Does "race" exist?

Author: janesix

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Discuss.
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Race doesn't exist biologically. Science has shown that humans simply do not comepackaged into a few groups. That's because genes are inherited independently and traitsvary "non-concordantly." Skin color doesn't cluster with hair texture, blood type, lactoseintolerance or genetic markers for disease. In fact, there's not a single gene, trait orcharacteristic that separates all the members of one so-called race from all members ofanother.Moreover, racial categories are socially constructed, not scientifically based. Ancientcivilizations like the Greeks didn't sort people by physical appearance but by language andstatus. Even today, racial classification varies from one country to the next, and in the U.S.,our own categories have changed over time. Scientifically speaking, skin color literally isonly skin deep.Findings on health differences don't support biological notions of race. 

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@janesix
Superficial anatomical, physiological and cosmetic variations do not alter the fact that we are one species.

But if you read your dictionary carefully you will see that "Race" is not the same as species.

The term Human Race is simply a generalisation and something of a misnomer.

Race, is specifically defined by the nuances of anatomical, physiological, cosmetic and cultural variations, generally in relation to formative geographical locations.

Even though The Human Species may be very slowly homogenizing, racial type is still very obvious and will be for many generations to come.

So race is therefore an observable difference between individuals of the same species.  As such "Race" exists.



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@janesix
There seems to be a consensus among biologists that there is no biological bassis for race. I think this is too simplistic, however, a reflection of today's policital correctness rather than based on solid science. The biologists reasoning is that, first off, "race" really just means "geographic origin", which implies no biology. Their main objection, however, is that race is not a very good proxy for all the types of diversity found among humans. It is far too crude to be useful.

Yet there are obvious phenoype difference between, say, Asians and Africans. Any six-year-old can identify one or the other with very high accuracy. There are quite obviously biological and genetic reasons for the differences. To say such differences are not meaningful or useful is not true, either. In medicine, for instance, knowing a person's race can help a doctor reach a correct diagnosis, since some races are more prone to certain diseases. It can help with treatment, too, since race often determines how aggressive a particular disease tends to be.

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@Stronn
The scientific reason for dismissing race is very much based on science and not politics. It is not based off just "geographic origin". It is based off the difference in DNA between races vs within races. Aside from a few phenotype differences like skin color, the genetic code between races is nearly identical. There are more differences between olympic athelets (of all races) and the rest of us, then there are differences by race.

The reason even a child can tell races are different is because races are classified based on observable *superficial* differences, rather then objective overall differences. Much like how our categorizing of species changed drastically when we changed from simple external observation to genetic comparisons.

The genetic differences.between races are utterly insignificant, and that is why scientists dismiss race. The pc spin is just your own politicized opinion rather than anything objective. Looking up any serious article on this subject would have made this point clear.