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Science and Race By Jacques Loeb, M.D., Ph.D. (Leipzig) Hon. D. Sc. (Cantab.) [Dr. Jacques Loeb, head of the Department of Experimental Biology in the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York City, is one of the best known scientists in the world. He was born in Germany in 1859, educated at Berlin, Munich and Strassburg, and has held chairs at Strassburg, Wurzburg, Geneva, Bryn Mawr, Chicago, and California universities. He is the author of numerous books and articles and speaks, therefore, with unusual authority.] 1. Civilization a Question of Science. In former ages civilization was a question of speculation, of poetry and philosophy, and any enthusiast could add what was considered a contribution. In our present, and in the future still more, that which we call civilization will be based on knowledge, not on sentiment, not on speculation, and not on poetry. Science is a matter of method; it does not require genius to be a scientist, but you must have the scientific method and in addition simple common sense, the power of application and consecutive thought. From my experience with pupils I have found that the number of those who are not fitted to work out a problem and make a contribution to science is extremely small if they only are taught the proper method, if they only realize that what they have to use in addition to the method is common sense. On this basis I venture to say that in a short time everything that is considered to-day as a special race or nation will have its share in the development of science, and I am firmly convinced that the conditions that will be found in the different scientific contributions will depend not so much on the question of races and nations as on the question of the dominance of the war power. People who have money to apply to education, if they are taught the methods of scientific research, if they are not impoverished by excessive armaments and wars, will rapidly make contributions to science. The fact that America, in spite of its youth, goes ahead so rapidly is to some extent due to the fact that we have not an oppressive army. France, once the leading nation in science, has gone back in comparison to other nations for the reason that the army devours the money which should go to universities. I have friends in Austria who write me that their universities suffer because there is no money. Civilization to-day is not a race question; it is a question of the application of the energy of nations or communities to the development of science and its applications. 2. Assumption of Race Supremacy Rests on no Scientific Ground. We have heard a good deal about inferior races, the white races being superior, the Negro being inferior, and similar things. Biology has not in a single case been consulted, and if it had been consulted there are no data to-day to confirm any such sweeping statement. Each character is inherited individually. The pigment of the skin and the shape of the eyes or nose have absolutely nothing to do with the intellectual power. They are inherited independently of each other, as those of you who may have read about Mendel's laws of heredity are well aware. We do not even know the mechanism of that what we call mental power and the mechanisms which determine the heredity of the mental and moral faculties. How in the world can anybody stand up to-day and say, "We believe the Negro is incapable of development; among the races of India only the so-called Aryans are capable of development"? Or by what right can they say that the Aryans of India, if they are colored brown, are as different from the white Aryans as the Negro, as far as intelligence and possibility of progress is concerned? I protest that there is absolutely no basis for saying that the color of the skin or the shape of the eyes, or any other bodily characteristic has anything to do with the intellectual or moral inferiority of an individual or a race. Moreover, we know this, that talent is not a question of race but of strain or family. For instance, talent for music, talent for drawing, talent for mathematical work, literary talent, may occur in any race. These belong to special strains. We cannot say anything definite as to how they originate. It is possible, according to some experiments, that we are dealing in such cases with hereditary mutations. The main fact is that you SCIENCE AND RACE find talented strains, as far as our experience goes, in different races. That is a principle which must not be overlooked. It is contrary to science to say that, "You are Negroes, you are inferior; do not mind if we put you into a 'Jim Crow ear.'" I think the dignity of humanity is hurt by such an attitude. 3. The Blight of Oppression. In any community where one group tries to oppress another group the remedy has to be applied primarily to the oppressing group, not to the oppressed group. How to educate the Negro? What have we got to do? Why, treat the Negro as a human being, give him justice. But the question is, what are we going to do with the oppressor? That is a serious problem. Let me point out to you one fact which I think is not a mere accident. We have had in history a number of cases where one group oppressed another. Look what it has led to. A wonderful example is Spain. In Spain, through the dominance of the Catholic Church, as you know, the Jews were expelled in 1492. Spain has never amounted to much since. On account of the vengeance of the gods? Scarcely; but on account of another fact. The group that was capable of doing that thing was an inferior group, a group of oppressors. They are usually a mentally and morally deficient group. Spain has suffered from the domination, not of its best elements but of those elements which were at the time the most ignorant, the most cruel. You have a similar case in Russia to-day, and Russia has a similar problem. All these problems of oppression of one group by another are economic in their last analysis. Wherever you find such oppression as exists in Russia to-day you also may be sure that the ruling element is morally and intellectually the weakest in the country. We come to the South: I do not know whether there is a connection, but if you compare the North with the South and take the statistics of contributions to scientific development you will notice that the universities in the South have contributed considerably less than the northern universities. The solution of the Negro problem lies in this fact: when the South gets rid of its Bleases and similar unspeakable personalities, and when it strengthens its universities and encourages productive scholarship, as it should, when it builds up from the higher state universities the rest of the school system, then the Negro question will be partially solved too, because it is the problem of the ascendancy of the morally and intellectually strong element in the South. The problem of racial prejudice is part of the problem of the oppression of the many by a parasitic minority. 4. Racial Intermarriage I have been thinking about this matter in connection with the situation in California, where I understand that they are trying to pass a law making it a felony for a white person and a Japanese to intermarry. And I was asked whether there was any biological reason to show that such intermarriage would have bad results. It has been stated that the mixtures between white and black are an inferior breed; that the pure breeds— the pure black and the pure white breed— are superior to the mixed race. As a matter of fact, biology has nothing in support of that position, but we have some definite facts which show that in certain cases the hybrid is superior to both parent races. Such experiments have been reported by Shull, East, and Burbank. When we cross two breeds of fishes we get in some cases an offspring which is much hardier than either of the parent races. So you have a number of cases in which it is found that the offspring is superior to the pure breed. It would be wrong to say that in each case the result of a mixture of races is better than the pure breed. That is true in some cases, in other cases the opposite is true. But the fact that in a number of cases the mixture yields results that are superior to both parent breeds is enough to show the absurdity of the sweeping statement that the intermixing of races should be considered a felony. Laws on these topics should rest on careful experiments and not on fanatic sentiments.
