Michael Keevak
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691140315
- eISBN:
- 9781400838608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691140315.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter focuses on the emergence of new sorts of human taxonomies as well as new claims about the color of all human groups, including East Asians, during the course of the eighteenth century, ...
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This chapter focuses on the emergence of new sorts of human taxonomies as well as new claims about the color of all human groups, including East Asians, during the course of the eighteenth century, as well as their racial implications. It first considers the theory advanced in 1684 by the French physician and traveler François Bernier, who proposed a “new division of the Earth, according to the different species or races of man which inhabit it.” One of these races, he suggested, was yellow. Then in 1735, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus published Systema naturae, in which he categorized homo sapiens into four different skin colors. Finally, at the end of the eighteenth century, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, also a physician and the founder of comparative anatomy, declared that the people of the Far East were a yellow race, as distinct from the white “Caucasian” one.Less
This chapter focuses on the emergence of new sorts of human taxonomies as well as new claims about the color of all human groups, including East Asians, during the course of the eighteenth century, as well as their racial implications. It first considers the theory advanced in 1684 by the French physician and traveler François Bernier, who proposed a “new division of the Earth, according to the different species or races of man which inhabit it.” One of these races, he suggested, was yellow. Then in 1735, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus published Systema naturae, in which he categorized homo sapiens into four different skin colors. Finally, at the end of the eighteenth century, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, also a physician and the founder of comparative anatomy, declared that the people of the Far East were a yellow race, as distinct from the white “Caucasian” one.
John S. Wilkins
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520260856
- eISBN:
- 9780520945074
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520260856.003.0003
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology
This chapter discusses the revival of the neo-Platonic view of classification after the Renaissance period. It examines the assumption of the Great Chain of Being and the contributions of the ...
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This chapter discusses the revival of the neo-Platonic view of classification after the Renaissance period. It examines the assumption of the Great Chain of Being and the contributions of the Universal Language Project to biological classification. It also describes how Carl Linnaeus established the universal system for naming and classification of all organisms. Charles Bonnet's classical ladder of nature and Immanuel Kant's view on biological species is also discussed.Less
This chapter discusses the revival of the neo-Platonic view of classification after the Renaissance period. It examines the assumption of the Great Chain of Being and the contributions of the Universal Language Project to biological classification. It also describes how Carl Linnaeus established the universal system for naming and classification of all organisms. Charles Bonnet's classical ladder of nature and Immanuel Kant's view on biological species is also discussed.
Stanley Finger and Marco Piccolino
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195366723
- eISBN:
- 9780199897087
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195366723.003.0018
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, History of Neuroscience
The previous chapter showed the first of the important North American contributions to the electric fish story, specifically a series of experiments conducted by members of the American Philosophical ...
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The previous chapter showed the first of the important North American contributions to the electric fish story, specifically a series of experiments conducted by members of the American Philosophical Society, including one showing that the discharge from an eel could jump a minute gap in a wire, even though no spark was perceived at that time. This chapter now turns to what transpired in South Carolina, and specifically the role played by Alexander Garden in the continuing saga of how these eels increasingly became to be perceived as electrical in America and in Europe. Garden was an ardent follower of Carl Linnaeus, and although not an experimentalist of the first rank, he was a superb naturalist with exceptionally sharp eyes who was very interested in classification and preservation, especially when it came to nature's oddities from the New World.Less
The previous chapter showed the first of the important North American contributions to the electric fish story, specifically a series of experiments conducted by members of the American Philosophical Society, including one showing that the discharge from an eel could jump a minute gap in a wire, even though no spark was perceived at that time. This chapter now turns to what transpired in South Carolina, and specifically the role played by Alexander Garden in the continuing saga of how these eels increasingly became to be perceived as electrical in America and in Europe. Garden was an ardent follower of Carl Linnaeus, and although not an experimentalist of the first rank, he was a superb naturalist with exceptionally sharp eyes who was very interested in classification and preservation, especially when it came to nature's oddities from the New World.
Michael Keevak
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691140315
- eISBN:
- 9781400838608
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691140315.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
In their earliest encounters with Asia, Europeans almost uniformly characterized the people of China and Japan as white. This was a means of describing their wealth and sophistication, their ...
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In their earliest encounters with Asia, Europeans almost uniformly characterized the people of China and Japan as white. This was a means of describing their wealth and sophistication, their willingness to trade with the West, and their presumed capacity to become Christianized. But by the end of the seventeenth century the category of whiteness was reserved for Europeans only. When and how did Asians become “yellow” in the Western imagination? Looking at the history of racial thinking, this book explores the notion of yellowness and shows that this label originated in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific discourses on race. From the walls of an ancient Egyptian tomb, which depicted people of varying skin tones including yellow, to the phrase “yellow peril” at the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe and America, the book follows the development of perceptions about race and human difference. It indicates that the conceptual relationship between East Asians and yellow skin did not begin in Chinese culture or Western readings of East Asian cultural symbols, but in anthropological and medical records that described variations in skin color. Eighteenth-century taxonomers such as Carl Linnaeus, as well as Victorian scientists and early anthropologists, assigned colors to all racial groups, and once East Asians were lumped with members of the Mongolian race, they began to be considered yellow. Demonstrating how a racial distinction took root in Europe and traveled internationally, the book weaves together multiple narratives to tell the complex history of a problematic term.Less
In their earliest encounters with Asia, Europeans almost uniformly characterized the people of China and Japan as white. This was a means of describing their wealth and sophistication, their willingness to trade with the West, and their presumed capacity to become Christianized. But by the end of the seventeenth century the category of whiteness was reserved for Europeans only. When and how did Asians become “yellow” in the Western imagination? Looking at the history of racial thinking, this book explores the notion of yellowness and shows that this label originated in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific discourses on race. From the walls of an ancient Egyptian tomb, which depicted people of varying skin tones including yellow, to the phrase “yellow peril” at the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe and America, the book follows the development of perceptions about race and human difference. It indicates that the conceptual relationship between East Asians and yellow skin did not begin in Chinese culture or Western readings of East Asian cultural symbols, but in anthropological and medical records that described variations in skin color. Eighteenth-century taxonomers such as Carl Linnaeus, as well as Victorian scientists and early anthropologists, assigned colors to all racial groups, and once East Asians were lumped with members of the Mongolian race, they began to be considered yellow. Demonstrating how a racial distinction took root in Europe and traveled internationally, the book weaves together multiple narratives to tell the complex history of a problematic term.
Tudor Parfitt
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- December 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190083335
- eISBN:
- 9780190083366
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190083335.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
The Judeo-Christian tradition maintains that humankind derives from the first couple in the Garden of Eden. St. Augustine even included the so-called monstrous races in the overall category of ...
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The Judeo-Christian tradition maintains that humankind derives from the first couple in the Garden of Eden. St. Augustine even included the so-called monstrous races in the overall category of humanity. This consensus started to fragment in the sixteenth century with the work of Paracelsus and later Giordano Bruno, when alternative theories were put forward to account for human diversity. Their work was followed by others, including Julius Caesar Vanini, Isaac La Peyrère, John Atkins, Voltaire, François Bernier, Carl Linnaeus, Georges Cuvier, Edward Long, and Lord Kames. For most of them, the black and the Jew were the great obstacles to the unity of mankind.Less
The Judeo-Christian tradition maintains that humankind derives from the first couple in the Garden of Eden. St. Augustine even included the so-called monstrous races in the overall category of humanity. This consensus started to fragment in the sixteenth century with the work of Paracelsus and later Giordano Bruno, when alternative theories were put forward to account for human diversity. Their work was followed by others, including Julius Caesar Vanini, Isaac La Peyrère, John Atkins, Voltaire, François Bernier, Carl Linnaeus, Georges Cuvier, Edward Long, and Lord Kames. For most of them, the black and the Jew were the great obstacles to the unity of mankind.
Margaret Schabas
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226735696
- eISBN:
- 9780226735719
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226735719.003.0002
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This chapter traces the evolution of the concept of economics from among natural philosophers. It suggests that it was essentially experimental physics and natural history and not mathematical ...
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This chapter traces the evolution of the concept of economics from among natural philosophers. It suggests that it was essentially experimental physics and natural history and not mathematical physics that were incorporated into the content of classical economics. This chapter also highlights the achievement of Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in producing a developed account of the economy of nature and his intention to utilize natural history for commercial expansion.Less
This chapter traces the evolution of the concept of economics from among natural philosophers. It suggests that it was essentially experimental physics and natural history and not mathematical physics that were incorporated into the content of classical economics. This chapter also highlights the achievement of Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in producing a developed account of the economy of nature and his intention to utilize natural history for commercial expansion.
Ian Campbell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780719088360
- eISBN:
- 9781781706022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719088360.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Chapter six explains how orthodox and indeed actively conservative members of the Irish and English elites began to turn away from Aristotelianism in the later seventeenth century. In particular ...
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Chapter six explains how orthodox and indeed actively conservative members of the Irish and English elites began to turn away from Aristotelianism in the later seventeenth century. In particular conservative Catholics like John Lynch and Protestants like William King were driven by circumstances to find systems of law which operated independently of God: the mark of the new Enlightened understanding of human societies. The Enlightenment saw the development of new ways of speaking not just about human societies, but also about human bodies. The victims of these ideological innovations in the Atlantic world were not primarily the Irish, but Africans. In contrast, the ideologies of domination which mattered in Ascendancy Ireland were not racist, but sectarian. Nevertheless, the papers of that determined anti-Aristotelian, Sir William Petty, do preserve a chain of thought he began before the Royal College of Physicians at Dublin in 1676, on the characteristics of the souls and bodies of Europeans and Africans.Less
Chapter six explains how orthodox and indeed actively conservative members of the Irish and English elites began to turn away from Aristotelianism in the later seventeenth century. In particular conservative Catholics like John Lynch and Protestants like William King were driven by circumstances to find systems of law which operated independently of God: the mark of the new Enlightened understanding of human societies. The Enlightenment saw the development of new ways of speaking not just about human societies, but also about human bodies. The victims of these ideological innovations in the Atlantic world were not primarily the Irish, but Africans. In contrast, the ideologies of domination which mattered in Ascendancy Ireland were not racist, but sectarian. Nevertheless, the papers of that determined anti-Aristotelian, Sir William Petty, do preserve a chain of thought he began before the Royal College of Physicians at Dublin in 1676, on the characteristics of the souls and bodies of Europeans and Africans.
Isaac Campos
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835388
- eISBN:
- 9781469601809
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882689_campos.7
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter discusses marijuana's nineteenth-century discovery in Mexico. Carl Linnaeus's creation in 1753 of a parsimonious method for classifying plant species provided a starting point for the ...
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This chapter discusses marijuana's nineteenth-century discovery in Mexico. Carl Linnaeus's creation in 1753 of a parsimonious method for classifying plant species provided a starting point for the processes that would ultimately lead to the discovery of marijuana in Mexico. Reports of various naturalists suggest cannabis's patchy distribution in the Mexican countryside at the turn of the nineteenth century. Evidence suggests that marijuana smoking in Mexico was not noted in a published source until 1846.Less
This chapter discusses marijuana's nineteenth-century discovery in Mexico. Carl Linnaeus's creation in 1753 of a parsimonious method for classifying plant species provided a starting point for the processes that would ultimately lead to the discovery of marijuana in Mexico. Reports of various naturalists suggest cannabis's patchy distribution in the Mexican countryside at the turn of the nineteenth century. Evidence suggests that marijuana smoking in Mexico was not noted in a published source until 1846.
Graham Mitchell
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- August 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197571194
- eISBN:
- 9780197571224
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197571194.003.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Animal Biology
The modern scientific name of giraffes is Giraffa camelopardalis, given to the species by Mathurin Brisson and Carl Linnaeus in the eighteenth century. At that time a single species was thought to ...
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The modern scientific name of giraffes is Giraffa camelopardalis, given to the species by Mathurin Brisson and Carl Linnaeus in the eighteenth century. At that time a single species was thought to exist, but it soon became apparent that depending on where they lived in Africa giraffes had different skin markings and different “horns.” Thus the idea arose that there were more than one species, or if just one species then there were several different subspecies. Investigation of these two possibilities has depended partly on analysis of external characteristics, but mostly on the study of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to establish if geographical distribution is associated with distinct genetic differences. These studies have indicated that there may be six separate species or four or three. However, as each of the variants can interbreed, genetic differences thus far have not resulted in reproductive isolation and the overall conclusion must be that there is one species with regional variants/subspecies that can be genetically distinct.Less
The modern scientific name of giraffes is Giraffa camelopardalis, given to the species by Mathurin Brisson and Carl Linnaeus in the eighteenth century. At that time a single species was thought to exist, but it soon became apparent that depending on where they lived in Africa giraffes had different skin markings and different “horns.” Thus the idea arose that there were more than one species, or if just one species then there were several different subspecies. Investigation of these two possibilities has depended partly on analysis of external characteristics, but mostly on the study of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to establish if geographical distribution is associated with distinct genetic differences. These studies have indicated that there may be six separate species or four or three. However, as each of the variants can interbreed, genetic differences thus far have not resulted in reproductive isolation and the overall conclusion must be that there is one species with regional variants/subspecies that can be genetically distinct.
Lipscomb Diana
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520267725
- eISBN:
- 9780520947993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520267725.003.0012
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
By the early 1990s, it was becoming clear that the commonly used five kingdom classification schemes were oversimplified and simply inadequate for describing the major divisions of life. At this ...
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By the early 1990s, it was becoming clear that the commonly used five kingdom classification schemes were oversimplified and simply inadequate for describing the major divisions of life. At this critical point in time, when morphological data from electron microscopy was beginning to be supplemented with information from DNA sequences, Chris Humphries organized a Linnean Society conference entitled “Modern Views of Kingdoms and Domains” in the spring of 1994 to discuss the new, emerging picture of eukaryotic relationships. This chapter reviews the general history of the debate over the eukaryote tree of life and describes the progress that has been made since that historic conference. When Carl Linnaeus presented the catalog of all life using his binomial system of nomenclature in 1758, he described two kingdoms: Plantae and Animalia. The unicellular eukaryotes were discovered approximately 300 years ago by Antony van Leeuwenhoek, who considered them to be tiny animals that he called simply “animalcules.” This chapter also describes Opisthokonta, Amoebozoa, Archaeplastida, alveolates and stramenopiles, Rhizaria, and excavates.Less
By the early 1990s, it was becoming clear that the commonly used five kingdom classification schemes were oversimplified and simply inadequate for describing the major divisions of life. At this critical point in time, when morphological data from electron microscopy was beginning to be supplemented with information from DNA sequences, Chris Humphries organized a Linnean Society conference entitled “Modern Views of Kingdoms and Domains” in the spring of 1994 to discuss the new, emerging picture of eukaryotic relationships. This chapter reviews the general history of the debate over the eukaryote tree of life and describes the progress that has been made since that historic conference. When Carl Linnaeus presented the catalog of all life using his binomial system of nomenclature in 1758, he described two kingdoms: Plantae and Animalia. The unicellular eukaryotes were discovered approximately 300 years ago by Antony van Leeuwenhoek, who considered them to be tiny animals that he called simply “animalcules.” This chapter also describes Opisthokonta, Amoebozoa, Archaeplastida, alveolates and stramenopiles, Rhizaria, and excavates.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226169149
- eISBN:
- 9780226169194
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226169194.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The study of American natural history blossomed under the eyes of such men as Asa Gray, John James Audubon, Thomas Nuttall, and William Maclure. These men and others associated with the Philadelphia ...
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The study of American natural history blossomed under the eyes of such men as Asa Gray, John James Audubon, Thomas Nuttall, and William Maclure. These men and others associated with the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences would produce volume after volume of beautiful tomes on the natural history of the United States. Before the nineteenth century, however, the systematic study of natural history primarily came from Europe and was associated with two of the continent's most famous natural historians: Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon and Carl Linnaeus. To understand natural history was as close as humans could come to understanding something about the divine. When Plato contemplated both the organic and inorganic worlds around him, he argued that they were designed and not the result of chance, for they displayed what appeared to be order and complexity. To understand the world, then, was to understand something about its designer. This religious/philosophical position is often called the argument from design. The argument-from-design mindset was one of the reasons that Buffon's theory of degeneracy was viewed as so vile by Americans.Less
The study of American natural history blossomed under the eyes of such men as Asa Gray, John James Audubon, Thomas Nuttall, and William Maclure. These men and others associated with the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences would produce volume after volume of beautiful tomes on the natural history of the United States. Before the nineteenth century, however, the systematic study of natural history primarily came from Europe and was associated with two of the continent's most famous natural historians: Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon and Carl Linnaeus. To understand natural history was as close as humans could come to understanding something about the divine. When Plato contemplated both the organic and inorganic worlds around him, he argued that they were designed and not the result of chance, for they displayed what appeared to be order and complexity. To understand the world, then, was to understand something about its designer. This religious/philosophical position is often called the argument from design. The argument-from-design mindset was one of the reasons that Buffon's theory of degeneracy was viewed as so vile by Americans.
