blacks would be all spread out among the Whites and Hispanics, and I'll bet everybody would get along just fine. That is unlikely to happen any time soon though, because birds of a feather do indeed flock together.

Okay, so what do the scientists say about those gay people? If the AMA is more political than scientific, then their assertion that homosexuality is not a sickness would seem to be invalid. Then again, I believe it was the AMA that decided it was a sickness in the first place, so that must also be invalid. So what is it? I have heard it described as a "lifestyle choice", but I've also heard that people are born that way. Is it genetic then? It's definitely a behavior, but is it a behavior disorder? I'm sure that the gays don't look at it that way, they must think that they are normal and we are the dysfunctional ones. Of course, if everybody was gay, the human population would be at an evolutionary dead end. That must have been what happened to all those early human species that are now extinct, they were all homos, so they couldn't have any kids.