Question

station a
these black-and-white maps are not only visually appealing but also strangely intriguing. the
divisions shown on them mostly don’t match any common types of boundaries, such as political,
natural, or cultural ones. so, what do they represent? they illustrate the geographical spread of
something called the “cephalic index,” which uses the greek word for “head.” specifically, these
maps chart a landscape of human skull shapes.
what kind of disturbing idea is behind this? what exactly are these differences in skull shape?
and why are they of significance? the answer to all three questions is “scientific racism.” the
simplest way to define that term is “the use of measurements to justify prejudice.” scientific
racism was a well-known and influential way of thinking in the late 1800s and early 1900s. its
main idea was that measurable physical differences between people can be sorted into racial
groups, and that these groups can be connected to certain differences in human behavior.
the maps shown here were all created by william z. ripley (the middle initial stands for
zebina). his book the races of europe (1899), is a key example of this unscientific approach
to anthropology, but it wasn’t seen as very controversial at the time. the races of europe was,
however, one of the more influential works of its kind, and not in a positive way. that’s because
ripley’s idea of the teutonic race only needed a few changes in ideology to become the
“scientific” foundation for the superiority of the germanic master race, as promoted by the
nazis.
today, the cephalic index (ci) is generally considered a rough and ineffective way to categorize
people by race. research in the u.s. in the early 1900s showed that second-generation
immigrants had a significantly different ci from their parents, suggesting that nutrition (and
possibly other environmental factors) played as big a role as genetics.

Explanation:

Since no specific question is provided about this text, it's not possible to give a targeted answer. If you want to analyze the text from a certain discipline (e.g., Social Science - History to discuss the historical context of scientific racism, or Biology to discuss the flaws in using cephalic index for racial categorization, etc.), or have questions like summarizing the text, explaining a term, etc., please clarify your question.

Answer:

Since no specific question is provided about this text, it's not possible to give a targeted answer. If you want to analyze the text from a certain discipline (e.g., Social Science - History to discuss the historical context of scientific racism, or Biology to discuss the flaws in using cephalic index for racial categorization, etc.), or have questions like summarizing the text, explaining a term, etc., please clarify your question.