People were assuming that the biologist that discovered the new cat species was a white guy.

where?

Oh. Well, if that's the whole story, then this is a pretty weak science meme

I saw the article before but didn't read the details, if I had seen the name ending with an -a I would have thought a woman. But that's also probably because I knew a guy named Paolo.

There is absolutely sexism as well as racism still lurking around in the average person's assumptions. Seems a connected world hasn't (yet) fixed that. Might take more time.

on tumblr especially, there is a belief that science is essentially only a thing white european/american men do and they impose their vision of the world onto everyone, hence "discovering" a new cat species (which was actually known to locals since forever)

it’s an understandable belief, given the very imperialist and colonialist history of science and the legacy that this leaves behind. but it also completely erases the many contributions to science from other people, like here, where the tilcayo was first formally described by a Bolivian woman, and named after the name local Indigenous people give to the cat

There’s a running assumption

citation needed