# Meaningfull Biological Definition of Race **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 19, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472 "2011-05-19T17:11:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/201 "2011-05-24T21:31:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > What a retarded diagram. Firstly, “West African” _is_ “Bantu”. Secondly, Khoisan/Everyone Else should be the _first_ split (by the Haplogroup data), any cladogram that has Khoisan branching that low down is arse-backwards somehow. Good point. It appears that the table is from data almost 20 years old. A more updated table would most certainly show the split as you indicate. The other thing, though, is any table like this is going to represent some theoretical average, not what you actually see when you pick any two random people from those vast geographic areas. I don’t know where “Chinese” falls in that grouping (it’s not listed), but you can bet your chopsticks that the “Koreans” who are native to the area right at the Chinese border are going to be more closely related to those right across the border than they are to those native to the Southern part of the Korean peninsula. Charts like these, while interesting in what they tell us about groups, give a misleading impression of the truth value of the chart for any given individual in that group. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/202 "2011-05-24T21:41:21Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Could you explain what is meaningful about the continental classification of races? It definitely shows that genetic distribution is inherited and not random, but that’s been supported by more precise information unrelated to continents for a long time. The medical use of continental race is simply based on the obvious increase in likelihood of a person sharing genes with a smaller genetic cluster located on a continent. What is meaningful about your theory? I think confirmation of genetic distribution falls into the category of trivial. Anything else? Well, [Risch](http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007) makes the point that it is useful from a medical perspective and that \*“the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level.” \* As Cavalli-Sforza says, there are lumpers and splitters. You can divide these groups into much smaller populations down to families. Leroi in his [op-ed](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/opinion/14leroi.html?pagewanted=2) said \*"there is nothing very fundamental about the concept of the major continental races; they’re just the easiest way to divide things up…Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences. \* ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/203 "2011-05-24T21:58:49Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Checks subject line of the thread. > > Isn’t that what we’re discussing here? > [@tomndebb](#): > > The rest of us are. Rand has his own hijack agenda. Nope. I have an ignorance-fighting agenda. You two seem to think that there’s a very specific and official definition of “race” in biology, and that the term “race” as applied to humans doesn’t meet that definition. If that’s all you want to discuss, then that’s super. You could be right, as far as I know. I don’t have access to the tome of official definitions of all terms used in biology like you apparently do. However, if one wants to speak about groups of humans who have roughly similar genes, and wants to divide up those humans based on the similarity of their genes, and wants to use the term “race” to refer to different groups of humans who have certain similarities in their genes, then I think that’s a perfectly fine thing to do, your precious official biological definition of race notwithstanding. And different people can come up with different numbers of “races” for different purposes, and that’s fine too (as long as they tell you how they decided who’s in what race and why). ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/204 "2011-05-24T22:02:53Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Well, [Risch](http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007) makes the point that it is useful from a medical perspective and that \*“the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level.” > \* Ok, I’ve addressed the medical utility already. If you don’t know the detailed genetic structure of an individual, they are more likely to share genes with a population of people from a continent in their recent ancestry than not. That again is trivial meaning, or at best a utility. The claim about a ‘greatest genetic structure’ has no biological meaning in itself. > [@](#): > > As Cavalli-Sforza says, there are lumpers and splitters. You can divide these groups into much smaller populations down to families. Leroi in his [op-ed](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/opinion/14leroi.html?pagewanted=2) said \*"there is nothing very fundamental about the concept of the major continental races; they’re just the easiest way to divide things up…Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences. \* Lumping and splitting are both arbitrary means of classification. The statement about non-precision shorthand precludes meaning, and of course, as a result, does nothing to distinquish genetic from cultural or political differences. Are you done yet? Can you fill out the form in the OP? ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/205 "2011-05-24T22:03:17Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Nope. I have an ignorance-fighting agenda. Could have fooled me. > [@](#): > > You two seem to think that there’s a very specific and official definition of “race” in biology, and that the term “race” as applied to humans doesn’t meet that definition. If that’s all you want to discuss, then that’s super. You could be right, as far as I know. I don’t have access to the tome of official definitions of all terms used in biology like you apparently do. So, you are fighting ignorance from a position of ignorance? How does one do that? 😕 ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/206 "2011-05-24T22:05:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Could have fooled me. > So, you are fighting ignorance from a position of ignorance? How does one do that? 😕 Please provide a cite to the Official Biological Definition of Race and explain to us why it is such. Thanking you in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/207 "2011-05-24T22:22:14Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Ok, I’ve addressed the medical utility already. If you don’t know the detailed genetic structure of an individual, they are more likely to share genes with a population of people from a continent in their recent ancestry than not. That again is trivial meaning, or at best a utility. The claim about a ‘greatest genetic structure’ has no biological meaning in itself. > > Lumping and splitting are both arbitrary means of classification. The statement about non-precision shorthand precludes meaning, and of course, as a result, does nothing to distinquish genetic from cultural or political differences. > > Are you done yet? Can you fill out the form in the OP? The point about the greatest genetic structure of course suggests that it does have biological meaning and utility. ---
**Author:** ![heatmiserfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df705f/32.png) [@heatmiserfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heatmiserfl)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/208 "2011-05-24T22:33:42Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Cavalli-Sforza sets out and discusses the phylogenetic tree & allele frequencies used on pages 77 to 80 [here](http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=FrwNcwKaUKoC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=%22The+most+important+difference+in+the+human+gene+pool+is+clearly+that+between+Africans+and+non-Africans+%E2%80%A6%22&source=bl&ots=Hl3YPiKFe8&sig=YgwA1g1eS4kphr0n5mpD2kqj6Hg&hl=en#v=onepage&q=caucasoid&f=false). That book is seriously out of date. I glanced through his methods and he analyzed several alleles, chosen only for the fact that there was data available on them. I’m not a geneticist but even I know that we now look at specific regions of the Y chromosome or mitochondrial DNA to get an accurate picture of how humans evolved. Also, as far as I can tell, he purposed “lumped” people in order to do his analysis (why, I don’t know). It seems as though he could have made the lumps even smaller if he wanted to. Regardless, the author made it clear that his work demonstrates that there is no meaningful biological definition of race. The other website that you cited also has data from old cites. Nevertheless, that author also came to the same conclusion. In fact, the person said exactly what we were saying; some of the racial distinctions not based on biology are outright wrong. The author went on to say another thing we have been saying all along. Human diversity, in general, is very weak relative to other species including other apes. We had a huge bottleneck very recently and we’re all derived from one stock. The people arguing for a biological definition of race in this thread are actually supporting race as a social construct. Please remember the title of the thread. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/209 "2011-05-24T22:48:46Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > However, if one wants to speak about groups of humans who have roughly similar genes, and wants to divide up those humans based on the similarity of their genes, and wants to use the term “race” to refer to different groups of humans who have certain similarities in their genes, then I think that’s a perfectly fine thing to do, your precious official biological definition of race notwithstanding. And different people can come up with different numbers of “races” for different purposes, and that’s fine too (as long as they tell you how they decided who’s in what race and why). I’m coming in late so shoot me if this has already been stated. If your claim is that, mathematically, any set of objects, each with N attributes can be arbitrarily classified into X groups, then you are probably correct. But that is a pretty trivial statement. The only classification that would seem to really matter is a classification that mapped well into our perceived groups based on a small set of physical characteristics. But this has been shown not to work so well. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/210 "2011-05-24T23:03:02Z")
> [@heatmiserfl](#): > > That book is seriously out of date. I glanced through his methods and he analyzed several alleles, chosen only for the fact that there was data available on them. I’m not a geneticist but even I know that we now look at specific regions of the Y chromosome or mitochondrial DNA to get an accurate picture of how humans evolved. Also, as far as I can tell, he purposed “lumped” people in order to do his analysis (why, I don’t know). It seems as though he could have made the lumps even smaller if he wanted to. Regardless, the author made it clear that his work demonstrates that there is no meaningful biological definition of race. > > The other website that you cited also has data from old cites. Nevertheless, that author also came to the same conclusion. In fact, the person said exactly what we were saying; some of the racial distinctions not based on biology are outright wrong. The author went on to say another thing we have been saying all along. Human diversity, in general, is very weak relative to other species including other apes. We had a huge bottleneck very recently and we’re all derived from one stock. > > The people arguing for a biological definition of race in this thread are actually supporting race as a social construct. Please remember the title of the thread. I’ve cited several articles. Did you look at the Risch [article](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC139378/)? Can you provide a cite regarding human genetic diversity relative to other species? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/211 "2011-05-24T23:15:58Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > I’m coming in late so shoot me if this has already been stated. > > If your claim is that, mathematically, any set of objects, each with N attributes can be arbitrarily classified into X groups, then you are probably correct. But that is a pretty trivial statement. > > The only classification that would seem to really matter is a classification that mapped well into our perceived groups based on a small set of physical characteristics. But this has been shown not to work so well. Actually it works pretty well in [practice](http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/the-great-race-debate/) and in terms of the [clusters](http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/06/genetic-clustering-40-years-of-progress.html) you see from aggregating individual dna. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/212 "2011-05-24T23:37:31Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > The point about the greatest genetic structure of course suggests that it does have biological meaning and utility. The phrase ‘greatest genetic structure’ has no biological meaning, and so suggests the opposite of biological meaning and utility. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/213 "2011-05-24T23:45:06Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The phrase ‘greatest genetic structure’ has no biological meaning, and so suggests the opposite of biological meaning and utility. That doesn’t really make any sense. How does it have no biological meaning? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/214 "2011-05-24T23:48:14Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > That doesn’t really make any sense. How does it have no biological meaning? What does ‘greatest’ mean? It sounds like an opinion. If it refers to the widest scope of genetic commonality, then that would be the entire human species, which contradicts your basic claim. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/215 "2011-05-24T23:53:19Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > What does ‘greatest’ mean? It sounds like an opinion. If it refers to the widest scope of genetic commonality, then that would be the entire human species, which contradicts your basic claim. An opinion based on seeing how individuals cluster when you aggregate their dna. If you read earlier in the [paper](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC139378/): > [@](#): > > With this as background, it is not surprising that numerous human population genetic studies have come to the identical conclusion - that genetic differentiation is greatest when defined on a continental basis. The results are the same irrespective of the type of genetic markers employed, be they classical systems [5], restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) [6], microsatellites [7,8,9,10,11], or single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) [12]. For example, studying 14 indigenous populations from 5 continents with 30 microsatellite loci, Bowcock et al. [7] observed that the 14 populations clustered into the five continental groups, as depicted in Figure ​Figure1.1. Risch addresses this point about biological and genetic here: > [@](#): > > A response to the first of these points depends on the definition of ‘biological’. If biological is defined as genetic then, as detailed above, a decade or more of population genetics research has documented genetic, and therefore biological, differentiation among the races. This conclusion was most recently reinforced by the analysis of Wilson et al. [2]. If biological is defined by susceptibility to, and natural history of, a chronic disease, then again numerous studies over past decades have documented biological differences among the races. In this context, it is difficult to imagine that such differences are not meaningful. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of a definition of ‘biological’ that does not lead to racial differentiation, except perhaps one as extreme as speciation. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/216 "2011-05-24T23:53:57Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So, you are fighting ignorance from a position of ignorance? How does one do that? 😕 First of all, I hate you for making me defend Rand Rover, who I almost never agree with, and who I find to be an insufferable prick… but here’s the point I think he’s trying to make, which I think is a valid one. It may be the case that to a biologist, the word “race” has an extraordinarily precise meaning, one which can be truly objectively defined, one which involves lots of big words and precise applications of genetics. And if that is so, it may well be the case that you can take any grouping of people and say “is this a biological race” or not. And it may well be the case that the commonly understood groupings known colloquially as races provably and objectively do NOT meet the biological definition. However, if you ask a layman on the street “hey, do you think that races have biological meaning”, they’re not going to interpret that as “there’s some ivory tower super-precise meaning of ‘race’, let’s discuss whether the races we’re familiar with fit that definition, even though we don’t know what it is and probably wouldn’t understand it if we did”. Instead, they’re going to interpret it as something like “we both know what races are, so do you think people in the same race are actually biologically or genetically similar to each other, at least on average, more than they are to people of other races? If so, can we use that to make predictions and so forth? Could the fact that so many NBA players are black be biological as opposed to purely due to social pressures?”, or something along those lines. I think that’s a legitimately interesting discussion, and one which clearly at least a fair number of people in this thread are trying to have. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s not necessarily either ignorant or troll-y for Rand Rover to want to discuss whether they’re races are biologically meaningful without particularly caring about a specific and precise meaning of the word “race” that is used by biologists… similarly, if I ask a computer scientist something about information I don’t necessarily want an answer referencing “information”-the-precise-CS-term, and if I ask a physicist about work, I might not be asking about “work”-the-precise-physics-term. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/217 "2011-05-25T00:03:40Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > An opinion based on seeing how individuals cluster when you aggregate their dna. If you read earlier in the [paper](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC139378/): > > Risch addresses this point about biological and genetic here: You are citing opinions based on arbitrary selection processes as having meaning. You could try to justify why the circles your cites draw are more meaningful than other circles. Personally I don’t believe any of the circles are meaningful, they’re just arbitrary circles drawn to find accidental clusters, because no group of humans have never been totally isolated for very long. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/218 "2011-05-25T00:05:56Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > The point I’m trying to make is that it’s not necessarily either ignorant or troll-y for Rand Rover to want to discuss whether they’re races are biologically meaningful without particularly caring about a specific and precise meaning of the word “race” that is used by biologists… similarly, if I ask a computer scientist something about information I don’t necessarily want an answer referencing “information”-the-precise-CS-term, and if I ask a physicist about work, I might not be asking about “work”-the-precise-physics-term. **Max** , there are more precise ways to discuss the non-scientific concepts you are talking about. You won’t find many computer scientists or physicists who don’t point out the terms you are using are not accurate within their field if they are giving you a meaningful answer. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/219 "2011-05-25T00:32:48Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > You are citing opinions based on arbitrary selection processes as having meaning. You could try to justify why the circles your cites draw are more meaningful than other circles. Personally I don’t believe any of the circles are meaningful, they’re just arbitrary circles drawn to find accidental clusters, because no group of humans have never been totally isolated for very long. What do you mean by “_very long_”? That sounds like “_an opinion_”, as you might say. 🙂 You could make these complaints about loads of classification or definitional systems. In any case, Risch has provided evidence of how the major geographical structuring that exists in human populations has lead to meaningful biological or genetic differentiation. ---
**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:** [May 25, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/220 "2011-05-25T01:06:12Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > The point I’m trying to make is that it’s not necessarily either ignorant or troll-y for Rand Rover to want to discuss whether they’re races are biologically meaningful without particularly caring about a specific and precise meaning of the word “race” that is used by biologists… similarly, if I ask a computer scientist something about information I don’t necessarily want an answer referencing “information”-the-precise-CS-term, and if I ask a physicist about work, I might not be asking about “work”-the-precise-physics-term. If you ask a physicist how much “work” it takes to do something, he’s going to tell you that it’s the force multiplied by the distance the force is applied. If you say “oh, I meant how many hours it would take someone to do it”, he’d say: “then you’re talking about economics, not physics”. “Work” in physics absolutely does not mean what the layman means when he uses that term. If I start a thread to discuss how physicists define work, and you come in and start talking about man-hours, we’re going to tell you that you’re off topic. We’re discussing physics, not economics. If you come into a thread about the biological definition of races, and you don’t use the definition that biologists use (genetically isolated populations with distinct morphological features; a subspecies), then you’re off topic. If you want to discuss the everyday meaning of the term race, knock yourself out in another thread on that topic. This thread isn’t about that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472.md?page=12)