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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]
Recent interest in race-based medicine, or race-targeted pharmacogenomics, has been fueled by the proliferation of human genetic data which followed the decoding of the human genome in the first decade of the twenty-first century. There is an active debate among biomedical researchers about the meaning and importance of race in their research.
He writes that genetic differences between different population groups are based on climate and geography, not race, and he calls for replacing incorrect biological explanations of racial disparities with an analysis of the social conditions that lead to disparate medical outcomes. [169]
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 ...
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.
The modern biological definition of race developed in the 19th century with scientific racist theories. The term scientific racism refers to the use of science to justify and support racist beliefs, which goes back to the early 18th century, though it gained most of its influence in the mid-19th century, during the New Imperialism period.
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.