The idea of race has been scientifically discredited? Really? How?
To use more specific language, there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist conceptualizations of race are untenable. Biologists largely consider biological essentialism obsolete, and generally discourage racial explanations for collective differentiation in both physical and behavioral traits.
Sources:
Sober, Elliott (2000). Philosophy of biology (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 978-0813391267.
Lee, Sandra SJ; Mountain, Joanna; Koenig, Barbara; Altman, Russ (2008). "The ethics of characterizing difference: guiding principles on using racial categories in human genetics". Genome Biol. 9 (7): 404. doi:10.1186/gb-2008-9-7-404. PMC 2530857. PMID 18638359.
Excerpt: "We caution against making the naive leap to a genetic explanation for group differences in complex traits, especially for human behavioral traits such as IQ scores"
AAA (1998-05-17). "American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race"". Aaanet.org.
Excerpt: "Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic 'racial' groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within 'racial' groups than between them."
Keita; Kittles, Royal, Bonney, Furbert-Harris, Dunston, Rotimi (2004). Nature 36: S17–S20. doi:10.1038/ng1455. PMID 15507998
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/box/ng1455_BX1.html Excerpt: "Modern human biological variation is not structured into phylogenetic subspecies ('races'), nor are the taxa of the standard anthropological 'racial' classifications breeding populations. The 'racial taxa' do not meet the phylogenetic criteria. 'Race' denotes socially constructed units as a function of the incorrect usage of the term."
Harrison, Guy (2010). Race and Reality. Amherst: Prometheus Books.
Excerpt: "Race is a poor empirical description of the patterns of difference that we encounter within our species. The billions of humans alive today simply do not fit into neat and tidy biological boxes called races. Science has proven this conclusively. The concept of race (...) is not scientific and goes against what is known about our ever-changing and complex biological diversity."
Roberts, Dorothy (2011). Fatal Invention. London, New York: The New Press.
Excerpt: "The genetic differences that exist among populations are characterized by gradual changes across geographic regions, not sharp, categorical distinctions. Groups of people across the globe have varying frequencies of polymorphic genes, which are genes with any of several differing nucleotide sequences. There is no such thing as a set of genes that belongs exclusively to one group and not to another. The clinal, gradually changing nature of geographic genetic difference is complicated further by the migration and mixing that human groups have engaged in since prehistory. Human beings do not fit the zoological definition of race. A mountain of evidence assembled by historians, anthropologists, and biologists proves that race is not and cannot be a natural division of human beings."
That's [IE, trait clusters] what race is. Race is minor variations in appearance and physical traits between people descended from the inhabitants of different geographical regions.
Race is much more than mere trait clusters, including behavioral and cultural affiliations, despite your efforts to convince me otherwise.
Too vague and non-universal to be useful and practical for what?
For accurately classifying human beings.
It appears to be useful and practical enough to be taken into consideration in some areas of the medical and pharmaceutical industries. (Although it's still a highly contentious issue.) Google "race-based medicine" for more info.
Sure, these are the physiological and biological aspects which are part of the definition of race. Some medical conditions are more prevalent in certain populations than in others. I understand that. Whereas it's a contentious issue, and whereas I am not a medical professional, I will side with those professionals who maintain that medical practices should focus on individuals rather than membership in a group, and that "overemphasizing genetic contributions to health disparities carries various risks such as reinforcing stereotypes, promoting racism or ignoring the contribution of non-genetic factors to health disparities."
Source:
Kahn, J. (2009). "Beyond BiDil: the Expanding Embrace of Race in Biomedical Research and Product Development" (PDF). St. Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy 3: 61–92.
Excerpt: In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration licensed a drug, BiDil, targeted specifically for the treatment of heart disease in African Americans. The recommendation of the drug for "blacks" is criticized because clinical trials were limited only to self-identified African Americans. It has been conceded by the trial investigators that there is no basis to claim the drug works differently in any other population. However, being approved and marketed to African Americans only, that specificity alone has been used in turn to claim genetic differences.
It would be hardly the first time that people have attached extraneous concepts to an idea.
In what way is this assertion productive to resolving our disagreement or clarifying your position?
It may be associated with those factors, but it is not dependent on most of them.
I maintain that it is, while noting your opinion to the contrary.
That doesn't make it wholly inaccurate. It merely introduces imprecision and cases of indeterminate race. The same argument could apply to the concept of species, but that doesn't prevent people from applying taxonomical classification to closely related organisms.
(But it looks like Skeptic Tank beat me to that comparison.)
And it looks like you've ignored my rebuttal to his comparison, which is that species identification is based on anatomical and genetic considerations, not behavioral or cultural affiliations which are inextricably wound up with our ideas of race (again, despite your efforts to convince me otherwise).
Racial differences are easily observable, and can be empirically demonstrated.
For example, take photos of ten people whose ancestors have all lived northern Europe for centuries and take photos of ten people whose ancestors have all lived in southern Africa for centuries. Now mix these photos together and get random people to try and pick which ones are photos of people of European ancestry and which ones are photos of people of African ancestry. I'm pretty sure that the results of this experiment will demonstrate that these two groups of people are visually distinct.
And it's not just a skin-tone thing. Replace the European ancestry photos with Australian ancestry photos (pictures of people whose ancestors were all occupying Australia before European settlement) and you can still easily separate the photos into two groups that accurately represent the geographical region which the subject's ancestors inhabited, even though both groups have dark skin.
If the term "race" is simply being used to refer to the minor variations between groups of people with ancestors from geographically separated regions, then race is most definitely real, present and quantifiable.
But you're continuing to make the mistake of limiting your definition of race to a system of classification based on "minor variations between groups of people with ancestors from geographically separated regions". Even if your definition were accurate, the above examples (of southern Africans compared to northern Europeans compared to indigenous Australians) would be unhelpful for the simple reason that there is no such race as "northern European" or "southern African". Those people would be called "black" or "white" and that is where the inaccuracy and the non-specificity begin to muddy the waters of your efforts at a simple system of human classification. To say nothing of the behavioral and cultural associations attendant to race, which you seem to prefer to ignore only because it contradicts your offered definition.
Yes, people do tend to make a lot of fuss about things of little or no importance.
Yes. Race and skin-color is mostly unimportant, and unnecessarily emphasizing these differences serves only to create artificial division between members of a society.
On these points we can most strongly agree.
