Race is a human/social construct.

[Jono]

the concept of race is based on physical appearance of people and not based on genetics / science. sure most physical features are defined by genetics, but that doesn't make race a scientific construct.

Haplogroups on the other hand are based on genetics / science and are a scientific construct.

that is my point, and i still stand by that.

And yet, as I've said several times already, the "populations" of the world that (for example) Sforza listed via genetic markers are in more than a basic agreement with Coon's racial groupings. So, either it has a very real scientific basis or it's purely a wild coincidence that it matches up like so. Which is it?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If race can only reasonably be a term for social/socio-economic contexts, which in my understanding is what has in part been argued here (it has nothing to do with science according to DC, for example, equivalent to numerologists playing around etc, which is just nonsense), then it isn't really a straw-man. Or, it is and I have not understand some of the the given arguments.

I'm pretty sure it's the latter and you are misunderstanding DC. When we say, not a distinct taxonomic population group, that's not the same as saying not an identifiable genetic group.

... certain groups are more closer related to each other than others, all within a framework of terms more or less agreeable with known racial groups.

I've highlighted the error in your paragraph. Some of these traits agree with racial groups. It is a direct effect of the selection pressures of latitude. But many familial traits are not affected by latitude and don't line up so nicely with racial groups.

... Maybe you're not even disagreeing with me all that much, just that we're (perhaps) talking about potatoe and potato from different angles?

Unless you understand what I'm saying and realize the difference between a genetic grouping based on traits and a taxonomic grouping based on standard species and subspecies criteria, we disagree on the basis of determining population groups. (And like the correctness of only one side of the technicality being argued here, one of your two words is misspelled. )

I can pick any population grouping I want to, blue pens & pencils and red pens & pencils, or pens and pencils regardless of color. But I can't change the standard definition of a taxonomic division. That would make species taxonomies much less useful. I can't say the population category of pen is more important than the category of red. Both pens and pencils of either color are in the population group of writing instruments and both are in the population group of colored objects. It might appear the analogy breaks down here, which is just what happens when people try to understand the scientific grouping vs social construct grouping. It's so obvious to people that pens and pencils are subgroups of writing instruments. We naturally want to choose that population trait rather than color groupings.

But science is empirical. Just explaining that groupings of pens and pencils makes more sense to a person doesn't justify choosing that grouping over color groupings. Just showing racial traits have a geographic selection pressure, doesn't raise its empirical value over blood type population groupings that result from some other selection pressure.

To determine a biological taxonomy of human subspecies (or sub-subspecies), one needs more isolation for a longer period of time. Without that, all you have are family lines. Few would claim a blonde is a separate subspecies from a brunette. Adding another trait doesn't change that. A blonde with blue eyes is still not a separate subspecies from a brunette with brown eyes. You can define them as separate races, but that is a socially defined division, not a taxonomic division.

It may be a gray area when one gets closer to a true subspecies because there may be a very fuzzy line where the two population groups actually divide. In order to get a subspecies there is typically a division and then progressively separated evolutionary paths. The populations take an inexact time to evolve into different enough groups to be classified as subspecies.

But in a taxonomy, one thing you don't have, is a subspecies that continues to mix with the main population. When you have mixing then you have individual variation, but not sub-speciation. A few populations of humans were isolated longer than others. Australian Aboriginals probably come the closest to being a true sub-subspecies of humans. But even they are now mixing again with the main population. I'd speculate that eventually they'll be as reintegrated into the main population as the rest of the racially identified population groups.

 

[DC]

And yet, as I've said several times already, the "populations" of the world that (for example) Sforza listed via genetic markers are in more than a basic agreement with Coon's racial groupings. So, either it has a very real scientific basis or it's purely a wild coincidence that it matches up like so. Which is it?

from what i read from Sforza, he does not agree with your interpretation of his work.

 

[bpesta22]

Thanks DC for the link; it was interesting.

They seem to be insisting on the same "all or none" criterion that people use here.

I get that the haplogroups are markers for ancestry, and not genes that cause things (though gene differences across markers-- if there are significant ones-- could define race, no?).

Ancestry varies reliably across people as a function of migration and drift? If so, the variance can be categorized. What label should we use for the category that includes this variance?

Then they get into the "arbitrary" argument by asking "which difference makes a difference". If you're trying to define race, I'd say it's mean (versus all or none) differences that exist across "ancestral groupings". One could then test whether the differences have scientific utility by seeing what they do / do not explain when predicting other things.

This is where I'd again get into my argument about using statistics to a-theoretically define the traits that offer a fuzzy yet scientific definition of race. Decision making would be statistical, not arbitrary.

But, I don't want to rehash this, and I accept that most here don't buy it. Both sides here have made the same arguments for pages. Neither is happy with the others logic. A what point in these longer threads do we move on?

 

[DC]

Thanks DC for the link; it was interesting.

They seem to be insisting on the same "all or none" criterion that people use here.

I get that the haplogroups are markers for ancestry, and not genes that cause things (though gene differences across markers-- if there are significant ones-- could define race, no?).

Ancestry varies reliably across people as a function of migration and drift? If so, the variance can be categorized. What label should we use for the category that includes this variance?

Then they get into the "arbitrary" argument by asking "which difference makes a difference". If you're trying to define race, I'd say it's mean (versus all or none) differences that exist across "ancestral groupings". One could then test whether the differences have scientific utility by seeing what they do / do not explain when predicting other things.

This is where I'd again get into my argument about using statistics to a-theoretically define the traits that offer a fuzzy yet scientific definition of race. Decision making would be statistical, not arbitrary.

But, I don't want to rehash this, and I accept that most here don't buy it. Both sides here have made the same arguments for pages. Neither is happy with the others logic. A what point in these longer threads do we move on?

at the point where you agree with me

no, its a difficult debate, with many different opinions how race is defined etc etc.

i think Haplogroups and their frequencies in poulation comes pretty close to what some people would consider race. but for me it is not the same even when there are factors where they agree with eachother.

and i am still of the opinion that while there are visible differences between populations, they do not constitute race as it is used with other animals, because we have not been isolated long enough. especially when you consider how few generations (slow reproduction and large populations) that are, compared to other species that have subspecies. And especially today with global mobility the chance of being isolated long enough is likely zero.

and in science it has become clear that there are usefull groupings, haplogroups for example, that are properly defined and have a scientific basis.

 

[Jono]

But science is empirical. Just explaining that groupings of pens and pencils makes more sense to a person doesn't justify choosing that grouping over color groupings. Just showing racial traits have a geographic selection pressure, doesn't raise its empirical value over blood type population groupings that result from some other selection pressure.

To determine a biological taxonomy of human subspecies (or sub-subspecies), one needs more isolation for a longer period of time. Without that, all you have are family lines. Few would claim a blonde is a separate subspecies from a brunette. Adding another trait doesn't change that. A blonde with blue eyes is still not a separate subspecies from a brunette with brown eyes. You can define them as separate races, but that is a socially defined division, not a taxonomic division.

I get the gist though my point was, in favour of 'race' being just as biologically real predictor as any contemporarily more favoured ones; groupings used by classical racial anthropology (predominantely a biogeographical one combined with morphology, cranial size, skeleton variants) is in a very similar agreement with todays groupings of 'populations' delivered by the human genome project through the markers. In a sense it is a strong affirmation of race as a biological reality, certainly equally if not moreso than 'populations'. If it had been wholly subjective/arbitrary then it would not be as reliable and comforming with more recent attempts to group human hereditary biogeographical population genetic-groups. A mouthful indeed, but for some reason many tend to prefer those over "race", it makes no essential difference to me which term is applied, they all point more or less to the same darn groupings and ancestral trees within human beings that continue to be king; and it's of chiefly biological governance, not social.

 

[Jono]

from what i read from Sforza, he does not agree with your interpretation of his work.

I know. He insists his work has nothing to do with races (I doubt he would have gotten any grants saying otherwise though) which is the irony as it matches up so well with classical groupings (i.e racial) thereof. So, again, is that a pure coincidence?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I get the gist though my point was, in favour of 'race' being just as biologically real predictor as any contemporarily more favoured ones; groupings used by classical racial anthropology (predominantely a biogeographical one combined with morphology, cranial size, skeleton variants) is in a very similar agreement with todays groupings of 'populations' delivered by the human genome project through the markers. In a sense it is a strong affirmation of race as a biological reality, certainly equally if not moreso than 'populations'. If it had been wholly subjective/arbitrary then it would not be as reliable and comforming with more recent attempts to group human hereditary biogeographical population genetic-groups. A mouthful indeed, but for some reason many tend to prefer those over "race", it makes no essential difference to me which term is applied, they all point more or less to the same darn groupings and ancestral trees within human beings that continue to be king; and it's of chiefly biological governance, not social.

The thread question at hand is whether race is a social construct or not.

There is a common fallacy in taking what seems obvious as fact without critical analysis.

Initially, before genome research, racial categories made sense biologically. But like some other revelations, genetic research has changed more than a few scientific concepts.

Think of the telescope. There was a certain paradigm about the cosmos before the telescope was used to collect data. There was a different paradigm before the evidence for plate tectonics emerged.

What we thought about evolution was right, but the advances in genetic research required us to change the paradigm a bit. Racial characteristics are the result of geographical selection pressures. Genetic science has revealed a lot more detail and it turns out geography is not the only selection pressure affecting the human genome.

Using geographical selection pressures is just fine, but one must recognize the significance of doing so. It is of little taxonomic value. It may have significant social implications, but one cannot fit a social taxonomy into a scientific biological taxonomy unless one ignores the criteria we use for other species.

 

[DC]

I know. He insists his work has nothing to do with races (I doubt he would have gotten any grants saying otherwise though) which is the irony as it matches up so well with classical groupings (i.e racial) thereof. So, again, is that a pure coincidence?

well i am not convinced that they match so well i have seen nothing really convincing in this regard..

 

[Jono]

The thread question at hand is whether race is a social construct or not.

There is a common fallacy in taking what seems obvious as fact without critical analysis.

Initially, before genome research, racial categories made sense biologically. But like some other revelations, genetic research has changed more than a few scientific concepts.
...

Using geographical selection pressures is just fine, but one must recognize the significance of doing so. It is of little taxonomic value. It may have significant social implications, but one cannot fit a social taxonomy into a scientific biological taxonomy unless one ignores the criteria we use for other species.

Hmm, I've been noting on just how, for example, the genome project of mapping human ancestries, make the older categories more sensible considering how they more or less match up. Add to that, the vindication of cranial differences and presence of skeleton variances, bone-marrow, cortical neurons, race'esque specific medicine et al, contributing to the same groupings which were classically done with much less yet we still see them coming through as seen in this article: "RACIAL GROUPINGS MATCH GENETIC PROFILES, STANFORD STUDY FINDS"
Excerpt:

What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That's an error rate of 0.14 percent.
...
"This shows that people's self-identified race/ethnicity is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background," Risch said. [this would've been impossible had not race been to a large degree a viable biological reality]

...
But recently some researchers have moved to examining genetic differences between participants rather than relying on race and ethnicity. Their reasoning is that genetic differences may be a more precise tool for tracking groups of patients. Risch points out that this genetic analysis is costly. If people fall into the same groups using self-identified race as using genetics, then that could bring down the expanding cost of medical research.

The old chestnut "race is only skin-deep" is therefor bogus It's not just re-emerging by genetic-ancestry but also by its powerful predictive relevance in comparison to hellbend attempts to remove it for the sake of... well something even less practical. And that is my point, these 'racial' patterns would not emerge so empirically, all over, if it was simply and only a meaningless, social construct.

As an additional note, one of the more frequent arguments against "race" is that there exists overlaps. But... there's always an overlap inbetween categories of conventions, which defines the entire taxonomy and clades of our fauna. If we take lice, the borders and differences between the breeds or types (in this sense all terminology are conventions) show notable overlaps. Still, we have not much of a problem with the categorisation/taxonomy, because we acknowledge evolutionary variation within as well as without, regardless of contemporary absolutes. Of course, the question is more semantic than anything else; 'what and how to properly term it'. As a curiosa, another argument I've encountered in the past (not accusing anyone here of having stated it) is that biological categories like so cannot really be based on one or two differences in physiology. Scientifically though, we can and whatsmore it has traditionally been common practise. This reminds me a bit of what Kotatsu (a poster here, molecular biologist I believe) wrote some time ago: he said that if we look at, for example, the Anatoecus dentatus and Anatoecus icterodes (lice), and their synonyms on different hosts, they are differentiated only on one physical difference. Beyond that, he said, we have discovered more differences but even a singular difference in physiologically notable enough characteristics continues to remain reliable as of today. Plain physiological variance is quite necessary when mapping and ordering multitudes of types of invertebrates that - show a large extent of convergence - a low degree of divergence.
Furthermore, there are two big frames of classification (International Codes and the Phylogenic Codes). The former (which is more Linneus as it is) would classify the races in general as variant subspecies while the latter doesn't "care" as much for less hierarchy or ranking and would simply leave "racial groupings" as temp-name for clades. Sweden make a combination and usage of both frames, where I believe the US and UK does not.

 

[Jono]

I have to agree with Sforza on these particular bits from an interview with him:

I entirely agree that the average quality of anthropological research, especially of the cultural type, is kept extremely low by lack of statistical knowledge and of hypothetical deductive methodology. At the moment there is no indication that the majority of cultural anthropologists accept science - the most vocal of them still choose to deny that anthropology is science. They are certainly correct for what regards most of their work.

"Question #3 hinted at the powerful social impact your work has had in reshaping how we view the natural history of our species. One of the most contentious issues of the 20th, and no doubt of the unfolding 21st century, is that of race. In 1972 Richard Lewontin offered his famous observation that 85% of the variation across human populations was within populations and 15% was between them. Regardless of whether this level of substructure is of note of not, your own work on migrations, admixtures and waves of advance depicts patterns of demographic and genetic interconnectedness, and so refutes typological conceptions of race. Nevertheless, recently A.W.F. Edwards, a fellow student of R.A. Fisher, has argued that Richard Lewontin's argument neglects the importance of differences of correlation structure across the genome between populations and focuses on variance only across a single locus. Edwards' argument about the informativeness of correlation structure, and therefore the statistical salience of between-population differences, was echoed by Richard Dawkins in his most recent book. Considering the social import of the question of interpopulational differences as well as the esoteric nature of the mathematical arguments, what do you believe the "take home" message of this should be for the general public?"

Edwards and Lewontin are both right. Lewontin said that the between populations fraction of variance is very small in humans, and this is true, as it should be on the basis of present knowledge from archeology and genetics alike, that the human species is very young. It has in fact been shown later that it is one of the smallest among mammals. Lewontin probably hoped, for political reasons, that it is TRIVIALLY small, and he has never shown to my knowledge any interest for evolutionary trees, at least of humans, so he did not care about their reconstruction. In essence, Edwards has objected that it is NOT trivially small, because it is enough for reconstructing the tree of human evolution, as we did, and he is obviously right.

 

[Delvo]

The point is someone has taken racial features and found a cluster of genetic markers that consistently predict the person will have those features.

No, they searched for ANY natural genetic grouping the genome might yield, and found that the ONLY groups that exist in the genome happen to match physical racial observations without being based on them. Repeating your claim that they were merely looking for something to match the physical observations will not make it less of a lie. Nor will it make a couple of the background requirements built in to it (that such a thing is even mathematically possible with correlation studies, and that genetic causes for physical traits can reliably be found at this point) even possible at all. What you're accusing a bunch of scientists of doing not only isn't what's been done, but can't even be done, at all, even if anybody wanted to try.

But I can show you one can do the same thing for ANY cluster of features, no matter how common or rare said clusters actually are, and find the same evidence!

No, you can not. If all you do is randomly/arbitrarily come up with traits and make a list, then all you've got is a list, not an internally mutually correlated "cluster".

So what else makes your (or Wade's) racial identifiers different from the same thing given any cluster of traits?

Correlation. Also geographic reproductive isolation or near-isolation.

What isn't genetic is a clearly delineated subset of people that constitute a biologic grouping consistent with how biologists group species and subspecies.

You keep claiming this, but have yet to show any actual difference between this and how "biologists" deal with any other species. Where are these mysterious cryptic standards that you keep vaguely alluding to biologists using which nobody else ever finds an example of a biologist using?

You can pick any grouping of traits you want, label the group whatever you want (a race, an ethnic group, whatever) and find the cluster of genetic markers which will predict if an individual will be in the group or not.

No, that not only bears no resemblance to anything that actually has happened, but also is not even a possibility, either within mathematics or within current genetics. A correlational "cluster" can not be invented where it doesn't exist but can only be found if it does, and geneticists have only found direct links between genes and their physical results in some scattered cases, not reliably for every/any/all trait(s) they try to; they're still struggling to find such elusive links between a trait and its gene in many cases.

Your depiction of how statistical studies are done and how genetics is done is cartoonishly unreal, the kind of utter nonsense we complain about around here in Star Trek scripts where they use genetic gibberish to turn crew members into children and back or have them undergo metamorphosis toward ancestral forms from eons ago.

it reminds me somewhat of the pattern searching done by bible code fanatics and numerologists etc.

In that the results are something you don't like, no doubt, but they're nowhere near even faintly similar procedures. The equivalent of a correlation study in books would be searching for cases in which words keep appearing together with the same other words instead of separately. If there are any combinations of words that actually do routinely appear together instead of separately, then you'll find whatever words actually do that; for any words that don't tend to appear together with some other word, you'll find that they don't. That's all.

no one is saying racial characteristics are not biologically based.

Except for when that's exactly what y'all do, over and over again.

In the proper spirit of scientific/skeptical honesty, abandoning a position that's been shown beyond any doubt to be false is a good thing... but only when it involves both actually abandoning it (not running back to it over and over again when you think nobody's looking) and admitting that you held it before but are now abandoning it (not pretending you never held it in the first place). That's what makes the difference between following-the-evidence integrity and mere goalpost shifting.

people have such a hard time shifting paradigms.

You keep saying there's a paradigm shift happening on this subject, but have yet to show an example of any aspect of a paradigm shift actually happening.

Despite bpesta22's dismissal of the importance of blood types as a subgroup, the amount of genetic code responsible for blood type is significant

So three genes for A, B, and O, plus five for Rh +/- (C, c, D, E, and e), plus a couple dozen for Kell (K₁ through K₄) and other types that show up in cross-matching, is a "significant" amount, but hundreds is not. (And there's also no significance to the fact that those hundreds appear together in a few groups whereas no combination of the dozens does so.) Got it.

 

[DC]

In that the results are something you don't like, no doubt, but they're nowhere near even faintly similar procedures.

not at all, especially as i am not convinced by what you would call a result.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No, they searched for ANY natural genetic grouping the genome might yield, and found that the ONLY groups that exist in the genome happen to match physical racial observations without being based on them. Repeating your claim that they were merely looking for something to match the physical observations will not make it less of a lie. Nor will it make a couple of the background requirements built in to it (that such a thing is even mathematically possible with correlation studies, and that genetic causes for physical traits can reliably be found at this point) even possible at all. What you're accusing a bunch of scientists of doing not only isn't what's been done, but can't even be done, at all, even if anybody wanted to try.

The genetic clustering you refer to is related to the effects of latitude. There are genetic clustering effects of haplotype inheritance.

Correlation. Also geographic reproductive isolation or near-isolation.

The only group that was isolated a significantly long period of time was the Aussie aboriginals. And they are no longer isolated.

 

[Zelenius]

The genetic clustering you refer to is related to the effects of latitude. There are genetic clustering effects of haplotype inheritance.

I'm curious to know why you are using the word "latitude" in this instance. Would there be something wrong with simply using the word "geography", which includes latitude and so many other geographic factors?

Personally, to me, it would make more sense if you said "The genetic clustering you refer to is related to the effects of geography", unless I am missing something here.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm curious to know why you are using the word "latitude" in this instance. Would there be something wrong with simply using the word "geography", which includes latitude and so many other geographic factors?

Personally, to me, it would make more sense if you said "The genetic clustering you refer to is related to the effects of geography", unless I am missing something here.

While there are other features from familial lines like hair and body type, there is conclusive evidence that latitude, after thousands of years, naturally selects the amount of melanin in a population's skin. Not only that, but dark skin evolved more than once.

Over thousands of years, or maybe 10s of thousands of years human, skin lightened as a response to less Sun exposure. As humans then migrated back down the American continent, dark skin re-emerged as a result of more Sun exposure.

Melanoma is currently an epidemic problem for light skinned people who migrated to Australia in the last couple hundred years.

Australia, which has a dominantly Caucasian populous, is considered the skin cancer capital of the world, with more than one thousand four hundred fatalities each year.

The evolution of human skin coloration

As hominids migrated outside of the tropics, varying degrees of depigmentation evolved in order to permit UVB-induced synthesis of previtamin D(3). The lighter color of female skin may be required to permit synthesis of the relatively higher amounts of vitamin D(3)necessary during pregnancy and lactation. Skin coloration in humans is adaptive and labile. Skin pigmentation levels have changed more than once in human evolution. Because of this, skin coloration is of no value in determining phylogenetic relationships among modern human groups.

This PBS article has a map of skin color vs latitude and an interesting discussion.

Their findings, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, show a strong, somewhat predictable correlation between skin color and the strength of sunlight across the globe. But they also show a deeper, more surprising process at work: Skin color, they say, is largely a matter of vitamins....

...Jablonski and Chaplin predicted the skin colors of indigenous people across the globe based on how much ultraviolet light different areas receive. Graphic by Matt Zang, adapted from the data of N. Jablonski and G. Chaplin

Blonde hair evolved more than once

Golden locks of dark-skinned Melanesians have different genetic basis to those of Europeans.

About 5–10% of people from Melanesia, a group of islands northeast of Australia, have naturally blonde hair — the highest prevalence outside Europe. Yet people from the region have the darkest skin pigmentation outside Africa.

Now, a study of people from the Solomon Islands in Melanesia shows that they evolved the striking blonde trait independently of people in Europe. This refutes the possibility that blonde hair was introduced by colonial Europeans, says Carlos Bustamante, a geneticist at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California, and a senior co-author on the study, which is published today in Science1. "Blonde hair has clearly evolved twice," he says.

Skin color gradients are directly correlated with latitude. The gradient does not support consistent isolation of subpopulations.

 

[Juniversal]

I was a peer reviewer for at least one of his articles, and vice versa. He is definitely a race realist. Wonder what I am?

I asked him about the penis study, and it was a funny explanation that made sense to me. I'm not comfortable sharing it though.

I did apply for a Pioneer Fund grant, but he rejected me. I'd apply for one again, but I need a genetics expert and apparently I'd rather post here than try to get the next publication....!

What exactly is a race realist? Is that a stormfront buzz word for someone who believes races differ substantially in ability at the genetic level to rationalize or explain continued social inequality? Rushton truly believes Africans are functionally retarded because of IQ scores without acknowledging the state of the education system in Africa. What an idiot!

 

[Juniversal]

I'm curious to know why you are using the word "latitude" in this instance. Would there be something wrong with simply using the word "geography", which includes latitude and so many other geographic factors?

Personally, to me, it would make more sense if you said "The genetic clustering you refer to is related to the effects of geography", unless I am missing something here.

No, they searched for ANY natural genetic grouping the genome might yield, and found that the ONLY groups that exist in the genome happen to match physical racial observations without being based on them. Repeating your claim that they were merely looking for something to match the physical observations will not make it less of a lie. Nor will it make a couple of the background requirements built in to it (that such a thing is even mathematically possible with correlation studies, and that genetic causes for physical traits can reliably be found at this point) even possible at all. What you're accusing a bunch of scientists of doing not only isn't what's been done, but can't even be done, at all, even if anybody wanted to try.

I get the gist though my point was, in favour of 'race' being just as biologically real predictor as any contemporarily more favoured ones; groupings used by classical racial anthropology (predominantely a biogeographical one combined with morphology, cranial size, skeleton variants) is in a very similar agreement with todays groupings of 'populations' delivered by the human genome project through the markers. In a sense it is a strong affirmation of race as a biological reality, certainly equally if not moreso than 'populations'. If it had been wholly subjective/arbitrary then it would not be as reliable and comforming with more recent attempts to group human hereditary biogeographical population genetic-groups. A mouthful indeed, but for some reason many tend to prefer those over "race", it makes no essential difference to me which term is applied, they all point more or less to the same darn groupings and ancestral trees within human beings that continue to be king; and it's of chiefly biological governance, not social.

Let me pose a question. Let's say theoretically we can conclusively show that race exist. What's the significance beyond the medicinal consequences?

 

[Zelenius]

While there are other features from familial lines like hair and body type, there is conclusive evidence that latitude, after thousands of years, naturally selects the amount of melanin in a population's skin. Not only that, but dark skin evolved more than once.

Over thousands of years, or maybe 10s of thousands of years human, skin lightened as a response to less Sun exposure. As humans then migrated back down the American continent, dark skin re-emerged as a result of more Sun exposure.

Melanoma is currently an epidemic problem for light skinned people who migrated to Australia in the last couple hundred years.


The evolution of human skin coloration

This PBS article has a map of skin color vs latitude and an interesting discussion.

Blonde hair evolved more than once



Skin color gradients are directly correlated with latitude. The gradient does not support consistent isolation of subpopulations.

That isn't anything I didn't already know. This doesn't exactly answer my question, since race is about a lot more than just skin/hair color.

 

[Zelenius]

Let me pose a question. Let's say theoretically we can conclusively show that race exist. What's the significance beyond the medicinal consequences?

Speaking only for myself, no significance beyond medicinal consequences(which medical researchers and epidemiologists are already doing - see my earlier post about black Africans and beta-blockers).

In fact, if the idea behind the OP had been (A)"race is almost biologically meaningless except in some very limited circumstances involving medicine", I would have agreed. I take issue with the idea that (B)"Race does not exist at all, it's a construct, it's biologically meaningless" since I think it overstates it almost making it an untruth.

If you, and some of the other people on this thread agree with statement (A), then there is really nothing left to argue about(at least with me), as far as I am concerned and I can be done with this thread.