# 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:** 9
**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 23, 2011, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/161 "2011-05-23T22:18:08Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > That’s why I provided the information on differentiation amongst other species above. The discussion of which ones have subspecies is interesting, as it appears human populations have sufficient differentiation to meet that criteria. No, they don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/162 "2011-05-23T22:23:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No, they don’t. Could you elaborate on this? According to O’Brien and Mayr’s (1991) criteria for human races to be subspecies, the members: 1] share a unique geographical range or habitat 2] share a group of phylogenetically concordant phenotypic characters 3] share a unique natural history relative to other subdivisions of the species. 2 is ambiguous, but individuals can be correctly assigned to racial groups with a high degree of accuracy, it’s evident that members of races do share common distinguishable phenotypic patterns in the sense of frequency. Some of these traits are more or less uniquely characteristic (EDAR codes for thick hair in most East Asians ; SLC24A5 codes for skin color in most Caucasians. ---
**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 23, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/163 "2011-05-23T22:27:25Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Could you elaborate on this? According to O’Brien and Mayr’s (1991) criteria for human races to be subspecies, the members: > > 1] share a unique geographical range or habitat > 2] share a group of phylogenetically concordant phenotypic characters > 3] share a unique natural history relative to other subdivisions of the species. > > 2 is ambiguous, but individuals can be correctly assigned to racial groups with a high degree of accuracy, it’s evident that members of races do share common distinguishable phenotypic patterns in the sense of frequency. Some of these traits are more or less uniquely characteristic (EDAR codes for thick hair in most East Asians ; SLC24A5 codes for skin color in most Caucasians. :rolleyes: So, tell us what the races are, where are the boundaries, and who is in and who is out. Show me that people close to, but on opposite sides of your borders are more distantly related to each other than they are to people at the other end of theor borders. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/164 "2011-05-23T23:21:23Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Are we somehow incapable of identifying Peas from Geckos? > > Take the concrete example of Tays-Sachs. There are three major populations/elasticities that are carriers of the disease; Ashkenazi Jews, Cajuns, and French Canadians. Should you warn and test all Jews because one particular group of Jews is at risk, or everyone in Louisiana or Quebec? In the real world, we can study things beyond the fact that they’re all green and find a true biological connection. Once we have discovered that we can apply testing and remediation efforts to the affected people. > > You’re analogy only holds if there’s no way to distinguish between Peas and Geckos. Well, first of all it’s not really my analogy… but I think that at least a reasonable way to view it is that most inhabitants of that universe are only vaguely aware, if at all, that peas-and-gekkos are composed of two distinct groups, and that many peas-and-gekkos themselves are unaware of which they are. Compare that to different populations that make up “black” in the real world. I think most educated people know that “black” isn’t just one monolithic genetic group, but don’t know enough to accurately start assigning individual black people to subgroups… and many black people themselves probably couldn’t begin to tell you their own genetic makeup. But really we’re straining the limits of the hypothetical here… ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/165 "2011-05-23T23:26:43Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > :rolleyes: > > So, tell us what the races are, where are the boundaries, and who is in and who is out. Show me that people close to, but on opposite sides of your borders are more distantly related to each other than they are to people at the other end of theor borders. It depends if you’re a “lumper” or a “splitter”. From the article above you could use the major clades Nei & Roychoudhury (1993) identified sub-Saharan Africans, Caucasians, Greater Asians, Australopapuans and Amerindians. Or from the Risch article, Native Americans, Caucasions, Pacific Islanders, East Asians and Africans. Those are the major geographic or continental populations. Using Cavalli-Sforza’s analysis you could further deliniate Arctic Peoples (inuit) & South East Asians. ---
**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 23, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/166 "2011-05-23T23:45:58Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Those are the major geographic or continental populations. Ok, do you have any biological populations to list? ---
**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, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/167 "2011-05-24T00:03:19Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Ok, do you have any biological populations to list? Those are biological populations. > [@](#): > > 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]… > > 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. > **[Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC139378/)** > > A debate has arisen regarding the validity of racial/ethnic categories for biomedical and genetic research. An epidemiologic perspective on the issue of human categorization in biomedical and genetic research strongly supports the continued use of... ---
**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, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/168 "2011-05-24T00:45:21Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > You can’t say that biology has an infinite numbers of ways to define race. It would still be somewhat limited. This doesn’t create a false dichotomy. This is a common argument used to say that any definition of race is as good as another. Well it isn’t, not in a scientific context. A “race” is simply a circle around a genetic cluster. One can draw that circle as big or as small as they want to. And they can make it have rough edges (i.e., so the circle juts out to include some people and pops back in to exclude some people). Put those two concepts together and you can basically choose how you want to define “race.” There’s nothing wrong with doing the above as long as you explain what you’re doing and why you did it. Now, while we’re critiquing each other’s use of language, your use of the term “scientific” is odd (and, as it turns out, also comes up in threads about race, usually as “there’s no scientific definition of race”). Science is simply a process of making guesses, testing the guesses in a repeatable and rigorous manner, and rejecting guesses that prove not to fit the facts. So, I could construct a “race” by drawing a circle of some size with certain deviations around as many genetic clusters as I liked. And I could make guesses about the biological aspects of people within a cluster and how they compare to that same biological aspect of people outside a cluster. And all of that could be done in a perfectly “scientific” manner. I’m feeling charitable so I’ll ignore the rest of your post. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/169 "2011-05-24T00:51:55Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Compare that to different populations that make up “black” in the real world. I think most educated people know that “black” isn’t just one monolithic genetic group, but don’t know enough to accurately start assigning individual black people to subgroups… and many black people themselves probably couldn’t begin to tell you their own genetic makeup. Which is precisely why “black” isn’t a race. The only reason it makes sense is because someone doesn’t know the biology. Once you take a look at the genetics the idea of a “black” race falls apart. That is precisely why race is a social construct, not a biological one. Two people who self-identify as African-American may not be very closely related - and thus the idea of race doesn’t make sense. It only makes sense if you either don’t know or ignore the science. We’re better than that. ---
**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, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/170 "2011-05-24T01:14:03Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Which is precisely why “black” isn’t a race. Except that clearly “black” is a race, in common parlance. People who hate black people are “racists”. If “black” isn’t a “race” then the word has no meaning at all. > [@](#): > > Two people who self-identify as African-American may not be very closely related - and thus the idea of race doesn’t make sense. It only makes sense if you either don’t know or ignore the science. We’re better than that. That’s really somewhat orthogonal to what I’m saying. You’re saying (I believe) “the social constructs of race lump groups together in a way that has no biological justification”. I’m saying “take the social constructs of race as a given, and discuss whether they have any possibility scientific meaning/validity/utility”, to which I say “certainly not very much, but it would be an overreach to say that the amount is zero”. I see no reason why both those positions can’t be true (although I would qualify your statement by saying that the lump groups together in a way which SOMETIMES/OFTEN has no biological justification). ---
**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, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/171 "2011-05-24T01:57:30Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Except that clearly “black” is a race, in common parlance. People who hate black people are “racists”. If “black” isn’t a “race” then the word has no meaning at all. > > That’s really somewhat orthogonal to what I’m saying. You’re saying (I believe) “the social constructs of race lump groups together in a way that has no biological justification”. I’m saying “take the social constructs of race as a given, and discuss whether they have any possibility scientific meaning/validity/utility”, to which I say “certainly not very much, but it would be an overreach to say that the amount is zero”. I see no reason why both those positions can’t be true (although I would qualify your statement by saying that the lump groups together in a way which SOMETIMES/OFTEN has no biological justification). Well, those social constructs or self identified labels do tend to correspond to genetic clusters. > [@](#): > > Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/) ---
**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, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/172 "2011-05-24T02:08:47Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > It depends if you’re a “lumper” or a “splitter”. From the article above you could use the major clades Nei & Roychoudhury (1993) identified sub-Saharan Africans, Caucasians, Greater Asians, Australopapuans and Amerindians. Or from the Risch article, Native Americans, Caucasions, Pacific Islanders, East Asians and Africans. Those are the major geographic or continental populations. Using Cavalli-Sforza’s analysis you could further deliniate Arctic Peoples (inuit) & South East Asians. So, you are putting together people in Africa who are more distantly related than Europeans and Asians are. That makes sense. And you’re putting together Hawai’ians and Australians. That makes a lot of sense, too. But just out of curiosity, where is the dividing line between Caucasians and Asians? What’s the border? I want to see that people near the border on either side are really more distantly related to each other then the guy on the “Caucasian” side is to someone in Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/173 "2011-05-24T02:41:10Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > When someone uses a word that can have multiple meanings, and you don’t know which meaning they mean, you can simply ask them what they mean. You don’t need to fly off the handle and assume they are an evil evil person simply because they said “race” instead of “genetic cluster.” A scientific article that uses the word “race” would generally define its terms, so you can decide whether you are happy with exactly how that researcher drew the circle around particular genetic clusters. We are talking about the real world, here, not hypothetical college discussion groups. When someone uses “race” to identify a socially defined group in a medical context, there is an absolute certainty that someone else will come along and decide that there is some biological “truth” being claimed that is not supported by the science. Eliminating the word that is always confusing, always needs separate clarification, and is always ultimately misleading makes more sense than trying to put 300 word footnotes at the end of every newpaper and magazine article and scientific paper identifying the specific odd meaning that one is trying to impose on the word in that particular article. > [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > And I have no “need to cling” to the word “race.” I’ve just been trying to explain that people can use the word “race” to mean only “genetic clusters” and don’t necessarily have any bad motive. Yet, you have danced around the fact that the word is misleading in every discussion and now you are making ludicrous claims that anyone using the word is being identified as an “evil evil person.” Seems pretty much like clinging to me. ---
**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, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/174 "2011-05-24T02:45:36Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Which is precisely why “black” isn’t a race. The only reason it makes sense is because someone doesn’t know the biology. Once you take a look at the genetics the idea of a “black” race falls apart. That is precisely why race is a social construct, not a biological one. > > Two people who self-identify as African-American may not be very closely related - and thus the idea of race doesn’t make sense. It only makes sense if you either don’t know or ignore the science. We’re better than that. People with black skin all share at least the gene(s) controlling skin color, right? ---
**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, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/175 "2011-05-24T02:50:49Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So, you are putting together people in Africa who are more distantly related than Europeans and Asians are. That makes sense. And you’re putting together Hawai’ians and Australians. That makes a lot of sense, too. > > But just out of curiosity, where is the dividing line between Caucasians and Asians? What’s the border? I want to see that people near the border on either side are really more distantly related to each other then the guy on the “Caucasian” side is to someone in Ireland. There are more up to date graphs & data than this, but this [figure](http://www.andaman.org/Background/WorldGenetics.jpg) from Cavalli-Sforza gives a rough idea of genetic distance across various groups. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/176 "2011-05-24T03:36:28Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > People with black skin all share at least the gene(s) controlling skin color, right? Not necessarily the same set of genes. For example, in the Tays-Sachs example the mutation has come around at least 3 different times in three different populations. And light skin is the mutation, not dark skin. All populations trace their skin coloration back to dark skin. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/177 "2011-05-24T03:39:37Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Except that clearly “black” is a race, in common parlance. People who hate black people are “racists”. And you’ve just made my case for me. These are all social constructs, not biological. And that’s why biologists don’t use the terms. We use lots of terms in common parlance that are not scientific. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If “black” isn’t a “race” then the word has no meaning at all. Excellent, then we’re finally in agreement. 🙂 ---
**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, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/178 "2011-05-24T03:44:40Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > We are talking about the real world, here, not hypothetical college discussion groups. When someone uses “race” to identify a socially defined group in a medical context, there is an absolute certainty that someone else will come along and decide that there is some biological “truth” being claimed that is not supported by the science. Eliminating the word that is always confusing, always needs separate clarification, and is always ultimately misleading makes more sense than trying to put 300 word footnotes at the end of every newpaper and magazine article and scientific paper identifying the specific odd meaning that one is trying to impose on the word in that particular article. > > Yet, you have danced around the fact that the word is misleading in every discussion and now you are making ludicrous claims that anyone using the word is being identified as an “evil evil person.” Seems pretty much like clinging to me. And your posts in these types of threads seems to me like equal parts “oooh, I learned me some Science! and I wanna tell everybody!” and “I’ve got so many hang-ups about race that I’m going to deny that there’s any way to put humans into different groups on a biological basis for any purpose whatsoever.” ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/179 "2011-05-24T03:49:13Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If “black” isn’t a “race” then the word has no meaning at all. Exactly. If the word “race” has no meaning without a “black race,” then, yes, from a biological point of view, you’ve hit the mark, the word “race” has no meaning. There is no scientific/biological/genetic basis on which to define the black race in any way that allows for the delineation of non-black races in any rational manner. The “black race” as commonly understood encompasses a huge amount of the genetic variation that exists in humans overall. If “black” is a biological race, then it’s pretty much the only race, because all the non-black races are more closely genetically related to _some_ segment of the black race than segments of the black race are to each other. That’s why the concept of a “black race” is entirely social and why the concept of “race” is entirely social, not biological. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472/180 "2011-05-24T03:56:51Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > And your posts in these types of threads seems to me like equal parts “oooh, I learned me some Science! and I wanna tell everybody!” and “I’ve got so many hang-ups about race that I’m going to deny that there’s any way to put humans into different groups on a biological basis for any purpose whatsoever.” Whatever your views might be–aside from clearly wrong–you are now mischaracterizing what I have said. That would indicate that you are here simply to yank chains and not to participate in the discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaningfull-biological-definition-of-race/582472.md?page=10)