Race as Social Construct

Abstract

It is often claimed that race is a social construct and that scientists studying race differences are disruptive racists. The recent April 2018 “Race Issue” of the widely distributed National Geographic Magazine (NG) provided its millions of readers with a particularly illustrative example of this position. As discussions of race issues often recur, in both scientific and lay literature, stir considerable polemics, and have political, societal and human implications, we found it of both scientific and general interest to identify and dissect the following partly overlapping key contentions of the NG race issue magazine: (1) Samuel Morton’s studies of brain size is reprehensible racism (2) Race does not relate to geographic location, (3) Races do not exist as we are all equals and Africans, (4) Admixture and displacement erase race differences as soon as they appear, and (5) Race is only skin color deep. Also examined is the claim that Race does not matter. When analyzed within syllogistic formalism, each of the claims is found theoretically and empirically unsustainable, as Morton’s continuously evolving race position is misrepresented, race relates significantly to geography, we are far from equals, races have definitely not been erased, and race, whether self-reported or defined by ancestry, lineage, ecotype, species, or genes, is much more than skin color deep. Race matters vitally for people and societies. We conclude that important research on existing population differences is hurt when widely respected institutions such as NG mobilize their full authority in a massively circulated attempt to betray its scientific and public readership by systematically misrepresenting historical sources and scientific positions, shaming past scientists, and by selectively suppressing unwanted or unacceptable results–acts included as examples of academic fraud by the National Academy of Sciences (US, 1986). Any unqualified a priori denial of the formative evolutionary aspects of individual and population differences threatens to impede the recent promising research on effects of genome wide allelic associations, which would lames us in the vital quest to develop rational solutions to associated globally pressing societal problems.

Race biology

“…As mentioned in the beginning, race is now hardly a concern for scientists [ 1 ]). It remains, however, a virtually explosive political issue.…”

“…Members of a human race may freely produce offspring with representatives of other races. Even if race has been socially constructed [ 1 ], it has been an immensely powerful construction that has shaped the lives of millions. Restrictions based on geography, skin color, language, culture and religion have been imposed to maintain groups of people as endogamous units.…”

Horse racing: Unnatural selection in the renaissance

“…In the last five years, scholars of medieval and early modern history have wrestled with both the importance of studying the premodern histories of race and racism and the challenge of defining these terms without falling into an anachronism or perpetuating imperialist discourses. Up to this point, the dominant historical narrative has held that race is a modern phenomenon, and that the term "race" was applied systematically to humans during the rise of scientific racism in the nineteenth century (Hannaford, 1996;James & Burgos, 2020;Nyborg, 2019). However, historians and literary scholars have countered that there are many phenomena across the premodern world that look very much like race-based discrimination or the delineation of difference based on racialized characteristics.…”

A call for unity in DEIJ efforts using a proposed framework for Education, Recruitment, Retainment, Research, and Active outreach (ERA) for genetic counselors in the United States

“…The inaccurate concept of race as a biological classification increases the biased association of race with hierarchical rankings, eugenics, justifications of genocide, colonialism, slavery, and other social inequities (Nyborg, 2019; Tishkoff & Kidd, 2004). United States’ governmental racial standards for federal programs are a major contributor to this belief (Bliss, 2020).…”