The Science History Institute is proud to announce the launch of Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race, a podcast and magazine project that explores the historical roots and persistent legacies of racism in American science and medicine. Published through Distillations, our highly acclaimed digital content platform, the project will examine the scientific origins of support for racist theories, practices, and policies.

Innate also features a number of free public events—including a First Friday kick-off celebration on February 3—highlighting the stories told through the project.

Read the press release >>

PODCASTS

The centerpiece of Innate is a series of ten Distillations podcast episodes, dropping weekly starting Tuesday, February 7. The season will explore stories such as how a 1793 yellow fever outbreak proved a racial myth wrong, how a collection of skulls forced a museum to confront its racist past, and how a group of medical students has been trying to dismantle the practice of race correction.

ARTICLES

Distillations magazine will examine the costs of racism in the discipline of science. Features will tell the stories of a chemical genius stymied by racism, the schism that has hamstrung behavioral genetics since the field began, and the forgotten mass shooting that left two Black chemists dead four decades ago.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

From a First Friday kick-off event, to virtual lectures with historians of race and medicine, to an on-site tour of the first quarantine station in the United States, take a closer look at Innate through these engaging events.

Learn more >>

EDITORIALS

The Distillations team and Institute president and CEO David Cole share their thoughts on the project and invite you to join us and the legions of scholars, researchers, and everyday people pushing back against scientific racism.

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Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race is made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

Learn more at sciencehistory.org/innate

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