2019 Best-Of Lists: 10 Best Science Books of the Year (Smithsonian Magazine) · Best Science Books of the Year (NPR's Science Friday) · Best Science and Techno

During the course of American history, scientific theories have been used to legitimate racial ideas that in turn have been important in creating and interpreti

Since the eighteenth century when natural historians created the idea of distinct racial categories, scientific findings on race have been a double-edged sword.

Every arena of science has its own flash-point issues—chemistry and poison gas, physics and the atom bomb—and genetics has had a troubled history with race.