How did Enlightenment science affirm ideas of race?
Another reason why the context of the Enlightenment is so important to race is because this is when the idea of science is being invented. And what ends up happening is that science becomes a challenge to Christianity. Biblical ideas basically suggest that everyone evolved from Adam and Eve. And if that is the case, the only way to explain ‘racial’ difference is the climate – that old idea that a temperate climates produce superior people and that hot climates produce dim-witted people but for different reasons. What is interesting is that the Enlightenment produced a challenge to Christianity. And what ends up happening is scientists begin to talk about the races as separate human species emerging over time. And when you can talk about different species, it solves the problem of saying that we are all part of the Christian world. It allows you to begin to designate some people as just one step out of the animal kingdom, in the case of Africans. It even allows you in some ways to talk
