Racial prejudice is an integral aspect of the founding of America. Even when abolished in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, slavery left strongholds in not only the American South, but the rest of the country as well. Through the readings of Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race by Thomas G. Dyer and The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould, one can gain insight into the history of racial prejudice and the science that supported white supremacy through the early 1910s. Examples of racism can be seen in immeasurable ways. Both the treatment of Native and African American’s during colonial America and continued, and the beliefs of Theodore Roosevelt regarding Native Americans can be considered outrageous. Additionally, the tests administered to immigrants coming to America were twisted wickedly beyond their original intentions, used as…show more content… The first idea Gould tackles is that of craniometry, the measuring of skulls. In the past, scientists filled skulls with different mediums and measured how much they could hold, the idea being that the more skulls could hold, the larger the brain would be. Even though the numbers didn’t match up, the scientists stated that whites have larger skulls. He states the Aprioli assumption of the previous scientists, that white brains are larger, which in turn leads to more intelligence; however, Gould’s Aprioli assumption is that he fundamentally believes in racial equality. Gould realizes that brain size is determined by body size, time of death, cause of death, and diseases contracted during life. In Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn explains that the previous scientists weren’t necessarily doing bad science, but they were working with normal science under the idea that whites have bigger brains. The previous scientists discarded their anomalies, even though the anomalies should have told them their theory might have been
