# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/21 "2011-04-03T18:15:58Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Individual variation is too high for “race” as a biological category (as opposed to a social one) to be useful in planning just about anything. Except constructing basketball teams. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/22 "2011-04-03T18:20:18Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > As long as you will accept probabilities instead of certainties, I don’t see anything ridiculous about that at all? But that _is_ ridiculous. People do not have genetic probabilities. They have actual, definite genes. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/23 "2011-04-03T18:25:03Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Excellent post, **John Mace**. Our use of race takes a spectrum and tries to break it into discrete parts. It does this in a clumsy way that lumps people who don’t have anything to do with each other together, and others who are closely related get separated. > > You will find that the “races” are totally different in different countries. Give people a random stack of photos and have different people stack them into piles, and every culture is going to have a very different pile. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to convince doubtful Africans that in America, Beyonce is black. At times in apartheid South Africa, Chinese people were “Asian” but Japanese were “white.” So if race is meaningful, who gets “race” right? > > Finally, even if there are generalizations that can be made, what exactly are you going to do with them? None of us have ever been in a situation where we need to determine someone’s likelihood of sickle-cell anemia just by looking at them. Even if black people have lower IQs, what exactly can you do with this information? Not invite them to interviews? Automatically track them into remedial classes? Obviously this would be absurd. Individual variation is too high for “race” as a biological category (as opposed to a social one) to be useful in planning just about anything. > > So if an arbitrary, changeable grouping is not really useful, what is the point of even having it? Sometimes doctors attempt to determine who has sickle cell by looking them. It’s a mistake. Sickle cell deriving from the same genetic mutation which causes it among Africans, in found in southern Italy and Sicily. Doctors who assume that it’s a “black” disease will make errors. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/24 "2011-04-03T18:37:48Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Except constructing basketball teams. 😃 If you were constructing a basketball team, and had access to one piece of information about candidates, would race be the thing you’d ask about? ---
**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 3, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/25 "2011-04-03T18:47:30Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > If you were constructing a basketball team, and had access to one piece of information about candidates, would race be the thing you’d ask about? Clearly you’d want to have people from the “tall race”. ---
**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 3, 2011, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/26 "2011-04-03T19:11:34Z")
I think it’s sad that some people let a small group of idiots dictate how they think about science. Of course people can be grouped into classifications called “races.” And of course that doesn’t mean that people of one race are inherently and irredeemably inferior to people of any other race. But some people are so pissed off at the racists that they have decided to fight against the concept of “race” itself. Why can’t you just fight against the racists? Also, why do you think that fighting against the concept of race itself will have any impact on racists? ---
**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 3, 2011, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/27 "2011-04-03T19:19:52Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > I think it’s sad that some people let a small group of idiots dictate how they think about science. Of course people can be grouped into classifications called “races.” And of course that doesn’t mean that people of one race are inherently and irredeemably inferior to people of any other race. > > But some people are so pissed off at the racists that they have decided to fight against the concept of “race” itself. Why can’t you just fight against the racists? Also, why do you think that fighting against the concept of race itself will have any impact on racists? The OP asks about “biological” races. And unless you are calling most biologists “idiots”, it would seem to me that you’d want to know what actual biologists think about their subject. And the vast consensus is that biological races do not exist. You can go ahead and classify people any way you want. But you can’t do it in a biologically objective way. You might as well talk about tall races or short races, hairy races or not-so-hairy races. But there isn’t any one scientifically objective way to divide populations up biologically. We are one large interbreeding population with genes flowing in and out of any subgroup you can imagine. ---
**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 3, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/28 "2011-04-03T19:34:32Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The OP asks about “biological” races. And unless you are calling most biologists “idiots”, it would seem to me that you’d want to know what actual biologists think about their subject. And the vast consensus is that biological races do not exist. > > You can go ahead and classify people any way you want. But you can’t do it in a biologically objective way. You might as well talk about tall races or short races, hairy races or not-so-hairy races. But there isn’t any one scientifically objective way to divide populations up biologically. > > We are one large interbreeding population with genes flowing in and out of any subgroup you can imagine. I told **Rand Rover** on the pit that the problem is not the science, not even the controversial one that is investigating what the differences could be. The problem is that the racists are twisting science to make it support reprehensible ideas. I have found that to fight racists you do not even have to call them that, the most damming fact against them is that they clearly fail spectacularly at following the progress of science, twist the most recent research and get stuck in the [del]1850’s[/del] 1950’s. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/29 "2011-04-03T19:42:20Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I have two repairmen at hand with the knowhow to do the job. One is “black” and one is “white”. Now, I certainly have no way of knowing off the top of my head whether the “black” one has Ethiopian or Congoese ancestry. You could look at them. Congolese and Ethiopian people look very different from each other. Humanity can be reliably classified into any number of categories. The part where all the subjectivity comes into play is in deciding where to draw the lines and how many races there are going to be in your system. Some divisions do seem to make more sense than others, like between East and West Africa for example. ---
**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 3, 2011, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/30 "2011-04-03T19:52:41Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > You could look at them. Congolese and Ethiopian people look very different from each other. > > Humanity can be reliably classified into any number of categories. The part where all the subjectivity comes into play is in deciding where to draw the lines and how many races there are going to be in your system. Some divisions do seem to make more sense than others, like between East and West Africa for example. The problem is that for whatever scheme you come up with, the one with more divisions is always going to “make more sense”. You come up with N races, and my scheme with N + 1 is going to “make more sense”. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/31 "2011-04-03T19:59:03Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > Humanity can be reliably classified into any number of categories. The part where all the subjectivity comes into play is in deciding where to draw the lines and how many races there are going to be in your system. There is no divisional system based on definitive biology which corresponds to anyone’s idea of what the “races” should be, though–no fact-based approach which can meet racists’ needs. No matter which genes or combinations of genes you choose, you always end up grouping some people who are “obviously” different by other measures, and separating people who are phenotypically similar. ---
**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 3, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/32 "2011-04-03T20:06:25Z")
South Asia is littered with populations whom most European would instantly say were Black (as in African Black). And they really do look it. But then you analyze their DNA, and it turns out they are the populations outside Africa which are the most genetically distant from Africans. And even these populations, with the possible exception of Andaman Islanders, are constantly losing their own genetic identity as they interbreed with other populations. ---
**Author:** ![RaleighRally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@RaleighRally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaleighRally)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/33 "2011-04-03T20:08:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The OP asks about “biological” races. And unless you are calling most biologists “idiots”, it would seem to me that you’d want to know what actual biologists think about their subject. And the vast consensus is that biological races do not exist. Well then how do you explain this: > [@](#): > > Responses to surveys of faculty at Ph.D.-granting departments indicate that 67% of biologists accept the concept of biological races in the species Homo sapiens, while only 50% of physical anthropologists do so. > [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tea.3660290308/abstract](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tea.3660290308/abstract) ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/34 "2011-04-03T20:09:27Z")
Oh, and **John Mace** ’s point is also correct. If we try to avoid the grouping-of-differences that I mentioned, we begin a spiral into ever-finer parsings of the genome. The whole idea rapidly becomes ridiculous. > [@RaleighRally](#): > > Well then how do you explain this… Uh… you realize that your cite is _lamenting that misunderstanding_, ascribing it to failures of college science education? ---
**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 3, 2011, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/35 "2011-04-03T20:15:32Z")
> [@RaleighRally](#): > > Well then how do you explain this: By looking at their conclusion: > [@](#): > > We propose continued use of the concept for some infrahuman species, **while abandoning its application to Homo sapiens**. For those biologists and anthropologists who continue to use the concept, scientific accuracy can be achieved by the presentation in lecture and text of the following ideas: **first, consensus among scientists on the race concept’s utility and accuracy does not exist; second, there is more variation within than between so-called races; third, discordant gradations due to natural selection, drift, and interbreeding make consistent racial boundary lines impossible to identify; fourth, past use of the race concept has had harmful consequences; fifth, the most precise study of human hereditary variation maps one trait at a time; and sixth, racial labels are misleading, especially as most populations have a cultural designation.** So thank you for demonstrating what I mentioned before, the conclusions of researchers involved in controversial research do not match the conclusions or solutions proposed by crackpots. People, and even scientists that propose keeping racial divisions in science, are not doing it right. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/36 "2011-04-03T20:19:47Z")
Also, that item is apparently based on a survey from some time prior to March 1992. Not only has the education presumably continued since then, taking into account recommendations like those noted… the relevant research fields themselves have been racing along too. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/37 "2011-04-03T20:22:19Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The problem is that for whatever scheme you come up with, the one with more divisions is always going to “make more sense”. You come up with N races, and my scheme with N + 1 is going to “make more sense”. What I mean is that statistically there are some places where it makes more sense to make divisions than others. You can always continue to subdivide but if you are going to have very many different groupings some of them will start to in some way mirror the patterns of limited isolation and hybridization that result from our migration histories: New World/Old World, Eurasian/West/East (South?) African/Eurasian/Melanesian/Australian. I am not claiming that there is one definitive answer as to which of these or other sub divisions schemes is a more useful or isomorphic conceptual crutch, just that if you are dividing humanity into more and more subdivisions that the boundaries defining the “races” above will be drawn before ones that bisect more inbred populations. If you are only going to have three races two of them are not going to be North and South Navajos or East and West Irish. ---
**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 3, 2011, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/38 "2011-04-03T20:23:17Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > the relevant research fields themselves have been racing along too. You are such a [del]racist[/del] racer! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/39 "2011-04-03T20:23:25Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > But that _is_ ridiculous. People do not have genetic probabilities. They have actual, definite genes. I have no idea what point you’re making. Plenty of real honest science is filled with probabilities and predictions with confidence intervals and so forth. ---
**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 3, 2011, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/40 "2011-04-03T20:29:00Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Also, that item is apparently based on a survey from some time prior to March 1992. Not only has the education presumably continued since then, taking into account recommendations like those noted… the relevant research fields themselves have been racing along too. Yes, and I really shouldn’t have said “biologists”, since that field is very broad. If you look at physical anthropologists or geneticists, you’re going to see a much stronger rejection of the notion of biological races. Now, it is very common for those scientists to talk about “populations” when looking at genetic variations among humans. However, those “populations” can vary in size and geographical distribution depending on the context of the discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007.md?page=3)