Keeping this in perspective, the word “race” has been used to mean everything from humanity as a whole to a national gene-pool to a particular family. If you read in a Thackeray novel about “those of ancient race,” it means an elite family that has been recognized as such and borne the same name for a long time. And when Barry Lyndon says it was not destined that he should leave any of his “race” behind, it means that he would be survived by no children of his body.
If you can still find it for sale or if they have a copy at your library, The Aryan Myth by Leon Poliakoy is a good book on the subject of European racism and anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. It’s interesting (in an awful way) that theories on the so-called “inferiority” of some races and nationalities seemed to become more prominent as time advanced.
Here’s Richard Dawkins on the subject, writing in The Ancestor’s Tale.
All? Would you include, for example, the residents of Tasmania during the period of 12,000 to 250 years ago?
It’s my understanding that there are distinct genetic markers that are common to certain populations. However, the groups that can be assigned in this way show very little overlap with traditional concepts of racial groups. Additionally, these commonalities within populations are insignificant compared to the amount of variation present. Let me dig up a specific paper I remember reading…
Here we go. Genetic Structure of Human Populations. Here’s the abstract (bolding mine):
That pretty much is what tomndebb stated earlier. I think that sapo isn’t saying anything drastically different from this, though he may be overstating the similarities within populations. He’s just using “race” to mean “related group”, whereas scientists try to avoid such a loaded term.
While I’m at it, I might as well toss out some related things I came across while searching for the above paper. Here’s a paper that identifies clusters of markers that actually do correspond to current American concepts of race/ethnicity. Still, it doesn’t say anything about the significance of these different markers, and these markers (microsatellites) are more indicative of historical genetic drift than anything else since they’re typically in regions of “junk” DNA. Here’s a paper that, at least in Brazil, skin color is a pretty useless predictor of geographical ancestry (or what “race” a person belongs to).
OK. Let’s consider them. Are Incas exactly equal to Iroquois or Taino? Are Massai readily recognized as close kin of the Khoi-San? Using the Linnaean groups of four races or the Blumenbach grouping into five categories or teh popular “three races” concept that made it into American Social Studies books from the 1890s through the 1980s, Iroquois, Taino, and Inca are one group and Khoi-San, Massai, and pygmies are one group. (and the “three races” method places the Iroquois, Taino, and Inca into the same group as the verious ethnic groups of China, Japan, and Polynesia). Does that system make any sense? If you then say “Well, there are a lot more than three or five races,” where do you stop? How many races are there? And if you look at peoples in “crossroads” locales, do you arbitrarily assign them to one of the groups? or do you dismiss them as “mixtures.” (It does not take much searching to find rather bitter fights among race-conscious people as to whether the ancient Egyptians were black, white, or some other category.)
Population works because we can, indeed, identify coherent groups (while recognizing that at the borders of various groups there has been so much interfertility that large numbers of peoples near those borders have too many mixed traits to allow easy categorization).
It is not so much a matter that the word race is offensive as that it conveys errors. The word has a 250 year old tradition in English of identifying a “major segment” of humanity, but there are no major segments of humainty that can be placed into racial categories without doing a lot of artificial shoehorning.
So Australian Aborigines are race, distinct from all other peoples? Can you explain how that can be so when there has been constant admixture with New Guinenas ever since Meganesia was colonised.
What features, genetic or physical, enable you to distinguish between a Papuan and an Australian? And how did these features develop despite constant interbreeding?
And if you can’t tell us what features you use to define your race then how do you know that it is a race? Certainly all the authors I have ever read have lump Australians and at least some Papuans into a single Australoid. Why do you think they are wring, and how did you make your distinction?
Is that true though? Can you tell us what sets of characteristics consistently represent the Inca and set them apart form the Iroquois? Or what characteristics consistently represent the Masai as distinct from the Zulu?
If that is so then you will be able to tell us how we would know that an Inca and an Inca haven’t produced an Iroquois. If you can’t do that then how can you claim that they always produce Inca?
I’ve already asked for a reference for this claim and you are apparently unable to provide it. As such we can safely assume that you are just making shit up.
Really? So Lapitans/Polynesians never colonised New Guinea 5, 00 years ago and displaced the native Australoids? And the Australoid populations of Viet Nam aren’t island populations, they are in fact Mongoloids that just happen to look Australoid? And Austronesians never colonised Madagascar and intermingled with East Africans?
This is all very fascinating and I look forward to seeing your evidence that all those things never happened.
[qupte]The genetical isolation was never perfect, of course. This is why we don’t have speciation, but we have been mostly living in “islands” for most of the history of our species.
[/QUOTE]
When people start using cromulent words like “genetical” I start wanting to see evidence for their extraordinary claims.
Do you in fact have any evidence, or are we just supposed to take your word for it?
And that demonstrates that isolated human races existed how?
No and I wouldn’t include the people of Pitcairn Island for the period from 200 – 250 years ago either. There have always been tiny isolated populations, but unless your point is that such tiny populations constitute races then I fail to see exactly point you are attempting to make.
Well he is saying something drastically different. He is saying Australian Aborigines or even Inca are physically and genetically distinct from New Guinean Australoids or Iroquois. That is radically different from simply pointing out that certain clusters correspond to broad geographic regions.
Wait…So this ISN’T about Nascar?
ok, guys. Before you get too worked up, let us define race. If you say such and such is not a race, what is a race that is not a species and not a population.
Consistently throughout my posts I have defined race as a population that shares a combo of traits that sets them apart from other populations. Nothing more than that.
I am not an anthropologist and I am claiming no expertise in distinguishing between the Irosomethings, the Tainos and the Incas. That’s why I chose two groups obviously different from each other. I was comparing Inca to Massai because a 6-year old in a hurry could tell them apart (as per Xema’s quote).
Of course they all share a common ancestor at some recent past, of course they all move, of course there has been some “interbreeding”. But if you are going to argue that 200 years ago an Inca was more likely to have children with another Inca than with a Massai, then well, I think I am the one who can ask for evidence to support such a claim.
Don’t get too hung up on the word “race” change it to whatever you want (and certainly don’t claim that I am proposing they are isolated races as I have never used the word). I do not know if the word “population” is the correct one either. Can we have a definition of it too?
Most importantly, do not assume that these different “races” can somehow be ranked from better to worse. Go to a dog show and ask which is the better breed. Mu.
I think you may be missing a “not” in there, somewhere, unless you are saying that in 1807 there was some great likelihood of people from Western South America encountering people from Southeastern Africa to intermarry. 
We asked you first. 
Yes. but you have not provided any concrete examples of what “traits” you believe are both shared (within a group) and exclusive to that group. You have also failed to explain how large or small a group might be while continuing to bear the nomenclature “race.”
Those are the points to which we are objecting. If used as originally expressed in scientific literature, there were no more than three to five races. You have used examples of much smaller groups. What justifies calling the Maasai a “race” that distinguishes them from their neighbors? How likely is it that you could actually identify a Maasai as distinct from a Samburu at ten paces? How likely is it that you could distinguish a Maasai from Zulu? How large (sharing fewer and fewer traits) or small (to the point of identifying individual families) may a group be and still be recognized as a race?
Population is the word used by people doing actual research and it varies–and must be identified by the author–for each paper that is published. In this way, scientists avoid getting caught up in the errors associated with the original use of the word race while avoiding the error of simply substituting one misleading word for another. For example, in “Scientific Failure of the Concept of Human Races,” published in The History and Geography of Human Genes, Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza make the statement
Note that while discarding the word race, they are careful to note that it is the analyst who performs the “clustering” of traits which will identify any populations.
It is way too early in this discussion for you to be hauling out claims that other posters are inventing things. Back off a bit and let’s try to work toward some common understanding rather than ascribing evil intentions or faulty processes to other posters.
If you say so, but I’ve been known to spot the Spaniard among several dozen also-white people.
Can also spot Gypsy, French, English and Italian. Including for example that blonde American gypsy who declared me “witchy” (along with her black-haired, “lemme read your hand, emperor” looking cousin) because she normally passes for Anglo and the two of them have loads of fun about it.
oops
there is the obvious: skin type and colour, eye shape and colour, hair type and colour.
Then there is the average “build” of the population. As much variation as there normally is in any population, there seem to be fairly clear trends towards tall, short, slim, stocky (think swedes and inuit)
Then there is facial bone structure. Flatter faces, rounded or square eye orbits, more pronounced brows and zygomatic arches, jutting jaws (think CSI)
Then there are the metabolical differences as the lactose intolerance being discussed elsewhere, sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs, blood types and the like that are distributed differentially around the globe.
The traits are not exclusive to individual groups (or at least not until someone comes with an example) but their combinations are.
As for the size limits of the group to still be a race, I don’t imagine that there are any. Some groups will be small and very localized, some will be larger and more geographically widespread. Some groups might be very similar to other groups (with only a couple traits differing), some will be very unique (with either many different traits or with very uncommon trait pairs)
forget ten paces, I could lick them and still not know which is which. My ignorance doesn’t mean the difference is not there (if it is).
I guess this is where we need a large group of six-year olds with varying degrees of hurriness to see if they separate them or not. Also, you would need to consider geographical distribution, their history and the such. In the end, as you pointed out, it is in the eye of the beholder and some are splitters and some are lumpers.
Are toy poodles the same race as poodles or are they just smaller members of the same group? Are napolitan and english mastiffs different races or just different colours?
Thank you, I am not trying to push an idea on anyone. I am just a regular guy bouncing an idea around. If, in the end, I am proven wrong, then so be it. If it turns out to be a matter of opinion, then we can agree to disagree or try to recruit each other.
As they say, fight the ignorance, love the ignorant. 
A better question would probably be: for any given locus in the human genome, are there more useful alleles than could be contained in the ancestral population posited by X religion, unless some of those alleles are novel? - it’s essentially the question the OP is trying to ask; if there has been no evolution, how did things get to be how they are now, when that would seem to involve greater diversity than could have been present on, say, Noah’s Ark?
Dawkins point is that the concept of race correlates with consistent observable differences, upon which a broad range of observers tend to agree. There is no requirement for absolute isolation, and no need to look into the past to find these differences - they exist today, as his example demonstrates.
My point would be that stating “I can certainly present evidence that all human groups have been mixing since our species first evolved” is dubious when counter examples are easily found.
I’m not the only poster to note a decidedly snarky component to your post. It does not create the impression that you are fully confident about your position.
There is no taxonomic definition for race. It is a category below that of subspecies, and as such is neither given an official rank (it is neither above nor below other such categories, such as morph, form or variety, for example), nor is it regulated by the the ICZN.
I meant to say: In the link provided, there is a little table with different definitions of race. The ones that appear under the headings of “population” and “taxonomic” are the closest to what I have in mind.
ok, let me ask this:
is there any difference in what chihuahuas and St Bernards represent to the dog species and what Zulus and Inuit represent to the human species?
Well, as far as I can tell (and, of course, I am not an anthropologist), the problem is precisely that you try to mix the dog breeds and the human “breeds”.
The difference between one and the other is, of course, the non-existence (Hitler, KKK et al notwithstanding) of professional breeders of humans.
Dogs are specifically bred to enhance certain traits; however humans mix freely over geographic boundaries, and, more recently, all over the world. Thus, a closer analogy would be in street dogs (no boundaries except the geographic ones, free-for-all mixing). Could you really distinguish different “dog races” in such a scenario?
I’ll bet this story fits as an archaic urban legend. I first heard it from my Dutch parents in the 50s who spent had 4 years in Indonesia, only they claimed it was an Indonesian story. Seems to me that this creation story was invented by whites.
My question was more on a taxonomical level.
And I am not trying to mix them, I will be just as happy to see them differentiated as equaled.
That said, there is a couple issues here. Firstly, I would venture that there were natural dog races (starting with wolves which most biologists will insist is the same species as the dog) before humans started to selectively breed them. For the same reasons that human populations differentiated in response to their habitat, I am sure that dogs in mountanous areas were different from plain dwelling dogs, etc.
In the case of street dogs, there are no races. For the same reasons that human “races” are disappearing nowadays. They just mix too much (and I would love to have a study of street dogs in different regions of the world, btw)
Although there were not professional human breeders, there were many selective pressures on different human populations, several of them created by themselves (religious and cultural tabboos, arranged marriages between clans, etc).
Again, humans were not as free to reproduce with any other human as we might be nowadays. Incas married Incas and Zulus married Zulus. Hardly ever (if ever at all) Incas married Zulus. They might not have been perfectly isolated populations but the fact that there were some restrictions in the genetic flow is clearly proven by the fact that there are several very distinct “phenotypic syndromes” (which I am just making up to avoid the word “race”).
My question stands, what do we call these “syndromes” and how are they similar/different from dog breeds in a taxonomic sense? (and I do understand what was said that , officially, taxonomy below subspecies is not regulated)