flacaltenn
Diamond Member
Taxonomy gets rather vague when you get below species. Species is defined by the ability to freely interbreed. All extant human beings are considered to be the same species, Sapiens, below the genus Homo.
I once heard it claimed that black people were a “subspecies” of humans, the statement being made in an ignorant manner that suggested that “subspecies” meant that they were inferior to the main species. By a correct use of the term subspecies, I thought that it would be correct to say that black people were subspecies, but that white people are another subspecies, Asians yet another, and so on.
Subspecies doesn't mean anything more or less than different classifications within a species, with no implication of any being any superior or inferior to any other.
On some more recent study, I learned that I was actually incorrect with regard to ho we are taxonomically classified. As it turns out, all extant human beings are considered to be not only the same species, but the same subspecies as well. There are several others forms of primitive humans that are the subject of debate as to whether they were subspecies of Homo Sapiens or separate species. I guess that would be very difficult to reliably determine without being able to observe which of them were freely able to interbreed with Homo Sapiens or with each other.
With humans, race is a taxon below subspecies. It's recognized that even within what is recognized as a single subspecies within a species, that there are further distinct divisions within that.
I'm not really sure how that works. It seems to me that once you get below species, that it doesn't make much sense to try to create more than one taxonomic level below that. Clearly, within the species that is Homo Sapiens, there are subsets of us with distinctively different traits, that make sense to distinguish as different taxa below the species. But at this point, all are able to freely interbreed, and the only way we get such divisions is by having had large groups within the species isolated far enough and long enough from other groups to evolve in different directions. I'm not sure how it makes sense to say that all are the same subspecies, and then try to create categories below that to distinguish the different varieties of us.
Variation below species is not hard to deal with when you're dealing with wrens, cows, or lobsters or roses. Because THERE you're dealing with variations of IDENTITIFYING characteristics. And taxonomy is a bit outdated?
Because we're way into the gate of GENETIC identity now. You can be excluded from a medical clinical trial because you lack a single gene sequence. DOES IT MAKE A DIFF? Sure -- for purposes of say "targeting a drug" or predicting life expectancy for an insurance company.
So RACE is out of place. Maybe GETTING arcane as a term. Unless Wrens use the term to identify close relatives also,. LOL..