The most recent survey I could find was from 1985 which said that 16% of biologist disagreed that "[t]here are biological races in the species Homo sapiens."
I was wondering if there's been a change in this position.
Answer
This has been investigated extensively on skeptics.stackexchange.com.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to determine a scientific consensus since nobody has cited a relevant survey. On the other hand, here are some salient quotes from scientific literature (stolen from the answers to the above-mentioned question) which I find worth repeating:
A subspecies (race) is a distinct evolutionary lineage within a species. This definition requires that a subspecies be genetically differentiated due to barriers to genetic exchange that have persisted for long periods of time; that is, the subspecies must have historical continuity in addition to current genetic differentiation. [Templeton, 1998], cited in [Long & Kittles, 2003]
Which speaks against the existence of races as a meaningful biological concept.
On the other hand, Jorde & Wooding (2004) contend that,
Genetic variation is geographically structured, as expected from the partial isolation of human populations during much of their history. Because traditional concepts of race are in turn correlated with geography, it is inaccurate to state that race is "biologically meaningless".
But they concede that
there is no scientific support for the concept that human populations are discrete, nonoverlapping entities.
Finally, it’s worth noting that in the universally agreed-on taxonomy, formalised in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature there simply is no category for races, whether they would make sense or not. Whether or not this view enjoys a majority vote in biology, it’s the de facto consensus.
No comments:
Post a Comment