There’s No Scientific Basis for Race—It's a Made-Up Label
What are the racists (from ALL sides) going to be scared of when the fact that race doesn't exist becomes unavoidably illusory? When, in any case..../
Perhaps the World's Foremost expert in Evolution/Genetics/Speciation and author the the Standard text of that latter name.
Credentials
Jerry Coyne - Wikipedia
Jerry Allen Coyne (1949) is an American professor of biology, known for his commentary on the intelligent design debate. A prolific scientist, he has published dozens of papers, elucidating on the theory of evolution. He is currently a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. His concentration is speciation and ecological and evolutionary genetics..[3]
He is the author of the standard text 'Speciation' and the bestselling science popularization Why Evolution Is True and maintains a website by the same name.
Coyne graduated with a B.S. in biology from the College of William & Mary in 1971. He started graduate work at Rockefeller University under Theodosius Dobzhansky before logistical complications (draft) forced a hiatus.
He then earned a Ph.D. in biology at Harvard University, studying under Richard Lewontin, and went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Davis with Timothy Prout.
He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, and received the "Emperor Has No Clothes" award from the Freedom from Religion Foundation in 2011.
Coyne has served as President (2011) and Vice President (1996) of the Society for the Study of Evolution, and as Associate Editor of Evolution (1985;1988; 1994&;2000) and The American Naturalist(1990;1993). He currently teaches evolutionary biology, speciation, genetic analysis, social issues and scientific knowledge, and scientific speaking and writing.
His work is widely published in scientific journals as well as in such mainstream venues as 'The New York Times', the 'Times Literary Supplement', and The New Republic. His research interests include population and evolutionary genetics, speciation, ecological and quantitative genetics, chromosome evolution, and sperm competition.[...]
Article
Are there human races?
Jerry Coyne
One of the touchiest subjects in human evolutionary biology; or human biology in general; is the question of whether there are human races. Back in the bad old days, it was taken for granted that the answer was not only; but that there was a ranking of races (invariably done by white biologists), with Caucasians on top, Asians a bit lower, and blacks invariably on the bottom. The sad history of biologically based racism has been documented in many places, including Steve Goulds book The Mismeasure of Man (yes, I know its flawed).
But from that sordid scientific past has come a backlash: the subject of human races, or even the idea that they exist, has become Taboo. And this Despite the Palpable morphological Differences between human groups; differences that MUST be based on Genetic Differences and Would, if seen in Other species, lead to their classification as either Races or Subspecies (the terms are pretty interchangeable in biology)..
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What are races?
In my own field of evolutionary biology, Races of animals (Also called Subspecies or ecotypes, are morphologically distinguishable populations that live in allopatry (i.e. are geographically separated). There is no firm criterion on how much morphological difference it takes to delimit a race. Races of mice, for example, are described solely on the basis of difference in coat color, which could involve only one or two genes.
Under that criterion, are there human Races?
Yes. As we all know, there are morphologically different groups of people who live in different areas, though those differences are blurring due to recent innovations in transportation that have led to more admixture between human groups.
How many human races are there?
That's pretty much unanswerable, because human variation is nested in groups, for their ancestry, which is based on evolutionary differences, is nested in groups. So, for example, one could delimit Caucasians as a race, but within that group there are genetically different and morphologically different subgroups, including Finns, southern Europeans, Bedouins, and the like. The number of human races delimited by biologists has ranged from three to over 30.
How different are the races genetically?
Not very different. ...
But since the delimitation of races has historically depended Not on the degree of underlying genetic differences but Only on the existence of Some genetic difference that causes morphological difference, the genetic similarity of races Does Not mean that they Don't exist...."
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