The Biological Myths Behind Racial Atrocities

          The National Center for Education Statistics has consistently recorded biology as one of the top three fields of study, amongst all racial and ethnic groups, for associates and bachelors degrees in the United States. Biology is simply defined as “the study of life”, and strikes the interest of people looking to pursue healthcare careers or conduct research. Biology being an established major allows its field of study to play an important role in our society. Through biology we are able to understand living organisms and life processes across molecular, cellular, or ecological levels. The information gained from this field of study, has a direct impact on key components to our society such as advancements in healthcare, medicine, agriculture, and conserving the environment. Biology provides information for daily decisions (e.g. weather forecast or public health alerts), and many people are able to reap the tangible benefits produced by science. Despite high public trust in science, the National Science Board reports that engagement and understanding of general scientific principles remain low. We live in a society where “public confidence yet disinterest [and disengagement] with scientific affairs remains high (U.S National Science Foundation, 2024). This makes it easy for scientific misinformation to be packaged as the truth and cloud the public’s consciousness. This is where the need for genocide and mass atrocity prevention using biology becomes sallient.  

          A critical example of biology’s ability to prevent against genocide and mass atrocity can be found through evolutionary theory. Evolution is a widely known, yet misunderstood scientific concept, which has allowed it to be historically used as a basis for racial discrimination. Some common misconceptions of evolution include: humans evolved from apes, evolving organisms are getting “better”, and evolution results in more complex organisms (University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Palenontology, 2025). Scientifically speaking, humans and apes independently evolved from a common ancestor (not from each other) and evolution has no predetermined end goal. Since evolution is random and shaped by environmental pressures, variation, and natural selection, organisms that have evolved are not “better” (University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology, 2025). The bottom line is, most people misunderstand evolution at the fundamental level. Studies have linked the disbelief, disinterest, and misunderstanding of evolutionary concepts to higher levels of prejudice and bigotry (National Library of Medicine, 2017). Across the board, “[l]ow belief in evolution was linked to higher biases within a person’s group, prejudicial attitudes toward people in different groups and less support for conflict resolution” (National Library of Medicine, 2017). A key researcher behind this study, Stylianos Syropoulos, has dedicated a great portion of his academic career to explaining how a person’s understanding of evolution shapes their understanding of groups who have been historically marginalized. Syropoulos consistently reported that, “[...]teaching evolution seems to have side effects that might make for a better or more harmonious society” (University of Massachusetts Amherst, Syropoulos, 2022). This shows the persistent misconceptions about evolution that many people hold do not just cloud public consciousness, but they directly impact how we relate to one another. Evolutionary misconceptions  are often wrongfully applied in social situations and used to justify racism. The fact that evolutionary misconceptions correlate to how we view and respond to acts of prejudice committed to other groups of people, is all the more reason why genocide and mass atrocity prevention using biology is important. 

          Part of the reason why these scientific misconceptions are so hard to rectify, is because they sound close enough to the truth to be convincing. Misconceptions confirm the existing biases we already hold. When looking closely at evolutionary misconceptions, there is an underlying bias, that life can be simply separated into two categories: simple and complex organisms. Commonly held misconceptions about evolution make it easier to argue that certain groups of people never evolved past their “primitive stage”. If certain groups of people never evolve past the traits we have come to associate with “lower-level organisms” it becomes easy to justify their oppression. Operating under the false presumption that an organism’s complexity is a stand-in for its worth, is the same thinking that underpins racist thought today. The Dangerous Speech Project details how, “[...] in cases of genocide and mass atrocity, supporters and perpetrators have referred to their victims as vermin [...] , beasts [...] , or biological hazards [...]” (2021). In these instances, the misunderstanding (or disinterest) of evolutionary concepts becomes associated with support for discriminatory behaviors. This language does more than label the groups of people who have been oppressed as “other”. By using biological language that compares oppressed people to animals, labels them as sub-human, and in many cases portrays them as infestations to “higher-level” organisms makes the atrocities committed against them seem like a natural process that is destined to happen. When taking into account that most people have no understanding or interest in these concepts, and public trust in science has consistently remained high, scientific claims that justify the maltreatment of people of color, are easily accepted as the truth. Scientific concepts become easy to distort when most people have limited understanding about these ideas to begin with. This strengthens evolutionary misconceptions and  makes it  harder for scientific misinformation to be removed from public consciousness. When  evolutionary misconceptions become overly prevalent within a society, the public will be less compelled to take preventive action when genocide or mass atrocity occur. Evolutionary misconceptions affirm social hierarchies and infringe upon a public’s ability to identify patterns of increasing violence. When targeted violence becomes the social normality, it only propagates the spread of  scientific misinformation that justifies oppression. 

          Recapitulation theory serves as a clear example of this phenomenon. Even though recapitulation theory was discredited by the early twentieth century, it still impacts how people think today. Recapitulation theory posited that the developmental stages of an individual organism repeat the evolution stages of its ancestor (New York Botanical Garden, 2017). In other words, the embryos of “higher” and more “complex” organisms pass through similar developmental stages as “simple lower-level organisms”. One of the early drivers of this theory was during the fourth week of gestation for human embryos, the embryos can be seen growing a gill-like structure (University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Palenontology, 2025). This caused early scientists to believe that on the way to becoming human, an embryo passed through a fish-like stage. The same underlying biases that can be found in evolutionary misconceptions also emerge when examining recapitulation theory. This theory gave voice and reason to pre-existing social structures that viewed non-European peoples as inherently less developed and made it easier to argue that the subjugation of “less evolved” people was a necessary process that could not be faulted. The display of Ota Benga in the Bronx Zoo’s Wildlife and Conservation exhibition embodies how recapitulation theory was used to attest to the idea that non-white people were genetically and evolutionary disadvantaged. Many social scientists of the time, including Ernest Hackel who is responsible for the original proposal of recapitulation theory,  supported the exhibit's message that, “[...] Benga had more in common with the orangutan on his side of the fence than he did with the New Yorkers on the other side of the fence who came to view him” (Taylor and Francis, Fallace, 2015). When scientists offer their support for racist ideas and help to perpetuate them, they misuse their authority. By building on the scientific misunderstanding of the general public, they are able to convince the public that the racial hierarchies present within society are natural. Recapitulation theory falsely validates the idea that organisms evolve along a linear hierarchy from primitive to advanced, and claims that certain groups of people will always remain at the lower levels of the biological ladder. 

          The dangers of the ideas behind recapitulation become clear when they are applied in a larger social context. In its most succinct form, social recapitulation places white people as “higher organisms” and non-white people as “lower organisms”. These ideas created fictitious rationales for racial and social hierarchies which further solidified the idea that humans could be divided into distinct groups. Evolutionary misconceptions and the support of recapitulation theory successfully laid the groundwork for justifications of white colonial dominance and scientific racism. Scientific racism is defined by the NIH as, “[...] an ideology that appropriates the methods and legitimacy of science to argue for the superiority of white Europeans and the inferiority of non-white people [who have been historically marginalized]” (National Human Genome Research Institute, 2022). This definition is expounded upon by detailing how scientific racism grew out of, “Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution through the mechanism of natural selection” (National Human Genome Research Institute, 2022). The established idea that scientific racism evolved from evolutionary theory further emphasizes the idea that biologizing race left lasting impacts on society's social relations and structures. Scientific racism was able to state that different racial and ethnic groups have innately differing levels of development to make claims of racial superiority or inferiority seem credible. 

          In 1839, Samuel George Morton, an American craniologist who is often pointed to as the grandfather of scientific racism, published Crania Americana. This novel is also known as A comparative view of the skulls of various aboriginal nations of North and South America, because it did exactly that. Within this publication, Morton divided mankind into five races and then linked the characteristics of each race to its skull configuration (University of Cambridge, 2014). Within this experiment, 189 skulls were taken and used to advance the understanding of racial differences as natural, easily categorizable, and able to rank (University of Cambridge, 2014). He argued that “Big brained caucasians”, were superior to small-skulled American Indians, and even smaller-skulled Black African (University of Cambridge, 2014). Morton furthered these claims by expressing that, “the structure of [an Indian Americans] mind appears to be different from that of the white man”(Morton, 1839, pp.133, 196, 252). Morton's pseudoscientific claims that the intellectual ability of an entire race could be determined by skull capacity, eventually began to shape the social and political norms of the time. With his racial sciences, Morton “[...] produced a scientific justification for white, Anglo-Saxon superiority, manifest destiny, and the enslavement of Africans” (Mitchell, 2018). Scholar Pamela L. Geller details how Morton's arguments about Indian-American’s inferiority when compared to their white counterparts, were used to legitimize their forced relocation and eradication (Geller, 2020, pp.54). The very skulls that Morton used for his study were “descendants [...] of colonial expansion and military conflicts that revised the national borders of the U.S. Events precipitating removal of natives from the Southeast” (Geller, 2020, pp.1). The racial categorization that Morton argued for and aimed to prove, worked to his advantage because he was able to further his research and the ideas he proposed. Morton’s research heavily relied on a social system that was intolerant to anyone who was not white. Morton’s studies allowed science to solidify ideas about who mattered and who didn’t, while he propped himself up and caused irreparable damage for those he painted as inferior. 

          Morton’s “scientific claims” allowed people who rigidly adhered to racial hierarchies to mistake them for biological reality. Within the 1619 project, it was detailed that many physicians operated under the belief “[...] that the differences between black and white people went beyond culture [and insisted] that black bodies were composed and functioned differently than white bodies” (Villarose, 2019). When medical professionals exert their racial biases scientific misinformation is made more plausible, which only continues to cloud public consciousness. Racial distinctions were “[...] legitimized in medical journals, [and] bolstered society’s view that enslaved people were fit for [...] forced labor [while providing] support for racist ideology and discriminatory public policies” (Villarose, 2019). When scientific authority is weaponized and gives credibility to racist ways of thinking, this further legitimizes the policies and practices put into place that directly harm the groups of people who have been described as genetically predisposed to inferiority and subjugation. 

          Even though biological claims about the differences between races have been refuted and discredited, the ideas behind scientific racism continue to shape present social structures and society as a whole. Centuries of perceived differences have only driven oppression, showing that dehumanizing beliefs have the ability to turn into systemic neglect. When these beliefs go unchallenged, they leave a continued legacy of scientific racism that suggests genocidal implications.

          When looking closely at Ten Stages of Genocide framework, that was laid out by Gregory Stanon, stages one, three, and four of genocide can all be linked to the rhetoric used to propel the spread of ideas behind scientific racism. Stage one (classification) consists of dividing people into distinct groups which can be observed with the insistence that humans can be separated into “lower-level” and “upper-level” organisms. The classification stage of genocide is described as the establishment of  an  “us versus them” mentality (Stanon, 1996). The divisions established in the classification stage are made more permanent through the discrimination phase which is when, “[...] a dominant group uses laws, customs, and political power to deny the rights of other groups (Stanton, 1996). This has been exemplified through the forced removal and labor of the respective Indigenous and African-American groups that were painted as natural evolutionary outcomes. The classification and discrimination phases of genocide laid the foundation for the very laws and customs that normalized dehumanization (genocide’s fourth stage). Within the dehumanization stage, “[m]embers of a persecuted group may be compared with animals [...]” (Stanton, 1996). This can be specifically observed in the case of Ota Benga, but drawing comparisons between marginalized groups and animals is a widely used tactic. By classifying entire groups of people as inferior, crimes against humanity are able to easily occur. An important feature to note about the dehumanization stage of genocide is that fact that, “[w]hen a group of people is thought of as ‘less than human’ it is easier for the group in control to murder them” (Stanton, 1996). This represents the very dangers that emerge when science is linked to claims about racial inferiority. By repeatedly spreading the message that marginalized groups were genetically inferior, the atrocities committed against them can be deemed as excusable. This is worsened when established scientists conduct studies and publish research that furthers those ideas. The public becomes convinced that what science tells them is true, despite the racial bias and inaccuracy these scientific publications contain. Many prominent figures in science who supported these racial ideas were less concerned about making valuable scientific contributions, and only aimed to extend their power and influence in a society that already over-valued whiteness and European dominance. 

Biology has long been a tool used to aid systems of oppression, but it is more beneficial as a tool to combat against it. This is what makes the work of researcher Stylianos Syropoulos, and other biologists who dedicate themselves to understanding how the misrepresentation of scientific information has the potential to contribute to genocide and mass atrocity. Syropoulos believes that creating a better understanding of basic evolutionary concepts will only allow for a more united society (University of Massachusetts Amherst, Syropoulos, 2022). Many other biologists have called to dismantle the racism that still exists within science. Dr. Phoebe Lostroh, a professor of molecular biology at Colorado College, is also committed to undoing the legacy of scientific racism and is using biology to directly prevent atrocity. Dr. Lostroh understands that, “[s]cience has been repeatedly deployed to bolster false ideas of human difference and racist ideologies which in turn inform legislation and policies that shape systemic racism” (Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges, 2024). By conducting workshops at Colorado College and other liberal arts colleges that fall under the wing of the AALAC (Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges), these biologists allow people to equip themselves with the tools needed to refute long standing claims about the differences between races, and possibly even give warnings to early signs of genocide. Binghamton University has also followed a similar path with its Anti-Racism Research & Resource Guide. This resource guide has a healthcare subsection and contains “resources that focus on issues related to race and racism in the healthcare field” (Binghamton University Library, 2020). The healthcare field has also been impacted by the legacy of scientific racism, and atrocity prevention measures using biology can also be implemented through the healthcare field.

           Even though biology has historically been used as a way to justify systems of oppression, this history can be addressed by working to educate the public on how true science should outshine its social misuse. The goal is that, by promoting and spreading scientific literacy, when people are faced with pseudoscientific claims about people in the future, they will have the skillset to identify that these claims are false, and prevent the spread of them before they worsen. Misinterpretations of evolution have been used to rationalize and justify inequality, but it is important to note that evolution is not a stand in for hierarchy. As more people continue to immerse themselves into the biological sciences, an increased commitment to addressing the legacy of scientific racism will become crucial.  When considering how the use of biology has served as a means of oppression it will become increasingly important to understand how the biological misuse of racial ideas has harmed (and continues to harm) those who were placed at the bottom of the biological hierarchy.  Whether someone is looking to pursue a career in healthcare, research, teaching, or biotechnology, it is important to use biology as a tool against atrocity prevention. Those interested in pursuing biological careers must also make sure they do not unintentionally contribute to the spread of harmful scientific ideas. Biology is an important way to understand how racism, discrimination and prejudice became legitimate and led to numerous atrocities. If society was able to develop a better baseline understanding of scientific ideas, then they would be better able to deny the biological myths behind racial atrocities as they emerge.