What Is Diversity?

Abstract

This introductory chapter traces the history of ideas about race and human classification systems, from the bible to the Classical period and on to the first “scientific” attempts to rank differences and ascribe characteristics to races. Starting with the view from the Tower of Babel came the notion that linguistic and cultural diversity was the Supreme Being’s punitive response to such human hubris of reaching for heaven on earth. Following that came a litany of scholars, scientists, and doctors, who established hierarchies that left white Europeans on the top of the intellectual period, and other races lagging behind. Among these was Hippocrates, who wrote that the forms and dispositions of human beings corresponded with the nature of the country, their region’s climate and topography. Meanwhile, the French physician Francois Bernier developed the first post-Classical racial classification system, basing it on physical attributes. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach was the first phrenologist, and although he also classified race, he asserted that all races belonged to a single species. Physician George Morton measured cranial size and then estimated brain size in an effort to rank humans based on intelligence. The chapter then looks at more modern concepts, such as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution; scientific rejection of the notion that races were biologically different; and UNESCO’s statement that social issues give rise to racism.