Misplaced Pages

• Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca (September 2007). "Human Evolution and Its Relevance for Genetic Epidemiology". Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics. 8. Annual Reviews: 1–15, . doi:10.1146/annurev.genom.8.080706.092403. ISBN 978-0-8243-3708-7. ISSN 1527-8204. PMID 17408354. Retrieved 23 November 2013. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

GENETIC VARIATION BETWEEN AND WITHIN POPULATIONS, AND THE RACE PROBLEM

In the early 1980s, Lewontin (11) showed that when genetic variation for protein markers is estimated by comparing two or more random individuals from the same populations, or two or more individuals from the whole world, the former is 85% as large as the latter. This means that the variation between populations is the residual 15%, and hence relatively trivial. Later research carried out on a limited number of populations and mostly, though not only, on protein markers has confirmed this analysis. The Rosenberg et al. data actually bring down Lewontin’s estimate to 5%, or even less. Therefore, the variation between populations is even smaller than the original 15%, and we also know that the exact value depends on the choice of populations and markers. But the between-population variation, even if it is very small is certainly enough to reconstruct the genetic history of populations—that is their evolution—but is it enough for distinguishing races in some useful way? The comparison with other mammals shows that humans are almost at the lower extreme of the scale of between-population variation. Even so, subtle statistical methods let us assign individuals to the populations of origin, even distinguishing populations from the same continent, if we use enough genetic markers. But is this enough for distinguishing races? Darwin already had an answer. He gave two reasons for doubting the usefulness of races: (1) most characters show a clear geographic continuity, and (2) taxonomists generated a great variety of race classifications. Darwin lists the numbers of races estimated by his contemporaries, which varied from 2 to 63 races.

Rosenberg et al. (16 and later work) analyzed the relative statistical power of the most efficient subdivisions of the data with a number of clusters varying from 2 to 6, and showed that five clusters have a reasonable statistical power. Note that this result is certainly influenced by the populations chosen for the analysis. The five clusters are not very different from those of a few partitions that had already existed in the literature for some time, and the clusters are: (a) a sub-Saharan African cluster, (b) North Africa–Europe plus a part of western Asia that is approximately bounded eastward by the central Asian desert and mountains, (c) the eastern rest of Asia, (d ) Oceania, and (e) the Americas. But what good is this partition? The Ramachandran et al. (15) analysis of the same data provides a very close prediction of the genetic differences between the same populations by the simplest geographic tool: the geographic distance between the two populations, and two populations from the same continent are on average geographically closer than two from different ones. However, the Rosenberg et al. analysis (16) adds the important conclusion that the standard classification into classical continents must be modified to replace continental boundaries with the real geographic barriers: major oceans, or deserts like the Sahara, or other deserts and major mountains like those of central Asia. These barriers have certainly decreased, but they have not entirely suppressed genetic exchanges across them. Thus, the Rosenberg et al. analysis confirms a pattern of variation based on pseudocontinents that does not eliminate the basic geographic continuity of genetic variation. In fact, the extension by Ramachandran et al. of the original Rosenberg et al. analysis showed that populations that are geographically close have an overwhelming genetic similarity, well beyond that suggested by continental or pseudocontinental partitions.

cont. "The number of groups to be distinguished depends on the differences among popula- tions that are really useful for some valid purpose, and we still have not decided on criteria to choose populations that we want to distinguish. Therefore, the real question remains: What do we want races for? Let us start by agreeing on what could be the most important reason for defining “races.” Incidentally, I am inclined to dismiss the word “race” because of its connection with the odious episodes of racism with which we are continuously con- fronted. The word “populations” is useful in statistics for defining the group from which we draw samples, but is in practice used arbitrarily, and perhaps the most neutral term could be that used by Rosenberg et al. (16): “clusters.” We want to define useful genetic clusters. But more than a term to be used, what I am looking for here is a general agreement on a good reason for doing research aiming to define a useful genetic stratification of populations, and it seems to me we can really find it in research that can be of help for medicine, that is for diagnosis and therapy.

The expression “ethnic groups” is also useful, but especially in situations in which it is not clear if the basic difference is of genetic or cultural (including socioeconomic) nature, or both." Captain JT Verity MBA (talk) 05:02, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

A year later Cavalli-Sforza joined seventeen other genetics researchers as co-authors of a review article, published as an "open letter" to other scholars, on using racial categories in human genetics.

"Sewall Wright’s fixation index F ST measured among samples of world populations is often 0.15 or less when computed as an average over many alleles or loci. To many, this result indicates that the genetic similarities among human populations far outweigh the differences. For example, a finding like this led Richard Lewontin to claim that human races have no genetic or taxonomic significance (Lewon - tin 1972). Despite the far- reaching proclamations that researchers make from F ST , few have questioned the validity of how it is applied or interpreted. Earlier in this decade, Rick Kittles and I took an unusually critical look at F ST (Long and Kittles 2003). We analyzed a unique data set composed of short tandem repeat (STR) allele frequencies for eight loci genotyped in both humans and chimpanzees (Deka et al. 1995). These data made it possible to see how F ST played out when no one could dispute taxonomic and genetic significance. The answer surprised us. F ST was pretty close to the canonical 0.15 shown so many times for human populations. In our analysis, F ST was 0.12 for humans, but for humans and chimpanzees together, F ST rose only to 0.18." Update to Long and Kittles’s “Human Genetic Diversity and the Nonexistence of Biological Races” (2003): Fixation on an Index Jeffrey C. Long"

So I fail to see how F ST impugns race unless you want to argue that the difference between humans and chimpanzees is a social construct. But sure, we can edit in that some people think Lewontin's fallacy is some kind of meaningful fact, as long as this fact follows it. In addition:

"The study of Ahn et al. (2009) suggests that the pairwise distances among three individuals, a Korean (“SJK”), Craig Venter and James Watson, measured by multilocus ASD, are roughly similar despite the distinct geographical origin of SJK in relation to Venter and Watson (see also their Fig. 2E). These results are surprising in light of our model for n, which predicts that for worldwide distant populations (FST > 0.13) the probability for such an occurrence is virtually zero given as little as 200 independent and informative SNPs (Appendix F, Fig. F.1). In fact, with roughly 3.5 million SNPs sequenced in each individual genome,the pairwise distances Venter–Watson and Venter–SJK (or Watson–SJK) must show substantial discrepancy, since the ratio of average pairwise distances RAD is above 1.3 already at FST = 0.10 (see Fig. 5A). The paradoxical result is most likely an artifact of the high error rate and low coverage in Watson’s SNP calling (Yngvadottir et al., 2009)."

It's pretty lame to rely on this early single case. It almost like it was cherry picked to conform to a POV. As Witherspoon showed:

"Thus the answer to the question “How often is a pair of individuals from one population genetically more dissimilar than two individuals chosen from two different populations?” depends on the number of polymorphisms used to define that dissimilarity and the populations being compared. The answer, equation M44 can be read from Figure 2. Given 10 loci, three distinct populations, and the full spectrum of polymorphisms (Figure 2E), the answer is equation M45 ≅ 0.3, or nearly one-third of the time. With 100 loci, the answer is ∼20% of the time and even using 1000 loci, equation M46 ≅ 10%. However, if genetic similarity is measured over many thousands of loci, the answer becomes “never” when individuals are sampled from geographically separated populations."

I'll add another source to discuss here since there is a dearth of biological race sources in this article. Neil Risch et al. 2005 is a good source and a strong pro-race source confirming the existence of biological race through random SNPs with near 100% accuracy.Wajajad (talk) 08:45, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Two sources for perceptions of race and genetics

Link 2 Link 2 The above two papers are good recent sources for perceptions of race and related science (eugenics, genetics, behavior genetics) among the public. Very few seem to hold to the race denial position. Wajajad (talk) 12:14, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing the links. It's not clear why a primary source about a survey conducted by a political science professor of the general public should influence how Wikipedians edit this article according to the established content guidelines here. The first sentence of the abstract of the 2013 paper notes "Most American social scientists and legal scholars now concur that the concept of race (like that of ethnicity), boundaries between groups, and purported racial characteristics are socially constructed, with minimal or no biological basis," and maybe we should think about that a little harder before proceeding to edit article text. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 13:49, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

"Abstract:

Most American social scientists and legal scholars now concur that the concept of race (like that of ethnicity), boundaries between groups, and purported racial characteristics are socially constructed, with minimal or no biological basis."

Emphasis added. Zhang500 21:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Further POV editing. From the article:

"There is a wide consensus that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed, and that racial groups cannot be biologically defined."

This statement is referenced to Marks, Templeton three times, and the executive board of the AAA (not the members) going on about Lewontin's fallacy and skin color in 1998. Various international surveys in fact show a majority of relevant scholars hold the opposite view. Please can we remove the lie that there is a "consensus"? Zhang500 07:26, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

The thread below, at #"Consensus" of social construction demonstrates that even opponents of the idea concede that, yes, it is a general consensus, even if it has its challengers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  21:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 27 July 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved per below. @My very best wishes: COMMONNAME is for the title, not the dab. However, this is an important enough article that if this move violates broader consensus we'll soon hear about it. — kwami (talk) 21:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

(non-admin closure)

Race (human classification) → Race (human categorization) – "Classification" implies a classifying system, but much of the article demonstrates that there's not anything systematic about it, and that quasi-systematic attempts at it have been mutually inconsistent. It is clear that it's categorization, which doesn't imply anything systematic. I think "classification" lends a false veneer of credibility to an idea that has been rejected by the sciences (physical anthropology, zoology, genetics, etc.) as a social construct, a cultural fiction. The present name is both a WP:NPOV and WP:NOR problem. Oh, and "human classification" is also confusable with "social class"; a disambiguator that introduces a new ambiguity is a failure.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  10:51, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support. This is a good suggestion. I saw that a new discussion of a requested move of this page had appeared in my watchlist, and I feared that the suggested move would be tendentious and not based on sources. But I actually like this suggestion very much after reading your rationale, SMcCandlish, and I support this requested move. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 13:35, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support - good eye. Red Slash 18:14, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support per nom. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:43, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Seems entirely reasonable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:03, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. (1) Yes, it is precisely the point that the page is about (pseudo)scientific classification of humans. This is reflected in current title. (2) No, the wording "classification" does not necessarily imply any scientific basis; people classify objects in everyday life. (3) Some concepts or ideas are highly controversial, and this is one of them, nothing special. The title should be constructed simply based on WP:Common name. If one can make a case that new title is better in this regard, then let's rename, but I do not see it at all. My very best wishes (talk) 20:23, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Consensus" of social construction

I'm being reverted for changing an unsupported statement that social constructionism is the consensus view of race. The sources referenced do not support that claim. The burden is on those who would support that claim to demonstrate it. Zhang500 05:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

A good new source on the topic is a popular book by a professor of genetics, Fairbanks, Daniel J. (7 April 2015). Everyone Is African: How Science Explodes the Myth of Race. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-63388-019-1. Retrieved 20 July 2015. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help) -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 12:56, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

The footnotes/bibliography in any first-year physical anthropology textbook should provide dozens of sources. Same goes for any work on human genetics, or on the sociology of "race". This term has lingered in the popular imagination, but a biological basis for what we socially construct as "races" has been rejected by biological and social sciences for a few generations now. The genetic truth is far, far more complex than this nonsense, since human population largely do not stay put, nor distinct, and haven't for at least tens of thousands of years. Classification of people by skin tone is absurd; East Africans who are all dark have more genetic diversity between neighbors than exists between the Irish and the Japanese. Peoples from the tropics tend to be darker as an evolutionary defense against the same increased solar radiation at those latitudes, not because they're all closely related.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  23:38, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

@WBB You've totally failed to support your position. I will therefore revert your edit. Zhang500 23:41, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

@Zhang500: WP:LMGTFY: Some additional material I found in seconds, without even checking journal sites that have paywalls:

• Machery, Edouard; Faucher, Luc. "Social Construction and the Concept of Race" (PDF). Retrieved 31 July 2015. A dominant view about races today is the so called 'social constructionist' view.... rom the 1970s on, it has been widely recognized that the biological concept of subspecies, that is, of populations of conspecifics that are genetically and morphologically different from each other, could not be applied to humans. ... Researchers agree that racialism has not been selected for: it is a byproduct of an evolved cognitive system, which was selected for another function. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

  This paper actually outlines some of what the critiques of social constructionism are, and illustrates why this "social constructionism is a lie!" nonsense is nonsense; social constructionism is simply not the be-all and end-all to the question, for everyone in every field. The the sub-thread below, I'll explain why this is of little present concern to Misplaced Pages.

• Secondary source: Wade, Nicholas (9 May 2014). "What Science Says About Race and Genetics". Time (Online ed.). "The Weekend Read" section. Retrieved 31 July 2015. A longstanding orthodoxy among social scientists holds that human races are a social construct and have no biological basis.

  This op-ed actually criticizes social constructionism; but it recognizes that it is a long-standing consensus, which is the question at issue here.

• Secondary source: Harris, Tom (13 May 2015). "Is Race a Social Construct or Scientific One?". WO Magazine. Retrieved 31 July 2015. It is of general consensus among various scientific groups that race is purely, entirely a social construct.

  Coincidentally, the piece rationally approaches medical critiques of social constructionism in precisely the way I do in the sub-thread below (using the same sickle cell disease example I picked!), demonstrating that this "social constructionism must be wrong because a few diseases are more prevalent among particular 'races'" idea is neither new, nor any kind of smoking gun. Frankly, the evolutionary psychology angle (also detailed below) is a more cogent critique, and it's just a partial one, a please to add evolutionary psychology approaches to the question.

• A science (not journalism) secondary source: Mukhopadhyay, Carol C.; Henze, Rosemary; Moses, Yolanda T. (11 December 2013). "The Fallacy of Race as Biology". How Real Is Race?: A Sourcebook on Race, Culture, and Biology (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. p. 5. ISBN 9780759122741. Retrieved 21 July 2015. Most scientists now reject the validity of biological races, yet the idea persists in the wider culture.

  There's an entire chapter devoted to this topic, over 70 pages. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  00:45, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Zhang500, demanding sources for content while at the same time making unsourced assertions in your own edits (i.e. the statement that "A minority of biologists hold the view that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed...") is inadvisable in relation to any article - and even more so when the article in question is subject to discretionary sanctions. I suggest that you take the time to actually look at the sources which have been provided (or indeed at any recent relevant textbook on the subject) before making further edits. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:00, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

"AndyTheGrump (talk | contribs)‎ . . (183,914 bytes) (-528)‎ . . (Undid revision 674005483 by Zhang500 (talk) rv undue promotion of fringe POV)"

What sources demonstrate that what is a majority POV is a "fringe" POV. You are lying. Zhang500 00:22, 1 August 2015 (UTC),

You are on very shaky ground here - I suggest that you redact that personal attack, before it gets reported. And then read the sources you have been given. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:26, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

A couple of magazines asserting this or that doesn't demonstrate a consensus in the relevant scientific field. Try again. Zhang500 00:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC),

Again: WP:LMGTFY: Hint: That's a Google Scholar search, not "magazines". But we're able to rely to an extent on secondary, journalist sources for something like this, anyway. Whether there's a consensus on something is a social question, not a laboratory data question. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  00:45, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Note:Zhang500 has been blocked as a sock puppet of banned User:Captain JT Verity MBA. No surprises there... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:44, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Rationally approaching dissent regarding the general consensus in science

Really, we have three views to cover:

1. The general consensus, which does in fact clearly exist
2. The view that this consensus is shaky, which needs due but not WP:UNDUE coverage
3. The anti-consensus WP:FRINGE viewpoint, that the social construct is a lie, and that "race" is biological; this needs minimal coverage.

Let's look at the middle of these. Clearly it is not true that there is no dissent at all about the consensus. The dissent is simply not the prevailing view, so while it can be covered, it has to be within the bounds of WP:UNDUE. And it has to be covered accurately. I present three randomly selected examples below, the first reputably published examples I came across. Note that in none of these cases is a claim being made that consensus runs the other direction, but rather that the consensus may not be as clear as some think it is. All of the quotes I'm using here are too long for our own article, and one is nested, but they hint at where we need to go in explaining what the dissenting view of the consensus is.

• Hartigan, John, Jr. (June 2008). "Is Race Still Socially Constructed? The Recent Controversy over Race and Medical Genetics" (PDF). Science as Culture. 17 (2): 163–193. Retrieved 31 July 2015. A controversy is growing over long-established claims that race is a social construct rather than a biologically based concept. The primary site where this contest is being waged—in the field of genetics—is notable in that, until quite recently, genetics provided a firm ground for critiquing racial thinking and racist beliefs about linkages between an individual's phenotype and their personal characteristics and abilities. But challenges to the apparent scientific consensus on the biological insignificance of race are also emerging from the practice of clinical medicine, and they have the potential to impact how epidemiological research and public health interventions are conducted. This controversy, as well, is enveloping the very notion of social construction, which has been fundamental both to work in science studies and to numerous political claims concerning a variety of naturalized identities.1 Savvy political commentators are taking new findings by geneti- cists and directly assailing both social constructionist perspectives and their alleged influence in shaping policies redressing racial inequalities. ... I raise the prospect that social constructionist assertions are not effectively formulated in relation to race. ... ssertions that race is socially constructed need to be drastically rearticulated.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

  So, Hartigan argues not against the idea, but against the present formulation of it, and is relying primarily upon a medical basis. We'll return to that in a moment.

• A secondary source simultaneously tells us that the consensus does exist and is already regarded as "the old orthodoxy" (as long ago as 2005!), while also hinting at where the confusion lies: Holt, Jim (11 December 2005). "Madness About a Method". The Way We Live Now. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved 21 July 2015. For the last three decades, the scientific consensus has been that 'race' is merely a social construct, since genetic variation among individuals of the same race is far greater than the variation between races. Recently, however, a fallacy in that reasoning – a rather subtle one – has been identified by the Cambridge University statistician A.W.F. Edwards. The concept of race may not be biologically meaningless after all; it might even have some practical use in deciding on medical treatments, at least until more complete individual genomic information becomes available. Yet in the interests of humane values, many scientists are reluctant to make even minor adjustments to the old orthodoxy. 'One of the more painful spectacles of modern science,' the developmental biologist Armand Marie Leroi has observed, 'is that of human geneticists piously disavowing the existence of races even as they investigate the genetic relationships between "ethnic groups."' 

  The thing is, "ethnic group" and "race" are not synonyms. The concept "black" in the racialism sense includes over 100 distinct ethnic groups, some of whom are more distantly related than Norwegians are to Indonesians, genetically. The fact that, e.g., the genetics that lead to malarial resistance among Africans are also linked with sickle-cell anemia doesn't actually prove any kind of special close relation between distinct ethnic groups in Africa that we already know are very widely divergent; all it does it tell us something about that particular gene (or group of genes; I'm not a geneticist, much less a specialist in that condition, and don't presume to lecture on its exact mechanisms, but am making a general point).

  Later note: This (as is clear by the citation to Leroi) is a decade-later followup to a previous NYT op-ed: Leroi, Armand Marie (14 March 2005). "A Family Tree in Every Gene". New York Times. Retrieved 31 July 2015.. Like most "social construct denialism" , it relies on medical research arguments that have an intrinsically unsound basis (see elsewhere on this page when I cite sources that go into this). But Leroi doesn't go as far some people think he does. He suggests race, in a modern reconceptualization, could be a beneficial "shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences." I.e., he explicitly realizes it is, and advocates it as, a social construct, just a different one from the old version! This Leroi piece itself was immediately shredded by others. Some took it apart in detail, e.g.: Wallace, Robert (2005). "A Racialized Medical Genomics: Shiny, Bright and Wrong". Race – The Power of an Illusion. PBS. Retrieved 31 July 2015. uch of Leroi's article unravels his own argument. .... recognizes these complications, but still asks us to ignore them in favor of, ironically enough, a social construct. ... Leroi and the new racialists are trying to get around population thinking by correlating aggregations across loci, as a set of emergent essentialisms. Funny, though, that within the very medical framework they are attempting to define, as they live by the sword of correlation, so must they die by that sword. When we correlate putative racial continua across diseases, the same groups are time and again imputed the most susceptible alleles. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)

  The especially interesting thing to me is that Leroi is himself an evolutionary developmental biologist, yet we know (see elsewhere in what I've written here over the last couple of hours) that current thinking in evolutionists' peer-reviewed papers, ten years after Leroi's op-ed, is that their approach isn't contradictory to social constructivism, but complementary to it, and that they need to be combined. PS: This response piece by Wallace also happens to outline three, not just two, approaches to the entire question, which is precisely the conclusion I've come to in skimming the low-hanging fruit in the available literature. I'll be very surprised if other sources, then, don't also confirm this.

  This pieces refutes Leroi's on more basic conceptual and reasoning grounds: Hammonds, Evelynn M. (7 June 2006). "Straw Men and Their Followers: The Return of Biological Race". Race and Genomics. Social Science Research Council. Retrieved 31 July 2015.. Hammonds makes the keen point that, as with Herrnstein & Murray's widely debunked but widely influential The Bell Curve, ideas like Leroi's are influential, despite their flaws, because they are felt to naturalize and rationalize pervasive social inequities.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  04:43, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

• Next, another secondary source questions the consensus, but does so in a way that doesn't seem particularly useful: Morning, Ann (24 June 2011). The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach About Human Difference. University of California Press. pp. 47–48. ISBN 9780520950146. Retrieved 31 July 2015. In the absence of empirical data that can offer a definitive statement regarding racial conceptualization among today's scientists, a wide range of scholarly opinions flourish. Some observers believe that scientists have overwhelmingly rejected a biological concept of race, while others are persuaded that scientists have largely retained such essentialist views.

  Morning essentially acknowledges that from one approach to studying science, a consensus emerges, while from another approach, one does not. She therefore doesn't think there's really a consensus. But her data is surveys of questions asked of scientists choosing to respond to the surveys. This really isn't comparable to a literature review of what the peer-reviewed, reputably published consensus is at all. WP basically doesn't really care what the aggregate personal approach is among scientists in their private thoughts that they choose to share in anonymized surveys; the encyclopedia cares what the actual science says according to scientific reliable sources.

Followup: Let's look again at a source mentioned in the parent thread:

• Machery, Edouard; Faucher, Luc. "Social Construction and the Concept of Race" (PDF). Retrieved 31 July 2015. The cognitive and evolutionary approach to racialism is a needed supplement to the social constructionist approach. ... Thus we are confronted with two explanatory approaches to racial categorization that are symmetrically incomplete. This point has been recognized by several evolutionary-minded researchers. Indeed, they have paid lip service to the project of integrating the constructionist approach and the cognitive/evolutionary approach in the domain of race (e.g., Hirschfeld 1996). However, in the domain of race, few have walked their talk. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

  This is very important for the Misplaced Pages analysis: It is absolutely not WP's job to try to wade in on current topics of scientific conflict, per WP:NOR; all we can do is accurately report what these conflicts are and what the conflicting sides have to say, within the bounds of encyclopedic coverage. It's highly dubious that elaborating in great detail this particular inter-field dispute, a presently moving target, is an encyclopedic enterprise.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  01:18, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

This is an issue that encyclopedia editors (that is, professional encyclopedia editors) have already been grappling with for years. I'll cite some encyclopedia articles here as I expand this edited reply. From a human geneticist: Barbujani, Guido (2015). "Race: Genetic Aspects". In Wright, James D. (ed.). International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second ed.). Elsevier. pp. 825–832, 825. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.82004-8. ISBN 978-0-08-097087-5. Retrieved 10 April 2015. Abstract: Genetic research has shown that all individuals and populations are different, but no agreement has ever been reached on the number and definition of human races, with proposed races numbering from none to 200. Human genetic differences are patterned in geographical space, but each population harbors a large proportion of the species' diversity and shares with other populations most of its genetic variants. Race remains an important component of our social and psychological world, but envisaging humans as subdivided in genetically differentiated races leads to poor evolutionary inference and to errors in clinical practice. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysource= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help) – via ScienceDirect (Subscription may be required or content may be available in libraries.) -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 03:20, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

The Leroi piece I just added a citation to above makes essentially the same point, despite being opposed to social constuctionism: "f a sample of people from around the world are sorted by computer into five groups on the basis of genetic similarity, the groups that emerge are native to Europe, East Asia, Africa, America and Australasia – more or less the major races of traditional anthropology. ... Yet there is nothing very fundamental about the concept of the major continental races; they're just the easiest way to divide things up. Study enough genes in enough people and one could sort the world's population into 10, 100, perhaps 1,000 groups". (As noted above, Leroi's often missed point is that he just disagrees with the extant social construct, and argues for a new one; so he's not a true anti-social-constructionist anyway.) This is one of the reasons the Wallace response to that article, also cited above, criticizes its conclusions because Leroi undermines his own argument; Wallace: "Even as population biologists use differences in averages to heuristically distinguish populations ... by race ..., individuals clearly vary in all traits and can be reaggregated from trait to trait." I.e., the aggregations are arbitrarily correlated, depending on what it is you're looking for. It's actually mathematically absurd to suppose that, by averaging data about every phenotypic criterion we can think to include, and coming up with 5 geographical correlative lumps after that number-crunching, that these are, as groups, somehow intrinsically separate (i.e. "races" in any meaningful sense).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  04:43, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Funny how various phenotypic and genetic methods all produce the same clusters and how your data detached imagination is just that. 211.45.220.24 (talk) 12:48, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

"Study enough genes in enough people and one could sort the world's population into 10, 100, perhaps 1,000 groups"

Yeah, that would be various levels in a hierarchical taxonomy. Strange how such childish fallacies work when people are falling over themselves to be "not racist". 211.45.220.24 (talk) 12:50, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't be. It would be meaningless trivia. There is no use of any kind for a "hierarchical taxonomy" of a single species down to 1,000 different groups. And biological taxonomy is not simply genetic groupings, though certain cladists would like it that way; they are missing the forest for their one specialist tree. A gene in isolation is relatively insignificant most of the time, and they're highly mobile between populations. It's the collections of genes in a group that result in consistently heritable traits that make up an identifiable population. And one trait (e.g. really dark skin) generally doesn't make one. It's an assemblage of genetically heritable phenotypic traits that make a population worth classifying taxonomically. The stupidity of the racialist hypothesis is the very fact that neighboring African peoples often have greater genetic diversity between them than do the Irish and the Japanese. It's literally impossible for the Africans to be a "race" in any meaningful sense of the word.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  15:13, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

On the "ethnicity and race are not synonyms" question, there's plenty of literature on this, too. Just one example, found near the top of the Google Scholar search in the parent thread, and which points out severe problems in the inaccurate uses of theses words in medical research in particular (i.e., the very field that is the main one purporting to be challenging social constructionism!):

• McKenzie, K. J.; Crowcroft, N. S. (20 July 1994). "Race, ethnicity, culture, and science: Researchers should understand and justify their use of ethnic groupings". British Medical Journal. 309 (6950): 286–287. PMC 2540908. Retrieved 31 July 2015. Race and ethnicity are commonly used variables in medical research. Each year about 2500 papers are indexed under the headings 'ethnic groups' or 'racial stocks' on Medline.... Patterns of disease ...are increasingly being explained in ethnic or racial terms.... However, substantial problems exist with this burgeoning literature. The categories of race or ethnic group are rarely defined, the use of terms is inconsistent, and people are often allocated to racial or ethnical group, arbitrarily. classes all disadvantaged groups as 'black populations', believing that the experience of racism is paramount.'

  The paper outlines many other problems with these usages, especially in medical research in particular. How can a field which is mix-and-matching, and intentionally incorrectly categorizing people as "black" for social reasons that have nothing to do with genetics, then be taken to claim, in the aggregate, to be challenging the notion of social contructionism? Medicine is clearly an integral aspect of the constructing to begin with.

Morning (2011) is more critical of social constructionism than what I quoted would suggest; I wasn't trying to encapsulate her views, just address her approach to the topic. She says elsewhere in the same material that "The empirical data that have been gathered on the topic , however, do seem to largely rule out ... a consensus that race is a purely social construct without biological underpinning". I've already addressed why her assessment of what scientists admit about their personal views is less (if at all) relevant to WP as what research they publish. One thing that's not been addressed is the straw man latent in such arguments, the "purely" caveat. To what extent science tells us (or there's a consensus that science tells us) that "race" is primarily a social construct has not even been approached yet in this discussion. The idea that no one can be counted in favor of social constructivism unless they agree that it is the 100% total answer to all relevant questions about race is a red herring, as well as obvious original research; the evolutionary psychology approach is concrete proof that such an assumption is WP:BOLLOCKS.

I could do this all day (the Google Scholar search alone digs up dozens of additional directly relevant sources, just in the first few pages of results, and that's without even checking more specialized journal search sources). But this is enough for the shepherds of this article to work with; I've even formatted the citations for you.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  02:30, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

PS: An additional bit: Leroi (2005) above suggests that "The dominance of the social construct theory can be traced to a 1972 article by Dr. Richard Lewontin, a Harvard geneticist" and a follow-up by the same writer "a few years later"; probably wouldn't be hard to dig up these exact sources if necessary. We know that idea is much older, pre-dating WW2, but this is a reliably-enough published statement, and one specifically about the dominance of the idea rather than its origin, that we can probably include it. This one even comes from someone opposed to the social construct theory; if the idea's opposition considers it "dominant" and can even trace where the dominance starts, I think we've conclusively answered the question of whether it's dominant.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  04:43, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

PPS: Here's another one: Gannett, Lisa (June 2004). "The Biological Reification of Race". British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 55 (2): 323–345. Retrieved 1 August 2015. A consensus view appears to prevail among academics from diverse disciplines taht biological races do not exist, at least in humans, and that race-concepts and race-objects are socially constructed. The consensus view has been challenged recently by Robin O. Andreasen's cladistic account of biological race. ... rom a scientific viewpoint there are methodological, empirical, and conceptual problems with Andreasen's position, and ... from a philosophical perspective, Andreasen's adherence to rigid dichotomies between science and society, facts and values, nature and culture, and the biological and the social needs to be relinquished. There's an entire section titled "Consensus view: biological races do not exist". Papers like this (and there are many, in multiple fields) are a clear indication that a) it is a generally accepted consensus; b) there are challenges to it, enough to attract repeat but often negative attention in journals (i.e., the contrarian view is notable enough we should cover it, within the bounds of WP:UNDUE.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  06:54, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Specific proposal on how to proceed

This article should document:

1. The consensus in favor of social constructionism, as at least the principal process behind the conceptualization of "race", both exists and is widely recognized, within science and in general-audience writing about science. (Note: The authors of a paper cited above have previously done a literature review on this topic that should probably be consulted in depth: Machery, Edouard; Faucher, Luc (24 December 2005). "Why Do We Think Racially? Culture, Evolution and Cognition". In last=Cohen, Henri; Lefebvre, Claire (eds.). Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 1009–1033. ISBN 978-0080446127. {{cite book}}: Missing pipe in: |editor1= (help). I don't have a copy of this, and it's a very expensive textbook, so should probably be obtained via interlibrary loan. The relevant pages are not included in the Google Books preview.
2. The field of medical research in particular has raises some challenges to this consensus. But it has in turn been challenged on its own conceptualization of the issue, because of inconsistent use and definitions of key but distinct concepts, and its own injection of social considerations into the midst of non-social science work. Evolutionary psychology posits that some of its findings and approaches need to be integrated with social constructionism for the approach to be more sound, but that this integration work has barely begun as of August 2015.

That should be entirely sufficient for this article's purposes, as of this point in time. I suggest further that:

3. The state of this material should be reviewed annually, at least, to see whether there's been any sea change, e.g. strides in integrating the dominant genetics and physical anthropology approach with nascent evolutionary psychology material, in a cross-discipline way.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  02:30, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

• I think the subject of this page is poorly defined. Is it about "race as a social concept" (first phrase) or is it about classification of humans into different ethnic groups and populations? Are we telling that different human ethnic groups and populations do not exist? In other words, after reading this page one might conclude that there are no genetic differences between different human populations or that human populations do not exist. Not so according to population genetics as far as I remember. My very best wishes (talk) 21:07, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

How does a concept being defined, constructed, and used socially and sociologically translate into "does not exist"?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  21:04, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Some editors have paid good money to trace their ancestors, female-all-the-way back, or male-all-the-way back, to discover that their ancestor orginated in Europe or Asia or Africa, having migrated there from Africa. National Geographic has such a site. They could hardly do this without recognizing differences in mitochondria or whatever for men. There are differences observable to science. Once assimilated, the ancestor-all-the-way back stays the same, however, regardless of assimilation. So it may be deficient in describing the person whose DNA was submitted.

But what about sickle cell deficiency, apparently evolved to resist malaria? These, and other differences, are scientifically observable.

Anyway, ancestry is already incorporated in a number of articles about colonized areas in the Caribbean and South America. Student7 (talk) 20:01, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree, entirely. There is an inherent problem with the assumption made by the lead of this article. As I've posted above, aswell: there's quite the difference between socially constructed race as above mentioned and the actual being of race as a population group. So, I disagree. Khoisan itself is a race, as race has not meant sub-species since the earth 20th century--and so is quite the strawman arguement. Race means macro-population group, a traceable migratory population with shared ancestry (DNA) & cultural inheritance, so linguistics, religion, cuisine, architecture what have you. Clines are related to races, and are representative of the bounds crossed by nomadic populations. Clines are not perfectly applicable to Humans, however, as southern Indians, Dravidians, C Y-DNA, origin of Roma, though rather Caucasoid/Caucasian, do not have white-skin gene, though are no further from the equator than much more pale populations. Though there exists a common misconception that somehow sub-species cannot intermate, incorrect, what races are can be understood to be a type, a varieta, variety, of the Human sub-specie, as macro-population groups of shared ancestry (copulation) & cultural inheritance (contact). So, I agree with My very best wishes. There is no room for soapboxing. There are two definitions of race, both with consensus as they're applied. This needs to be recognized more clearly in the lead. WP:NOT#SOAP WP:NOTADVOCATE WP:NOTOPINION WP:NOTBLOG WP:NOTCENSORED WP:NPOV W124l29 (talk) 22:26, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Four historical sources, 1966–1973

This paper was originally presented at the AAAS symposium "The Utility of the Construct of Race", Washington, D. C., December 30, 1966. Baker, Paul T. "The biological race concept as a research tool ". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 27 (1): 21–25. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330270104. Retrieved 10 August 2015.

Abstract: In present day research in human biology, the validity of the concept of biological race rests on its utility as a research tool. The methodology of this research into human biological variability is a multidimensional application of the comparative method, utilizing, as one dimension, genetic distance. The body of this paper suggests two generalizing principles for the establishment of genetic distance. Genetic distance may occur due to physical or temporal isolation or in conjunction with environmental differences. A brief analysis of the fifteenth century human populations examines the relationship between these principles and presently used racial taxonomic systems. It is concluded that race may be defined operationally as a rough measure of genetic distance in human populations and as such may function as an informational construct in the multidisciplinary area of research in human biology.

The first page of the slightly-over-4-page paper is previewable here, and given its age may be available elsewhere.

For some critical context on the scramble in US and UK genetics to backpedal away from race in wake of WWII and nazism, see this 1973 piece (full, short text): Provine, William B. (23 November 1973). "Geneticists and the Biology of Race Crossing: Geneticists changed their minds about the biological effects of race crossing". Science. 182 (4114 pages=790–796). doi:10.1126/science.182.4114.790. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing pipe in: |number= (help) An abstract is available here. The paper goes into some detail about changes in scientific views on this question between the 1930s and the 1970s.

Some other sources, from 1979 to 1999, are listed below the abstract as having cited this, and two of them seem like "likely suspects" to use for this article: "Science and Race" in American Behavioral Scientist (1996), and "The Controversy Between Biometricians and Mendlians: A Test Case for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge", in Social Science Information (1980).

While I'm pretty firmly in the social constructionist camp (modulo some evolutionary psychology approaches to why we seem to want so badly to racialize), we need sources like this to elucidate how the approach changed, when, and why. Even as late as 1973, there was resistance to such a change in thinking in the scientific mainstream, largely on the basis of "lack of new data", when what was going on was a fundamental shift in framing the relevant questions. Obviously we've come a long way since then in getting new data.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  21:02, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Orthodox views

Adding sources..."The consensus among Western researchers today is that human races are sociocultural constructs" - Even If tend to agree with supportive findings, it must be pointed out that social scientists will say something to make you smile and another day to make you cry. It worthwhile to note that the statement is a "orthodoxy" and that is mostly held by social scientists (TIME May 9, 2014/ http://time.com/91081/what-science-says-about-race-and-genetics/). There is no AMEN in science RudiLefkowitz (talk) 22:52, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Given all the above material on this, someone who wants to really work on this article in depth can used what's been provided in this and the above thread or two to build a section summarizing the nature of this consensus/orthodoxy. It is widespread, it's challenged from some quarters, and some of these challenges are weak, some may not be, and some are not really challenges but tangential and modifying. There's also the matter that just because something is an orthodoxy and resistance to changing the view is strong and hidebound and politicized, doesn't mean it's wrong. That the moon landings were not faked is a strong orthodoxy, for example.

Aside from that, we need to keep clear the anthropological views and the "social science" views (whatever that means), even if they somewhat converge. This lead shouldn't commingle them without discussion and a clear idea where we're going with that. There seem to be several ways to approach this (and I'm paraphrasing, not using exact wording):

1. There's a consensus in anthropology, and it's shared by several fields classified as social sciences, including sociology ... (My preference, FWIW. Sources needed for each field claimed.)
2. There's a consensus in several fields classified as social sciences, including anthropology, sociology ... (This is a re-scope, away from race as anthro topic, and to the consensus itself as a topic, a consensus that is allegedly shared . I think that would need an RfC. Main downside is that if the scope is broadened, it will open a floodgate of PoV pushing – "anything goes now". Also, not all anthro. disciplines are properly classified as social sciences. Sourced needed for each field claimed, and for the idea that they're in agreement - putting them together this way would be OR without secondary RS doing so.)
3. There's a consensus in anthropology, and it's shared across the social sciences (This is a very broad claim; extraordinary sourcing required, as there's high OR danger of conflating not-quite-comparable views.)
4. There's a consensus across the social sciences , including anthropology and sociology (The same kind of re-scope noted above, plus the same very broad claim. RfC; OR danger; plus lumping all of anth. into social.)
5. There's a consensus in anthropology, and it is shared by "social science" . (This would not need to be in the lead sentence or even the lead. It's too much like "Elizabeth II is the queen of the United Kingdom. Elizabeth I was, too.")

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  12:55, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

"Race" in non-human contexts (specifically, botany): request redoing 1 short paragraph

Under the heading "Biological classification" (currently 3.2), a paragraph now reads:

In biology the term "race" is used with caution because it can be ambiguous. Generally when it is used it is synonymous with subspecies. For mammals, the taxonomic unit below the species level is usually the subspecies.

I think this needs improvement. Here's an example citation from a work of scientific botany, discussing the Douglas-fir, a tree of major commercial importance:

Although the races described above were statistically significantly different, a degree of intergradation was evident. Thus, the northern inland race and coastal race intergrade in central British Columbia, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho as well as in the mountains of central and east central Oregon. The coastal race intergrades with the Sierra Nevada race in coastal and northern California.

I prefer to let others edit the present article, Race (human categorization). I recognize that the word "race", as it is used in botany, isn't the main topic of this article. I commend the article for citing published sources (I haven't checked them). But I doubt that the cited sources considered usage in botany, which is part of biology. Thus my conclusion is: The paragraph that I'm flagging needs redoing. Oaklandguy (talk) 22:45, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

@Oaklandguy: You've not identified any actual problem in the text, though this example might be useful over at Race (biology). The quote isn't inconsistent in any way with what the present article says. Probably all that really should be done is removing the second sentence, since it's misleading (the unit below species is subspecies in all of zoology, not just for mammals), and off-topic (this isn't the article about that stuff, and "race" is used in biology with the same "more or less a subspecies, that we're not going to bother to classify in more detail" meaning. It's most often used in botany in the subdiscipline of phytopathology to classify fungal varieties that evolve too fast to bother formally describing and naming them as subspecies. They're only of interest as pathogens in commercial agriculture, and it's not necessary for be more formal about them than "Race N1 responds really to this fungicide, race N2 doesn't, and here's how to tell which one you've got in your greenhouses."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  16:15, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I was able to do a minor rewrite that corrected and preserve that bit while adding the botanical summary without getting into details. It's covered at Race (biology) in detail, and the section now links there:

The term race in biology is used with caution because it can be ambiguous. Generally, when it is used it is effectively a synonym of subspecies. (For animals, the only taxonomic unit below the species level is usually the subspecies; there are narrower infraspecific ranks in botany, and race does not correspond directly with any of them.)

Does this resolve the issue to your satsifaction?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  23:09, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I think this is a fine revision. Oaklandguy (talk) 19:35, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

References

1. Bohm, Bruce (2010). The Geography of Phytochemical Races (Google Books ed.). p. 158. ISBN 978-9048180578. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

Race as social construct

The very first sentence - "Race, as a social construct, is a group of people who share similar and distinct physical characteristics" needs to be explained better. I had a real difficult time wrapping my head around the entire concept of race being a social construct since were that true than forensic anthropologists (trained to determine the race/gender from human skeletal remains) would be akin to fortune tellers or psychics, (which is not the case). I looked online for a better explanation that's easier to understand and found one that should be included somewhere in this article:

"Take two people from Rwanda. One is Hutu, the other is Tutsi. In Rwanda these are separate races in conflict, with genocide in the recent history. Take those same two people and put them in downtown Los Angeles. The Hutu/Tutsi divide is meaningless in the USA, to the residents of LA both people are one race: black. How can two people be different races in one culture, but the same race in another? Because their race is not an intrinsic property, but a construct of their society and context." - The above quote is found on this page : ], a rephrased from another source.

An excellent analogy to illustrate what is meant by social construct and race and clear up misconceptions that should be added to this article. Cheers! Meishern (talk) 19:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@Meishern: That sounds like a really good idea, though we should either use the original RS version if it's findable, and makes a good quote, or work from the original to paraphrase it in WP's own idiom. We can't use some Reddit post as a source. I wholeheartedly agree that a plain-English explanation like this would be a great help in this article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  15:26, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I finally found a source for the Hutu/Tutsi story. Analogy used by Dr. Troy Duster in a NYT article and the text from the article reads "As Duster sees it, race is a relationship, largely dependent on social context. Take a Tutsi and a Hutu and set them down in Los Angeles, he says, and they're both the same race, both black. But put them back in Rwanda, and they're two different races, different enough to slaughter each other." Cheers! Meishern (talk) 05:04, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

yea, dogs are social constructs like you say. so are fish (see below). So is virtually everything we classify. So it seems totally redundant to point this out and focus so much on this on the article for race.ArmyMenRTS (talk) 00:09, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

A Hutu and a Tutsi may look the same, but they are different peoples, not races. I don't know the current PC terminology, but it's set up as Aryan, Mongoloid, and Negroid. That's not something that would confuse you if they were plopped down in LA. If race is instantly discernible, and not because Group A wars with Group B (English and French must have been different races several hundred years ago), it's not a social construct. A preference for baguettes in and of itself doesn't distinguish you genetically from someone that hates them. What is arguably a social construct is looking at someone of mixed race, and slapping one on them, even if it's not a majority constituent. I.e., President Obama is considered to be black by most. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.162.33.175 (talk • contribs)

Except they consider themselves different races... The Germans considered Jews a race. The English considered the Irish a different race. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 23:02, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah. I'll outdent and put a new subtopic heading on this, since there's a lot to cover about why this "national race" stuff is part of the proof that race is a social construct.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  12:27, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Hutu & Tutsi actually are different macro-population groups/races. They correspond with Bantu & Khoisan peoples, and are not genetically related to eachother, nor do they have cultural or linguistic affinity. You are very much mistaken in assuming that they're ethnicities/nationalities. Race is not, in this understanding of race, a social construct. To assume that Bantu & Khoisan peoples are the same due to their skin-color is, however, a social construct. W124l29 (talk) 22:50, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

A crash course in why it's a social construct

The entire idea of "the Three Races" is genetically ignorant. The underlying truth is really haplogroups and their interrelation. They are not constrained by national boundaries, do not correspond to linguistic groups, and are not chained to things like skin tone or nose shape, which are the product of combinations of different traits in various haplogroups and their subsequent mixing, statistically clumped geographically and sometimes by social constraints (like caste breeding, and other forms of xenophobia). Humans are innately geared for pattern recognition, to such an extent that we'll exaggerate patterns that do exist, and mentally invent them when they're not actually there.

A good demonstration of this is that Indian, Pakistani, Persian, Semitic, and Arab people with albinism are regularly mistaken for Russians, Scandinavians, etc., by appearance. The "characteristic" features of these populations (e.g. a certain range of skin tones, nose shape, cheekbone shape, etc.), are not actually characteristic, but shared by other groups. Regional populations tend to aggregate particular ranges of these traits (determined by intermingling of certain haplogroups with certain others, but not with those (much) that are not native to or heavily introduced into the area; various of these traits are preserved in other populations, just not in exact same combination, and it's usually skin tone we key off of. And we do it poorly. Different haplogroups and the genes most commonly found in them can result in the same trait; various southern Asian groups, Australian Aborigines, Papuans, etc., are darker on average than many African groups. But the "African" nose is also commonly found (with more "Asian" features) in much of China, and among Central and South American indigenous peoples. A "beak" nose associated with Mediterraneans is also common in Japan, which is also home to the Ainu, a population of pale-skinned people. And so on. Anyone who believes there really are Caucusoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid "races" simply doesn't study ethnology, or travel much.

The term "race" (and its cognates in all the Germanic and Romance languages) originated as a synonym of "breed" (of domestic animal), and was used metaphorically as a national term ("the race of Germans", etc.). After Darwin and the rise of taxonomic nomenclature, it was borrowed by early biologists to mean a biologically definable group within a species, but this was later replaced with the term subspecies (and some even finer divisions like forma in botany). "Race" (or raza in Spanish, etc.) is still used in both the "breed" and metaphoric "people of a nation" sense in some languages, and rarely still in English. The idea, unfortunately, took hold in the public imagination in the Victorian era that humanity was divided into "races", i.e. subspecies, and early anthropologists (to their eternal shame) went along with this and promoted the idea, despite their being no scientific basis for it (much of the fin-de-siecle passion for anthropometry was a field-wide attempt to provide this evidence. It failed.) They certainly do not use this term today. With modern genetics, it's proved to be complete hogwash.

"Race" in biology today is only used to refer to sub-specific populations that are not subspecies but even narrower, and identified by a very specific, defining, innate characteristic. One example is an insect group with a unique mating chirp, both made and responded to, that causes them to only mate with others in the same population and not intergrade with other, otherwise identical, populations in the same area, which will over enough time cause them to speciate (or die out through lack of hybrid vigor and its genetic diversity). Another is a species of fungus that infects one cultivar of melons virulently, is barely and weakly seen on a few other varieties, and does not flourish at all on others (there are lots of these, and they mutate so quickly that no one bothers to try to formally classify them as subspecies or whatever; by the time the trinomem was official, the race might not even exist any longer). Another is an animal that feeds on only one particular subspecies on plant and cannot be distinguished from others of the same species in the same area, even chromosomally, other than by observing what they will eat. Another is plant or animal population found only in a very constrained environmental niche that they cannot move away from it. And so on. There's nothing at all like this among humans. There is no human population that does not sexually respond to other humans unless they have an exact voice tone and speak only at a certain time of day. There are no human populations innately incapable of thriving in another human group's environment or eating their foods, until they produce enough mutant offspring adapted to the change.

So, if humans aren't artificially and selectively bred livestock (inbred royal families notwithstanding); do not have traits that are innately and literally, not metaphorically or politically, defined by national boundaries; are not subspecies; and are not races by modern biological definition of that word, then there is nothing left that "race" applied to humans can possibly be but a social construct.

And it obviously is such a construct. Everyone with dark complexion and a broad nose is "black" to Americans, but actual Africans can tell their groups apart by features very easily (including the fact that some actually have thin, cartilaginous noses), while to them any African-American (or Afro-British, etc.) is a mixed-looking "coloured" (i.e. part-European) person. If you spend a lot of time (and pay attention) in a place with a lot of Asians of different backgrounds, like San Francisco, you can learn to tell Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and South-east Asians apart on sight with reasonable accuracy; but to someone from Idaho, Ireland, or Nairobi they'll all just look "Asian". Negritos, who are closer related to New Guinean and Maori peoples, were named that by European explorers because they were dark and broad-nosed, and the visitors just couldn't figure out they weren't misplaced Africans, though today few if any of us would fail to see the distinction and recognize them as Asian–Pacific by the features we're "trained" culturally to look for. The "there must be races because I can tell the difference between black and white and Asian" argument, a form of "I know it when I see it" fallacy, is in fact provably fallacious, because people have felt that way throughout history, yet if you just wait a few hundred years, the categorizations they come up with mismatch. It is therefore demonstrably non-objective. They're simply looking for and applying different culturally determined criteria with which to categorize. Less than a century ago, the peoples of Turkey and what are now

Your opinion is noted, though of course your arguement of "Indian, Pakistani, Persian, Semitic, and Arab people with albinism are regularly mistaken for Russians, Scandinavians, etc., by appearance..." itself ignores that those mentioned ethnic groups, Arabs being Semites, Persians & Indians being Indo-Europeans, are considered and have always been considered Caucasoid or Caucasian in both ancestry (DNA, copulation) & cultural inheritance (contact). There exists no evidence to suggest otherwise. Any social construct existing is of your opinion, which relies on Dr Stoddard's attempted racist segregation of "white" from "brown" from "yellow" from "red", albeit all such peoples have white-skin gene, where shared ancestry does not always correlate to shared skin-color as nomadic ethnic population groups have migrated away from their macro-population group centres and inter-mated with others nomadic & non-nomadic peoples, an example being Blackamoor Berbers, another example being indigenous/aboriginal North Americans as originally from nordic Europe, central Asia, & Siberia: Uralic & Indo-Iranian peoples, and another example being Indo-Chinese & Indonesians as a mix between nomadic Indo-Aryan Indo-European colonists, mainland Malayo-Polynesians, & ethnic Chinese.

As I've stated twice elsewhere: there is an inherent problem with the assumption made by the lead of this article. As I've posted above, aswell: there's quite the difference between socially constructed race as above mentioned and the actual being of race as a population group. So, I disagree. Khoisan itself is a race, as race has not meant sub-species since the earth 20th century--and so is quite the strawman arguement. Race means macro-population group, a traceable migratory population with shared ancestry (DNA) & cultural inheritance, so linguistics, religion, cuisine, architecture what have you. Clines are related to races, and are representative of the bounds crossed by nomadic populations. Clines are not perfectly applicable to Humans, however, as southern Indians, Dravidians, C Y-DNA, origin of Roma, though rather Caucasoid/Caucasian, do not have white-skin gene, though are no further from the equator than much more pale populations. Though there exists a common misconception that somehow sub-species cannot intermate, incorrect, what races are can be understood to be a type, a varieta, variety, of the Human sub-specie, as macro-population groups of shared ancestry (copulation) & cultural inheritance (contact). So, I agree with My very best wishes. There is no room for soapboxing. There are two definitions of race, both with consensus as they're applied. This needs to be recognized more clearly in the lead. WP:NOT#SOAP WP:NOTADVOCATE WP:NOTOPINION WP:NOTBLOG WP:NOTCENSORED WP:NPOV W124l29 (talk) 22:40, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

"The entire idea of "the Three Races" is genetically ignorant. The underlying truth is really haplogroups and their interrelation."

Stopped reading there. How ironic. Is SMCandlish trying to say some variation isn't racially correlated? Is some variation shared? Yes obviously. This is true of species also. You understand humans and chimps share most of their genetic variation? What's confusing you? Taxa are based on the different portion, however small. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 11:59, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

"A good demonstration of this is that Indian, Pakistani, Persian, Semitic, and Arab people with albinism are regularly mistaken for Russians, Scandinavians, etc., by appearance. The "characteristic" features of these populations (e.g. a certain range of skin tones, nose shape, cheekbone shape, etc.), are not actually characteristic, but shared by other groups. Regional populations tend to aggregate particular ranges of these traits (determined by intermingling of certain haplogroups with certain others, but not with those (much) that are not native to or heavily introduced into the area; various of these traits are preserved in other populations, just not in exact same combination, and it's usually skin tone we key off of. And we do it poorly."

You wrote this from your imagination right? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:44, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

"And it obviously is such a construct. Everyone with dark complexion and a broad nose is "black" to Americans, but actual Africans can tell their groups apart by features very easily (including the fact that some actually have thin, cartilaginous noses), while to them any African-American (or Afro-British, etc.) is a mixed-looking "coloured" (i.e. part-European) person. If you spend a lot of time (and pay attention) in a place with a lot of Asians of different backgrounds, like San Francisco, you can learn to tell Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and South-east Asians apart on sight with reasonable accuracy; but to someone from Idaho, Ireland, or Nairobi they'll all just look "Asian". Negritos, who are closer related to New Guinean and Maori peoples, were named that by European explorers because they were dark and broad-nosed, and the visitors just couldn't figure out they weren't misplaced Africans, though today few if any of us would fail to see the distinction and recognize them as Asian–Pacific by the features we're "trained" culturally to look for. The "there must be races because I can tell the difference between black and white and Asian" argument, a form of "I know it when I see it" fallacy, is in fact provably fallacious, because people have felt that way throughout history, yet if you just wait a few hundred years, the categorizations they come up with mismatch. It is therefore demonstrably non-objective. They're simply looking for and applying different culturally determined criteria with which to categorize. Less than a century ago, the peoples of Turkey and what are now"

So the concept of a hierarchical taxonomy confuses you? You realise that animals split into subgroups? Is all taxonomy a social construct? Also we should throw out taxonomy because some dude thinks dolphins are fish. That makes phylogeny a meaningless social construct. Thanks for the "crash course" bro. *facepalm* Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

List of races

Would this article benefit by having a list of human races? Margolis-Marmite (talk) 10:34, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the article makes it clear why such a list can't be made, or rather that it would only be one point of view. Doug Weller talk 17:46, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Yep. We should probably have an article on attempts at such lists however, as there have been many, some quite influential, their bases have been different, and the categorizations they produce are inconsistent. I think it would be too much material to add to this article as a section. It should not be a "list of races" in Misplaced Pages's voice, but an article on various approaches to trying to racially categorize.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  15:18, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Redundant to point out race is a social construct

Can you name something that isn't a social construct? Virtually everything is per this definition:

"social construct. noun. a social mechanism, phenomenon, or category created and developed by society; a perception of an individual, group, or idea that is 'constructed' through cultural or social practice." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social-construct

"To take it one step further, we may ask: What is an animal outside of culture? As sociologist Keith Tester wrote, “'A fish is only a fish if you classify it as one'” (1991:46)." (DeMello, 2012)

Shall we put social construct on fish too? ArmyMenRTS (talk) 23:55, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

The purpose is to distinguish it as a non-biological trait (which many readers think it is). EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 00:11, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

??? I don't get what you mean. No one denies race = biological. Race as a social categorization still captures biological information.ArmyMenRTS (talk) 01:18, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Perceptions of biological information. Doug Weller talk 08:33, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Gravity is not a social construct. Neither is septicemia. I can probably continue listing things that are not a social construct until the end of the decade, and then keep going. As the amount of argumentation on this page proves, many people labor under the confusion that race is not a social construct, that it's an immutable biological fact like cats not being able to produce offspring with rabbits, and the fact that our nervous systems run on internally generated electricity. So, yes, our article should continue to state it. Not only do the sources state it, they even get deep into why it's important to do so.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  12:37, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

It would make more sense to say that it is an arbitrary social construct, if that makes it clearer for you. Maybe we ought to change it to that. This is evidenced by the fact that anthropologists really could never agree on how many races there were. Classifications ranged from there being only one to over a hundred races. AlwaysUnite (talk) 15:58, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Scientists cannot agree on the number of languages. Does it make language an arbitrary social construct? Same goes for colours, another social construct. Are there three major colours, or are there 500, or are there different sub-types of colours that fall within major groups? Everyone comes up with their own classification scheme, so it should all be abolished. --Humanophage (talk) 13:02, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Race is not a social construct

This article features some extreme bias and information based on propaganda, mostly from sources which stretch the principles of reality to suit their own agenda. Race is not a social construct, and is very observable, especially when categorized among the three main skull types (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid). I suggest putting more research into this topic before making such a sweeping, unsubstantiated claim on a website which is supposed to remain objective in scope. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nate8080 (talk • contribs) 00:37, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Definition of Race as such

Article must not be biased towards one understanding of Race, for example, as social construct, but must at least start with definition of Race as such. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.239.156.142 (talk) 13:26, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 June 2016

Please change "Race, as a social construct, is a group of people who share similar and distinct physical characteristics." to 'Race, as a social construct, is a group of people who share similar and distinct physical characteristics, as well as shared cultural practices and affectations.' because the first citation discusses the cultural human diversity related to the social construction of race.

Omarisafari (talk) 20:16, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

You can do it your self, just be sure that you have the appropriate references. Einar aka — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carptrash (talk • contribs) 05:34, 30 June 2016

The requester is unable to, because they are not autoconfirmed yet. Note how the user has only 3 edits as of now. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 06:48, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Applied the edit. Existing refs among the 6 there look convincing to back it up. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 06:56, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Andy!! Omarisafari (talk) 17:05, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I reverted the edit because it is a misreading of the chapter. Robert Anemone wasn't referring to shared cultural practices and affections when describing race as a cultural/social construction. He was referring to the arbitrary nature of specific racial labels used to categorize different groups of people, which varies depending on the geographical region. Here's the relevant excerpt from that chapter:

"Clearly, race is real in America, but this kind of race is not biological. This version of race is what anthropologists refer to as a social or cultural construction, and here is where the real strength of race resides. Social constructions of race are the cultural belief and meanings associated with people of differing phenotypes such as skin color. Different societies have different ideas about the meaning of being black, for example. Even the same society attributes different meanings to races at different times and in different places. It is obvious that being black in Mississippi meant very different things in 1850 and 2010, with the result that the lived experiences of black people in Mississippi would have been very different then and now. Similarly, race can have different cultural meanings in different geographic zones of a single society or country even at the same point in time. When I lived in New Orleans during the early 1990s, I was surprised to note the existence of a range of racial categories with which I had no prior familiarity. Such categories as creole (a mixed race involving some combination of French, Spanish, African American, and native American ancestry), quadroon (one African American grandparent), and octoroon (One African American great-grandparent) were still in every day use there, suggesting that race was constructed very differently in southern Louisiana than it was in my native New York. So in this cultural sense, it is clear that race does indeed exist, as all anthropologists would agree. Here is the resolution of the paradox: race as biology fails completely, but as a social construction has a continuing and significant relevance in America." - p. 163. Chapter 9, Race as a cultural construction

I hope this clarifies why I reverted the good-faith edit. Best. danielkueh (talk) 02:16, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

"Here is the resolution of the paradox: race as biology fails completely, but as a social construction has a continuing and significant relevance in America."

Why's that? This guy is the final authority? Race is just ancestry or overall genetic/phenetic similarity. Do they not exist? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 07:24, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Awful article

The "anthropology" template includes race, but race "is" a "social construct"... The fact that race is not that much important as some racists think, does not make race a mere "social construct". --YOMAL SIDOROFF-BIARMSKII (talk) 06:25, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

First sentence? Sources?

Race, as a social construct, is a group of people who share similar and distinct physical characteristics.

There are 6 sources. Let's see them:

• Two of the six sources are from books written by Anemone, Robert L. Is he so famous? Why do his books (even two books!) have to be put as sources in the first, important (and therefore relevent) sentence in a Misplaced Pages's article?
• One source is Encyclopædia Britannica. There's no trace of the two words "social construct".
• One other source is from American Anthropologist. American Anthropological Association. That's ok, even if a bit obsolete (1998). Human genetics updated a lot since then (for example, Human Genome Project was in 2003).
• The Race Question of UNESCO! This is the biggest misunderstanding of the century. It seems like no one has ever read or understood properly this document, despite it has always been quoted by everybody. It never said that "races do not exist" or "races are social constructs." Let's read it carefully:

A race, from the biological standpoint, may therefore be defined as one of the group of populations constituting the species Homo sapiens. These populations are capable of inter-breeding with one another but, by virtue of the isolating barriers which in the past kept them more or less separated, exhibit certain physical differences as a result of their somewhat different biological histories. These represent variations, as it were, on a common theme. In short, the term “race” designates a group or population characterized by some concentrations, relative as to frequency and distribution, of hereditary particles (genes) or physical characters, which appear, fluctuate, and often disappear in the course of time by reason of geographic and or cultural isolation.

• Last source! Is this a joke? Nicholas Wade? The man who wrote a book where he explains that race is not a social construct, but it has biological and genetical basis? Let's see the article in the source:

In the decade since the decoding of the human genome, a growing wealth of data has made clear that these two positions, never at all likely to begin with, are simply incorrect. There is indeed a biological basis for race.

So, please. This sentence doesn't deserve the first position. The first sentence in an article is the most important, reliable, and above all, well-documented.

--Ptroski (talk) 09:35, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

It's truly pathetic. What the cultural Marxists want people to think is social = non-biological, but the opening sentence calls a biological construct (phenetic similarity) social. Ridiculous. But WP is run by cultural Marxists so good luck with that. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 09:10, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

By the way Darwin defined race by shared ancestry and Mayr by genomic similarity. I'm not sure why anyone cares what some US sociologist thinks. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 09:14, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

"* One other source is from American Anthropologist. American Anthropological Association. That's ok, even if a bit obsolete (1998). Human genetics updated a lot since then (for example, Human Genome Project was in 2003)."

Yes, it simply trots out Lewontin's fallacy, irrelevantly points out skin color is locally adapted, then starts waffling about US slavery. The statement was adopted by a stacked leftist executive board with no membership voting.

"It is a basic tenet of anthropological knowledge that all normal human beings have the capacity to learn any cultural behavior."

Oh really AAA executive board? We can all be quantum physicists I guess. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 11:11, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

If you wish to make a major edit to the lead sentence, then please provide a preponderance of mainstream secondary sources to support your claim WP:RS and seek consensus WP:consensus. Also, please focus on the issues. Otherwise, whatever change you make is unlikely to remain. Thanks. danielkueh (talk) 11:20, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Well the eminent biologist Ernst Mayr says race is a biological construct so to describe it as an entirely social construct is simply false. There are plenty of biologists who agree. Why present one view as fact? It's a lie. Why not write that it's both a biological (eg ancestry, genetic/phenetic similarity) and social (eg one drop rule) construct? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 11:28, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

First, please indent your responses. Second, please propose the exact change that you wish to make to the lead sentence and provide a list of mainstream secondary sources (complete references). Providing quotes from those sources would be helpful too. Thank you. danielkueh (talk) 11:40, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

How about putting that it's a biological or social construct. We could reference Mayr, Darwin, Dawkins, Coyne, Rushton, Dobzhansky, Sesardic, Edwards, Rushton, Leroi, Wade, Risch. That should be enough to establish a view contrary to US sociology right? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 15:25, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Two things. First, there is no such thing as a "biological construct." It either exists in reality, regardless of whether we can perceive it or it doesn't. The term "social construct" used here refers to the "labeling of different racial groups (e.g., Use of the label "black" in New York vs. creole, quadroon, and octoroon in Mississippi.). This is not some view of US sociology. It is a well-established fact that cuts across various disciplines such as anthropology and biology. No one disputes that differences in skin color exist or that there is a genetic basis for it, but that is a separate issue and is not the same as referring to different racial labels/categories as being social constructs. Thus, calling racial categories a social construct does not contradict the genetic basis for specific physical characteristics. Second, please specify the references and includes quotes from them. And they have to be from reputable secondary sources specifically dedicated to this topic. Thanks. danielkueh (talk) 18:37, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

"First, there is no such thing as a "biological construct.""

"John Molot, MD - 2014 Sex is a biological construct. Gender is a social construct that includes cultural norms, roles, and behaviours."

"but the consensus among most scientists is that race is a social, not biological, construct (Braun, 2002)."

"Jonathan Kahn - 2012 - ‎Medical.. have worked diligently since World War II to reconfigure race from a biological construct into a social construct."

"by MJ Williams - ‎2008 - ‎Cited by 185 - ‎Related articles of race as a biological construct, the more accepting they were of current racial disparities—perceiving these disparities ..."

If you don't like the term "biological construct" how about "biological concept". Not trying imply you're nitpicking. I must admit to being a little confused. If all constructs are social constructs, why mention it? I got the impression it meant "non biological". Is that right? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 19:05, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

"The term "social construct" used here refers to the "labeling of different racial groups (e.g., Use of the label "black" in New York vs. creole, quadroon, and octoroon in Mississippi.). This is not some view of US sociology. It is a well-established fact that cuts across various disciplines such as anthropology and biology."

It's a "well established fact" in biology that cutting divisions by ancestry is a "social construct"? I'm sorry but that's complete nonsense. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 19:24, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Read your own reply again and ask yourself if you actually understand how the term "social construct" is used here. We're not talking about ancestry, we're talking about racial categorizations. And you have yet to provide any specific secondary sources to further this discussion. Until you do, there's really nothing more to discuss. danielkueh (talk) 19:33, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

No I certainly don't understand. That's why I asked does social mean non biological? Racial categorizations can be based on shared ancestry. Are you familiar with the biologists I listed? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 10:40, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

From the article:

"They thus came to believe that race itself is a social construct, a concept that was believed to correspond to an objective reality but which was believed in because of its social functions."

So the biological constructs of shared ancestry and genetic/phenetic similarity are not social constructs, n'est-ce pas? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 10:49, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Anemone is a professor of anthropology and his book was published by an academic publisher. Authors do not have to be famous in order for their books to be reliable sources for facts. The authors of standard university textbooks rarely achieve celebrity status. TFD (talk) 15:57, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

For those (such as myself) who might be unclear about the meaning of cultural Marxists, used several times in this discussion, check out what wikipedia has to say on the subject. Carptrash (talk) 18:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I added some biological definitions to the article. Hopefully it's clear that it is considered a biological concept, by biologists. Also "There is a wide consensus that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed, and that racial groups cannot be biologically defined." 4 references to Templeton? The guy is a quack. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 13:39, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I strongly suspect you're a sock puppet of the previous user Captain TJ Varity/Mikemikev, who has been banned from WP. You obviously have no regard for civil discussion or WP policies. So rather than continuing to engage you, I think it's best that I leave this issue to WP administrators. danielkueh (talk) 16:57, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

What on earth are you going on about? Please logically address my sources and points. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:11, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

We now have Cartmill as a source. What he actually says:

"In summary, the role played by racial taxonomy in the study of modern human variation has apparently changed little or not at all over the course of the past 30 years. In the 1990s, as in the 1960s, most researchers studying human variation do not make use of the concept of race in gather- ing and analyzing their data; however, a consistently large minority continue to do so." Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 09:26, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

BRD

I notice a tactic of the "race is a social construct" team here is to revert, citing BRD, then fail to address any points. That isn't BRD, that's stonewalling. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 19:43, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Biological Definitions

Tiny Dancer 48 - The onus is on you to start the discussion for your bold edits. I've removed your "Biological definitons" section. The text is below, collapsed:

I've removed this because it relies on primary quotes from a range of authors (many without ref tags, but at least there are years). This runs afoul of WP:QUOTEFARM. Your brief paragraphs that summarized stuff are WP:SYNTH, that is, your own interpretations and summaries of the primary material. Instead, we need secondary sources to do this for us and to properly cite them. If there are textbooks or other scholarly works that summarize these "biological definitions", then we can just cite those and eliminate all the direct quotes. In its current state, this material cannot remain on the page. EvergreenFir (talk) 01:17, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

"A primary source can have all of these qualities, and a secondary source may have none of them. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate on any given occasion is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, not merely mindless, knee-jerk reactions to classification of a source as "primary" or "secondary"." Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 22:02, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

So you would argue that my summary of these last five quotes as "Race is a biological concept defined by genetic similarity" is some kind of skewed interpretation? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 22:06, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Skewed or not, it's SYNTH. Still haven't assessed anything I raised. This topic is covered well enough that secondary sources shouldn't be hard to find. EvergreenFir (talk) 23:48, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it is synth. I think that these biologists are stating very clearly that race is a biological concept based on genetic similarity. What do you think they are saying, something different? I think I have assessed what you raised. The article claims race is a social construct, the article states social means non biological, while various biologists state race is a valid biological concept. Your response to this is to say "secondary", which is invalid in the face of unambiguous sources. You're wikilawyering to push a lie. Either point out a relevant "social" ambiguity in the sources or drop it. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 13:40, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

The fact that you can cherry pick a couple of biologists who make these statements is 100% irrelevant - what the article is summarizing is the mainstream consensus that you will find in a biology or genetics textbook today. And this is that race is a biocultural construct (i.e. cultural ideas about biological variation) and that populations differetiated by ancestry or by frequency of genes are not races.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:06, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

How ironic. Why is it that your claims are referenced to a handful of cherry picked sources? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 09:04, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Find sources for your summaries then. Also, there are far too many quotes (still haven't addressed that). Saying someone is wikilawyering is WP:ASPERSIONS as assuming bad faith. I'm simply asking you to follow policy. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:02, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

There isn't any dispute about what my sources are saying though right? It isn't actually a policy to require a clear statement to be reprinted elsewhere for no reason. I'd agree that the quotefarm format is inelegant, but these are valid source for the point. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 19:05, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

"Primary sources may only be used on Misplaced Pages to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person—with access to the source but without specialist knowledge—will be able to verify are directly supported by the source. This person does not have to be able to determine that the material in the article or in the primary source is true. The goal is only that the person could compare the primary source with the material in the Misplaced Pages article, and agree that the primary source actually, directly says just what the article says it does." Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 15:12, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it's been pretty clearly demonstrated that race is considered biological by biologists and social construct theory is just some Marxist nonsense from American sociologists. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 19:44, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

If you think so then you need to read some more biology that is not fifty years old. Biological populations and races are two different things and only a small minority of biologists insist on confusing the two. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:39, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Then maybe you should edit on Race (biology)? And wouldn't it be Boasian in this case? EvergreenFir (talk) 19:50, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

No, he shouldnt unless he demonstrates abetter idea of what the consensus among biologists is regarding race.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:39, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

You keep asserting this but I'm seeing little reference to biologists. I've referenced several top biologists so how can there be a consensus? "Fringe" doesn't mean "disagrees with me". Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 09:12, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

You have not referenced several top biologists - you have referenced a small selection of handpicked pro-race biologists - several of whom have no expertise in human biological variation or race (e.g. Dawkins) - and then a selection of outdated biologists writing before genetics was even a discipline. That is exactly why we dont base articles on quotes from single biologists stating their personal beliefs, but on the way secondary and tertiary sources describe the consensus in the field.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:54, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

The sources are misrepresented. How can you have Cartmill as a source for a consensus when he says this:

"In summary, the role played by racial taxonomy in the study of modern human variation has apparently changed little or not at all over the course of the past 30 years. In the 1990s, as in the 1960s, most researchers studying human variation do not make use of the concept of race in gather- ing and analyzing their data; however, a consistently large minority continue to do so."

Anemone doesn't say there is a consensus.

"Another anthropologist who is a staunch opponent of the concept of biological race is not nearly as optimistic as Lieberman concerning the demise of the race concept in anthropology. Alan Goodman (1997b:222) ..."

He references Lieberman claiming the concept is going out, Goodman who says it isn't. Strkalj contradicted Lieberman with a more recent survey. What's going on here? Are people even reading these sources? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 11:38, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I can agree ewith you as far that the current sources are no good. We used to have decent sourcing, but apparently they have been lost in the constant squibbling over the lead and definition. The solution however is not to cherry pick a couple of "race realist" scholars and represent their views as the mainstream.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:15, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Further I am unaware of any biologists being referenced by Maunus. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:13, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Read the archives, there is nothing new in your claims or in the tired sources you are parading to support them, we have been over this dozens of times.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:15, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

In other words the only sources presented here directly contradict you. Hilariously, they are the same sources used to claim tb opposite of what they say. They are good sources and you are wrong. I guess you only bother commenting to wikilawyer your POV, and didn't bother checking the sources of "your" article. But are just going to avoid admitting that by claiming to be "bored" or something. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:24, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Race realists like you turn up here literally every three months to present the same tired argument and having no acquaintance with the literature on human genetic variation or race other than what can be found on Breitbart and Jared Taylor's different websites and Nicholas Wade's book. Pardon me if I am not prepared to take the time to welcome each of your individually with extended discussion and presentation of mainstream sources that you could have found with a google search if you were in fact interested in representing the status of the evidence and not simply propping up your own POV.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:35, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm really not sure what to make of this. Here I am looking at your sources, which contradict you, and you accuse me of having no acquaintance with the literature. You present nothing to support you, other than an assertion your POV is a consensus view. You are babbling irrelevantly about sources I never mentioned. This is ridiculous. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:41, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

If you want a list of population geneticists who disagree with Nicholas Wade and the neo-racialist perspective this letter is a start.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:36, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

That's a different question. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:44, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Admittedly, though not very.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:45, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

You think a question of whether genetic evidence for genetic racial IQ differences currently exists is the same as whether race is a biological concept? Of course it isn't. Sadly you still have nothing to back up your POV. This is POV pushing at its worst. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:50, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree that dealing with POV pushing is tiresome. Now read the discussion archives and present some argunments that are actually new and get consensus for changes based on them.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:27, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't need to go through the archives. If you're aware of sources that back up your POV in the face of my sources which contradict it, you can simply name them. The article is unsupported by the references. So fix it or accept the edit. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 13:30, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, in fact you do - you are the one who is attempting to try to alter the version established by consensus- this means you have the responsibility for understanding the basis of the consensus and challenging it. And literally a dozen sources are listed further up on this very page. And a nother dozen or so are already cited in the article.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:36, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

So you understand the basis of the consensus. I notice you like to claim your opponents "just don't understand". Luckily it should be very easy for you to name the relevant sources. Unfortunately unsourced claims get changed. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 13:40, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Feel free to propose any changes here on the talkpages, then if there is a consensus that they improve the article they can be carried out. You do not seem to have convinced anyone this far, so maybe a change of strategy is in order.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:45, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Which noticeboard is appropriate for a POV pushing tag team misrepresenting sources? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 13:47, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I took a look at the last archive page and it's just the same. You pointing to cherry picked papers and ignoring consensus surveys. Accusing your opponents of what you are doing. Disgraceful. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 13:49, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

You could try WP:ANI.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:59, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Here are some sources you should look at, most of them are reviews, and hence secondary sources that represent more than the opinion of the author themself.

• Caspari, Rachel (2003). "From types to populations: A century of race, physical anthropology, and the American Anthropological Association". American Anthropologist. 105 (1): 65–76.
• Graves, Joseph L. (2006). "What We Know and What We Don't Know: Human Genetic Variation and the Social Construction of Race". Is Race "Real"?. Social Science Research Council. Retrieved 2011-01-22.
• Marks, Jonathan (2008). "Race: Past, present and future. Chapter 1". In Koenig, Barbara; Soo-Jin Lee, Sandra; Richardson, Sarah S. Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age. Rutgers University Press.
• Relethford, John H. (August 2002). "Apportionment of global human genetic diversity based on craniometrics and skin color". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 118 (4): 393–398.
• Sussman, R. W. (2014). The myth of race: The troubling persistence of an unscientific idea. Harvard University Press.
• Long, J. C.; Kittles, R. A. (August 2003). "Human genetic diversity and the nonexistence of biological races" (PDF). Human Biology. 75 (4): 449–71. doi:10.1353/hub.2003.0058. PMID 14655871. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
• Marks, J. (1995). Human biodiversity: genes, race, and history. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
• Keita, S. O. Y.; Kittles, R. A. (1997). "The persistence of racial thinking and the myth of racial divergence". Am Anthropol. 99 (3): 534–544.
• Morning, A. (2011). The nature of race: How scientists think and teach about human difference. Univ of California Press.
• Morning, A. (2014). Does genomics challenge the social construction of race?. Sociological theory, 32(3), 189-207.
• Yudell, M., Roberts, D., DeSalle, R., & Tishkoff, S. (2016). Taking race out of human genetics. Science, 351(6273), 564-565.
• Maglo, K. N., Mersha, T. B., & Martin, L. J. (2016). Population Genomics and the Statistical Values of Race: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Biological Classification of Human Populations and Implications for Clinical Genetic Epidemiological Research. Frontiers in genetics, 7.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:59, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I picked one at random, Tishkoff:

"In the wake of the sequencing of the human genome in the early 2000s, genome pioneers and social scientists alike called for an end to the use of race as a variable in genetic research (1, 2). Unfortunately, by some measures, the use of race as a biological category has increased in the postgenomic age" Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:05, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Are you failing to read your sources or just lying? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:07, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Sigh, I knew it would be pointless. Yes, the use has increased, which is why we are even discussing this. But if you read the sources there is a general agreement that this increase is not scientifically warranted. Cherrypicking quotes out of contexts unfortunately is only too easy. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:13, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Well those who use it think your POV is not scientifically warranted. You are accusing me of cherry picking while asserting people who agree with you are the correct ones. It's quite bizarre. Hopefully you can at least admit there is no consensus. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:17, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Well partly, if you read the sources you will see that many scholars argue that "race" is often used as a biological variable in ways that are not actually considered, but simply a shortcut to some other result. There are those who disagree with the viewpoint, but those who use it are in the minority - so, sure there is no solid consensus, but there is a broad mainstream viewpoint and a narrow minority one - within population genetics - in social sciences (which is where almost all experts in the topic of race are located, there is a clear consensus). At this point I should mention that the kind of editing where you take sentences out of context and make them support the opposite argument of what they are actually supporting is called tendentious editing and has in the past resulted in people being banned from wikipedia. Dont twist sources and dont cite out of context, if you keep doing that I will tire very quickly and find something better to do after you are blocked.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:23, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

It's you that is misrepresenting sources. Your hypocrisy honestly turns my stomach. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:30, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I can't say I care much about your feelings.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:33, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

What's going on now? You just admitted there is no consensus for your POV. And you continue to push it in the article? What's going on here? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:46, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

We need to establish something here, you dont know anything about my POV. And we are not talking about my POV. We are talking about the predominant POV in the literature on race. Within the literature there is no clear consensus, but a majority of scholars agree that race is not meaningful as an objective biological category, but a minority of scholars disagree claiming that any discernible biological difference between populations with distinct ancestries can be considered "race". In the past there has been a basic consensus among wikipedians that this is the relative standing of the two viewpoints. If you wish to challenge this consensus and claim that race is considered a biological category by a majority of scholars then you need to stop playing games and present some new sources that suggest otherwise - without your having to selectively misquote them or make them argue the opposite of what they intend to argue. I have not written the current lead, and I think it is quite problematic and should be changed, but it is nonetheless a much better and more accurate representation of the topic than what you are proposing which expresses a distinct minority viewpoint as if it were a generally agreed upon fact. Now I will waste no more time on your shenanigans.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Well now you're just lying. Even assuming your minority/majority assessment is correct, I have suggested all along that both positions are represented. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 15:05, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Of course they should be, and they are. You also may want to read our policy on personal attacks.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:16, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Poll: is there a consensus that race is a social construct and not a biological concept?

• No Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 16:36, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Why are you wasting our time with this? Everyone knows that there is no consensus (as in general agreement), and no one is claiming there is. The correct quesiton is "Is it the predominant position in the literature that racial categories are not a useful way of describing human biological biological variation?"·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:43, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

This is why *I'm* wasting your time:

"The fact that you can cherry pick a couple of biologists who make these statements is 100% irrelevant - what the article is summarizing is the mainstream consensus that you will find in a biology or genetics textbook today. And this is that race is a biocultural construct (i.e. cultural ideas about biological variation) and that populations differetiated by ancestry or by frequency of genes are not races.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:06, 5 September 2016 (UTC)"

There isn't a consensus and you can't write as if there is. And looking over this page it seems most are questioning this POV. There is just a regular cadre pushing one side. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 16:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Sure, I misused the word consensus there to describe the mainstream majority viewpoint - if we agree that consensus means a broad general agreement within a field. And yes misinformed new comers like you arrive every couple of month claiming that biologists believe race is biological, based on reading a handful of race realist authors, but not being acquainted with the actual literature on the topic. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:06, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the literature on the topic and it's you that misrepresents sources. You seem to have little more to contribute than assertions and personal attacks. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:16, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Then providing valid sources should be easy. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 22:09, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

You can see sources and quotes above. Why are you pretending they aren't there? Are you trying to push a POV? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 22:50, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

"When did you stop hitting your wife?" Enough with that. This "poll" is in bad faith too. If you want to do an RFC, then start one. But there are a dozen discussions about the lead sentence in the archives for this page. The burden is on you to gain consensus for your changes. EvergreenFir (talk) 23:35, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

The poll isn't in bad faith. There is no consensus in academia for the view expressed in the lead. So it must be changed. I know the regular team here WP:IDONTLIKEIT, but it's necessary to comply with policy. We can't have a group of editors WP:OWNing an article then demanding "consensus" for an unsupported view, ie. appealing to nothing more than the fact they outnumber their opponent on the talk page. Is the "social construct" view consensus or not? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 06:52, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Note to US sociology WP:TAGTEAM: the point we were discussing is here. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 18:00, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

• No ZN3ukct (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Maunus suggestion for a new Lead

I think the current lead is pretty bad, and so is the article structure which leaves out most of the contemporary literature about race (which is about race as a social category and not about the debate about biology vs. social construction). This is my suggestion for a new lead (and for amending the article to have a similar structure).·maunus · snunɐɯ· 08:42, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Race are the various ways of classifying of humans into large groups based on the relations between physical appearance, continental ancestry and social group.

Humans have probably always classified each other into groups based on traits that differ such as physical appearance and membership of different cultural groupings. Such groupings based on cultural affiliations are usually described as ethnicity. In contrast to classification by ethnicity, which is considered to be a human universal, race is generally considered to have become an important way of classifying people during the age of exploration and colonialism when humans from different continents for the first time began interacting – in this context racial groupings classified individuals by their continental ancestry often coupled with folk-taxonomies and essentialist assumptions. Within the framework of colonialism, continental populations with different physical aspects came into contact in a socio-political context in which the phenotypical differences between racial groups often correlated with differences in power. Consequently, in many colonial societies political rights and privileges were unevenly distributed among racial groupings creating hierarchies justified and sustained by ideologies of racism. While Europeans colonized the indigenous cultures of the Americas subjugating them, the transatlantic slave-trade brought Africans to the Americas in the role as slaves. In the American colonies generally the racial hierarchy classified European-born Whites at the top and enslaved Africans and un-baptized Native Americans at the bottom. In Latin America legal racial hierarchies were abolished with independence, whereas in North America they were only abolished late in the twentieth century as a result of the Civil Rights movement. During the colonization of Africa European colonizers subjugated native Africans establishing themselves as the ruling class, often resulting in sharply racially divided societies such as South Africa under Apartheid. In the early modern world, science sought to categorize human populations following objective anatomical criteria also used for classifying other species into biologically distinct groupings. It was generally assumed that racial phenotypical differences corresponded with significant underlying biological differences, and it was often believed that these biological differences justified or produced the racial hierarchies found in society. In Europe, such scientific racism reached a climax under the second World War where racial classifications motivated the Nazi holocaust. Following WWII racism and racial hierarchies came to be seen as malignant and unjust in most Western societies, and an international movement for universal human rights and civil rights sought to abolish legal discrimination based on race.

Within science, shifting consensus have seen race as having a mostly biological or mostly socio-cultural basis. Early 20th century racial scientists saw race as biological and argued that phenotypical traits such as cranial shape, skin-color and hair texture could be used to classify biologically distinct racial types, and they attributed essential characteristics to each type. Starting in the 1950s, the typological approach to human biological variation was replaced with an approach that saw variation as clinal, in which evolutionary, historical and geographical relations between populations produced a continuum of gradual changes of phenotypes. Early studies of diversity in blood proteins which have found broad empirical support, found that that the majority of the total genetic variation between humans (i.e., of the 0.1% of DNA that varies between individuals), 85.4%, is found within populations, 8.3% of the variation is found between populations within a "race", and only 6.3% was found to account for the racial classification, suggesting that the biological significance of racial groupings race is negligible. With the genomic revolution in the early 21st century it became possible to analyze ancestry and biological diversity at a much more detailed level than ever before, and racial groupings were often used as way to achieve broad sampling of biologically diverse populations. New knowledge of the genetic structure of populations reignited the debate about whether biological clusters correlated with racial groups, and geneticists argued that even a small portion of the total genetic variance may be significant if it correlates across many genetic loci, suggesting that race could be biologically significant even in spite of the small part of genetic variation that it accounts for. Following this argument, today some scholars argue that clustering of genetic frequencies correspond well with continental ancestral groups, and that race therefore is a potentially meaningful biological category for some purposes. Others scientists have maintained that such correspondences are artifacts of population history and largely irrelevant as a form of taxonomic classification, both because of the problematic socio-political significance of using racial categories in biological research, and because it only provides a very crude and potentially misleading view of the global genetic variation and ancestry - they tend to advocate using more precise and less loaded concepts such as "population", "ancestry", "ethnic groups" and "communities".

Race continues to be of enormous political significance in many of the world's societies. While most countries today do not permit explicit racial discrimination, and do not operate with distinct legal rights based on race, it is often argued that racism continues to be systemic property of many societies. In many countries social inequality correlates highly with racial categories, and often has important political and socio-cultural correlates as well. The question of which policies, if any, should be adopted to address this disparity is often a contentious question.

Is this a paraphrase of Smedley? I'm pretty sure the history of race has more to do with natural science than slavery and Nazis. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 08:45, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

That you would suggest that this is based on Smedley's EB article (which by the way is an excellent summary of the relevant literature) sort of demonstrates the narrowness of your knowledge of the literature on race about 90% of which is written outside of the natural sciences. The concept of race of course predates the idea of "natural sciences", and the full history of the concept should be in the article and in the lead. As should the enormous relevance of race to contemporary social science.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:09, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh really. Perhaps you'd like to review the history of the concept from John Baker, a far more informed scholar, and probably with less politically motivated bias. It looks more like 90% is in the natural sciences. And it's ridiculous to expect this proposal to be approved when your article ownership team refuse to admit and accept one valid word change. Go back to the single word above before expecting me to address any of this. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:09, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

You are proposing that a 1976 book by John Baker, a cytologist with no credentials as a historian or scholar of anything above cell-level, that proposes that human races are distinct species and which was ill-received even in its own date and which contains arguments that are outright laughable from the perspective of what we today know now about genetic variation, should be compared to the work of a scholar who has dedicated her distinguished career to the study of race. You are fun. I think we can safely ignore you from now on.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:05, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

You're wrong on most of what you write, but that doesn't need to be addressed right now because you are just changing the subject to avoid the "social construct" issue above, an easily resolved issue you refuse to compromise on. You are stonewalling and you are not following NPOV. Of course if you refuse to accept the point above I will have to take it to the NPOV noticeboard. Then we can slowly address your sweeping change to the entire article, based on paraphrasing the stacked executive board of the AAA in 1998. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 11:42, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

"paraphrasing the stacked executive board of the AAA in 1998"... care to explain? EvergreenFir (talk) 16:26, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

The fact that he thinks the lead is a "paraphrase" of two different sources that are written by actual experts in race (not by sociologists, but anthropologist) of course should be considered a sign that the proposed lead is on target. However there is some reason to believe that TinyDancer either has not really read either the proposal or the sources that he is comparing it to, since there are some significant differences in the fact that my lead proposal clearly states that there is ongoing debate about the whether genetic clustering has made race a relevant biological variable or not. Neither of the sources that he compares it to gives nearly that much weight to the pro-biological view on race.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:10, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

The nerve that you display in asking me to explain this diversion while refusing to address the simple point I raised is unbelievable. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:58, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Redacting link to scanned book. Copy vio. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:54, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not going to address this "race was created by American slave owners" lead until you accept the "currently considered biological or social" change above, or suggest some acceptable variation. It's totally unreasonable for you to only accept my point if we fill the article with hundreds of pieces of your other dubious assertions. Actually it's extremely rude. You admit my point is correct, let's change that and move on. I will take this to NPOV in 24 hours. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 13:37, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Wow the vitriol expressed by folks who are supposed to be working toward a neutral point of view clearly demonstrates that we do not share a neutral point of view and some of us are more vehement in getting our point of view represented than others. Might I suggest that we take a step back and work toward a collaborate rather than combative approach to reach consensus?Omarisafari (talk) 15:04, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The failure to follow policy of some here is more of an issue than the tone of others. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:37, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Point taken! I'd like to re-read the exchange to see if I can see past the tone to what's being asked and what the policy breach is (unless someone can clearly summarize that from a NPOV, which I'd much appreciate) Omarisafari (talk) 15:01, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The issue is summarized here. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 15:06, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

"Early studies of diversity in blood proteins which have found broad empirical support, found that that the majority of the total genetic variation between humans (i.e., of the 0.1% of DNA that varies between individuals), 85.4%, is found within populations, 8.3% of the variation is found between populations within a "race", and only 6.3% was found to account for the racial classification, suggesting that the biological significance of racial groupings race is negligible."

Wouldn't it be better to point out that this "argument" has been debunked by finding a similar variation ratio between humans and chimpanzees? It would be good to put this one to rest because US sociologists and PBS presenters parrot it all the time and I find such ignorance jarring. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 10:05, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

"Starting in the 1950s, the typological approach to human biological variation was replaced with an approach that saw variation as clinal, in which evolutionary, historical and geographical relations between populations produced a continuum of gradual changes of phenotypes."

Clinality was described by Blumenbach and Darwin. Are there sources for whether variation is primarily clinal or clustered? Biological sources. And typology does not replace clinality, but can be imposed on it eg. ring species Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 10:12, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

How about "A popular argument against race was that "there is more genetic variation within races than between them", a view popularised by Richard Lewontin and the AAA. However, this argument was decisively debunked by finding a similar variation ratio between humans and chimpanzees."

It's just your lead makes it sound like there is some doubt that the AAA were completely wrong. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 11:11, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Lewontin's argument has not been debunked - on the contrary the finding it represents has been replicated multiple times - any "racial" (or species) grouping has more internal diversity than the diversity between two "racial groups" - Edwards argument is not with this basic fact but about whether it is still possible for racial groups to be biologically significant in spite of it, which he argues they can (not that they are, but that they could or can be). So Lewontin's argument has not been debunked, rather theoretical and technical advances in genetics has moved past it. Edwards argument that statistical clusters of traits can be "races" in turn has not been generally adopted (as evidenced by the biological texbook sources I supplied above) - since most population geneticists (not all, as e.g. Vogel and Motulsky do) do not consider genetic similarity clusters to be "races". Whether trait diversity are clinal or clustering depends largely on the sample method, but for many traits the clinal variation has een conclusively shown e.g. skin color. Noentheless, in general genetic similarity correlates near perfectly with geographical distance with some breaks imposed by major geographical divides such as mountains and oceans.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:14, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The argument "more variation within than between groups invalidates race" is 100% false. It has been debunked. This is the argument made by the AAA and Lewontin. Everyone is disputing this argument, not its premise. Nobody disputes Sewell Wright's Fst, just Lewontin claiming it invalidates race. Nobody disputes "more variation within than between groups". Stop claiming Lewontin was correct because of a correct premise. It's dishonest.

"We will take F = 0.25 as an arbitrary value above which there is very great differentiation, the range of 0.15 to 0.25 as indicating moderately great differentiation. Differentiation is by no means negligible if F is as small as 0.05 or even less as bought out in the preceding chapter” (Wright 1978, p. 85)." Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:38, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

No, it is not that simple even though racialists would like it to be. And yes, I can find recent biological references that demonstrate that both Edwards and Lewontin are correct and that the issue is whether a race is conceptualized as necessarily discrete groups (the concept which Lewontin was argueing against) or as statistical frequency clusters (a concept that only emerged in this century). The Fst issue is separate, and noone today operates with Fst measures - Templeton shows that human Fst value is not compatible with the "race as subspecies" conceptualization, but that is a different discussion. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:13, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

No. You are changing the subject. This this is very simple. "There is more genetic variation within races than between them therefore race is an invalid concept" is a false argument. Yes or no? Lewontin and AAA do not say "discrete groups" whatever that is. They say this. I get that Kaplan and Marks move the goalposts. Templeton misrepresents Wright as I just quoted.

Fst is exactly what we are talking about.

"Sewall Wright's fixation index FST measured among samples of world populations is often 0.15 or less when computed as an average over many alleles or loci. To many, this result indicates that the genetic similarities among human populations far outweigh the differences. For example, a finding like this led Richard Lewontin to claim that human races have no genetic or taxonomic significance (Lewontin 1972)...These data made it possible to see how FST played out when no one could dispute taxonomic and genetic significance. The answer surprised us. FST was pretty close to the canonical 0.15 shown so many times for human populations. In our analysis, FST was 0.12 for humans, but for humans and chimpanzees together, FST rose only to 0.18..."

Everything you write is false. Are humans and chimps not "discrete groups" also? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 13:50, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Edwards moved the goalpost by suggesting that the term race can be used for non-discrete groups - the race concept Lewontin was argueing against was not the one that Edwards is suggesting to be possible. The degree of genetic variation between and within humans and chimps is irrelevant because they are distinct biological species whose classification does not rely on statistical (or clinal) measures of similarity. The fact is that the place where the discussion is located now is between those who like Edwards suggest that racial groups can be statistical clusters rather than discrete groups, and those who think this is not a reasonable way to redefine the word. Kaplan and Marks are certainly relevant in that discussion but they are by far the only one's argueing against Edwards argument in its different forms - many population geneticists agree that genetic clusters are not races.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:01, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I dont know if Templeton misrepresents Wright but if you have a good source for that I would believe it - however Templeton is argueing against the idea that there is a certain Fst threshold at which a human population can be classified as a race in the subspecies sense and that human races meet this threshold. This is not an argument that anyone is actually making today (though they did in the past) so the Fst/Templeton discussion is a red hering. The question at this point is whether genetic clusters can reasonably be called "races".·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:04, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

An interesting source for you is Shiao, Bode Beyer and Selvig (2012) who argue that although members of "racial" genetic clusters do not share any single biological trait they do in an experimental setting share the trait that they selfidentify as members of the same racial group. This arguments show that this is exactly where the discussion is located today - can genetic clusters be considered "races" or not.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:06, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Edwards simply showed Lewontin was wrong. He said nothing about "discrete groups". Please quote him.

You cycle through the same fallacies.

• Variation within versus between invalidates taxa.
• Clines can't be divided, without even showing human variation is mainly clinal.
• Taxa are defined by "single traits".
• Taxa must be "discrete", even though when defined by ancestry or genomic similarity they are. Taxa aren't even required to be discrete eg. 75% rule for phenetic subspecies.
• Claiming biologist X said something he didn't.

Unsurprisingly it's usually non-biologists that parrot this nonsense. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:16, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I have not made any of those claims, I have noted that those claims have been made and accepted by biologists at various points in time. If you were half as biologically savvy as you claim you would again have realized this and understood that there has been a development in the conceptualization of all taxonomic levels away from essentialist and discrete groupings and towards statistical forms of classification. The Lewontin vs. Edwards debate is a step in that development. But I see that you are still not willing to engage in discussion that is more complex than assertion and name-calling. I am not saying that Edwards said anything about discrete groups, he conveniently ignored that the racial concept that Lewontin was argueing against was based on the presence of discrete groups (which is a requirement for typology, though not for taxonomy (at least not in the genomic age)).·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:25, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

What do you mean by discrete and essentialist?

" "Rose et al have no clear idea of what they mean by biological determinism. "Determinist", for them, is simply one half of a double-barrelled blunderbuss term, with much the same role and lack of content as "Mendelist-Morganist" had in the vocabulary of an earlier generation of comrades. Today’s other barrel, fired off with equal monotony and imprecision is "reductionist"." Dawkins review of Rose, Lewontin and Kamin's "Not in our genes"

• Calling things meaningless "ist" names. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I am sorry but i am not going to change common vocabulary to cater to your aversion to certain grammatical endings. An essentialist conceptualization of a category is the idea that the members of the category is defined by some inherent property that defines them as members of a group, and as not-members of certain other groups . Some groups do share such essential properties. "Redheads" for example is a group whose members share an inherent property that defines them as a group and excludes them from others - namely the color of their hair. There is however not any property or trait that in that way exclusively define "white people" or "black people", or "europeans" or "people of recent African ancestry". Hence, as all knowledgeable authorities agree, races cannot be conceptualized through biological essentialism in the same way that haplogroups, hair, skin or eye-color-groups, can. When you claim that "ancestry is a trait in some sense" you are making the essentialist fallacy - because even though it seems logical that ancestry is a biological trait that is not in fact the case since there is no actual biological feature shared by all descendants of a given individual - including their race. Going far enough back in a lineage one will inevitably encounter people whom one would classify as members of a different race than oneself. And you will find people with whom one shares less genetic material than with a random complete stranger.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:09, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Then if taxa defined by ancestry or genomic similarity (which they are) aren't "essentialist" according to whomever then that's just an irrelevant strawman argument. Nobody was saying they were "essentialist" in that sense. You don't even define the term coherently. What's an "inherent property"? You try to redefine the simple definition of ancestry to include "biological features shared by all", presumably meaning additional phenotypic traits. You're making strawman arguments. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 15:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

There is not and have never been a single established way of defining taxa. Taxa can be defined in many different ways some of which are essentialist and some of which arent. Prior to the 1950s most conceptualizations of races as taxa were essentialist. Today none are (at least not explicitly). "Properties" can be genotypic or phenotypic traits - "shared ancestry" or "genetic similarity" is neither because they are statistical and relative. In terms of logic an essentialist category is one defined through "necessary and sufficient criteria" whereas a non-essentialist category is defined through "family resemblances" - having dispensed with the idea that races can be defined by any set of necessary or sufficient criteria, the question then becomes whether "families" are a kind of "race" and "races" are a kind of "family". And this is where the current discussion in the biology of race stands.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:47, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

And so can you explain how Edwards and Lewontin were arguing for or against essentialist taxa? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 16:00, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

They were both applying a non-essentialist concept of race based on shared genetic similarity - it is basically a question of the degree of similarity considered to be "taxonomically significant". Edwards shows that even very small amounts of shared similarity of can be taxonomically significant if several traits cluster. Lewontin was looking at a single trait, demonstrating that for any single trait there would be as much variation between a category as within it. Which as you say is something that nobody disagrees with. His fallacy was in whether or not this could be taxonomically significant. That was not at all an odd understanding of taxonomy in the pre-genetic era when taxonomies were usually established based on conspicuous phenotypical traits that could be shown to be characteristic of specific populations. The genomic and statistical revolution made it possible to make very different kinds of taxonomies, which Edwards demonstrated (and as others including Wright had suggested before). But this is all a digression, what matters is what others write about the debate. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:20, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

No the race concept from Blumenbach onwards used multiple phenotypic traits simultaneously, or a "non-essentialist" concept to use your term for a concept nobody wasn't talking about. I agree that this is a digression. It's a ridiculous strawman argument to get away from the embarrassing failure, if we're generous not to accuse them of fraud, of the AAA. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:44, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Using multiple phenotypic traits simultaneosuly does not necessarily free you from the risk of essentialism - not if any of the specific traits are considered to be exclusive to one group, of if any specific combination of traits is considered to be "necessary and sufficient" for determining group membership.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:59, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

"I dont know if Templeton misrepresents Wright but if you have a good source for that I would believe it"

You require a "good source" to evaluate whether something is correct or incorrect by looking at it? How about reading Templeton, and comparing it with Wright. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:20, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

We would call that "original research" here at wikipedia and we are instructed to avoid it.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:26, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Come on. Templeton says Wrights sets 25% Fst for subspecies cut off. He didn't. You could at least admit that although I understand policy requires editing demonstrable falsehoods into a public resource. Or does it? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:43, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Of course we should use our good judgment when assessing whether to include Templetons claim. If he is indeed misattributing that figure (I do not have either Temleton or Wright at hand to check) we should probably not include that claim of his.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:52, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

It seems that Wright's view is already accurately described in the article.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:54, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Not his view that 0.25 Fst is required for subspecies which Templeton relies on, a view which doesn't exist because Templeton made it up.

"A standard criterion for a subspecies or race in the nonhuman literature under the traditional definition of a subspecies as a geographically circumscribed, sharply differentiated population is to have F* values of at least 0.25 to 0.30 (Smith et al. 1997). Hence, as judged by the criterion in the nonhuman literature, the human Fn value is too small to have taxonomic significance under the traditional subspecies definition…Although human “races” do not satisfy the standard quantitative criterion for being traditional subspecies (Smith etal. 1997)…(Templeton, 1998. Human races: a genetic and evolutionary perspective"

This is pure fiction. There is no Fst limit for subspecies. Smith cites the 75% rule for hybrid classification.

"The non-discrete nature of subspecies is evident from their definition as geographic segments of any given gonochoristic (bisexually reproducing) species differing from each other to a reasonably practical degree (e.g., at least 70-75%), but to less than totality. All subspecies are allopatric (either dichopatric or parapatric , except for cases of circular overlap with sympatry); sympatry is conclusive evidence (except for cases of circular overlap) of allospecificity (separate specific status). Parapatric subspecies interbreed and exhibit intergradation in contact zones, but such taxa maintain the required level of distinction in one or more characters outside of those zones. Dichopatric populations are regarded as subspecies if they fail to exhibit full differentiation (i.e., exhibit overlap in variation of their differentiae up to 25-30%), even in the absence of contact (overlap exceeding 25-30% does not qualify for taxonomic recognition of either dichopatric populations or of parapatric populations ….The use of multivariate statistical procedures can provide approaches that are reasonably objective and not dependent on preconceptions about taxonomic membership. Nonetheless, the discriminatory power of such methods depends critically on the quality of the characters being analyzed and, in addition, the adopted standard for level of differentiation required for taxonomic recognition. Multivariate analyses (Thorpe 1987) are useful techniques for substantiation of subspecific validity, with revival of the now generally neglected 75% (or similar) rule (idem:7) (Smith et al., 1997. Subspecies and Classification)" Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:54, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the quote from Smith et al. So Templeton is not in fact claiming that Wright is using this threshold, but cites it to Smith et al. I can see that Graves also read Smith et al as proposing that Fst values above .25 are required for subspecies classification for non-humans. I honestly don't know if this is the correct reading of Smith et al. but I dont see a good reason to doubt both Graves and Templeton both of whom are respected geneticists are able to interpret Smith et al correctly. Especially not in the absence of anyone who has interpreted it to mean something very different. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:13, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 September 2016

In the "Complications and various definitions of the concept" section, please change "A popular view in American socology" to 'A popular view in American sociology' because it's a typo.

I would further like to consider changing it from "American sociology" to 'American anthropology and social sciences' or something of the like since the journals referenced are from a variety of fields. Omarisafari (talk) 15:01, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Partly done: Typo has been corrected. For the second change concerning adding anthropology, please provide sources that reference that field. -- ferret (talk) 15:07, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Ferret, regarding the anthropology reference, just look at the journals already cited there: American Anthropologist, New England Journal of Medicine, and American Journal of Physical Anthropology to name a few. Calling it a popular view of "American Sociology" just doesn't seem to account for the breadth of fields where this viewpoint has been researched and developed.Omarisafari (talk) 14:58, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree entirely. It grossly misrepresents the degree to which this view is accepted. I would suggest looking at Ann Morning's book to see how prevalent the view is, even if there are still many hold-outs to an earlier biological race concept in specific disciplines and local disciplinary traditions in places like China and Eastern Europe.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:54, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Maunus suggests looking at a book by an American sociologist to "see how prevalent" certain biological views are internationally. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:35, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Maunus assumes that "Ann Morning" is the leading light in biology and the Russians, Chinese and British are just "holding out" against her groundbreaking ideas. Another possibility is that she's a babbling Marxist pseudoscientist. Who knows? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 18:29, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, your opinion on Morning is fairly irrelevant as long as you clearly havent read her book. The book is a book length study of the way the concept of "race" is used by biologists across the world. She does ont present her own research on "race" but simply surveys and describes how the usage differs between social scientists and biologists. it is the perfect book to use as a source for the relative standing of the two viewpoints in different contexts.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:54, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

So now your argument is "book X agrees with me". Nice one. Could you at least drop some quotes so your favorite book can be considered as a source. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 06:38, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

"Morning explores different conceptions of race—finding for example, that while many sociologists now assume that race is a social invention or “construct,” anthropologists and biologists are far from such a consensus." http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520270312

Are we done yet? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 08:25, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, we clearly are, there is very little perspective in continuing this conversation.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 08:42, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

So in other words every source including the one you just recommended says that there is no agreement on whether race is a social construct, but you don't like that so the first sentence will say that race is a social construct. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 10:12, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I didnt write or defend that sentence and if you read my proposal you will not find it there. But you are not really interested in reading are you? Just in pushing your trite "race realism" using whatever means necessary...·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:17, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Cool would it be ok to change the first sentence then to reflect the differing views of academia? I'll happily discuss your proposal after that. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 10:35, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

The version you have editwarred to include is not acceptable, and is not an improvement. If you make a proposal for a new definition sentence, here we can certainly discuss it. Please support the proposed definition with sources of a better quality than you have this far. Please realize that the definition has to reflect the best and most widely respected sources (i.e. secondary and tertiary sources that summarize opinions of others, such as for example Morning, or textbooks or review articles or encyclopedia entries, and not primary sources that provide the opinion of an individual scholar on what the definition ought to be). Please make sure that your proposed definition is broad enough to encompass both the social construct and the potential of biological definitions.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:43, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Feel free to actually name any of these "best sources" that only you know about. Going by the sources I looked up and quoted however, there is no consensus. So forgive me if I accuse you of yet more useless patronization. You didn't like my sentence: . Could you suggest something better? What's the problem with that? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 11:21, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Morning is a very good source, Anemone is a very good source, Sussman is a very good source, Caspari is a very good source, Wade, Smedley and Takezawa's EB article is a good source, Muehlenbein's Human evolutionary genetics textbook is a very good source (p. 271), Julian Knight's textbook on human genetic diversity is a very good source (haven't read it though), Jobling Hollox and Hurle's textbook on "Human Evolutionary Genetics" is a very good source (p. 331). Vogel and Motulsky's textbook on human genetics is also quite good and is an example of one that actually states that "genetically distinct populations are popularly called races" and uses the term race in this sense. The other ones explicitly reject this usage - this is the kind of lack of consensus about how to use the term that Morning describes.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:40, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Your suggested first sentence was this "Race are the various ways of classifying of humans into large groups based on the relations between physical appearance, continental ancestry and social group." I agree with the "various ways" bit, but I'm not sure you need "the relations between" or "continental". I would also add "genetic similarity". Are race classifications based on social group? I'm not aware of this. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 11:55, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Race is generally used specifically about large continental ancestry groups correlating with large noticeable differences in skin-color and anatomy , not about small scale local ancestry or haplotypes(even though we can find average genetic differences of the population of Leeds and the population of York, very few people would use the term "race" about this difference). Race is occasionally used about "genetic similarity" and this use is recently becoming somewhat more common so maybe adding that can be justified (though widely rejected by what is probably a majority of geneticists), as for social groups your statement shows that you are ignorant (perhaps wilfully) of the enormous amount of social science research that demonstrates that historically and currently the main function of race has been to create social groups AND that the classification schemes adopted in different places are based on already existing social distinctions AND that social mobility also produces mobility between socially constructed racial categories (whitening) - social science research employing this definition accounts for the bulk of research on race in the past 30 years so it cannot be ignored.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:04, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not saying race can never be socially constructed but your sentence says that race can be based on social groups. I don't really see how this works. Eg the one drop rule was based on ancestry. And race is certainly applied subcontinentally.

"Race is generally used specifically about large continental ancestry groups"

Huh? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:08, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I am sorry, I didnt realize you had trouble reading English. In this sentence "generally" refers to the number of people using it. "Specifically" refers to the way it is used. So though the two adverbs may look mutually contradictory they are in fact not. The one drop rule is based on ancestry. Blood quantum is also based on ancestry. But the fact that the same government used two different "ancestry" classifications for two different social groups, show that the social classification was primary and the ancestry criterion a secondary choice made under specific socio-political circumstances. It is well documented that people in many countries are considered "more white" if they are wealthier or move in prestigious social circles. In US society being "black" is also for many people a question about participating in black culture, (e.g. the phrase "acting white"), because in the US racial groups also often have distinct cultural and social affiliations. These social constructions differ between countries and between contexts within the same country - which is why it is very important to state that racial classifications can be (and are usually) based both on biological variables and social variables - specifically it is social variables that determine which biological variables are considered relevant for classificatoin and which arent.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:23, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Ok but you understand race can just be based on ancestry. You need to work on that first sentence. Any ideas? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 14:52, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I think the wording I suggest fully encompasses the possibilities of categorization schemes that are entirely "social construction" based or entirely "genetic similarity" based in therms of their explicit definitions - and of the reality that each of these possibilities will always draw to varying degrees on both implicit social and biological parameters. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:09, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

How about "Race are the various ways of classifying humans into groups based on or on the relations between physical traits, ancestry, genetics, and social group." Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 08:41, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

That sentence doesnt parse for me. "on or on"·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Works for me. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 09:10, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Race are the various ways of classifying humans into groups based on physical traits, ancestry, genetics or social group, or on the relations between them. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 09:14, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't oppose that wording.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:18, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Also I was looking at your proposed lead versus Historical race concepts. There seems to be a disconnect. Should we rewrite Historical race concepts to be about European slave traders and Nazis? Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 09:14, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

There certainly seems to be a disconnect between that article and the mainstream literature on the history of the race concept. So yes, it needs to be rewritten.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:18, 20 September 2016 (UTC)