In my very first biology class here at Case Western Reserve University, we covered a brief history of evolutionary science. During this lecture, we learned about Aristotle and his form of evolutionary thinking, which is a simple ranking of all living organisms. This was dubbed the scala naturae, or the “Great Chain of Being,” and it went like this: God on the very top, then angels, men, women, animals, all the way down to inanimate objects such as rocks. Of course, there are a number of things wrong with this ranking, and we now have a much more systematic, perhaps less skewed, perspective of life. Though science has evolved since medieval times, the foundational, inaccurate science that backed thinking back then still fortifies much of modern society’s ideologies.
It goes without saying that the ranking of men over women by Aristotle was a sign of the times, yet it still continues today. However, it’s also worth noting that, within his ranking, women were ranked closer to animals, effectively dehumanizing them. This phenomenon of dehumanizing people and characterizing them more closely with animalistic features is one that persists today. A prominent example that comes to mind is the dehumanization of undocumented individuals living in the United States. Of course, that’s not what they’re often called in the media—“aliens” is often what this current administration deems them to be. In other words, they’re deemed the “other,” as sub-human and closer to animals, just like how Aristotle did so many centuries ago.
It would be a whole new conversation to discuss why many people, especially those in Eurocentric nations, treat some animals as closer to humans, such as dogs, and some animals as inferior, such as pigs. (By the way, pigs have been argued to be smarter than dogs. So, why do we treat dogs so much better?) But, for now, it’s important to note the parallels between how the current administration falls back on this outdated scientific mindset to dehumanize this important and dynamic population of people within the US.
Science not only seeps into the current political sphere through osmosis, but is often cited explicitly in many current arguments from both ends of the political spectrum. For instance, abortion and reproductive health care are topics in which science is used substantially to support efforts and make claims by both parties. The newest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary guidelines are another. Although it could be argued that one political side misuses science more than the other, it is still worth noting that science is malleable and has likely been shaped by those from all ends of the spectrum. Like all things, science is a product of the times and a product of the person—or the group of people—performing the science.
The history of science is just as bloody and marred as the history of war. Take, for instance, the so-called birth of American gynecology. In the mid 1800s, an American “gynecologist” James Marion Sims began experiments on enslaved Black women—including a 17-year-old girl named Anarcha—in Alabama. On Anarcha, in particular, Sims performed over 30 surgeries, and on all women, no pain medication was used. Numbing agents at the time were popular, but Sims decided not to use them because he believed that Black people could not feel pain. When using science, regardless of the claim one is trying to support, it is important to note that science is not a sterile field. It is a part of history, and thus, within it, there inevitably must be historical marks that date it.
Although science is a marker of the time it was made in, there are still some arguably objective ways that science can be used wrongly in support of a claim. I once saw a video of a person arguing that women were “passive” because they were “biologically designed [so].” They argued specifically that, because the egg is “passive” during fertilization, the woman herself is also passive, the receiver of the relationship. Now, I have only taken one introductory course in evolution, and even I could tell this person was weaponizing an incredibly outdated (and just wrong) scientific assumption to support his misogyny. To start, one of the core principles of evolution is that it is random—nature doesn’t design people, and it definitely does not assign personality traits to people. Nature doesn’t really care about who you are, unfortunately. Furthermore, the idea that the egg is passive is inaccurate. The egg itself releases chemical signals to attract sperm, thus playing a critical, active role in the fertilization process. Modern research has shown that these chemicals not only lead sperm to the egg, but also effectively choose the sperm that is most successful. Thus, his claim fails to consider the very core principles of evolution, as well as the many new (and by new, I mean within the past decade or so) studies that all point to the egg having the most active role within the fertilization process. This, in my opinion, is an example of someone using science incorrectly. He doesn’t consider the full picture and, frankly, doesn’t seem to understand the topic he is so confidently talking about.
As CWRU students, many of us are deeply engaged in the sciences, taking advanced classes, conducting research and getting ready to launch into careers filled with science. But it’s important to understand the role science has played, and will continue to play, in the way people interact, treat each other and think. Science is political, and only when we accept that can we improve.