A Rift Over Carl Linnaeus Shows We Shouldn’t Idolize Scientists

WE ARE LIVING through a period of cultural upheaval. Around the world, statues of iconic men who held racist beliefs and committed racial injustices are being ripped from their pedestals. The dull thud of metal bodies hitting concrete rings fresh in our ears, and many of us are still grappling with what these reverberations mean.

Statues of racists are monuments to the dregs of our society. Yet over time, their pedestals have crept so high that, for some people, it has become unthinkable that any scandal could justify their removal. Today, these memorialized men look down on us from high places that they do not deserve; the scandal is that society has for so long respected the inertia of their corrupting influence.

One such figure is the 18th century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. He devised binomial nomenclature, the ubiquitous system now used to scientifically classify organisms by genus and species. He then used his nomenclature to classify humans by “variety,” ascribing inherently positive traits to lighter-skinned Europeans and negative traits to darker-skinned Africans and Asians, thereby laying a pseudoscientific foundation for...