# Is race considered a thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 3, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746 "2021-11-03T19:49:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/21 "2021-11-04T03:47:25Z")
Race is definitely a thing here in Canada. Its determined by historic and culturally engrained rules that are nebulous, arbitrary and contradictory; however its still used (and no different then any other social concept, really). The big problem is when people try to use their personal racial ideas to project beyond these socio-cultural realities and into harmful racialist pseudoscience. Out comes claims perverting cutting edge news in niche fields of human genetics and behavioural psychology mangled to fit in with 18th century race-based essentialism through personal racist speculations on innate biology. The end result? The harming of racial minorities by excusing unequal treatment, limiting their freedoms (to immigrate, gain employment, educate, or generate wealth), stigmatizing their free participation in society, devaluating their existence, or by removing shared human accomplishments through historical revision or denial of events. But yes. Race is still a thing. I wouldn’t say it is more apparent today, but the privilege to ignore its social relevance is slipping (I’d also say the same thing with other socially important norms). ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/22 "2021-11-04T06:21:16Z")
> [@ralfy](#): > > I remember reading two books related to the matter and written for a general audience, but I’m not sure how helpful they are to others: _The Mismeasure of Man_ and _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ . There were more, but these are the ones that I remember. _The Mismeasure of Man_ is highly outdated. A _lot_ of science has been done in the past 40 years. _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ has been thoroughly and forensically discredited by Graeber & Wengrow in their recent book _The Dawn of Everything_. Diamond is a dilettante who knows nothing of serious archaeology and anthropology, or of the major new breakthroughs in those fields over the past few decades. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/24 "2021-11-04T07:45:17Z")
Thanks for pointing out Graeber & Wengrow, hadn’t heard of it! ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/25 "2021-11-04T08:21:19Z")
> [@Tusculan](#): > > Thanks for pointing out Graeber & Wengrow, hadn’t heard of it!   It’s the best nonfiction book I’ve read for many years. The ebook and audio versions are out, but the hardcover will only be published next week. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/26 "2021-11-04T12:43:31Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ has been thoroughly and forensically discredited by Graeber & Wengrow in their recent book _The Dawn of Everything_ . Diamond is a dilettante who knows nothing of serious archaeology and anthropology, or of the major new breakthroughs in those fields over the past few decades. I suspected Diamond was a blowhard when he suggested in his book that because his Pacific Islander friends had no compunctions about asking intense personal questions during their conversations, they were superior in intellect compared to the average Westerner. I thought it more likely that his particular friends were raised in a culture where intense personal questions weren’t considered impolite. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/27 "2021-11-04T12:55:35Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Socially constructed races aren’t even stable over short periods of time. This. I believe I mentioned this in a prior post, but my guess is that back in Roman times, say the 2nd and 3rd centuries, a light skinned Roman from what is now northern England would likely have felt he was of the same race as a dark skinned Roman on the other side of a whole continent and sea in what is now Libya but of a different race than the light skinned Pict just on the other side of the wall in what is now Scotland. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/28 "2021-11-04T13:19:43Z")
I can’t remember where I read this, so don’t quote me, but I read somewhare that due to our ancestral genetic bottleneck already mentioned, where humans dwindled down to a few thousand breeding pairs before making a serious comeback a couple hundred thousand years ago, that you can take any two random humans from different parts of he globe and they would would be more genetically similar to each other than two chimpanzees from neighboring chimp communities are to each other. So I always make it a point, if for some reason I need to refer to different genetic types of people, to refer to different ethnicities rather than different races. Because despite differing superficial appearances, we’re all part of the one Human Race. And not in a feel-good, ‘up with people’ sense, in a very real, literal scientific sense. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/29 "2021-11-04T13:25:47Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I can’t remember where I read this, so don’t quote me… Check and mate! ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/30 "2021-11-04T13:27:56Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Didn’t humanity that left Africa go through a serious population bottleneck? I thought that was why there is more genetic diversity in Africa than in all of non-African people combined. Two can play that game! I should have quoted you in my original post anyway, because when i referred to the ‘ancestral genetic bottleneck already mentioned’ I was referring specifically to your post. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/31 "2021-11-04T13:36:51Z")
Well, I did forget to add the GNU fair use notice to my barely remembered factoid, so that’s on me. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/32 "2021-11-04T13:42:03Z")
Looks like we both excel at the barely remembered factoids 😀 Just for the record, here’s a cite. It was only a little over 70,000 years ago! I thought it was more like 150,000 years ago: > **[How Human Beings Almost Vanished From Earth In 70,000 B.C.](https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c)** > > By some counts of human history, the number of humans on Earth may have skidded so sharply that we were down to just 1,000 reproductive adults. And a supervolcano might have been to blame. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/33 "2021-11-04T13:49:04Z")
Just so long as you don’t take that genetic bottleneck theory as a ‘fact’. > **[The so-called Toba bottleneck simply didn't happen](https://johnhawks.net/weblog/the-so-called-toba-bottleneck-didnt-happen/)** > > Prompted by a paper by Chad Yost and coworkers, I look at the persistent myth that humans were an endangered species only 74,000 years ago. And the paper it refers to: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248417302750?via%3Dihub](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248417302750?via%3Dihub) > Based on these previous studies and our new paleoenvironmental data, we find no support for the Toba catastrophe hypothesis and conclude that the Toba supereruption did not > > 1. produce a 6-year-long volcanic winter in eastern Africa, > 2. cause a genetic bottleneck among African AMH populations, or > 3. bring humanity to the brink of extinction. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/34 "2021-11-04T13:50:07Z")
Interesting. I think there may have been another population bottleneck for humans who left Africa. Searching for a cite, it looks like there were two bottlenecks that affected those who left Africa: > **[How We Lost Our Diversity](https://www.science.org/content/article/how-we-lost-our-diversity)** > > Human ancestors survived two genetic bottlenecks as they spread out of Africa ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/35 "2021-11-04T13:52:35Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Just so long as you don’t take that genetic bottleneck theory as a ‘fact’. Well, that may be so, but I believe it is a ‘fact’ that as a species, we are more genetically similar to each other than our closest primate relatives are to each other. I don’t feel like looking up cites for that right now though; I really should get some work done today… ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/36 "2021-11-04T16:47:13Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Well, I did forget to add the GNU fair use notice to my barely remembered factoid, so that’s on me. Whoa, whoa. What do I have to do with this? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/37 "2021-11-04T16:55:11Z")
Just read the gnews like you’re supposed to. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/38 "2021-11-05T02:15:30Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > > [@Tusculan](#): > > > > Thanks for pointing out Graeber & Wengrow, hadn’t heard of it! > > It’s the best nonfiction book I’ve read for many years. The ebook and audio versions are out, but the hardcover will only be published next week Thanks all of you~just put it on reserve at my library. With any luck a copy might become a birthday gift for my historian son. ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/39 "2021-11-05T02:22:04Z")
_Mismeasure_ questions biological determinism, which argues that human beings are controlled by their genes and not by their environment. In what way is the counter to that outdated? _Dawn_ questions the mainstream story from the prehistoric world to the current one. _Guns_ doesn’t do that. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/40 "2021-11-05T05:41:09Z")
> [@XT](#): > > it’s just different than people think (i.e. the standard races of white, black, hispanic, asian, etc are bullshit) > [@XT](#): > > things like the already mentioned lactose tolerance and variations in disease resistances So, stuff that has nothing to do with “race” as the term is actually used, then. The word “populations” suffices, there’s no need to use the word race for this. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746/41 "2021-11-05T07:56:36Z")
> [@ralfy](#): > > In what way is the counter to that outdated? A lot more science has been done in the past 40 years. The arguments in the nature vs. nurture debate have all changed and moved on considerably. Science isn’t static. We should never assume that we can rely on any scientific book that was written 40 years ago, or even 10 years ago in some cases. That also applies to understanding of history, which many people don’t seem to realize. History is not frozen knowledge, it’s always changing, sometimes rapidly. Archaeology and anthropology are moving by leaps and bounds with modern scientific methods. Old theories and understandings get overturned and discredited all the time. New information comes to light, new discoveries are made, new analyses are done, new insights are accepted, old assumptions prove to be false. We can’t rely on old history any more than we can rely on old science. > [@ralfy](#): > > _Dawn_ questions the mainstream story from the prehistoric world to the current one. _Guns_ doesn’t do that. Yes, that’s the whole problem with _Guns_. It repeats tired old myths uncritically. Diamond is not a professional in the fields he is writing about. He is unaware of modern breakthroughs and advances in understanding. Mainstream stories about early human history among the general public – and they _are_ stories – have remained much the same for the last couple of centuries, but mainstream scientific and academic understanding has changed rapidly, especially during the last few decades. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-race-considered-a-thing/953746.md?page=3)