# Is there such a biological thing as a racial group? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 3, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007 "2011-04-03T03:39:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/301 "2011-04-07T00:53:56Z")
> [@A\_Forest\_Lady](#): > > This is why a person who has had his \*primary ancestral period of evolutionary change \*in Africa looks different from the person whose distant forefathers evolved in Asia. If you had read this thread, you’d realize that there were lots and lots of people whose distant forefathers evolved in Asia who look just like people in Africa. For example, the [Kondha](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondha) in India, the [Andaman Islanders](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andaman_Islanders) or the [Ati](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ati_(tribe)) in the Philippines. Not to mention the people native to Papua New Guinea-- who you would “know” were descended from Africans if you saw them walking down the street in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/302 "2011-04-07T00:56:25Z")
> [@A\_Forest\_Lady](#): > > Those things do not alter the basic premise that the phenomenon of race (or whatever name you want to put on it) took place to some degree in humans, has worked to change our physical appearance, and that it is still very much evident today. Actually, they do alter your basic premise. Your reliance on appearance to determine race is exactly on point, since appearance is a notably poor way of identifying geographic origin as pointed out repeatedly in this thread. What most Americans would consider “black skin” can be found in many different populations that are geographically diverse and wouldn’t fall into a single “race” no matter how you defined it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/303 "2011-04-07T01:02:13Z")
Would you guys who “know” there are races tell us what is the race of most of the people (hundreds of millions of people) who live in Mexico, Central America and South America? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/304 "2011-04-07T01:54:55Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > 1. According to the very sources you cite race is a coherent concept. You cite, for example, Berbajuani et al who claims that there is no major discontinuity between racial subdivisions. For Berbajuani et al’s findings to support your position, you necessarily must grant that race is a coherent concept. Since you think that these findings do provide support for your position, you apparently agree that race can be coherently defined. I would like to think this is a joke. Unfortunately it isn’t. ☹ Had you bothered to read Berbajuani _et al._ you would realise that they are referring to the subjective, cultural construct known as race. Race is not a coherent concept. It is purely a subject cultural concept, with no more coherence than other social constructs such as fashion or religion. There is absolutely no justification in claiming that race must be a coherent concept for someone to study the links between genetics and race. And that one simple fact makes a nonsense of everything else that you have posted. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/305 "2011-04-07T02:11:59Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > No, it hasn’t. If you’d have read the thread before posting this tired argument you would know that. The science most emphatically does not support the idea that biological construct known as race exists in humans. End of story. > > All of your other points have been refuted, or shown to apply only to a subset of people (such as in the US) and in general don’t work to support the concept of race among humans. It simply doesn’t exist. Ok, but you accept that: 1. Continental geographical ancestry maps to genetic identity. If you aggregate individuals DNA, they cluster into readily identifiable groups (ie. East Asians, caucasions, africans, native americans, pacific islanders). [http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007](http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007) > **[Genetic clustering: 40 years of progress](https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/06/genetic-clustering-40-years-of-progress.html#)** > > Represent each individual human by their DNA sequence. When aggregated, they cluster into readily identifiable groups. This has been known f... 1. The clustering is a natural consequence of geographical isolation, inheritance and natural selection operating over the last 50k years since humans left Africa. 2. Two individual from two populations are more genetically similar to each other than they are to each other than they are to two people from another cluster. Genetics, Vol. 176, 351-359, May 2007 3. A persons racial ancestry can be determined from their bones with pretty high confidence. [http://www.anthropologynet.info/forensic-4/how-accurate-are-assessments-of-ancestryrace-from-bones.html](http://www.anthropologynet.info/forensic-4/how-accurate-are-assessments-of-ancestryrace-from-bones.html) 1. The different populations have disparities in terms of propensity for certain conditions and responses to different pharmaceuticals. > [@](#): > > There exists adequate evidence of racial disparities to warrant stratification for genomic studies of many complex diseases. There are numerous examples of such racial disparities in disease (e.g. prostate cancer,11 glaucoma,12 chronic kidney disease,13 and diabetes-related lower extremity amputation)14 and response to therapy (e.g. high-dose interferon treatment for chronic hepatitis C)15 that persist after accounting for a wide range of potential confounders (e.g. access to care, socioeconomic status, health behaviours). Such residual race effects should at the very least raise some suspicion regarding the distribution and effect size of susceptibility alleles associated with these and other complex disorders. [http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/1/26.full](http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/1/26.full) > [@](#): > > International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) published a guidance to facilitate the registration of drugs among ICH regions (European Union, Japan, the United States) by recommending a framework for evaluating the impact of ethnic factors on a drug’s effect, as well as its efficacy and safety at a particular dosage and dosage regimen. This review focuses on the pharmacokinetic differences between East Asians and Caucasians. Differences in metabolism between East Asians and Caucasians are common, especially in the activity of several phase I enzymes such as CYP2D6 and the CYP2C subfamily. [http://jcp.sagepub.com/content/44/10/1083.short](http://jcp.sagepub.com/content/44/10/1083.short) ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/306 "2011-04-07T02:17:39Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Would you guys who “know” there are races tell us what is the race of most of the people (hundreds of millions of people) who live in Mexico, Central America and South America? I’ll have to have another look at Risch & Tang’s 2005 paper, but here Risch commented: > [@](#): > > Hispanics are typically a mix of Native American, Caucasian and African/African American, with the relative proportions varying regionally. Southwest Hispanics, who are primarily Mexican-American, appear to be largely Caucasian and Native American; recent admixture estimates are 39% Native American, 58% Caucasian and 3% African [24]. By contrast, East Coast Hispanics are largely Caribbean in origin, and have a greater proportion African admixture [25]. Thus, depending on geography, self-identified Hispanics could aggregate genetically with Caucasians, Native Americans, African Americans or form their own cluster. [http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007](http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007) ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/307 "2011-04-07T02:18:05Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Would you guys who “know” there are races tell us what is the race of most of the people (hundreds of millions of people) who live in Mexico, Central America and South America? The fact that you would ask this question shows that you don’t know what “those of us who know there are races” are really saying. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/308 "2011-04-07T02:51:01Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > The fact that you would ask this question shows that you don’t know what “those of us who know there are races” are really saying. Sure, we do. Some of you are saying that races are, in some odd way that defies actual description, “real,” while others of you are saying that you really, really, really want to be able to throw around the term “race” to make political points, changing the definition whenever it is needed to make a different point. For the Census Bureau, “Latino” has one socially constructed meaning that really does not represent a biologically coherent set of people, yet Chen019 is quite willing to come back with a response that demonstrates that the socially determined group is not biologically coherent then still wants to claim that “race” is biological and, tellingly, resorts to studies about people in the U.S. and not actually people in the places about which John Mace asked.. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/309 "2011-04-07T03:04:08Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > 1. Continental geographical ancestry maps to genetic identity. If you aggregate individuals DNA, they cluster into readily identifiable groups (ie. East Asians, caucasions, africans, native americans, pacific islanders). Utter and total nonsense. “Considering the results shown in Figures 2 and 3a, it might be tempting to conclude that genetic data verify traditional concepts about races. But the individuals used in these analyses originated in three geographically discontinuous regions: Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia. When a sample of South Indians, who occupy an intermediate geographic position… is added to the analysis …, considerable overlap is seen among these individuals and both the East Asian and European samples, probably as a result of numerous migrations from various parts of Eurasia into India during the past 10,000 years. Thus, the South Indian individuals do not fall neatly into one of the categories usually conceived as a ‘race’” Jorde, L.B. & Wooding S.P. 2004 “Genetic variation, classification and race” Nature Genetics Suplement 36:11 See also Bamshad et al (op cit) for precisely the same results once Indians are added to an analysis. > [@](#): > > 1. A persons racial ancestry can be determined from their bones with pretty high confidence. Utter twaddle, and you know it. As I proved in [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13652341&postcount=224) Chen consistently, repeatedly misrepresents the cirations that he presents on this topic. The references that he refers to here do not say what he claims that they say, they in fact totally refute his position. Those references state clearly and plainly that **skeletal evidence contradicts the biological race concept** and that skeletal evidence can only lead to a racial classification is census data allows the **rejection of the most likely racial groupings based upon the physical evidence.** Be warned, Chen is being dishonest in the extreme in the way the he misrepresents these references ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/310 "2011-04-07T03:11:54Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Sure, we do. Some of you are saying that races are, in some odd way that defies actual description, “real,” while others of you are saying that you really, really, really want to be able to throw around the term “race” to make political points, changing the definition whenever it is needed to make a different point. > > For the Census Bureau, “Latino” has one socially constructed meaning that really does not represent a biologically coherent set of people, yet Chen019 is quite willing to come back with a response that demonstrates that the socially determined group is not biologically coherent then still wants to claim that “race” is biological and, tellingly, resorts to studies about people in the U.S. and not actually people in the places about which John Mace asked.. Actually, the hispanic population Risch refers to is quite consistent with the existence of races. Risch even identifies percentage of racial ancestry: “Southwest Hispanics, who are primarily Mexican-American, appear to be largely Caucasian and Native American; recent admixture estimates are 39% Native American, 58% Caucasian and 3% African.” In the 2005 paper he writes: > [@](#): > > We have shown a nearly perfect correspondence between genetic cluster and SIRE for major ethnic groups living in the United States, with a discrepancy rate of only 0.14%. Perhaps this is not surprising for the major groupings (whites, East Asians, and African Americans), since prior studies would suggest enough genetic differentiation between these groups to produce robust clustering. On the other hand, one prior study of Hispanics did not suggest a distinct cluster for this group, possibly because of the heterogeneous origins of that Hispanic sample (Stephens et al. 2001). From the genetic perspective, Hispanics generally represent a differential mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry, with the proportionate mix typically depending on country of origin. > **[Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in...](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1196372/)** > > We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects ... ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/311 "2011-04-07T03:16:24Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I’ll have to have another look at Risch & Tang’s 2005 paper, but here Risch commented: :rolleyes: Ethiopioans, Indonesians, South Americans, Central Americans, Mexicans and Indians are all mixed populations? Indonesia: population 2.3 billion India: population 1.2 billion Ethiopia: population 82 million Central America: population 40 million Mexico: population 100 million South America: population 400 million And we also have to add in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Eritrea, Somalia and other nations that have equally “mixed” populations. So that means that about 5 billion humans are part of mixed populations that do not fall into any of your racial groups. When over 3/4 of the entire species fails to map onto your racial grouping, that rather proves that the groupings have no objective existence. Thank you for demolishing your own nonsense argument. Of course if you want to play a game whereby I post pictures of random people from those regions and other regions, and you attempt to place them into one of your racial groupings, then let;s have at it. Because of course if you can not assign random Indonmalayans or Indics to any racial group at better than chance, then clearly they do not meet any racial grouping standard. Has anyone else noticed that every time that Chen gets called on identifying the race of particular area, it is “mixed race”? He started this with India, expanded it to include Ethiopia, then Indonesia and now all the Americas south of the USA. This is some objective racial scheme that is utterly incapable of categorising over 3/4 of the population in question. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/312 "2011-04-07T03:20:07Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Actually, the hispanic population Risch refers to is quite consistent with the existence of races. So answer the simple question: **What race are they?** I suspect that, after a lot of ducking and weaving, you will tell us that they yet another “mixed” population that adds to the ~4 billion people that you already admitted do not fall into any of the races that you propose? Is anybody not seeing how biologically meaningless it is to have a classification scheme that is utterly unable to assign a category to 4 out of every 5 individuals sampled? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/313 "2011-04-07T03:45:35Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > So answer the simple question: **What race are they?** > > I suspect that, after a lot of ducking and weaving, you will tell us that they yet another “mixed” population that adds to the ~4 billion people that you already admitted do not fall into any of the races that you propose? > > Is anybody not seeing how biologically meaningless it is to have a classification scheme that is utterly unable to assign a category to 4 out of every 5 individuals sampled? Remember that “race” is just one more “lineage” – a family line is a race in smaller scales, a race a family in large scales. The concept is the same. There will be sub-races all over. Same way with families. Again, the definition from biology online. Do you really believe that these definitions don’t apply to humans, but do to other animals? > [@](#): > > a group or population of humans categorized on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics (such as color of skin, eyes, and hair). > > (2) A descent from a common heritage, ancestor, breed or stock as distinguished from other lines of inheritance. > > (3) A tribe or family of people sharing a common breed or lineage, as distinct from other lines or breeds. > > (4) A population of interbreeding species that develops distinct characteristics differing from other populations of the same species, especially as caused by geographical isolation. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/314 "2011-04-07T03:57:27Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Except that those “clusters” are not reproductively isolated, and there are too many people in the “intermediate” zones. From the source of your first link (not the link itself, but the paper it references)…There is only one generally accepted species definition for vertebrates and that’s the Biological Species Concept. 1. Mayr’s concept of species is “an intrinsically isolated population”; there are [numerous others](http://www.explorelifeonearth.org/cursos/summary_of_26_species_concepts.pdf) and there is no settled concept – thus, for example, there is debate over how to define members of canidae. 2. Obviously, the criteria for _sub_-species, let alone _ancestral population clusters_ is not the same for species. My point was that there is a commonality between the various taxonomic concepts. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2011, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/315 "2011-04-07T03:57:31Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Indonesia: population 2.3 billion Your math is slightly off here 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/316 "2011-04-07T04:01:04Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Remember that “race” is just one more “lineage” – a family line is a race in smaller scales, a race a family in large scales. :rolleyes: Chen is now attempting to prove that race has a biological meaning by asking us to first “remember” that race has a biological meaning. > [@](#): > > There will be sub-races all over. Who is talking about sub-races? A sub-race is a finer division of a group that _already belongs to a race_. You can only assign a sub-race \*after \*you have assigned a race. At this stage we just want you to assign the race. We don’t need the much finer grained sub-race level classifications. You can’t even assign a race to 4/5 of humanity, so you certainly can not assign a sub-race. > [@](#): > > Same way with families. And now Chen is attempting to argue that 4/5 of people do not belong to an objectively assigned family. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Do you really believe that these definitions don’t apply to humans, but do to other animals? We have said this multiple times. We have provided evidence for this multiple times. Now it is up to you to name these races and prove to us that you can apply these definitions to humans. Time to pony up my boy. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/317 "2011-04-07T04:09:19Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Remember that “race” is just one more “lineage” – a family line is a race in smaller scales, a race a family in large scales. The concept is the same. There will be sub-races all over. Same way with families. Again, the definition from biology online. Do you really believe that these definitions don’t apply to humans, but do to other animals? I will have to agree with \*\*Blake \*\*, you are really not being honest with this point. The supplement makes it clear that indeed it does not apply to humans. > [@](#): > > At present [regarding the old defined human races], such classification is disputed to have no biological validity. **The biological context of the term race is only widely accepted when used to refer to a subspecies arising from a partially isolated reproductive population and thus share a considerable degree of genetic similarity** ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/318 "2011-04-07T04:21:06Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The graphic in your link is misleading, because it makes it look like those ancestral population clusters are isolated (like “races” would be), when in fact they are highly mixed (like “races” wouldn’t be). > . Continuing… 1. If you want to stipulate that races qua ancestral population clusters need to have been completely reproductively isolated during a specific period of time, than the number will be less than 18. If you want to stipulate that races qua ancestral population clusters need to be _intrinsically_ reproductively isolated, than you just eliminated all races of all species. 2. Note, for the authors to say that the _current_ African ancestral population clusters are mixed, there must have been relatively reproductively isolated populations that could mix. 3. Someone asked my definition of race and I said “ancestral population clusters.” We could refine that if you like. I see no need to. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/319 "2011-04-07T04:28:07Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > 1. Note, for the authors to say that the _current_ African ancestral population clusters are mixed, there must have been relatively reproductively isolated populations that could mix. Why? Why can’t it be mixed ancestry all the way down? Or at least until you get to the turtles, anyways… ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/320 "2011-04-07T04:37:46Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Would you guys who “know” there are races tell us what is the race of most of the people (hundreds of millions of people) who live in Mexico, Central America and South America? Obviously, they are multiracial. If you want the specific ancestral population genetic breakdown, [you can look it up](http://ajph.aphapublications.org/content/vol95/issue12/images/large/068668.A1.jpeg). This is why, in the US, we classify central and south Americans as “hispanic,” a designation that refers to a ethnicity, not race. Here’s how the authors discuss it: “The term “Hispanic” or “Latino” describes a population with a common cultural heritage and most often a common language, but it does not refer to race or a common ancestry. Although Latinos have been considered to be first and foremost an ethnic group, they represent a heterogeneous mix of Native American, European, and African ancestries.2 Therefore, they can self-identify as any race or of mixed race as defined by the 2000 US Census” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007.md?page=17)