# 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:** 18
**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, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/341 "2011-04-07T10:13:48Z")
Notice how chuck said he would answer our questions, yet has made a very long post without answering a single one of them. I think that pretty much says everything about Chuck’s credibility. He is incapable of answering the most basic questions, all he has done is post the same erroneous information assertions that we have all debunked at least 3 times already. It is quite clear that chuck does not understand this topic and has no intention of engaging in good faith debate. A s such I feel no obligation to continue responding to Chuck’s posts. I will ridicule and debunk them or portions of them as it amuses me. If he wishes me to continue to engage him more fully he will need to make good on his promise to answer our questions. ---
**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, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/342 "2011-04-07T10:40:13Z")
> [@](#): > > How can unicorns be logical? The fact that you think you have a logical and consistent concept of a unicorn demonstrates only that you have no idea what coherent means and know nothing about the mythology of unicorns. You’re either maintaining that a concept can only be coherent if there aren’t multiples concepts shared by the same term (i.e I can’t have a coherent concept, because you don’t) or you’re maintaining that a concept can only be coherent if it represents something in our world (all creatures that can teleport and that look like a horse with a horn, except that they have cloven hooves). Either way, you’re are incorrect. > [@](#): > > And I pointed out that this is a rather pathetic attempt to utilise a [fallacy of definition](http://www.onegoodmove.org/fallacy/narrow.htm). You can not define the problem out of existence by calling a tail a leg. Race does not mean “ancestral population cluster”, race also needs to encompass shared, characteristic phenotypes at the very least…I ask for the fourth time: can you name one other person in the world who uses race in this way. If this is the definition that “almost everyone uses” then you should have no trouble doing so. According to the Journal of Philosophy, the ordinary concept of race is a population defined by shared regional ancestry and patterns of phenotypic differences. This is consistent with the cladistic one. I’m not sure what the problem is. (It should be noted that according to the ordinary taxonomic criteria, phenotypic differences don’t need to be readily visible – you should know this.) As it is, the [Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1275602/) points out that race can be defined in terms of ancestry. _Ancestry as a Way of Categorizing People An alternative to the use of racial or ethnic categories in genetics research is to categorize individuals in terms of ancestry. Ancestry may be defined geographically (e.g., Asian, sub-Saharan African, or northern European), geopolitically (e.g., Vietnamese, Zambian, or Norwegian), or culturally (e.g., Brahmin, Lemba, or Apache)._ > [@](#): > > And we asked you many, many many times to name these coherent classifications and tell us what these biological bases of such groupings is and you replied… You want me to give a name to the various clades? I’m not sure what you’re asking? I have already linked to various cladistic diagrams. Speaking of races, here’s [Barbujan’s more recent paper](http://www2.webmatic.it/workO/s/113/pr-465-file_it-Current%20Genomics%204.pdf). He clearly states that the race concept he rejected is a subspecies concept. Just as I was saying: “However, this seems yet another case in which people say race but mean something else. If races are biological realities, i.e., if they are subspecies, they must be the same everywhere, whereas forensic race catalogs differ across countries” ---
**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, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/343 "2011-04-07T11:01:36Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Ok, I think what you mean is that race has no more biological basis than fashion or religion. No, I do not. > [@](#): > > Just to clarify, the claim that “race is an incoherent term” and “race has no biological basis” are separate claims. For example, I could a mishmash of multiple and conflicting biologically grounded definitions of “race” (e.g race as species, race as ancestry, and race as superfamily.) If so, my concept would be incoherent and yet biologically grounded, right? Utterly wrong. > [@](#): > > On the otherhand, I could have a coherent concept of race (e.g race as color of shirt) which has no biological grounding. No, you could not. > [@](#): > > Berbajuani et al obviously have a coherent concept of “racial subdivisions.” Otherwise they could not say what they said. And no, this claim is still bollocks. It doesn’t become less bollocks just because you repeat it in every single post. i have already debunked it fully. 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. > [@](#): > > To restate what Chuck said: "Coherent means “consistent.” To restate, this is yet another example of Chuck making up his own definitions that nobody else in world uses. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > For example, if I said “race is an incoherent concept,” I must have a coherent concept of race. :rolleyes: No further comment necessary. > [@](#): > > I bring this up since you keep claiming that “race is an incoherent concept” and I’m never sure what you mean. I mean that race is an incoherent concept. Which of those words confuses you? > [@](#): > > If you were familiar with the philosophy of biology, like I am… :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > …you would know that the claim is actually that “the social categories of race are not semantically coherent schemes of classification.” No, that is not the claim. > [@](#): > > My point was that Berbajuani et al are using a coherent scheme of classification: continental population clusters. No, Berbajuani et al are not using a that scheme of classification. I am glad that you made this claim, since it should destroy any credibility that you may have. Berbajuani et al state quite clearly that there is \*\*no \*\* consensus racial classification scheme so they **will not attempt to use one**. Instead, since a necessary result of any valid must be population discontinuity, they will test for that with no reference to any scheme whatsoever. To quote: “…no consensus has ever been reached on how many races exist…in general a species is divided in races when it can be regarded as an essentially discontinuous set of individuals…If loci showing a discontinuous distribution across continents exist, they have not been observed in this study, and so the burden of the proof is now on the supporters of a biological basis for human racial classification.” That is the only standard that the authors ever use. And from that Chuck somehow derived that " Berbajuani et al are using a coherent scheme of classification: continental population clusters." Does this dude have any credibility at all left on this topic? 😃 PMSL > [@](#): > > Racial subdivisions can be a coherent grouping without them being biologically grounded groupings. That is a complete nonsense statement. A racial subdivision by definition _is_ a biologically grouping. If a grouping has no biological basis then by definition it either is not coherent or it is not racial. Your pick, but a racial grouping can not be coherent and non biological any more than a shape can be both triangular and four sided. > [@](#): > > Now with that aside, you seem to be saying that Racial subdivisions _can’t be biologically grounded groupings_ without there being major discontinuities between them. No, I never said anything remotely like that. And that will be easily proved when you are unable to provide a quote of me saying that. And I think that pretty much destroys any shred of credibility you may have left. > [@](#): > > Obviously, the term population cluster is a biologically grounded term. Does the same logic apply? Can there be no population clusters without there being major discontinuities between them? I repeat for the fourth time: A population cluster is not a race. Nobody in the history of the world has ever defined a race as “A population cluster”. You can’t just make up your own definitions. The fact you keep repeating this provable logical fallacy in every post just makes it more and more amusing. 😃 > [@](#): > > When it comes to consistent versus orderly and logical, I’m not getting your distinction. We know you aren’t. > [@](#): > > I think what you mean is “is not consistent with the genetic data.” No. I don’t. > [@](#): > > (If it was consistent, would it matter if it was orderly? Yes. > [@](#): > > And what does it mean to say that something is consistent by not logical? If you still don’t understand this after the long post I made above elaborating on the differences, then there is simply no hope. I suspect that you are incapable of understanding. However I will give it one last try, though once again I imagine toy will simply refuse to answer the question. If a man screams loudly every single time he sees a bird, and has done so for the last 50 years, would you agree that this behavior is consistent? Do you think that screaming whenever he sees a bird is logical behaviour? Do you now understand what it means for something is consistent by not logical? > [@](#): > > This gets back to my point that “racial subdivisions can be a coherent (logical, orderly, consistent) grouping without them being biologically grounded groupings.” No, they cannot. No more than an orchestra can be both silent and coherent. ---
**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, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/344 "2011-04-07T11:23:09Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > You’re either maintaining that a concept can only be coherent if there aren’t multiples concepts shared by the same term (i.e I can’t have a coherent concept, because you don’t) or you’re maintaining that a concept can only be coherent if it represents something in our world (all creatures that can teleport and that look like a horse with a horn, except that they have cloven hooves). No, I’m not. And I am still awaiting a cite for this definition of coherent that is perfectly synonymous with “consistent” > [@](#): > > According to the Journal of Philosophy, the ordinary concept of race is a population defined by shared regional ancestry and patterns of phenotypic differences. This is consistent with the cladistic one. And? In what way is “shared regional ancestry and patterns of phenotypic differences” the same as “ancestral population cluster” As already pointed out, billions of people such as Indians have the same ancestral population cluster as Europeans, they do not share “patterns of phenotypic differences”. Similarly Indians do share phenotype with Negros, but they do not share regional ancestry. So once again, this definition does not correspond to your claim that a race is an “ancestral population cluster”. This definition says that race is " an ancestral population cluster with shared phenotype". I am happy to use that definition, it is in facts almost identical to several of the other definitions posted here, but it in no way corresponds to your clam of > [@](#): > > I’m not sure what the problem is. (It should be noted that according to the ordinary taxonomic criteria, phenotypic differences don’t need to be readily visible – you should know this.) Yeah, they do. If you believe otherwise then provide a reference to that effect. We’ve asked 6 times now. > [@](#): > > As it is, the [Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1275602/) points out that race can be defined in terms of ancestry. Bullshit. That article in fact states that “categoriz[ing] individuals in terms of ancestry” is "an \*\*alternative \*\*to the use of racial …categories… [/quote] Not the same thing as race. An \*\*alternative \*\*to to race. Did you really have to sink to such blatant misrepresentation. Of course you have so little credibility left now that I doubt it will matter very much. I doubt if anyone reading this thread will believe a word you have to say any more. > [@](#): > > You want me to give a name to the various clades? I’m not sure what you’re asking? I have already linked to various cladistic diagrams. I am asking you to name these races that you claim exist, then tell me the characteristics that you can use to classify people into them. We will start with something simple. Tell us how many races there are. Name five of them. Tell us what characteristics you can use to separate people into those races. And I am still awaiting answers for the other questions. ---
**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, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/345 "2011-04-07T11:33:02Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Can you name one other person in the world who uses race in this way? Because if not then you are simply engaging a [fallacy of definition](http://www.onegoodmove.org/fallacy/narrow.htm). > You were also not just asked to define race, you were asked to name them and tell us what people fall into those races and based upon what. SO far you have done none of these things. You’re asking several things: 1. Is there a coherent, biologically grounded definition of race that is consistent with the ordinary concept of race and with modern taxonomic criteria and the population genetic data and which other people have used. Sure: Clades. (Levin, 2002; Andreasen, 2003; Sesardic, 2010) 2. Can you name all the clades? I already linked to[several cladistic diagrams](http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dadamo.com/wiki/pcclass.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.drpeterjdadamo.com/wiki/wiki.pl/Average_linkage_tree_(classical_methods)&usg=__0caoFm8SwiRS_aB6cZ_tXxYWrtE=&h=413&w=374&sz=40&hl=en&start=19&zoom=1&tbnid=UWUBgR6CHh1ReM:&tbnh=165&tbnw=148&ei=P5udTZeEDcSltwePtZHUBA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DCavalliSforza%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D666%26tbm%3Disch0%2C541&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=726&vpy=120&dur=81&hovh=236&hovw=214&tx=113&ty=86&oei=1pqdTZyaGYabtwf-5P3OBA&page=2&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:19&biw=1280&bih=666). Of course, the exact relations are bound to change as more research comes in, but that’s biology. ---
**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, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/346 "2011-04-07T11:48:06Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > You’re asking several things: No, I am asking one thing: name one other person in the world who uses race in this way. > [@](#): > > Is there a coherent, biologically grounded definition of race that is consistent with the ordinary concept of race and with modern taxonomic criteria and the population genetic data and which other people have used. Sure: Clades. No, clades are not consistent with any ordinary concept of race. > [@](#): > > Can you name all the clades? Nobody ever asked that question. You are the only person in this thread who mentioned clades. However it is now quite clear that you are unable to answer these simple question. It is also clear that you are dishonest, unable to understand the scientific literature, prone to making up your own definitions to weasel out of trouble and can not be relied upon to present accurate information. Since you have now been thoroughly discredited I think we can leave it there. If anyone is foolish enough to believe anything that you have to say after this little display, there is little the SDMB will be able to do to help them. Thanks for playing. Performances like yours are probably the best support the anti-racist position can garner on the internet. ---
**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, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/347 "2011-04-07T13:39:35Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I’ll have to have another look at Risch & Tang’s 2005 paper, but here Risch commented: > > [http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007](http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007) You really consider that an answer? Even if those weren’t averages with very large standard deviations, they clearly don’t indicate what a biologist would call a race. ---
**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, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/348 "2011-04-07T13:59:27Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > No, I’m not. So to clarify: by “race isn’t coherent” you mean that\*\* the concept called “race” isn’t a “biological grouping.” You don’t mean that **the concept called “race” “is logically incoherent.”** Correct? This is important since some people argue that the concept called “race” is logically incoherent independent of it’s biological significance. Those people tend to say things like: “_Any racial classification used by anybody in the world was essentially a random grouping based on a mish-mash superficial physical appearance, geography, politics, culture and linguistics_.” Their point is that there is no logically coherent (non-mish-mash) conception of race. Your point, apparently, is that a concept called “race” might be logically coherent but it is, nonetheless, unrelated to biology. (And therefore you conclude, somehow, that a concept called “race,” even if logically coherent, _really_ isn’t coherent.) (Again, it’s one thing to say that a concept called race is incoherent because it’s a “mish-mash” and it’s another thing to say that it’s incoherent because its based on, say, culture and not a “biological grouping.“ I hope we can at least agree that there is a difference.) … So the question is: is there a logically coherent, concept of race that refers to a “biological grouping“? Now this gets tricky since we seem to disagree about what constitutes a “biologically grouping.“ At times you seem to maintain that a biological grouping necessitates “major discontinuity.” But I’ve pointed out that the source you got this idea from was discussing subspecies. To quote me: > [@](#): > > Here’s Barbujan’s more recent paper. He clearly states that the race concept he rejected is a subspecies concept. Just as I was saying: > > “However, this seems yet another case in which people say race but mean something else. If races are biological realities, i.e., if they are subspecies, they must be the same everywhere, whereas forensic race catalogs differ across countries” At other times you argue that the biological grouping concept must not be novel. You say: > [@](#): > > A racial subdivision by definition _is_ a biologically grouping. …..I repeat for the fourth time: [The biological grouping called] A population cluster is not a race. Nobody in the history of the world has ever defined a race as “A population cluster”. You can’t just make up your own definitions.” [Interestingly, As Edwards points out , he and Cavalli-Sforza used race interchangeably with population clusters: When in the 1960s I started working on the problem of reconstructing the course of human evolution from data on the frequencies of blood-group genes my colleague Luca Cavalli-Sforza and I sometimes unconsciously used the word ‘race’ interchangeably with ‘population’ in our publications. In one popular account, I wrote naturally of ‘the present races of man’. Quite recently I quoted the passage in an Italian publication, so it needed translating. Sensitive to the modern misgivings over the use of the word ‘race’, CavalliSforza suggested I change it to ‘population’. At first I was reluctant to do so on the grounds that quotations should be accurate and not altered to meet contemporary sensibilities. But he pointed out that, as the original author, I was the only person who could possibly object. I changed ‘present races of man’ to ‘present populations of man’ and sent the paper to be translated into Italian. When it was published the translator had rendered the phrase as ‘le razze umane moderne’.(Edwards, Race, reason and rubbish, in Sesardic, 2010)] For your point to make sense, you must mean that none of the current concepts of race are coherent (i.e refer to a “biological grouping”) – not that there are no biological groupings (objectively speaking from the stand point of taxonomic criteria). For example: Pigliucci and Kaplan, 2003. (On the concept of biological race and its apllicability to humans) note that: “‘_‘While we argue that there likely are a variety of identifiable and biologically meaningful races, these will not correspond to folk racial categories’’_ You must maintain that Pigliucci and Kaplan are wrong not because they propose a taxonomically inconsistent schema, but because they propose a novel schema. Now, I have anticipated this, which is why I offered Clade. How do you respond? “To restate, this is yet another example of Chuck making up his own definitions that nobody else in world uses. :rolleyes:” After 5 minutes of googling I was able to dig up and cite two papers that defend the clade concept. (Philosophers Michael Levin and Robin Andreasen) …………………………. As for Berbajuani et al….. This is what was stated: “which does not suggest that the racial subdivision of our species reflects any major discontinuity in our genome.” “…no consensus has ever been reached on how many races exist…in general a species is divided in races when it can be regarded as an essentially discontinuous set of individuals…If loci showing a discontinuous distribution across continents exist, they have not been observed in this study, and so the burden of the proof is now on the supporters of a biological basis for human racial classification.” And in another paper “However, this seems yet another case in which people say race but mean something else. If races are biological realities, i.e., if they are subspecies, they must be the same everywhere, whereas forensic race catalogs differ across countries” So we have: 1) racial subdivisions are continues and, therefore, are not subspecies. They say nothing about there being no coherent concept of race, rather they say “no consensus has ever been reached on how many races exist.” (Well, how is race being defined?). Nor do they say that “racial subdivision of our species” are logically incoherent categories. Rather, they say that these subdivisions do not represent subspecies. ---
**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, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/349 "2011-04-07T14:15:15Z")
Chuck when you can answer the questions that you promised to answer, it might be amusing to engage you again. At this stage you have so thoroughly discredited yourself, so thoroughly shown that you are dishonest in the way you represent references, so thoroughly demonstrated that you do not understand this subject, that there is really little point. ---
**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, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/350 "2011-04-07T14:15:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You really consider that an answer? Even if those weren’t averages with very large standard deviations, they clearly don’t indicate what a biologist would call a race. By the above do you mean “they clearly don’t indicate what a biologist would call a [subspecies]”? Or do you mean something else? Is this debate: Are there human subspecies? Or is it: are there (logically coherent) biologically meaningful\* human racial groups? \*Where biologically meaningful is not limited to “human subspecies.” ---
**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, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/351 "2011-04-07T14:17:20Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Chuck when you can answer the questions that you promised to answer, it might be amusing to engage you again. Can you restate my promise? (Or clearly state your questions that I missed.) ---
**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, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/352 "2011-04-07T14:34:38Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Can you restate my promise? (Or clearly state your questions that I missed.) No point. You said this this last time as well, and despite me posting the questions again you still failed to answer even a single one. But as I said when I reposted, I knew you would not answer them but it did serve to highlight your dishonesty. Posting them again will serve no purpose at all. You have established your dishonesty and inability to answer simple questions beyond any dispute now. The questions have been asked at least 8 times now, and you have failed to answer even one of them. If you want to find them they appear plenty of times. ---
**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, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/353 "2011-04-07T14:40:49Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > By the above do you mean “they clearly don’t indicate what a biologist would call a [subspecies]”? Or do you mean something else? Is this debate: Are there human subspecies? Or is it: are there (logically coherent) biologically meaningful\* human racial groups? \*Where biologically meaningful is not limited to “human subspecies.” It’s so darn cute the way he does this.😃 So far according to Chuck: Race = ancestral group Race = subspecies Race = ancestry race = clade It appears according to Chuck that race = anything but race. Or perhaps I should say that Chuck wants race to be equivalent to those things so that he can then claim that race has some sort of biological existence. He has been asked multiple times to name any authority who believes those things are equivalent, and has been utterly unable to do so. That really says all that needs to be said on the issue. Once again, this sort of behaviour from Chen and Chuck is the best weapon in our fight against ignorance. The fact that racialists have to resort to this sort of dishonesty and weaseling to try to make their case speaks far more eloquently to the layman than any amount of biological data. So please, keep it up guys. ---
**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, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/354 "2011-04-07T15:48:32Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > And of course it wouldn’t matter where they tried to get a bone marrow transplant from. > > [http://www.mavinfoundation.org/projects/matchmaker.html](http://www.mavinfoundation.org/projects/matchmaker.html) I’ve been noticing this more and more, and have even commented upon it, but I’ll try it again: you persistently look to studies limited to the U.S., then expand that to make claims regarding the entire world. However, that fails to support the claim that you wish to make for it. The U.S. population has undergone a series of “founder effect” with the bottlenecks imposed by immigration. The populations of any perceived “race” tend to have come from limited populations in the original land, so that they are more distinct than any study of the entire world. Chinese immigrants tended to be nearly all Han, and even among the Han, they tended to be from the Southeast coast region. Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Vietnamese immigrants account for the overwheming majority of East Asians in the U.S., with virtually no representation from Laos, Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, Malaysia, Cambodia, Eastern Russia, or Northern, Central, or Western China. Similarly, “blacks” in the U.S. are overwhemingly from the stretch of African coast from around Senegal to Congo, and omitting peoples from the East coast, the central region, or the South. Even Europe has provided immigrants in clumps rather than smooth distribution, with England, Germany, and Ireland providing huge numbers, (with Italy and Poland contributing), while France, Spain, and other countries providing far fewer. With this founder effect in place, we are not really looking at an even distribution of people who clump into “races,” but at already discrete populations that we have arbitrarily assigned to socially constructed “races.” Extrapolating that these discrete clumps of immigrants represent some larger body of “races” is simply not true. The bone marrow seekers are not going to find better matches for a Chinese-American patient because there is some “East Asian race,” but because that patient’s parents, grandparents, etc., came from the same local population of Southeast coastal Han Chinese. ---
**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, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/355 "2011-04-07T15:51:30Z")
**Blake** , reviewing the posts from the last day or so, I find that you are getting in the habit of referring to other posters’ efforts as “dishonest” or otherwise suggesting that they are deliberately trying to mislead. Stop it. You are free to point out errors of fact or logic, but you will not accuse them of lying or suggesting that they are lying. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![A\_Forest\_Lady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/da6949/32.png) [@A\_Forest\_Lady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Forest_Lady)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/356 "2011-04-07T16:06:27Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > 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. I’m reminded of the argument having to do with Pluto. Astronomers declare that Pluto is no longer a planet. It is more logical to declassify Pluto due to various data concerning the solar system, and the ex-planet itself. So, what’s changed about the object known as Pluto? Well, nothing. It’s just as it has always been. If you are in a space craft rocketing towards Pluto at 10,000 MPH, when you run into Pluto, you’re going to know it. Same with race, when you runinto it, you know it, regardless of the name you put on it or how you decide to classify it. Yes, “Black skin” can be found in different regions, along with varying other visible characteristics. All are a consequence of environment and evolution. Various scientific organizations have decided that the entire issue is too muddled and complicated to simplify by using the term “race”. That’s fine. I get it. So, what do you call the phenomenon? I propose that we simplify everything and call it race, but it really doesn’t matter to me. It’s that “a rose is a rose” thing. I’ll tell you what, I’ll call these regional human differences “callufip” for the rest of this post. A made-up word. How’s that? I guess what bothers me about the whole thing is that when it comes to whether race exists, as far as American society goes, the argument is silly. It’s been silly for 300 years. Almost all of us use callufip in some way, either to select our friends, our lovers, or sometimes just who we feel comfortable sitting next to on a bus. If race doesn’t exist, callufip does. ---
**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, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/357 "2011-04-07T16:27:55Z")
> [@A\_Forest\_Lady](#): > > If race doesn’t exist, callufip does. Sure, no one here is arguing that race doesn’t exist. The point we are trying to make is that race is a social construct that doesn’t match anything significant about underlying biology. People generally think of race to mean something about the population origins of an individual, but what has been shown time and time again in this thread is that the color of someone’s skin or the folds at the corner of their eyes doesn’t tell you anything meaningful about the population origins of the individual. Suppose you grouped races based on being left or right handed or ambidextrous? Most folks would agree that it doesn’t make sense because that doesn’t tell you anything about where their ancestors lived even though there might be a biological component. And yet it’s pretty much the same for skin color. We have this argument constantly on this board and it’s not really breaking new ground. There is no method to divide humans into “races” that tells you anything meaningful about their ancestry. There are populations of individuals that have many similar characteristics based on their DNA but that’s nothing like a “race” as we know it. Humans are too diverse and interbred to make any meaningful breakdown that would correspond to that kind of breakdown. If it were possible someone would have proposed a set of races that we could examine. The fact that no one in this thread has proposed one or can point to a paper that does so speaks volumes. It can’t be done. > [@](#): > > So, what do you call the phenomenon? Adaption, evolution. But not race, since it doesn’t imply any significant connection between the people who share those characteristics. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Forest\_Lady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/da6949/32.png) [@A\_Forest\_Lady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Forest_Lady)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/358 "2011-04-07T17:08:34Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Sure, no one here is arguing that race doesn’t exist. The point we are trying to make is that race is a social construct that doesn’t match anything significant about underlying biology. > > People generally think of race to mean something about the population origins of an individual, but what has been shown time and time again in this thread is that the color of someone’s skin or the folds at the corner of their eyes doesn’t tell you anything meaningful about the population origins of the individual. Suppose you grouped races based on being left or right handed or ambidextrous? Most folks would agree that it doesn’t make sense because that doesn’t tell you anything about where their ancestors lived even though there might be a biological component. And yet it’s pretty much the same for skin color. > > We have this argument constantly on this board and it’s not really breaking new ground. There is no method to divide humans into “races” that tells you anything meaningful about their ancestry. There are populations of individuals that have many similar characteristics based on their DNA but that’s nothing like a “race” as we know it. Humans are too diverse and interbred to make any meaningful breakdown that would correspond to that kind of breakdown. > > If it were possible someone would have proposed a set of races that we could examine. The fact that no one in this thread has proposed one or can point to a paper that does so speaks volumes. It can’t be done. > Adaption, evolution. But not race, since it doesn’t imply any significant connection between the people who share those characteristics. Well, I say we use my made-up word. But it doesn’t really matter. There are, as you say, “shared characteristics”, and they are shared characteristics due to evolution. If the term “race” were a fire, that explanation would be awfully hot. ---
**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, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/359 "2011-04-07T17:13:16Z")
> [@A\_Forest\_Lady](#): > > I guess what bothers me about the whole thing is that when it comes to whether race exists, as far as American society goes, the argument is silly. It’s been silly for 300 years. Almost all of us use callufip in some way, either to select our friends, our lovers, or sometimes just who we feel comfortable sitting next to on a bus. If race doesn’t exist, callufip does. That is not what history tell us, In Pluto’s case it appeared that it was a planet then, but if we had all the evidence that we have now, it would be clear that naming it a planet was not the proper thing. Likewise, history shows that the old definition of race was imposed on biology with no scientific bases, but by society then. [http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/](http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/) > [@](#): > > There has been an interesting dialectic between the notion of human races and the use of race as a general biological category. **Historically, the concept of race was imported into biology, and not only the biology of the human species, from social practice**. The consciousness that human beings come in distinct varieties led, in the history of biology, to the construction of “race” as a subgrouping within species. For a long time the category “race” was a standard taxonomic level. But the use of “race” in a general biological context then reinforced its application to humans. After all, lots of animal and plant species are divided into races, so why not Homo sapiens? Yet the classification of animal and plant species into named races was at all times an ill-defined and idiosyncratic practice. > > There was no clear criterion of what constituted a race of animals or plants that could be applied over species in general. The growing realization in the middle of the twentieth century that most species had some genetic differentiation from local population to local population led finally to the abandonment in biology of any hope that a uniform criterion of race could be constructed. > > Yet biologists were loathe to abandon the idea of race entirely. In an attempt to hold on to the concept while make it objective and generalizable, Th. Dobzhansky, the leading biologist in the study of the genetics of natural populations, introduced the “geographical race,” which he defined as any population that differed genetically in any way from any other population of the species. But as genetics developed and it became possible to characterize the genetic differences between individuals and populations it became apparent, that every population of every species in fact differs genetically to some degree from every other population. > > Thus, every population is a separate “geographic race” and it was realized that nothing was added by the racial category. The consequence of this realization was the abandonment of “race” as a biological category during the last quarter of the twentieth century, an abandonment that spread into anthropology and human biology. However, that abandonment was never complete in the case of the human species. > > There has been a constant pressure from social and political practice and the coincidence of racial, cultural and social class divisions reinforcing the social reality of race, to maintain “race” as a human classification. If it were admitted that the category of “race” is a purely social construct, however, it would have a weakened legitimacy. Thus, there have been repeated attempts to reassert the objective biological reality of human racial categories despite the evidence to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Forest\_Lady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/da6949/32.png) [@A\_Forest\_Lady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Forest_Lady)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/360 "2011-04-07T17:39:26Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > That is not what history tell us, In Pluto’s case it appeared that it was a planet then, but if we had all the evidence that we have now, it would be clear that naming it a planet was not the proper thing. > > Likewise, history shows that the old definition of race was imposed on biology with no scientific bases, but by society then. > > [http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/](http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/) Well, you missed the analogy. Pluto might not fit the criteria for planethood, but it’s still very much there. As for race, there are basically two arguments going on. One argument concerns the definition of “race”. The second argument concerns whether or not there are human differences based on evolution (one of the most common of the archaic definitions of “race”). Two distinct arguments. I agree that the definition of “race” does not fit the most recent scientific criteria. But I also know that when I look at Paris Hilton, I can bet that most of her ancesters had a significant period of evolution in Europe, whereas Chris Rock had more ancesters evoling for a longer period in Africa. Am I absolutely 100% certain of this? No. But if you’re foolish enough to put money on it, I’m game. After all, American slavery was based on the difference. Or maybe there’s a new definition for “slavery” too. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007.md?page=19)