Racist pseudoscience can hold scientific legitimacy for years within expert debate

Evidence

Coon was up to his elbows in highly technical debates about population genetics and biological evolution. He represented and defended, using the very best science of his era, positions that were nakedly racist—and nobody but another scientist of highly specialized training would have been able to argue with him on his own terms. Some did, of course. But much of the argument stalemated for years—even among the experts. Only in retrospect are his ideas widely perceived as noxious, and obviously limited, biased, and fundamentally wrong. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 146

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the author’s larger argument about attention and expert discourse controlling what counts as being heard — echoes of how credentialed framing silences outsiders.