Talk:Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
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this was in the original version:
Warning: This text has been taken from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. It needs to be expanded, clarified, and updated.
Several words and at least one sentence (the first one) are still the same, but IMHO it counts as an original work protectable under the GFDL. Anyway, anyone can make further changes... Boud 16:36, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Serious need for revision
I can't believe how horrible this article is. Blumenbach's racism is a tiny part of his work and this page makes one of the most important biologists in German history out to be a crackpot racial theorist. We have numerous paragraphs devoted to racism but none about the Bildungstrieb, Epigenesis, his relationship with Kant, etc...? I assume I am free to rewrite it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by PublickStews (talk • contribs) 01:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- Please do supplement it. There's gross oversimplification of the past going on.--Parkwells (talk) 01:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
- I added some on his work concerning the Platypus. I'm reading a book on the animal and his mention in it might be the first thing I've read about him.--T. Anthony (talk) 02:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] blumenbach and the black woman
Can whoever added this to the page help me find verification of it?
"Later in life Blumenbach encountered in Switzerland 'eine zum Verlieben schönen Négresse' ('a negro woman beautiful enough to fall in love with'). Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that 'individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other individual Africans as Europeans differ from Europeans'. Furthermore he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind 'concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities'.
Unfortunately these later ideas were far less influential than his earlier assertions with regard to the perceived relative qualities of the different so-called races."
Where does this story come from? I'd like to cite a reputable source in a paper.
Harvey
It comes from Jack Hitt, “Mighty White of You: Racial Preferences Color America’s Oldest Skulls and Bones,” Harper’s, July 2005, pp. 39-55. Paul B 12:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Anachronistic Terms
This is one of many articles about early naturalists, philosophers, scientists, in which people are given anachronistic labels - defined by 20th c. terms, especially as physical anthropologists, ethnologists, etc. It is a mistake to try to define this early work that way, a labeling back, much of what seems directed at supporting views that early European philosophers/naturalists/researchers were all racist. I took away the phrase labeling him an "anthropologist". --Parkwells (talk) 01:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
