Race (human categorization)

This article is about categorization of human populations. For "the human race", see Human. For the biological concept, see Race (biology).

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Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society.[1] The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of various kinds, including those characterized by close kinship relations.[2] By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits, and then later to national affiliations. Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society.[3][4][5] While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.[1][6][7] The concept of race is foundational to racism, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.

Social conceptions and groupings of races have varied over time, often involving folk taxonomies that define essential types of individuals based on perceived traits.[8] Modern scientists consider such biological essentialism obsolete,[9] and generally discourage racial explanations for collective differentiation in both physical and behavioral traits.[10][11][12][13][14]

Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable,[15][16][17][18][19][20] scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways.[21] While some researchers continue to use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behavior, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is inherently naive[10] or simplistic.[22] Still others argue that, among humans, race has no taxonomic significance because all living humans belong to the same subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.[23][24]

Since the second half of the 20th century, race has been associated with discredited theories of scientific racism, and has become increasingly seen as a largely pseudoscientific system of classification. Although still used in general contexts, race has often been replaced by less ambiguous and/or loaded terms: populations, people(s), ethnic groups, or communities, depending on context.[25][26] Its use in genetics was formally renounced by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2023.[27]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Barnshaw was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Roediger, David R. "Historical Foundations of Race". National Museum of African American History and Culture.
  3. ^ Using Population Descriptors in Genetics and Genomics Research: A New Framework for an Evolving Field (Consensus Study Report). National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. doi:10.17226/26902. ISBN 978-0-309-70065-8. PMID 36989389. In humans, race is a socially constructed designation, a misleading and harmful surrogate for population genetic differences, and has a long history of being incorrectly identified as the major genetic reason for phenotypic differences between groups.
  4. ^ Amutah, C.; Greenidge, K.; Mante, A.; Munyikwa, M.; Surya, S. L.; Higginbotham, E.; Jones, D. S.; Lavizzo-Mourey, R.; Roberts, D.; Tsai, J.; Aysola, J. (March 2021). Malina, D. (ed.). "Misrepresenting Race — The Role of Medical Schools in Propagating Physician Bias". The New England Journal of Medicine. 384 (9). Massachusetts Medical Society: 872–878. doi:10.1056/NEJMms2025768. ISSN 1533-4406. PMID 33406326. S2CID 230820421.
  5. ^ Gannon, Megan (5 February 2016). "Race Is a Social Construct, Scientists Argue". Scientific American. ISSN 0036-8733. Archived from the original on 14 February 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Britannica was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Yudell, M.; Roberts, D.; DeSalle, R.; Tishkoff, S. (5 February 2016). "Taking race out of human genetics". Science. 351 (6273). American Association for the Advancement of Science: 564–565. Bibcode:2016Sci...351..564Y. doi:10.1126/science.aac4951. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 26912690. S2CID 206639306.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference montagu was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Sober (2000), pp. 148–151.
  10. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Lee, Mountain; et al. 2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference aaa was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Keita2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Harrison, Guy (2010). Race and Reality. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. Race is a poor empirical description of the patterns of difference that we encounter within our species. The billions of humans alive today simply do not fit into neat and tidy biological boxes called races. Science has proven this conclusively. The concept of race ... is not scientific and goes against what is known about our ever-changing and complex biological diversity.
  14. ^ Roberts, Dorothy (2011). Fatal Invention. London / New York: The New Press. The genetic differences that exist among populations are characterized by gradual changes across geographic regions, not sharp, categorical distinctions. Groups of people across the globe have varying frequencies of polymorphic genes, which are genes with any of several differing nucleotide sequences. There is no such thing as a set of genes that belongs exclusively to one group and not to another. The clinal, gradually changing nature of geographic genetic difference is complicated further by the migration and mixing that human groups have engaged in since prehistory. Human beings do not fit the zoological definition of race. A mountain of evidence assembled by historians, anthropologists, and biologists proves that race is not and cannot be a natural division of human beings.
  15. ^ Fuentes, Agustín (9 April 2012). "Race Is Real, but not in the way Many People Think". Psychology Today.
  16. ^ The Royal Institution - panel discussion - What Science Tells us about Race and Racism. 16 March 2016. Archived from the original on 11 December 2021.
  17. ^ Jorde, Lynn B.; Wooding, Stephen P. (2004). "Genetic variation, classification, and 'race'". Nature. 36 (11 Suppl). Nature Research: S28–S33. doi:10.1038/ng1435. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 15508000. S2CID 15251775. Ancestry, then, is a more subtle and complex description of an individual's genetic makeup than is race. This is in part a consequence of the continual mixing and migration of human populations throughout history. Because of this complex and interwoven history, many loci must be examined to derive even an approximate portrayal of individual ancestry.
  18. ^ White, Michael (30 May 2014). "Why Your Race Isn't Genetic". Pacific Standard. Retrieved 13 December 2014. [O]ngoing contacts, plus the fact that we were a small, genetically homogeneous species to begin with, has resulted in relatively close genetic relationships, despite our worldwide presence. The DNA differences between humans increase with geographical distance, but boundaries between populations are, as geneticists Kenneth Weiss and Jeffrey Long put it, "multilayered, porous, ephemeral, and difficult to identify". Pure, geographically separated ancestral populations are an abstraction: "There is no reason to think that there ever were isolated, homogeneous parental populations at any time in our human past."
  19. ^ Bryc, Katarzyna; Durand, Eric Y.; Macpherson, Michael; Reich, David; Mountain, Joanna L. (8 January 2015). "The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States" (PDF). American Journal of Human Genetics. 96 (1). Cell Press on behalf of the American Society of Human Genetics: 37–53. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.11.010. ISSN 0002-9297. PMC 4289685. PMID 25529636. S2CID 3889161. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 May 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2022. The relationship between self-reported identity and genetic African ancestry, as well as the low numbers of self-reported African Americans with minor levels of African ancestry, provide insight into the complexity of genetic and social consequences of racial categorization, assortative mating, and the impact of notions of "race" on patterns of mating and self-identity in the US. Our results provide empirical support that, over recent centuries, many individuals with partial African and Native American ancestry have "passed" into the white community, with multiple lines of evidence establishing African and Native American ancestry in self-reported European Americans.
  20. ^ Zimmer, Carl (24 December 2014). "White? Black? A Murky Distinction Grows Still Murkier". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 December 2014. On average, the scientists found, people who identified as African-American had genes that were only 73.2 percent African. European genes accounted for 24 percent of their DNA, while 0.8 percent came from Native Americans. Latinos, on the other hand, had genes that were on average 65.1 percent European, 18 percent Native American, and 6.2 percent African. The researchers found that European-Americans had genomes that were on average 98.6 percent European, 0.19 percent African, and 0.18 percent Native American. These broad estimates masked wide variation among individuals.
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference nih10 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference Graves 2001 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Cite error: The named reference Keita2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference AAPA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ "Race2". Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 5 October 2012. 1. Each of the major division of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics [example elided]. 1.1. mass noun The fact or condition of belonging to a racial division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this. 1.2. A group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group [example elided]. Provides 8 definitions, from biological to literary; only the most pertinent have been quoted.
  26. ^ Cite error: The named reference Keita3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  27. ^ Cite error: The named reference :7 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).