Scientists who fail to address the troubled histories of their disciplines can easily repeat the errors of the past.

That was the central argument of geneticist Adam Rutherford, an honorary senior research fellow at UCL, in a conversation on 鈥淲hy Science Needs History鈥�, which formed part of this year鈥檚聽聽festival of the humanities.

His own field of biology, he told festival director Sarah Churchwell, professor of American literature and public understanding of the humanities at the University of London鈥檚 School of Advanced Studies, had tainted origins. It did not develop 鈥渋n parallel with European expansionism and colonialism鈥ut in service to them鈥t starts with [Carl] Linnaeus, who [in 1758] classifies four types of humans:聽Homo Africanus, Asiaticus, Americanus聽补苍诲听Europeanus.聽The first three are described鈥ith value judgements about being haughty, lazy, unintelligent and sexually capricious, while聽Europeanus聽is described as white, blond, beautiful, governed by laws and elegant and inventive鈥innaeus鈥� taxonomic system is what biologists use to classify all organisms 鈥� and the roots of that are fundamentally in the service of white supremacy.鈥�

Another classic case of how science 鈥� or pseudoscience 鈥� can be used serve political goals came in the 19th century when Charles Darwin鈥檚 half-cousin, Francis Galton, developed eugenics as a way to 鈥渕ould human populations to be better鈥�, to 鈥減urge the weak and enhance the characteristics deemed positive鈥�.

探花视频

All this remained highly relevant in an age of DNA testing.

DNA analysis had certainly proved crucial, Dr Rutherford pointed out, in demonstrating that 鈥淣eanderthals are not our evolutionary cousins, they were our ancestors鈥� and in identifying the bones found in a car park in Leicester as those of Richard III. Yet it was still just one tool聽that needed to 鈥渟it alongside all the traditional forms of knowing the past in a complementary way. When it began to emerge as plausible way of understanding history, people got overexcited and some geneticists started behaving badly in assuming our evidence is better than yours.鈥�

探花视频

This had sometimes led, Dr Rutherford suggested, to 鈥渁 fetishisation of what DNA is and what it can do鈥 spend a lot of time hanging around racist, neo-Nazi and white supremacist forums online 鈥� and they are obsessed with DNA tests, racial purity and race mixing, because their whole ideology depends on a notion of white purity.鈥�

Asked by Professor Churchwell how we can 鈥渞eframe the narrative鈥�, Dr Rutherford replied that 鈥渟cientists have to be better at history鈥here is a tendency among my brethren to regard our evidence base and academic standards for the pursuit of truth to be somehow higher. A lot of scientists think that history is easy.鈥�

Yet many scientific researchers, he went on, were very rigorous in assessing evidence from their labs but 鈥渞eally, really casual about reading Wikipedia or one book and thinking that they understand the cultural context of an idea related to their field鈥 lot of scientists don鈥檛 go into science to learn about the histories of their field, but maybe that鈥檚 not a choice. Otherwise we just do the same shit over and over again.鈥�

matthew.reisz@timeshighereducation.com