>>14173186>>14173256>>14173351Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.[1][2][3][4] Historically, scientific racism received credence throughout the scientific community, but it is no longer considered scientific.[2][3] Dividing humankind into biologically distinct groups is sometimes called racialism, race realism, or race science by its proponents. Modern scientific consensus rejects this view as being irreconcilable with modern genetic research.[5]:360
Scientific racism misapplies, misconstrues, or distorts anthropology (notably physical anthropology), anthropometry, craniometry, evolutionary biology, and other disciplines or pseudo-disciplines, in proposing anthropological typologies supporting the classification of human populations into physically discrete human races, some of which might be asserted to be superior or inferior to others. Scientific racism was common during the period from the 1600s to the end of World War II. Since the second half of the 20th century, scientific racism has been criticized as obsolete and discredited, yet has persistently been used to support or validate racist world-views, based upon belief in the existence and significance of racial categories and a hierarchy of superior and inferior races.[6]
