history of science

In the mid-18th century, the concept of 'race' in natural history emerged through the integration of a genealogical style of reasoning into a field that had previously been dominated by a logical and classificatory style of reasoning.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, and authors associated with the monogenist tradition played a decisive role in integrating genealogical reasoning into natural history and thereby facilitating the development of the concept of 'race'.

Several early natural historians who defined human 'races', including Buffon, De Pauw, Camper, Blumenbach, and Immanuel Kant, were monogenists who posited the unity of the human species and a common origin for different human types.

In 1972, geneticist Richard Lewontin published a study analyzing protein-type variation across human populations and reported that about 85% of genetic variation occurred within populations and 'races' and about 15% of variation occurred between them.

Gamma-ray bursts were first detected in the 1960s by U.S. spy satellites that were monitoring for clandestine nuclear weapons tests.

In 1942, anthropologist Ashley Montagu published the book 'Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race,' arguing that race is a social construct without a genetic basis.