ABSTRACT
The discourses of natural sciences began to inform the concept of race from the late seventeenth century onwards and as parts of the movement variously represented as the age of reason, the age of science, or the age of enlightenment. Like the search for the elusive Holy Grail, this was a doomed project. “Evidence” culled from observation of the natural world was always partial, subsequently disproved, or permeated at the same time with unscientifically “proven,” traditional, and binary assumptions about race. But despite crucial weaknesses, the myth of a science of race continued to be asserted. Versions, always scientifically flawed, were nonetheless accepted and, for a number of reasons, regarded as authoritative.
