Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Researchers have investigated the relationship between race and genetics as part of efforts to understand how biology may or may not contribute to human racial categorization. Today, the consensus among scientists is that race is a social construct, and that using it as a proxy for genetic differences among populations is misleading. [1] [2]
For example, in 2008, John Hartigan Jr. argued for a view of race that focused primarily on culture, but which does not ignore the potential relevance of biology or genetics. [47] Accordingly, the racial paradigms employed in different disciplines vary in their emphasis on biological reduction as contrasted with societal construction.
In botany, where physiological race (mostly used in mycology [16]), biological race, and biological form have been used synonymously, [14] [18] [19] a physiological race is essentially the same classification as a forma specialis, [14] except the latter is used as part of the infraspecific scientific name (and follows Latin-based scientific ...
In it, Lewontin presented an analysis of genetic diversity amongst people from different conventionally-defined races. His main finding, that there is more genetic variation within these populations than between them, [2] is considered a landmark in the study of human genetic variation and contributed to the abandonment of race as a scientific ...
The word "race", interpreted to mean an identifiable group of people who share a common descent, was introduced into English in the 16th century from the Old French rasse (1512), from Italian razza: the Oxford English Dictionary cites the earliest example around the mid-16th century and defines its early meaning as a "group of people belonging to the same family and descended from a common ...
Race is often culturally understood to be rigid categories (Black, White, Pasifika, Asian, etc) in which people can be classified based on biological markers or physical traits such as skin colour or facial features. This rigid definition of race is no longer accepted by scientific communities.
Despite genetic and biological research attesting that there is no biological basis for race or genetic profile that is common to people with the same racial category, racial essentialism is a common lay theory that promotes rigid ideas about social hierarchies. [20]
This scientific debate was not, however, a purely academic one. It was a central icon of public fascination, often in the popular magazines of the time. Even today, scientists are still working on finding a genetic basis for racial categorization. None of these efforts has been successful in defining race in an empirical and objective way.