Talk:Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on May 11, 2019.

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the science and academia work group.

Germany Low‑importance

	Germany portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GermanyWikipedia:WikiProject GermanyTemplate:WikiProject GermanyGermany articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Medicine Low‑importance

	Medicine portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that medicine-related articles follow the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and that biomedical information in any article use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine.MedicineWikipedia:WikiProject MedicineTemplate:WikiProject Medicinemedicine articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Physiology Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physiology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physiology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysiologyWikipedia:WikiProject PhysiologyTemplate:WikiProject PhysiologyPhysiology articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.
	This article has been classified as relating to the field of physiology.

this[edit]

this was in the original version:

Warning: This text has been taken from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. It needs to be expanded, clarified, and updated.

Several words and at least one sentence (the first one) are still the same, but IMHO it counts as an original work protectable under the GFDL. Anyway, anyone can make further changes... Boud 16:36, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Serious need for revision[edit]

I can't believe how horrible this article is. Blumenbach's racism is a tiny part of his work and this page makes one of the most important biologists in German history out to be a crackpot racial theorist. We have numerous paragraphs devoted to racism but none about the Bildungstrieb, Epigenesis, his relationship with Kant, etc...? I assume I am free to rewrite it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by PublickStews (talk • contribs) 01:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please do supplement it. There's gross oversimplification of the past going on.--Parkwells (talk) 01:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added some on his work concerning the Platypus. I'm reading a book on the animal and his mention in it might be the first thing I've read about him.--T. Anthony (talk) 02:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

blumenbach and the black woman[edit]

Can whoever added this to the page help me find verification of it?

"Later in life Blumenbach encountered in Switzerland 'eine zum Verlieben schönen Négresse' ('a negro woman beautiful enough to fall in love with'). Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that 'individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other individual Africans as Europeans differ from Europeans'. Furthermore he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind 'concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities'.

Unfortunately these later ideas were far less influential than his earlier assertions with regard to the perceived relative qualities of the different so-called races."

Where does this story come from? I'd like to cite a reputable source in a paper.

Harvey

It comes from Jack Hitt, “Mighty White of You: Racial Preferences Color America’s Oldest Skulls and Bones,” Harper’s, July 2005, pp. 39-55. Paul B 12:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anachronistic Terms[edit]

This is one of many articles about early naturalists, philosophers, scientists, in which people are given anachronistic labels - defined by 20th c. terms, especially as physical anthropologists, ethnologists, etc. It is a mistake to try to define this early work that way, a labeling back, much of what seems directed at supporting views that early European philosophers/naturalists/researchers were all racist. I took away the phrase labeling him an "anthropologist". --Parkwells (talk) 01:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Although, in general, what Parkwell says is sound, I don't think he is correct about Blumenbach, who was a long way ahead of his times. For instance, his measurements on the human cranium is a classic example of anthropometry, a central activity of physical anthropology. It links with ethnology because of his classification of races, which formed the basis of much later work. The addition of these terms helps the reader to place him and contrast him with others. This explains why I have put anthropology back in. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing this topic, I will introduce the views of Printing and the Mind of Man, which makes it clear that B's work was free of racism in the pejorative sense. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:19, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"...it was in fact Blumenbach who first used the term Caucasian (derived from the residents of Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains) to describe the white race." Is this sufficiently interesting to warrant inclusion? 69.225.126.90 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

So was he wrong with his core theories?[edit]

So were his core ideas wrong / subsequently disproved? Seems to be a major omission in the article (I assume they were later disproved??)

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100625192615/http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/iczn/Official_Lists_Indexes_pdfs.htm to http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/iczn/Official_Lists_Indexes_pdfs.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 22:19, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Picture[edit]

The current picture of Blumenbach obviously is derived from one showing Johann Christian Reil. Compare the details.[1] I propose to use JF Blumenbach.jpg instead. --Klaus Frisch (talk) 21:40, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

'Anti-racist'[edit]

I've removed several weakly supported claims that Blumenbach is 'considered one of the founders of scientific anti-racism' and a long discussion defending his theories about the relative superiority and degeneracy of different races on the grounds - as near as I can tell - that he didn't *mean* it in a racist way. Even if there are some who make the former claim, it does not seem to be nearly widespread enough to justify making such a strong claim. I'm not sure if there's anything to salvage in the latter section but the current tone is inappropriately argumentative and seems to be delving into synthesis Vary | (Talk) 05:22, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. For multiple reasons, I have partially reverted some of these edits.More work is likely needed. Grayfell (talk) 08:50, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]