Race Is Social Not Biological

Taken from various Anthropology textbooks:


HUMAN VARIATION
“Race” is always a social not a biological
concept
Conventional Classification of “Race” is
pseudoscience.


Hair texture, skin color and facial
characteristics are arbitrary and randomly
selected Skin tone is function of evolutionary
adaptation to climate Race as conventionally used is wrong!


Do Human Subgroups Exist?


The idea of race has historically meant more
than just physical traits. The concept of race is socially constructed, meaning that it is something defined by our society. The American Anthropological Association
(AAA) states that race does not exist as a scientific category. More genetic variation exists within races than between them. An individual’s behaviour and personality are largely conditioned by his or her
culture. The idea of race has been used in the past to justify social, economic, and political inequalities and excuse hatred, cruelty, and violence. Some examples include the Nazi persecution of Jewish people, apartheid in South Africa, and the Ku Klux Klan in
North America. Racial beliefs are considered by the AAA as myths and folk beliefs and have no biological legitimacy (AAA, 1998).


Can We Study Human Variation in a Legitimate Way?


Anthropologists look at human variety and try to understand a specific trait, such as skin colour or blood type, in terms of evolutionary advantage. Blood type is an example of a trait that is easy to measure objectively.
Anthropologists have found that certain blood types are connected to certain parts of the world, but blood type does not correspond to external characteristics. Anthropologists have concluded that race is a cultural myth,
not a biological reality (O’Neill, 2010). In natural selection, traits develop to
help individuals survive and reproduce in a particular environment, but many
traits are the result of a population’s isolation or migration. Many “racial” traits, such as eye colour, probably have no evolutionary advantage at all.