Stop Calling It ‘Race Science’

So, I wasn’t going to get into this despite getting irritated about it on social, but now there’s a story by Ali Breland writing for The Atlantic with the title, “Donald Trump Flirts With Race Science”, and you know I can’t shut up because there are two things wrong here.

1. It’s not flirting.
2. It’s not science.

Yes, I understand that it’s a commonly accepted term of art for some inexplicable reason (although Wikipedia goes with the not much better “scientific racism”) but every time someone uses it they reinforce an impression that there’s an actual debate, with some science indicating one thing and other science indicating something else. But there’s no such thing reasonably described as “race science”. It’s pseudoscientific racism, and we need to start using that term instead of sounding like we’re validating a viewpoint as actually being scientific.

We don’t simply disagree with the science. There is no science. We disagree with both the racism and the claiming of the mantle of science. Surely the terms we use in opposition should say as much.

Finally, I’m not sure if the idea that it’s merely “flirting” with pseudoscientific racism came from the fact that he said what he said in an interview with fellow fascist traveler Hugh Hewitt rather than on, say, 60 Minutes, but if so that would be complete nonsense. It doesn’t matter where he says it, it only matters that he says it. He wouldn’t praise his own “very good genes” if he didn’t also think some groups have very bad ones.

Mine Furor hasn’t just suddenly flirted with biological racism. He long ago firmly grabbed it by the pseudoscience.