Well, I really don’t care to discuss what constitutes a “race” in humanity (go see the current GD thread for that). However, it’s often noted that true, biologically-defined races would have genetic traits that would be more or less unique to that race. Such a thing isn’t found in humans… but, what about animals? We hear about all the different “breeds” of dogs - Doberman, Great Dane, Schnauzer, etc.
My question… is “breed”, in this case, the same thing as “race”? Are the two terms interchangable? If not, how similar/different are they, and what makes them so?
(Note: I checked out http://www.m-w.com and the definition of race said that the two words are interchangable… so is there any major reason why “breed” is used to refer to animals, while “race” includes humans?)
Humans (sic, human is an adj. not a noun)
reproduce of their own accord, mostly.
Domesticated animals do not, mostly,
(and the term breed refers to domesticated animals.)
Animals are bred for specific traits of a breed.
(Yes, bred is past tense and past participle of breed.)
So, breed is a term used to define (domesticated) animals
bred for specific traits.
Race is a term used to define a group of human beings
who are not specifically bred for a specific trait.
I say that race is used because people are generally considered to be superior to dogs, so we want a special term to describe our own different breeds.
Diceman probably has a point with why the words continue in their current meaning (to the extent that race has meaning).
Historically, breed means (as has been noted) a group with similar characteristics who have those characteristics as a result of selective breeding. (Funny how that works out.
Race originally had the concept of “all those people descended from one ancestor.” Since a great many local mythologies gave each people a single ancestor (Abraham, Romulus, etc.), it was the word chosen from among other available words when the earliest naturalists/biologists of the mid- to late-eighteenth century first formulated their notions about the “separateness” of human groups.
In Greek, “ethnos” is the word for nation as well as race, and in use it seems to be pretty much the same as “breed” is used here in this thread. People sometimes ask in English “What nation are you?” meaning in PC English “What is your ethnic extraction?” (And there’s still that “ethnos” thing in the sanitized version.) They do generally view the Greek “ethnos” as different from the Turkish “ethnos”, German “ethnos”, etc. And it isn’t non-PC over there to tell someone they have Greek arms and an Irish head. Kind of like saying that a particular Dog has a cocker body and a springer head.
In short, the difference between race, breed, and even “ethnos/nation” is pretty much semantic. The issue is ethically clouded by all that eugenic and nazi crap about breeding master races, racial purity, and so on.
Generally speaking, I’d rather breed than race.
HAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
(snif)
Actually, I thought SPOOFE’s question deserved a serious response, although I am not predisposed to such.
His question was why is breed refered to animals and race refered to human beings.
(Perhaps, no, most likely, I did not explain myself fully.)
My contention is that the term breed refers to those animals bred for a specific trait. Breeding begets bred, if you will.
However, we refer to predefined traits of human beings as a race because we do not bred them (human beings.) They occur naturally, without a specific intent to bred.
This answer to the question does not include the argument about the fallacy of the term race.
Kingdom, phyllum, class, order, family, genus, species.
True that animals are bred for traits by humans but the effect of the environment plays a role as well, hence the phenotypes of humans. Arabs with long noses to increase the length of the passage to their lungs in order to better hydrate the air before inhalation, Africans with very high levels of melanin content to protect them from the sun. Inuits with compact bodies and an insulating layer of fat. But all humans are from the same species, as are all dogs. Canids.
“biologically-defined races would have genetic traits that would be more or less unique to that race.” --Spoofe
What does this mean? Pigs and humans share much similar genetic code, such that pig valves can be inserted in humans put on a regimen of immune suppresants. Pigs are unguents; cloven hooved creatures, unlike humans but we share a lot of intestinal flora, both good and bad.
“Biologically defined races” is ambiguous. Vertebrates share many of the same traits. Parallax vision, (some fish have excellent 360 degree parallax vision), and most mammalian vertebrates have similar features, two ears and eyes, one nose, etc.
There is no other way to classify a form of life than physio-biologically.
The difference between biologically-defined and socially-defined has been argued numerous times on these message boards. I suggest you run a search on the word “race”. Or, if you’re busy, head over to GD and check out the current race thread.
Actually, it’s very specific. In order for a “race” to be a true race, there would be genes that would be unique to that race. Look at the difference between a black man and an asian man… on the surface, the stereotypical example of each would look very different. However, those distinctions are NOT absolute, and tend to blend considerably. Take a look at Tiger Woods… you’d never guess he was “half-asian”.
Yeah, you know, pig butter. Like bag balm. Rarararararar. Yeah, it was 3am when I wrote it.
Reminds me of “Black Power” for “Black Powder” back in the goat thread.
Actually, the distinction between “race” and “breed” may be made only in English. In Spanish “raza” means both breed and race. Same for the German “Rasse.”
How about race vs subspecies? For example, the main difference between the various subspecies of tiger, AFAIK, is just geographic location and minor appearance traits. This could have been said of humans before there was modern transportation that allowed us to breed with someone on the other side of the world.
Did biologists invoke the “different species due to no interbreeding” rule of thumb for tigers?
Obviously, defining human “subspecies” would be a racist/political nightmare, but I’m curious about how the scientific community addressed this nomenclature.
This is a big conservation issue. Most mainstream conservationists feel that it’s important to maintain subspecies. Others feel that if only a few individuals of a subspecies remain, it’s best to interbreed them, rather than inbreeding within the subspecies (which has obvious problems.) Mainstream conservationists dismiss this as breeding “mutts,” rather than preserving the subspecies as they existed in nature.
There was an article in Discover Magazine not too far back, that addressed this issue among big cats but I can’t seem to find it, since their search engine blows monkeys. However, here’s a similar article abount orangutans.
. Ungulates, dude, ungulates 
.