The Bob Graham Center for Public Service provides a wide variety of programs for students and the larger public on topics related to public service, public leadership and civic engagement.
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Race, science, and society in the 21st century
October 3, 2016
Recent studies on human variation seem to confirm what we have known for several decades; the biological concept of race is a crude and inaccurate tool to represent human diversity. Yet, technological advances in DNA research have reinvigorated scientific interest in questions on human differences. Such research has received much public attention and has led several scientists and humanities scholars warning of the emergence of a new kind of biological racism.
Ageliki Lefkaditou, a historian of science focusing on physical anthropology and human genetic variation, discussed “biological racism” on Monday, Oct. 3, in the Pugh Hall Ocora at 6 p.m. The lecture reflected on the preconceptions of race in historical and contemporary societies and how this influences racial discourse.
Currently, Lefkaditou is working on a project funded by the Norwegian Research Council on how physical anthropology and human genetic variation research have influenced the construction of racial and national identity in Greece from the 1950s and on.
Cosponsors: Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, Center for Greek Studies, Florida Museum of Natural History, Genetics Institute, UF Departments of Anthropology, Biology, Classics and History and the Bob Graham Center for Public Service.