Talk:Race (human categorization)

Wiki Education assignment: Evolution of the Genus Homo

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 March 2022 and 3 June 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): WordlyWaleed (article contribs).

Pseudoscientific (?) categorization

In the newest revision of this page (5 July 2024) someone changed "categorization..." to "pseudoscientific categorization..." in the beginning of the article, without changing the rest of the definition or adding references. In my opinion, that is a big claim and should at least be cited, if not removed completely, especially because it's the first thing users see after opening the article. Without proper expansion of that claim, I think it does not belong to this article Wojtek703 (talk) 10:19, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, Pseudoscience should be in the very part of Wikipedia where this article is best ordered in. And the historical part can, of course, stay pretty much unaltered.

In Germany, we - by law - have no concept of race. IMHO people mean ethnicity or phenotype when they say race. Racism does exist, but german law dictates that it stems from pseudoscience, mixing a correlation (not causation) of genotype/phenotype with stereotypes. Back on topic: every single "source" and claim in here should be even stronger scrutinized. FeltFurHeartAndSoulfelt (talk) 13:27, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

That is incorrect. German law states no such thing. 208.30.108.183 (talk) 18:35, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

You are both correct. In law (Grundgesetz), we have racism used as a term, and the term race was used in 1949, too. Which is obsolete.

https://www.antidiskriminierungsstelle.de/DE/ueber-diskriminierung/diskriminierungsmerkmale/ethnische-herkunft-rassismus/ethnische-herkunft-rassismus-node.html

For years now, that concept has been disproven, but the full text of Grundgesetz is still to be revised.

"Das AGG beinhaltet ein Verbot rassistischer Diskriminierung in Alltagsgeschäften sowie im Arbeitsleben. Der im AGG wie auch im Grundgesetz (GG) verwendete Begriff der „Rasse“ ist dabei hochumstritten. Die Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes setzt sich dafür ein, diesen durch die Formulierung "rassistische Diskriminierung“ oder „rassistische Zuschreibung“ zu ersetzen." ~~ 92.116.129.16 (talk) 20:02, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Modern science regards...

OP blocked as a sock. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:44, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
"Modern science regards race as a social construct", in the opening section. This is weasel wording. You have three American sources for this statement. Later in the article international surveys show such an idea is common *only* in America. It's my understanding that American bias should be avoided, especially when claiming to speak for modern science. This sentence should be changed to reflect the lack of international consensus. Something like "The status of race as a biological or social construct continues to be debated." Raffelate (talk) 09:11, 9 October 2024 (UTC) Hi. British guy here. And no. Just no. Race is socially constructed. Just ask anybody from any group who's perceived race depends on the context of who's asking and why. "Scientific" racism is pure pseudoscience. That's not just an American idea. That is the global consensus. By all means add another source that is not American if you like but we will not be bothsidesing racism with a statement like "The status of race as a biological or social construct continues to be debated". Those really would be weasel words which open the door to a spurious legitimisation of "scientific" racism. DanielRigal (talk) 12:09, 9 October 2024 (UTC) Excuse me but as I understand it Wikipedia is edited according to a range of published material, not your personal opinion. Raffelate (talk) 13:48, 9 October 2024 (UTC) It's not a personal opinion, it is the plain language of the cited sources. Wikipedia uses a range of published material, but that doesn't mean that it seeks a WP:FALSEBALANCE between the mainstream and the fringe. MrOllie (talk) 14:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC) Surveys in even America do not support the claim that it is remotely close to "fringe". The fact that the idea is entertained in academia, let alone held by significant numbers as shown in Ann Morning's survey, preclude such a claim. Please explain how you arrived at such an assessment. Raffelate (talk) 14:11, 9 October 2024 (UTC) Nearly a quarter of the population believes in Astrology. Science isn't settled by opinion polling. MrOllie (talk) 14:14, 9 October 2024 (UTC) I am not claiming anything is settled, merely that both sides of the issue are held in academia. How else can we establish whether an idea is fringe other than by polling experts in the relevant discipline? How have you established this? I have asked you this question, please answer it. Raffelate (talk) 14:21, 9 October 2024 (UTC) By following the best quality sources, which is what the article presently does. MrOllie (talk) 14:25, 9 October 2024 (UTC) And what are the criteria for best quality? Perhaps merely cherry picking those that match the personal opinion of editors rather than surveying the field? This is a gross violation of policy. Raffelate (talk) 14:37, 9 October 2024 (UTC) If you can't discuss without throwing around aspersions I'm done here. MrOllie (talk) 14:45, 9 October 2024 (UTC) I simply asked a question. Is the answer no? If it is yes you should certainly be done here. Raffelate (talk) 14:50, 9 October 2024 (UTC) I reject the premise of the question. MrOllie (talk) 14:53, 9 October 2024 (UTC) That you use "best sources" to write the article and it is unclear what this means? Raffelate (talk) 14:58, 9 October 2024 (UTC) An aspersion thinly disguised as a question is still an aspersion. I will not respond to this thread any further. Feel free to take the last word if you require it. MrOllie (talk) 14:59, 9 October 2024 (UTC) It would behoove you to address the policy issue rather than stonewalling based on the fact you "don't like my tone". Raffelate (talk) 06:17, 10 October 2024 (UTC) Rather than attribute to "modern science", we should just say "Race is a social construct ...". Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:36, 9 October 2024 (UTC) So apparently we're at an impasse where editors here think their personal opinion trumps what is found in the range of academic sources. Of course this is the diametric opposite of Wikipedia policy. I will raise this issue at a noticeboard. Raffelate (talk) 06:17, 10 October 2024 (UTC) Please read WP:BOOMERANG before you do. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:19, 10 October 2024 (UTC) You are implying the admins are also corrupt? Quite possibly. How very sad. I used edit Wikipedia twenty years ago and it wasn't like this at all. But still, it's worth a try. Raffelate (talk) 15:01, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Do races even exist?

WP:NOTFORUM
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The POV of this article (and articles which rely on it) is that "race" doesn't really exist. Skin color, shape of facial features, straightness or curliness of hair, don't really divide humans at all. We're just making it up: it's a social construct. I think this is an exaggeration, though well intentioned. I believe the purpose of this is to undermine the basis of racism, particularly racial supremacy. "We are better than you, because you race makes you inherently inferior." While I applaud the effort to undermine racism (indeed, my mother and grandfather did a lot of civil rights work), the assertion that there are no inherited, readily apparent differences between large groups of people is simply one WP:POV even it has become mainstream in the English-speaking West. We should rather describe the evidence and reasoning of those who wish to destroy the concept of race, instead of tacitly agreeing with them. There are five basic skin colors: black, brown, red, yellow, and white. Whether or not any people of a certain color look down on others with darker or lighter skin doesn't change the fact that people are born with skin color that is inherited from their parents (the theory is that there is a genetic cause for this). People of a given race tend to have a similar culture, and perhaps this is the cause of the difficulty in writing objectively about it (or at least in the NPOV style). No one wants to admit that their culture is responsible for producing unfavorable social outcomes like poverty, ignorance, and crime. Since it can't be race -- because race doesn't even exist! -- it must be discrimination. Perhaps so, but Wikipedia should not endorse or espouse this view. It should inform our readers about it. Who believes it, and why? --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:03, 2 November 2024 (UTC) This seems very much to be a WP:FORUM post as it doesn't discuss sources, etc. Doug Weller talk 14:10, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Do races even exist? Sources

Doug Weller asks for sources above.

2016 survery of American anthropologists

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5299519/ "The human population may be subdivided into biological races. Strongly disagree or disagree (86%)"

Among chemists phlogiston, and geologists flat earth, would be 100%. Those are fringe views. Futher the survey was largely among among anthropolgists without biological specialization, only 10% were Physical/Biological Anthropologists. And they were Americans. As we will see both matter.  

Archaeological Anthropologist 17.83  Cultural Anthropologist 53.81   Linguistic Anthropologist 5.63   Medical Anthropologist 12.25   Physical/Biological Anthropologist 10.48

Goran Štrkalj 2007 review of surveys

"In some places the concept of race seems to be falling out of favour (e.g., the USA and Western Europe), while in others it is generally accepted (e.g., China and Eastern Europe). The reasons for these differences are many and complex. They are of a scientific, ideological and professional nature. It would appear that two conclusions strongly emerge from research on the status of the race concept in biological anthropology: there is still no consensus on the race concept and there are significant national/regional differences in anthropologists’ attitudes towards ‘race’."

Ann Morning 2007 survey

"‘Everyone Knows It’s a Social Construct’: Contemporary Science and the Nature of Race"

• Race is biological

Anthropologists 32% Biologists 45%

• Race is not biological

Anthropologists 21% Biologists 32%

• Race is social

Anthropologists 42% Biologists 5%

• Race is social and not biological

Anthropologists 5% Biologists 18%

"Constructionist definitions of race were offered almost exclusively by the sociocultural specialists in anthropology departments; two-thirds of them took this approach, compared to only 14% of the physical anthropologists (and 23% of biologists; subfield results not shown). Whereas 57% of the physical anthropologists and 45% of the biologists defined race as a biological characteristic, only 17% of the sociocultural anthropologists did so. In other ways, my research upholds the findings of Lieberman's survey of academics taken 20 years ago. Since then, advances in genetic knowledge seem to have done little to dismiss scientists' belief in racial biology, or to bring academics to a consensus regarding the nature of race. At best, one can conclude that biologists and anthropologists now appear equally divided in their beliefs about the nature of race. Given the tenacity of essentialist ideology, sociologists cannot remain complacent in their certainty of the supremacy of racial constructivism. The idea that "everyone knows race is a social construct"—a refrain I have heard from more than one scholar con­vinced there is little variation in academic concepts of race to study—represents a blind faith in constructivism that ignores the signs of a resurgence in biology-based race science. Without serious recognition of and engagement with the new, genetic essentialism, sociology is left ill-equipped to analyze and address it."

Richard Dawkins

"However small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance."

""Social construct"? Forget it. Race is biologically real."

Jerry Coyne

Expert on speciation.

"Race and ethnicity are social constructs, without scientific or biological meaning." Nope, and we’ve known that statement is wrong for nearly 20 years."

"[T]he statement “Race and ethnicity are social constructs, without scientific or biological meaning” is simply wrong. Even the old-fashioned concept of race shows that it is not just a social construct. A large sample of Americans who self-identified as African American, White, East Asian or Hispanic was subject to blind analysis of their DNA. The subjects fell into four genetic clusters, revealing a 99.8 percent match between self-identification and DNA classification. Clearly, even old views of race involve meaningful genetic differences reflecting the evolutionary history of our species. If the concept of “race” (or “ethnicity”, as I prefer to say) were purely an agreement of people within society having nothing to do with objective reality, you wouldn’t see the correspondence between how one identifies themselves and the code in their DNA. I hasten to add that these biological identifiers of races say nothing about hierarchies, but they are biologically and evolutionarily meaningful. This again shows both an ideological motivation and a misleading conclusion. Even the classical biological races (and even more so worldwide populations) are NOT social constructs, but are associated with genetic, morphological, and adaptive differences...Now Guevara may be correct that the “social construct” view is the one taught, erroneously, in high school and college. But she’s wrong in thinking that Lewontin’s paper supports that “social construct” view. In fact, the social construct view is largely wrong, with some exceptions centered on the outmoded view of “classical races”, but it appears to dominate anthropology and the social sciences. Anybody holding that view for either populations or groups of geographically contiguous populations needs to read the Coyne and Maroja paper. I guess what bothers me the most about this article, besides the ignoring of genetic factors in favor of socioeconomic ones, is the claim that there is no biological significance of “race” or “ethnicity”. Depending on how you define these terms, that’s misleading. And if you use a “common ancestry” definition of either word, it’s just wrong."

Ernst Mayr

"Let me begin with race. There is a widespread feeling that the word “race” indicates something undesirable and that it should be left out of all discussions. This leads to such statements as “there are no human races.” Those who subscribe to this opinion are obviously ignorant of modern biology. Races are not something specifically human; races occur in a large percentage of species of animals. You can read in every textbook on evolution that geographic races of animals, when isolated from other races of their species, may in due time become new species. The terms “subspecies” and “geographic race” are used interchangeably in this taxonomic literature."

It's clear from these sources that the claim "race is a social construct" is a consensus view and the converse is fringe is simply a lie, based on a highly selective view of the literature. That is it is a violation of NPOV. Tarantaloid (talk) 07:34, 18 November 2024 (UTC)