Early racial scientists classified species downward from humans without any theory of evolution.

Evidence

Again, according to Fausto-Sterling, as an expert in anatomy Cuvier represents a change from earlier ideas about geographic origin or degrees of “civilization” to a biologicallybased, scientific analysis and construction of race. An important point she raises that we easily forget when examining this history from our vantage point is that Linnaeus, Blumenbach, Cuvier, de Blainville, and their various contemporaries did not believe that organisms evolved into new ones. They all predate the theories of evolution advanced by Darwin and Wallace in the mid-nineteenth century. Instead of the Darwinian view that traced differentiation among species by looking “upward” from lesser to greater complexity and from earlier to more recent, Cuvier and others who emphasized skulls and the human brain and nervous system started with humans at the “top” and classified all other animals “downward” from this. Rather than discovering some underlying “natural” organizational system, they projected their own self-serving anthropocentric (and andro - centric) conceptions onto others’ bodies. … The historical record tells us nothing about her agency, and we can only know how Europeans framed and read her” (p. 360). — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1155

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reading purpose thread on value-hierarchized thinking as the shared root of racism and anthropocentrism, elaborated in ch25 of this same book. — connects to: Racial categories are defined purely by ancestor counting, not physical features — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 718
• SEED: Classroom-friendly counterintuitive hook: pre-Darwinian scientists sorted downward from humans — a teachable contrast that reveals projection rather than discovery behind race science.

Broader Connections

• Racial categories are defined purely by ancestor counting, not physical features #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 718