# 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:** 3
**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, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/41 "2011-04-03T20:30:44Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Finally, even if there are generalizations that can be made, what exactly are you going to do with them? I definitely agree with that. What I’m objecting to with this thread is going too far into the other direction and stating not just things like “races are impossible to rigidly define” or “discussing races is rarely useful” but “race is a completely meaningless concept, biologically”. Here’s another way to look at it: let’s say aliens show up, abduct a bunch of humans, and analyze human biology and physiology, while paying absolutely no attention to culture. Presumably they’ll very quickly figure out how to differentiate between, say, male humans and female humans; or young and old humans. At some point they’ll probably also notice variations and categories of external appearance that we call “race”, and they’ll (if they have enough human subjects) compare that to DNA. Will they come to any conclusions? Do pureblooded Native Americans, for instance, have both distinct enough DNA and physical appearances that aliens would eventually pick up on it? And if so, how are they not a race? What I’d like to think _would_ surprise aliens is how damn important it all is to us, but that’s a separate issue. ---
**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, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/42 "2011-04-03T20:34:18Z")
**GIGOBuster** quoted this 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. I agree with all of that, but to me that’s not saying that biological races don’t exist at all, just that they’re rarely if ever useful in biological contexts for various reasons. ---
**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, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/43 "2011-04-03T20:37:58Z")
> [@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? > [@John Mace](#): > > Clearly you’d want to have people from the “tall race”. But some people from the tall race are nonathletic and have poor eye-hand coordination and move around like their spinal cord is a rigid iron bar. Thankfully they’re white as a warning so GMs know to stay away. The [short race](http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-shortest-nba-players.php) has this warning too. Maybe it’s unscientific or based on culture, but the stereotype will change as soon as non-black counterparts to LeBron or Jordan or Dr. J or many other super athletic black swing men start showing up. And since this hasn’t happened in 70 years it’s looking a bit grim. It’s not like the offerings from India, the Middle East, or China look decent either. ---
**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, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/44 "2011-04-03T20:38:46Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I definitely agree with that. What I’m objecting to with this thread is going too far into the other direction and stating not just things like “races are impossible to rigidly define” or “discussing races is rarely useful” but “race is a completely meaningless concept, biologically”. > Here’s another way to look at it: let’s say aliens show up, abduct a bunch of humans, and analyze human biology and physiology, while paying absolutely no attention to culture. Presumably they’ll very quickly figure out how to differentiate between, say, male humans and female humans; or young and old humans. At some point they’ll probably also notice variations and categories of external appearance that we call “race” You are anthropomorphizing here, assuming that the way an alien life form would interact with it’s environment would be similar to ours. Who’s to say that if an alien life form even had what we call intelligence, and that it then conceived of the world in the same object oriented manner in which we do, that it would not put humans in 6 billion and some different categories along a male-female continuum? ---
**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, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/45 "2011-04-03T20:39:58Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > **GIGOBuster** quoted this conclusion: > > I agree with all of that, but to me that’s not saying that biological races don’t exist at all, just that they’re rarely if ever useful in biological contexts for various reasons. Yes, but remember the OP, IMHO if you do want to press the issue, just drop the use of the “biological” part in a different thread. ---
**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, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/46 "2011-04-03T20:41:46Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I definitely agree with that. What I’m objecting to with this thread is going too far into the other direction and stating not just things like “races are impossible to rigidly define” or “discussing races is rarely useful” but “race is a completely meaningless concept, biologically”. > Here’s another way to look at it: let’s say aliens show up, abduct a bunch of humans, and analyze human biology and physiology, while paying absolutely no attention to culture. Presumably they’ll very quickly figure out how to differentiate between, say, male humans and female humans; or young and old humans. At some point they’ll probably also notice variations and categories of external appearance that we call “race”, and they’ll (if they have enough human subjects) compare that to DNA. Will they come to any conclusions? Do pureblooded Native Americans, for instance, have both distinct enough DNA and physical appearances that aliens would eventually pick up on it? And if so, how are they not a race? > What I’d like to think _would_ surprise aliens is how damn important it all is to us, but that’s a separate issue. The aliens would be much more objective and would realize that “pureblooded” Native Americans in Alaska are genetically distinct from “pureblooded” Native Americans in Patagonia or Brazil. They’d also realize that many populations with superficial similarities are quite distinct, genetically. They’d conclude that there is considerable variation between different populations of humans, but that it’s clinal in nature, and it’s impossible to draw objective boundaries between them. ---
**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, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/47 "2011-04-03T20:55:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > 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. Why don’t they ALL reject the notion of biological races? I mean all scientists reject the notion of the earth being flat. ---
**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, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/48 "2011-04-03T20:58:49Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > By looking at their conclusion: > > 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. There is a potential risk of Lieberman being biased in his “conclusion”, fearing a new holocaust if white students were told something politically incorrect. ---
**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, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/49 "2011-04-03T21:06:39Z")
> [@RaleighRally](#): > > There is a potential risk of Lieberman being biased in his “conclusion”, fearing a new holocaust if white students were told something politically incorrect. Meh, as noticed you are basing that on a survey from some time prior to March 1992, as I have seen, the current situation is that more scientists accept the facts. And reaching for conspiracy theories does not fly much over here. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/50 "2011-04-03T21:09:01Z")
> [@RaleighRally](#): > > Why don’t they ALL reject the notion of biological races? I mean all scientists reject the notion of the earth being flat. Because that would be rejecting reality. Here is a [genetic map of Europe](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2008/08/genetic-map-of-europe-genes-vary-as-a-function-of-distance/) showing how easy it is to separate even a fairly homogenous population by ancestry groups. Genetic differences between populations are real, significant, and quantifiable - this is not in dispute in the scientific literature. Anthropologists don’t usually use traditional “European/Asian/African” groupings not because those groups aren’t distinct populations, but because they’re often the wrong _level of analysis_ for their academic work, which usually involves finer gradations and detailed study of subpopulations - like say comparing two Polynesian tribes. Much in the same way that an engineer wouldn’t use quantum dynamics to model an airplane wing, or a biologist wouldn’t use the animal vs. plant dichotomy to classify species of bacteria. Doesn’t mean those concepts do not describe reality, or even that they’re useless in scientific research. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/51 "2011-04-03T21:09:38Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Except constructing basketball teams. 😃 I got your basketball player [right here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:African_Pigmies_CNE-v1-p58-B.jpg) ---
**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, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/52 "2011-04-03T21:12:24Z")
> [@RaleighRally](#): > > Why don’t they ALL reject the notion of biological races? I mean all scientists reject the notion of the earth being flat. The same reason that ALL scientists don’t reject the notion that dinosaurs and birds have distinct lineages. But more to the point, I think we’d need to explore what these anthropologists mean by “race”. Like I said, it’s very common for them to talk about “populations”, but those populations will vary depending on context. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that some of these are thinking of the ability to group humans into populations for some purposes, even if they realize that different grouping might be used for different purposes. Of course, if you want to make your case for the existence of biological races, go ahead. How many are there and where do you draw the lines? And why are those lines better than another set of lines that divide humans even further? ---
**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, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/53 "2011-04-03T21:12:32Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > But some people from the tall race are nonathletic and have poor eye-hand coordination and move around like their spinal cord is a rigid iron bar. Thankfully they’re white as a warning so GMs know to stay away. The [short race](http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-shortest-nba-players.php) has this warning too. > > Maybe it’s unscientific or based on culture, but the stereotype will change as soon as non-black counterparts to LeBron or Jordan or Dr. J or many other super athletic black swing men start showing up. And since this hasn’t happened in 70 years it’s looking a bit grim. It’s not like the offerings from India, the Middle East, or China look decent either. The idea is that if you are constructing a basketball team, telling your assistant “bring me a bunch of black guys” probably is not going to get you as good of a team as “get me a bunch of tall dudes.” A set of good basketball players may be likely to be mostly black, but a set of random black people is not likely to be mostly good basketball players. What we term “black” encompasses a pretty [mind-boggling chunk of human diversity](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/massive-study-of-african-genetic-diversity/). Africa is the center of human diversity and the genetic diversity found outside of Africa is just a tiny offshoot of the diversity found within. So one “black” guy is likely as different than another “black guy” as a “white” guy is to an “asian” guy. ---
**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, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/54 "2011-04-03T21:29:59Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Like I said, it’s very common for them to talk about “populations”, but those populations will vary depending on context. How will it vary in the context of race-based medicine? This has the potential of saving millions of lives in the third world. ---
**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, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/55 "2011-04-03T21:36:12Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > 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. Science involving probabilities and predictions depends on aggregating measurements of real things. If “race” was a real biological characteristic, there would have to be some way to measure it definitively in an individual specimen. How would you propose to do that? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/56 "2011-04-03T21:41:59Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The same reason that ALL scientists don’t reject the notion that dinosaurs and birds have distinct lineages. > > But more to the point, I think we’d need to explore what these anthropologists mean by “race”. Like I said, it’s very common for them to talk about “populations”, but those populations will vary depending on context. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that some of these are thinking of the ability to group humans into populations for some purposes, even if they realize that different grouping might be used for different purposes. > > Of course, if you want to make your case for the existence of biological races, go ahead. How many are there and where do you draw the lines? And why are those lines better than another set of lines that divide humans even further? You’re looking for “absolutes” – “Blackness”, “Whiteness”, etc. It’s essentialism. Biology is all fuzzy borders. We’re not talking about absolute qualities. We’re talking about different statistical distributions of traits you can’t think in categories. It’s not neat and clean. You need to think in fuzzy groups of statistical samples. Every single species of life has the potential to fracture into different statistically separate groups of in-group breeding units. I don’t really see how you can deny the existence of races, unless you think humans are magically distinct from other mammals. Humans are easily dividable into semi-distinct subgroups that have coherent sets of traits – in different distributions -than others. Call this “race” if you want. Geography started this all. Proximity of breeding mates in a world without airplanes or animal husbandry or boats. Then introduce different selective factors. Here is the biological definition. > [@](#): > > (1) 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. > > (3) A tribe or family of people sharing a common breed or lineage. > > (4) A population of interbreeding species that develops distinct characteristics differing from other populations of the same species, especially as caused by geographical isolation. > **[Race - Definition and Examples - Biology Online Dictionary](https://www.biologyonline.com/dictionary/race)** > > Race in the largest biology dictionary online. Free learning resources for students covering all major areas of biology. You get robust clustering results which correspond to the continental populations of traditional anthropology. The reason? Because you had breeding groups separated by geography: > [@](#): > > Loosely speaking, it is these small discontinuous jumps in genetic distance—across oceans, the Himalayas, and the Sahara—that provide the basis for the ability of STRUCTURE to identify clusters that correspond to geographic regions. > **[PLOS Genetics](https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/)** ---
**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, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/57 "2011-04-03T21:42:12Z")
> [@RaleighRally](#): > > How will it vary in the context of race-based medicine? This has the potential of saving millions of lives in the third world. There really isn’t much, if any, “race-based medicine”. The holy grail for medicine would be a treatment based on each person’s individual genetic make-up. So if you’re doing “race-based medicine”, the more finely you can divide up the human population, the better. ---
**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, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/58 "2011-04-03T21:49:31Z")
> [@RaleighRally](#): > > How will it vary in the context of race-based medicine? This has the potential of saving millions of lives in the third world. What the heck are you talking about? The “third world” is not suffering from any particular glut of genetic disease. I imagine some malaria drugs and improved sanitation infrastructure would go a long ways, however. ---
**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, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/59 "2011-04-03T21:50:48Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > You’re looking for “absolutes” – “Blackness”, “Whiteness”, etc. It’s essentialism. Biology is all fuzzy borders. We’re not talking about absolute qualities. We’re talking about different statistical distributions of traits you can’t think in categories. It’s not neat and clean. You need to think in fuzzy groups of statistical samples. Every single species of life has the potential to fracture into different statistically separate groups of in-group breeding units. > > I don’t really see how you can deny the existence of races, unless you think humans are magically distinct from other mammals. Humans are easily dividable into semi-distinct subgroups that have coherent sets of traits – in different distributions -than others. Call this “race” if you want. > > Geography started this all. Proximity of breeding mates in a world without airplanes or animal husbandry or boats. Then introduce different selective factors. > > Here is the biological definition. > > [Race - Definition and Examples - Biology Online Dictionary](http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Race) That definition is (I actually should say “those definitions are”) useless. Race, according to that cite, can mean almost anything. No one disputes that you can’t divide humans into certain groups based on physical or genetic traits. It’s just that there isn’t any one objective way to do it, and any system that divides people up more finely is going to be more precise than one that doesn’t. > [@](#): > > You get robust clustering results which correspond to the continental populations of traditional anthropology. The reason? Because you had breeding groups separated by geography: > > [PLOS Genetics](http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010070) Well, yeah. That’s what we call “populations”, and there are any number of such “barriers” that can be used to divide people up into any number of different groups. ---
**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, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007/60 "2011-04-03T21:55:42Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Here is the biological definition. > > [Race - Definition and Examples - Biology Online Dictionary](http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Race) And here is what you missed quoting: > [@](#): > > At present, 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. An example is the African wildcat, which is a subspecies of the domesticated cat. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-a-biological-thing-as-a-racial-group/577007.md?page=4)