Scientific Racist: the story of Alfred Newman

Dr Alfred Newman may be the most notorious scientific racist in New Zealand history. His 1882 paper "A study of the causes leading to the extinction of the Māori" was so extreme that it scandalised not just Māori, but also New Zealand's wider scientific community. So what can Newman's story tell us about the history of scientific racism in Aotearoa?

Dr Alfred Newman may be the most notorious scientific racist in New Zealand history. His 1882 paper "A study of the causes leading to the extinction of the Maori" used such extreme and callous language that it scandalised not just Māori, but also New Zealand's wider scientific community.

Dr Newman's views didn't spring out of nowhere. He was building on a longer history of racial supremacy - bouyed in part by Charles Darwin's theories of "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest", which many 19th Century Pākehā seized as a scientific justification for preexisting ideas of racial superiority.

However these ideas of white supremacy have always been contested in Aotearoa - by Māori and also some Pākehā. Dr Newman's notorious 1882 paper saw significant criticism from New Zealand's top scientists of the time.

In this episode of Black Sheep, we investigate Dr Alfred Newman's story - and the wider story of scientific racism in Aotearoa.

For further reading:

• Science, Racism, and Colonialism in Aotearoa by Dr Arama Rata
• Myth, Race, and Identity in New Zealand by James Belich
• 'A Disappearing Race Before We Came Here' by John Stenhouse
• Reading Darwin During the New Zealand Wars: Science, religion, politics and race, 1835–1900 by John Stenhouse

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details