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For that purpose, they had no qualms Haeckel and his colleagues also invoked
about perpetrating scientific distortions recapitulation [the theory of the repetiti-
and fraud. They imagined that if they on of the so-called evolutionary process
managed to prove their own superiority, during individual growth] to affirm the
racial superiority of northern European
they would also have scientifically de-
whites. They scoured the evidence of hu-
monstrated their own superiority and
man anatomy and behavio-
their right to oppress,
ur, using everything they co-
exploit, and if necessary,
uld find from brains to belly
even eradicate other ra-
buttons. Herbert Spencer
ces. wrote that “the intellectual
Stephen Jay Gould traits of the uncivilized are
also stated that some ant- traits recurring in the chil-
hropologists twisted the dren of the civilized.” Carl
facts in order to demons- Vogt said it more strongly in
trate the superiority of 1864: “The grown up Neg-
the white race. Accor- ro partakes, as regards his
ding to Gould they most intellectual faculties, of the
nature of the child” . . . So-
frequently resorted to
me tribes have founded sta-
engaging in distortions
tes, possessing a peculiar
regarding the brain sizes
organization, but, as to the
of skulls they discove-
rest, we may boldly assert
red. In one book Gould
that the whole race has, ne-
describes how many ither in the past nor in the
anthropologists sugges- present, performed anything
ted there was a direct re- tending to the progress of
lation between brain vo- humanity or worthy of pre-
lume and intelligence servation. 117
and how, despite having In his work Race et
no true criteria, they Milieu Social Essais
exaggerated the brain S Stephan Jay Gould in his book k d'Anthroposociologie, the

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volumes of Caucasians e explains the Darwinists’ racism. . French Darwinist anthro-
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in particular and portra- pologist Vacher de La-
yed these as greater than those of blacks pouge advanced the view that non-white
and Native Americans. 116 races were the representatives of wild
Gould sets out some of the unbeli- children who had been unable to adapt to
evable claims that Darwinists made to civilization, or classes whose blood had
depict certain races as inferior: been corrupted. He drew his conclusions
THE EVOLUTION IMPASSE I