Sunday, February 7, 2010

Question: Is Zack relying on ignorance?

When reading through chapter 1 of Naomi Zack's book "Thinking About Race," I was confused about how she was trying to refute 19th century biological theory of racial essences. On page 12, she states that "Many people continue to believe that there is a scientific basis for racial divisions, and the lack of this basis in itself makes their ideas about race false." Maybe I am reading out of context, or simple am not picking up on sarcasm, but it is fallacious to arrive at a conclusion from the lack of that conclusions counter evidence. That is, because there is a lack of evidence proving A, that does not make not A a true statement. In context, because there is a lack of scientific basis for racial divisions, that does not mean that no biological racial divisions exist, and one can not conclude that those believing in such are false. At one point there was no evidence that the earth orbited the sun, but that ignorance does not justify affirming the position that the earth then must not orbit the sun.

Is Zack committing a similar fallacy or am I missing something?

2 comments:

  1. No, I believe Zack thinks the lack of evidence is grounds to dispel any biological theory for racial divisions. This is alright with me if we take it for what it is worth now. The more troubling issue is if scientists continue to study and compare the DNA from differing "races" and actually find some pattern, then what? Would it matter at this point in time? Another interesting idea to think about, what if they discovered a difference in populations of people that were mixed colors, some white, some black, some Native Americans? The situation could be confounded and confused from a vast array of angles, but the question remains, have we gotten past the point today that scientific evidence, if found, would even matter?

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  2. Overall, I agree with your statement that it is a fallacy to make assumptions based on lack of evidence; however, I do not think that it matters whether Zack makes this assumption or not because she is simply attempting to evoke a certain response from her audience. Initially, people presumed that different races must be biologically different; therefore, overtime, people were conditioned to believe that some races were inferior to others. Zack is aiming to expose the lack of justification for today’s continuation of these assumptions, and she is trying to force the reader to question the origins of racial division and it's relevance today.

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