More Than One Medical Student At UVA Believes Black People Don't Feel Pain

[Humanist_Activist]

43. The context probably dates back to good old fashioned 19th century "scientific" racism...

that placed blacks "lower" on the "evolutionary ladder" than whites, and therefore are more animalistic and less human.

Note, I use a lot of scare quotes above because the concepts above aren't really scientific and are a complete misrepresentation of evolutionary theory, and Darwin spoke against using the theory in this way.

But the whole belief about blacks being more like animals is important, because despite some acceptance of evolutionary theory, many scientists still held out on a belief that humans, or I should say white people, were categorically different than all other "lower" life forms. There was, in this time period, a persistent belief that all animals couldn't suffer, and were merely automatons reacting to stimuli, black were put in this category as well.