This isn't as unusual as you might think. Pick up a copy of Donna Haraway's Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science, (1989), and read her chapter on "Teddy Bear Patriarchy." It's about how scientists at New York's American Museum of Natural History were directly responsible in shaping immigration legislation (the quotas of 1921 & 1924) in the early 20th century, based upon Social Darwinism and the "superiority" of some races over others.

SRS