Well, that is how the word is used by those who believe that humanity can effectively be divided into races. People who insist that the word race legitimately identifies large groups of humans certainly believe that they are discrete.
Beyond that, note that John Mace has several times noted that in biology (aside from humans) the word race is equivalent to subspecies and that the clinal nature of human differences preclude the word subspecies from being used to identify any human populations.
Except as noted above, the clinal model doesn’t work as well across the continental (“cluster”) boundaries:
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010070
Yes, I read it, but it doesn’t address the main objection - that Rosenberg’s methodology produces clustering. All it does is attempt to address problems with Serre&Paabo’s study. It doesn’t adequately defend the use of STRUCTURE, for instance, a program which is basically weighted to find clusters (see Witherspoon et al).
Yes, Serre&Paabo uses smaller sample sizes. Their results are not an “artefact” of this, that was the whole point of their methodology - to show that population sampling not geographically spread gives the clustering illusion and overwrites clines. Individual/small sampling is the whole point. The sample size argument is nicely refuted within their study by showing that clusters do emerge at the smaller sample sizes already - they compare *equivalent *amounts of dispersed vs population samples and *get *clustering with the population-based ones. So to say their sample sizes were too small for clustering is not accurate.
“Clusters emerge when one uses a sufficiently intelligent clustering technique” is no answer, it amounts to “clusters emerge when we set them up to emerge by tuning our experiments”. But those clusters are still a result of methodology, not allele distribution.
Also, I may have missed it, but Rosenberg doesn’t really address the issue of individuals jumping clusters when more loci are set. There’s also no defence of the way he kind of glosses over dropping “mixed” results like the Central Asian ones from the final data set.
Also, the Serre and Paabo study does use uncorrelated alleles. But Rosenberg’s reply is essentially “But when you use correlated allele frequencies, you get clusters. So correlation must be right.” It’s not like Paabo doesn’t know his human genetics, FFS. The S&P paper makes a strong case for why they used unlinked afs - see, for instance, their discussion of the American results, as well as their discussion of genetic drift and post-African admixture.
If you are stating that this is an outdated theory of ethnicity backed by outdated cites, that’s cool - but merely stating it, isn’t the same as demonstrating it. I note you have not produced any cites of your own to back up your stance.
I also note that checking the “who are the lue?” title pulls up multiple recent cites, albeit on pay services: Taylor & Francis - Fostering human progress through knowledge
Sure, converting to Christianity is one way of “losing” Jewish ethnicity over time - just as converting to Judaism is one way of gaining it.
Where that “conversion” was forced, or a matter of protective colouration - that creates controversy.
I provided two examples of adopted background:
Judaism (which we are arguing about); and
Native Americans adopting war captives.
In both cases, the people involved, while obviously not believing that they are literally shared descent, are adopted into the “tribe” and are considered for all intents and purposes just as “Jewish” or “Tribal” as people whose ancestors have always been so. In effect, they become part of the “nation” or “tribe”.
The issue is - “validity” according to who, and for what purpose? If the people involved believe they are an ethnic group - what does it matter if you don’t?
Well, exactly. They have fictive common ancestory. Just as important, as far as they are concerned, as real common ancestry.
The only significance of real common ancestry, is the possibility of genetic diseases or the like … whereas beleiving one has a common ancestry, influences people’s behaviour. For example, it influenced the Bene Israel to move as a group to Israel.
I would welcome some sort of description of these alternate anthropologists. Certainly, discussion of Jewish “ethnic divisions” crops up all the time - as, one may point out, does discussions of “racial divisions”: yet that has not lead you to acknoledging that “race” has scientific reality, has it?
The share a common conception of being Jewish, a common set of holy books, a common belief in a shared ancestry.
Whether they are “genetically” Jewish or not is totally irrelevant to how they see themselves, or are seen by others.
Again, you are insisting that you know better that these folk who they are. Since both they, and most if not all anthropologists disagree, I must side with them.
There is no “reality” to ethnic divisions. Any of them. They are wholly products of culture, for exactly the same reason that “race” is.
Take the Bene Israel. Assume geneticists had discovered a genetic link between them and the ME. Does this mean that they are really “genetic Jews” and thus a seperate ethnic group? Why? Undoubtedly they would have even more “genetic” links to other Etheopians … why should those tiny links to the ME, even if present, matter?
As for “barriers to advancement” and “impeding the human project” … why would a Bene Israel with undoubted links to the ME “impede advancement” less than one without? What “impedes advancement” is the notion that ethnicity is important, not the minutae of how it is defined.
Maybe you haven’t read the whole thread, because we went over this on the first page. A race is a distinct, genetically isolated population-- a subspecies. That produces abrupt changes in physical differences, not a continuum. Usually this is caused by some physical barrier, like a river or a mountain range. When physical characteristics vary clinally, it means you do not have genetic isolation and so you don’t have races.
No, mostly because I can’t answer the other two questions.
ETA: I believe in haplogroups, for whatever that’s worth.
Would pygmies and Khoi-San classify as sub species ?
Neither of those groups is genetically isolated, so no. Just ask Mr Dibble. He’s living proof!
As far as I know, the last group of humans which may have fit the bill of genetic isolation were the so-called “hobbits” of Indonesia:
They died out around 8,000 years ago.
They are classified as a different species of human. There is some disagreement about that, but I think the consensus is pretty strong for H. floresiensis, not H. sapiens floresiensis.
Polar bears and grizzlies are known to breed together.
There are many subspecies classified for both brown bears and wolves involving overlapping ranges and appearances that defy any cladal differences observable
to me.
True, I dunno when the last uncontested sub-species of human existed. Are Neanderthals still considered a sub-species? It may be that Homo sapiens idaltu was the last.
Very rarely.
If they have overlapping ranges, and don’t breed together, then they are different species. If they have overlapping ranges and do breed together, then they can’t be distinct populations.
It’s really a different ball game when you’re dealing with extinct populations. You have to rely 100% of morphological differences unless you have complete DNA to work with.
As for Neanderthals, there was a long time when they were considered a subspecies, but then the pendulum swung the other way as more evidence pointed to genetic isolation and extinction without interbreeding. The latest evidence says there was some interbreeding, but I don’t know how much there is thought to have been. And, like I said up thread, what’s more important: The fact that the populations were genetically isolate for about 500k years or that the interbred for the last 5k years?
I suppose it doesn’t really matter, except out of curiousity; for our purposes, the more significant point is that when or if any human sub-species existed, it was in the past - they are all extinct.
Though I had my doubts about the guys living in the basement apt. underneath me when I was a student - they could well have been a throwback. 
Do they produce viable offspring?
I tend to be more on the lumper side of things, but it’s pretty common to see us called H. sapiens sapiens, and for there to be other subspecies in the fossil record. But I’m not sure if those other subspecies are thought of as our ancestors or some side branch of our species that went extinct. With fossils, you don’t get a good picture of what the whole situation looked like. You get a few snapshots in time.
No, I’m saying it’s not the only stance, as you seem to imply. Anthro can have a more social or a more sciency spin. This doesn’t quite map to “emic vs etic”, but it’s similar.
But anyway, I’m going to concede that you’re right. I’ve been a tight-ass about ethnicity, and you’re correct that there are many different ways to use the term, and that self-constructed ethnicities and even adopted ethnicities have their place in ethnography.
After all, I did love “A Man Called Horse”
Fairly said. 
“Snapshots in time” correctly summarizes the problem with classical systematic treatment of all taxa, but especially for subspecies / races. The conventions of naming and the assignment of hierarchical categories are intended to provide information about the organism under discussion. The name is but shorthand for a much lengthier description (“long haired, quadrupedal, non-retractile claws…” perhaps for the bears mentioned) and current understanding about the organism’s relationships (“among the bear-like animals…”) to other organisms.
Populations consist of many individuals, and this number is inflated by the additional individuals that existed within the population at all times past. Thus descriptions must change over time, and eventually change enough that a new name and a very different description must be applied, as when we discuss ancestral and derived successor species. Further, taxa including subspecies/races, species, probably even genera, can divide, merge, recombine, and lather, rinse, repeat over geological time. Today’s population may be tomorrow’s subspecies, next week’s species, then merge back into the ancestral stock only for another differently-different population to emerge some time after that. The “correct” name is a function of the most apt shorthand descriptor at each of those different moments in time. For extant species, a common pitfall and misunderstanding arises when a name/category is used that may once have been valid but now no longer accurately conveys information about present populations.
The bottom line is that named categories only give back what we put into them in the first place. Lumpers and splitters handle the same information differently. As long as we know that, we can make sense of the usage they apply and the conclusions they draw. But it behooves us to at least understand the terms being used, and agree on their definitions, else discussion is circular.
So biologically **John Mace **is correct. A race is a subspecies, being a genetically isolated (reproductively isolated) and phenotypically distinct subset of a larger population. Our understanding of human evolution and thus how we handle systematics of extinct hominids changes all the time. There is and almost certainly there will remain questions and valid debate about historical humans, both relatively recent and ancient. But as for this present “snapshot in time” we call today, there are no reproductively isolated populations with distinct phenotype in the human species. Thus there are today no valid human races/subspecies.