Age-Old HIS \ N OF UIFE Fallacies of Thinking and stinking Over the centuries, myths about hiaian subgroups have followed a persistent pattern of logic We shudder ut the thought of repeating the imtial sits of our species, Thus, Ham- Jet's uncle bewails his act of fraricitle hy recalling Cain’ slaying of Abel: ©! my offense is rank, it smells to hea It hath the peimal eldest curse upon't; A brother's murder! Such metaphors of unsavory odor are especiully powerful because our sense of sell lies so deep an our evolutionary con sir yet remains (perhaps for this. reason) so undervaliied and after unmen: tioned in our culture, A laler seveniccnth- century English writer recognized this po: teney and particularly warned his readers Against using olfactory metaphors because common people wall take ther literally: Metaplorical expr ‘nto literal lid ofien proceed nstnction, bul was fraud Sent lation... Hew dangerous i ism sen- sible things to use metaphorical expressions tunio the people. and what absurd conceits they wall swallow in their hterals ‘This quotation contes from a chapter in the 1646 work of Sir Thomas Browne Pscudodoria Epidemiea: or, Enquiries Joe Very Many Received Tenents. (sic). and Commonly Presumed Travlis: Browne, a physician from Norwich, is bet ter known for his wonderful and still widely real work of 1642, the part autos graphical. part philosophical, and prt whimsical Refigio Medici, of "Religion of a Doctor.” The Preudesdavia Epidemica (his Latinized title for a plethora of false nuts) is the granddaddy of a most Honor able genre still vigorously pursued—ex- © NATURAL History 6405 phen Jay Gould P y posés af common ercars and popular igre arly the false bclicts most likely to cause social harm. [cited Browne's statement from the one chapter {among more than a hundred) sure to send shudders down the spine of mod- em readery—his debunking of the com- mon belicf*That Jews Stink.” Browne, al- though almost maximally philosemitic by the standards of fis century, wus not free of all prejudicial feclings against Jows. He attributed the ongin of the canard about Jewish malador-—hence, my earlier quo- lation—to a falscly literal reading of a metaphor legitimately applied (or so he thought) to the descendants of peuple who had advocated the crucifixion of Jesus, Browne wrote: m the ground that beyat or propagated this assertion, might be the sieful averseness of the Chris- tian frum the Jew. upon the villainy of that fact, which made them abominable and stink in the nostrils of all men.” (Modern apostles of political comectness should ponder the nominclusiveness of Browne's "all men" in this context.) rationale foc deburiking a com pendium of common errors, Browne cor- rectly notes that false beliets arise from in- ‘correct theories about nature an! ikretore serve as active impediments 10 knowl. edge, not just as Laughable signs oF primi tivity, “Ta purchase a clear and war- santable bod ‘we must forget and part with much we know.” Moreover, Browne notes. truth ix hard to ascertain, and ignorance is far more common than accuracy. Writing in the mid-seventeenth ‘century, Browne uses “America” as a ‘metaphor for dormains of uncharted igno= tance, and he bewails our failure to use| good tools of reason as guides through this terra incognita: "We find no open tract... in this labyrinth, but are off-times fain to wander in the America and untravelled pans of truth The Psendedosia Epidewica, Browne's peregrination through the maze of human ignorance, contains 114 chapters gathered into scven books on such general. topics as mineral and vegetable bodies, animals, humans, Bible tales, and geographical andl historical myths. Browne debunks quite an’ array of common opinions, including claims that elephants have no joints, that the legs of badgers are shoricr on one sik than the other. and thut ostriches can digest. iron. Asan example of his style of argument, consider book 3, chapter 4: “That a bever Isic] to escupe the hunter, bites off his tes licles or stones" —a harsh Lactic that, a> cording to legend, either distracts the put suer or persuades him te settle for a) smaller meal than an entire body, Browne! labels this belief as “a tenet very ancient and bith had thereby advantages of prop zillion... The Ezyptians also failed ithe srmund of their hiernglyphick, when they expressed the punishment of adultery by Ihe Dever depriving hinself oF his test cles, which was amongst them the penally of such incontineney. Browne prided inimself on using a mix ture of reason and observation to achieve | idemify the source of error—in this case a false clymological inference from the:beaver’s Latin name, Castor, whieh does fot share the same root with “castration” (as the legend had assumed) but derives uhimately from a Sanskrit word for vmousk’’ and an incorrect interpretation. of purposeful mutilation from the internal position, ancl therefore near invisibility, of the beavers testicles. He then cites the fae tual evidence of intact males and the rea soned argument that a bea even reach his own testicles if he to bite them off (and thus, cleverly, source of common germ —the extermal in visibility of the testieles—becomes the proof of falsity!) The testicles propery 30 called, are of fesser magnitude, and seated inwardly upon me i were nat oly a 9 alton. bu impossible act, 1o eu ceislrale themselves: and i bbe an hazandaus pr ‘ar, if at all at tempted by saber, Book 7, chapter 2 debunks the legen “that a man hath one rib less than a woman"—"a common conceit derived fiom the history of Genesis, wherein it stands delivered, that Eve was framed out of arrib of Adam.” (I regret to report that this hit of nonsense still commands some support. I recently appeared ona nation ally televised all-in show fur high schoo students, and one young women, & ere ationist, cited this “well-known fact” as proof of the Bibles inerrancy and evolu tion's falsity.) Again, Browne opts for his mixture of logic and observation in stating that “this will notconsistwith reason oF in section,” A simple count an skeletons {Browne was a physician hy trade} affirms equality of number between sexes, More over, reason provides no argument for as- suming that Adam's single loss would be propagated to fume members of his sex: ‘Alllongh we concede there waned one rib fn the sceleton of Adam. yet were it repug- nL unto reason ind comimon ebsery atin, that his posterity should want thes: the old meaning, of “want” as "lac i ome eve chil utili in cir those dec with (wo, and crippl fown persons do: come out perfect Book 4, chapter 10—That Jews Slink"—is one of the longest. and clearly held special importance for Dr, Browne, iis arguments are more elaborate, but he follows the Sime procedure used to dispel Jess ninsious myths—eitation of contra ‘venin facts interlaced with more general support from logic and reason, & NATERAL History 695 Browne begins with a statement af the fallacy: "That Jews stink naturally, that is, that in their race and nation there isan evil savor, is a received opinion.” Browne then| allows that species may have distinctive] odors, and that individual men surely doz Aristotle says no animal smells sweet sae the pand. We confess that beside the smell of the species, there may’ be individual adors, and every man may have a proper and pocu- liar savor, which although not perceptible unto man. who huth this sense but weak; is vyel sensible unto dogs, who hereby can sin= izle out their masters in the dark, Inprinciple, then, discrete groupsof hu- anans. might carry distinctive odes, but reason and observations permit no such at- Iribution to Jews as a group) “That an une savory odor is pentfitous or national unto the Jews, if rightly understood, we cannot ‘well concede, nor will the information of Reason or Sense induce i (On factual grounds, dircet snifing: has provided no evidence for this noxious leg end - offensive olor is mo way discoverable hear Synagogues wheremany are. and by reason of ther number coulel apt be com ecaled: nor fs the same discemible in com merce of conversation with suet as are cleanly in apparel, and decent in their houses. ‘The “test ease” of Jewish converts 10 (Christianity peowes the point, for even the -worst bigots do not accuse suche peaple af smelling bad; “Unto converted Tews wha) ae of the same seed. no man inputeth this ‘unsavory olor; as though aromatized by their conversion, they lost their scent wath their religion, and smelt no longer” In- deed, if people of Jewish lineage could be idemified bby smell, the Inquisition would greatly benefit from a sur identifying insincere converts: There are-at present many thosand Jews in nd some dispensed witha even ta the degree of Prieshoogl it is a matter ¥exy ‘considerable, and could they be smelled out the Church ‘of Cluist, but also the Coffers of Princes, Turning to arguments from reason, feu! ‘odors might arise anvong groups of people from unhealthy habits of diet of hygiene But Jewish dietary laws guarantee moder ation and good sense, while drinking ts tend 1@ absiemiousness—"selion a ebriety or excess af drink ior fering ia gulosity or superfiuity of meats: whereby they prevent indigestion and emu dities, and Consequently putreseence ol ums.”If po reason can therefore be found in Jewish habits of lie, the le fir oxic vine “curse derived upon them by Christ. as a badge or brand of gener- ation that enugified their Salvator” But Browne rejects this proposal even: more forcefully as a “conceit without all war- rant; and an easie way to in what point of obscurity vocation af miraculous agency, wheat no natural e| ation can be ferumd, isa Gow- an’s escape from {uilure. {Browne does not object to heavenly inter ‘vention for truly greal events like Noalr’s Flood or the parting of the Red Sea, but a feliance upon miracles for small items, like the putative racial ode of unfairly stigmatized people, makes a mockery af divine grandeur. Browne then heaps ss lar ridicule om the legend that Ireland as to stakes because Saint Patrick east them at with his vod, Such inappropriate ‘claims fora myriad of minor miracles only siifles eiseussion ofthe nature of phenum- ‘ena and the workings of genuine causes.) But Browne then caps is case against the proposition “that Jews stink” with an even stionger argument based on reason. ‘The entize subject, he argues, makes no- sense because the category in question— the Jewish people—does. not represent the ‘kind of entity that could bear such proper- ‘esas a distinctive national edo. Among the w fallacies of human reason, such “category mistakes” are ¢s- pecially common i the identification of ‘groups and the definition of their charac- ters—problems of special concem to tax- conomists hike myself, Much of Browne's test is archaic, and strangely lascinaling therefore as a kind af comceptutl fossil But his struggle with crrors of categories in debunking the proposition “kat Jews stink” imterleaves a layer of modern rete vance and uncovers a diffesent kind of re son for Combemporary interest in the argu ments of Pseudadoia Epdemaica, Browne begins by noting that traits of individuals. can’t automatically. be ex= renuled to properties of gsoups, We de not doubt that individuals have distinetive odors, but groups might span the full range of individual differences, aml thereby fal to maintain any special identity. What kind of group might therefore qualify as a good candidate for such distinctive prop- erties? ‘Do vow suppose it could be the greenhouse effect? 10) NaruRAL Misrory 65 ves.that such a group would] have tobe tightly defined, either by strict leria of genealogy (so that members) geht share properties by heredity of unique descent) or of common habits and) modes of life not followed by other people} thut Browne had already shown that Jew-| ish lifestyles of moderation and hygiene disprove any claim for unsavory national! dor) Browne then clinches his case by argue ing thal the Jewish people do not represent a strict genealogical group. Jews have been dispersed thoughout the world, re= viled aid despised, expelled and excluded. Many suberoups hae been lust by ass ilation: others diluted by extensive inter. marriage, Mest nations, in faet, are strongly commingled and therefore do not represent discrete groups by genealogical definition; this common tendency has been exaggerated among the Jewish people. Jews are not a distinct hereditary ‘group, and therefore cannot have such properties as a national odor: ‘There will be found no eas fasters a material oF assurance to samerstal prope ‘ety upon any nation; there being scarce any’ condition... which is not exhausted or ob- scied from the commis ture of intrevenien nationals either by commerce of conaucst, much more will i be silficult 1 this affection in the Jews: whose race hos -ever pretended to be pure, must needs have suffered inseparable commixtures tions of all sors knowl dged that some [Jews] are los, ev dent that others are mixed, and not assure that any ane stint, it will be hare 0 estab lish thus quality fof nattonal oder] upon the Jews, In many years of pondering over falla cious thearies of biological determinism) poting their extraordinary persislence nd tendency to reemerge afler presumed! extirpation (like heads of the Lemuean Hydra, or clumps of erab grass.om a subut ban lawn, to ete the standard metaphor of well-separated centuries and social eon: cems), I have been struck by a property that [call “surrogacy.” Specific apurnients) raise a definite chary group—that Jews sti drink, that women love mink, thal Africans can't think—but each specific lainacts as.a surrogate for any other. The general fom of arguinent is always the! same and always permeated by identical fallacies-over the centuries. Scratch the a guiment that women, by their biological nature, cannet he effective as heads of state and you will uncover the same struc ture of bact influence underlying. someonese's claim that African Americans will fever form a high percentage of the pol of Ph.D. candidates, Thus, Browne's old refutation of the ues tobe rel le, Because the ges to our cur myth “that Jews: evant for our modem str form of his a rent devalui for supposedly inborn and un sof intelli gence ely (since T belong to the gr much heat these day hurlly mention the se parents” generat mind everyone that Curent acvepiance should breed! no complacency’) This season's favorite myth bus recalled another venerable chapler in this general form of infamy —The Bell Carve's version of the claim that people of fiscan descent have age, less in nite inielligence than all other folks. Following Browne's st though F need ring. events of my ejiation and logical argum go through the full exercise here, essay become a book (see my revie The Bell Curve in The New: Yon vember 1994), But I do wish to er that Browne's crowning p the legend “that Jews stink” tn of category stakes in de roup—also the modem myth of black intellectu fioity, from Fensen and Shockley in the 194 19 Murray and Herrnsein today werican population of today does nol fon’ a sense thin eed inclusive definition acy oF our ugly history of racism, anyone with a visually evider eompanent of African ancestry belongs #0 the category of “black,” even thou teschall aficionados asks, American player hit fins for the Brooklvn Dexluers in 1953? The answer is Roy Campanella, who had a Caucasian Italian father and mother, but who, by our social c thot, is always identified as black.) (As 4 fooinote on the theme af sure acy, explanations of the identical c: 40Fy mistake for blacks and Jews have offen taken the same prejudicial form of olaming the victim. Browne. although y and refreshingly Fevish bias, cites a particularly uely a supposed lasciviousness of Jewish women and their preference for blond: Christian, men over sw vd rae Browne writes: “Nor are forications in freque: women ve Jews, between them both Jewish Christian men}: there com passin of inviter erica racists g sive n this case i works fo excuse rapists by ‘blaming the truly powerless. For exam Louis Agussiz wrote in 186: AAS SOM is 1 800 3b. Al or operat young men of the South, they to gratifyth they are met by colored [hallbre servants, ... This blunts his beter Instincts in that li onal leads bin lually to seek more spicy pari wwe heard the full blacks called by fi Jy, we Cannot mike a coherent lacks" being ifthe people so cute nately anythin rorized do pealogical group- fom a cistineive we ealewory mistake goes far a dilution by extensis ler- her populations. The most I listoriQue. S777 Q ucbee It Feels So DiflerentMythical...mystical. magical...malevolent The complete guide to mushenoms sats md ferences Dionis lens style this le aspects ot Meni fy with medical expertise cies nile ReapCCLVE dilate oF mycology 'W.H. FREEMAN Ben the Sean Sig +14 Pi a Gaon C0» S01 Pho a Pex OS 12) NaruRat Hisioay 6S exciting. and still emerging. discew modern palceanthropology and ‘genetics will force us to rethink the entire question af hneman way. We shall be compelled to recognize that “African black” cannot rank racial growp wath st lations as Europea Cave east Asian,” Doit nist Be Viewed as something more inclusive than all the others combined, not really defin able as a discrete group, and therefore ot available for such eanards as “Af ‘blacks are less intelligent” or “African lacks sure can play basketball” ‘As have writien in several essays of this series, the le of anthropol- ‘ogy has featured lively debate about the: ‘origin of the only living human species Honicr sapiens. Did our species emerge separately om three continents (Africa, Eu rope, and Asia) from precursor popula- ions of Hariro ercerus inhabiting all these ateas—the so-called multiregionalist ‘view? Or did Homo sapiens: arise ino phe, probably Afties, from just one of these Homo erectus populations and then spread out later 10 cover the globe—the so-called out-of: Africa view? ‘The tidesof argument have swung back ‘and forth, but recent evidence scems to be ws toward Out of Africa AS more and mone genes are sequenced and ana lyzed for th racial groups, and us we mecomstruct ge- logical trees bused upon these genetic sirwng signal and pallern seernsto be emerging (see Science, March 3. 1995, pp. 1272-73, for a repont ‘on several studies presented at this year’s ‘annual ineeting of the Amenican Assoxia- tion for the Advancement of Seience) Hono sapiens emerged in Africa; the ti gation into the rest of the world did not hhegin until 112,000 to 280,000 years ago, swith the latest, mare technologically so. phisticated studies favoring dates near the ‘younger end of this specirum, In other words, all non-A diversity —whites, yellows, red ‘one from the Hopi to the Nunve the Fijlans—may net be much elkier than 100,000 years. By contrast, Humo sapiens hnas lived in Afri onger time, Can sequently. since genetic diversity roughly correlates with time available for evoke tionary change, genetic variety among Africans alone exceeds the sum total af) genetic diverstly for everyane clse in the resi of the world combined! How. there- fore, can we lump “African blacks” to iF variation among human|space and more than we find in all non-Alricun people in all the fest of the world? Africa ts most of hs rmanity by: any proper genealogical defini tion: all the test of us occupy a br within the African wee. This non-African branch fis surely flourished but can never be topologically. moze than a subsection Within an Affican structure We will need many years, and much pondering. to assimilate the theoretical ws that we finally abandon such sensele: statements as “African blacks have moore tintin, less intel athlet Such claims, besides their social pericinusness, have no me: Africuns cannot be constined as a cohere group because they represent more diver sity thar all the rest of the world put to wether ‘Our greatest intellectual adver ‘often occur within us—anot in the restless search for new id new objects on the earth orim the stars, but from anced to expunge old prejudices and build new eanceptual structures. No hunt can have Sweeter reward, a more admirable £0. than the excitement of thoroughly revise understanding —the inward journey that theills real scholars and scares the bejesus fut ofthe rest of us, We need to make such 8 internal expedition in reconceptualiz ingour views Af human genealogy and the mening of evolutionary diversity Thomas Browne—for we must award his the last word—praised such inward ad Ventures abowe all other in citement. Imerestingly, Sige, he alsa invoked Africa as ameta for unknown wonder. He could not har anon the uncanny fi ral avcuracy of his ‘wards (frm Religie Medici, book 1, sex a 15): [could never content my contemplation With thase general pieces of flu. anif reflux of the se Nile. the conversion of the ‘eto the north; and fe fn parailel those da the mare obvious and egleuted pie ‘which sitho fur fravel | can do in the cosmic ‘ofmyself we carry with us the wond seek without us there is all Afr prodigies in us: we are that bold teas picce of nature. comnpiss) Te nnel her dave Stephen day Gaul reaches lnology, gec gvyamid che history of science at Hea University coral! il mk felis) (ae rs] Co to genet Fishing — i Whenpot needathechistrantucisnetly Our Great-Looking under the hut. itcan also ve styted with the jonal Campesino Hat iy goingstglethe Campesing the sates of camtoce ie aheeme yi Te fale Epa Goss lca ss dhe “thw ice Wane The ats wide 3 rime ad lightweiah 1 pl on the sea recs alg He iy ling om the beach, chinbing mows. exp tt gardecing. 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