Science and Prejudice

Does the routine generalization of science promote prejudice?

NOTE: Within this text, wherever gender is not key to the explanation, I am using the Elverson ey/em construction of the Spivak Pronouns.

Photo by Anthony 🙂

Those prejudices that we humans use to demonstrate our superiority over others depend on generalization. “White people are better than all Mexican immigrants so I’m better than that Mexican immigrant.” “Men are better than all women so I’m better than that woman.” By generalizing, it isn’t necessary to test the capabilities of a particular person since generalization makes them all the same. How do we know that these generalizations are true? In all likelihood, we each originally heard such folksy generalizations from a parent or a minister and we assumed they knew what they were talking about. Then we grew up and learned to question such general statements. Nonetheless, all rational people have learned to accept certain generalizations without question: the generalizations that we learn from science.

The law of gravity, the second law of thermodynamics, and the Aharanov-Bohm principle are all generalizations. They tell us that after scientists measured what happens for a sample of specific things, the scientists then declare that any specific thing of that sort will behave in the same way. Those generalizations…