The 18th century made classification of all things animal, mineral, vegetable and viral into both science and art. This is the origin of all those Latin names for every genus and germ on earth. Nineteenth-century science also tried to classify humanity, but contemporary notions of genetics and race — bias that men are born, not made, social Darwinism, and racial superiority — muddied up the scientific method. The French, hoping to detect criminal characteristics, tried measuring...
↧