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BIOLOGY and RACE
Unscientific science
Training Handout
Racial categories are not biological categories
Since the nineteenth century, people
in Western societies (Western Europe and North America) have romanticized
science and put it onto a pedestal Science, of course contributed
to major technological advancements during and after the industrial revolution;
very impressive As a result, many people try to explain various
social phenomena through “scientific” explanations Here we mean
the hard sciences, biology, chemistry and physics, not the social sciences
(which are not as highly respected).
The use of biology, or misuse as
it turns out, applies to our categorising persons into various
“races."
We must separate what
is biological, and what is social in this process.
Biologically, we (Homo sapiens
sapiens) are animals As such, we inherit biological characteristics
from our two parents. This includes: hair colour, hair straightness or
curliness, various skin colours, shape of nose, size, weight, and so on.
If we look at a cross section of hair, we see it can be round, oval or
flat The rounder it is, the straighter the hair, and the flatter
it is the more curly.
Where we depart from biology is to
invent categories, which we call ”races,” and put individuals into
those categories. Negro, White, Mediterranean, East Asian, South Asian,
are all terms to describe these categories.
Biology doesn’t.
In biology, the usual boundary between
different species is the ability or non ability to mate and produce offspring.
All humans belong to one species; there is a single human race There
are no biological boundaries between races.
Furthermore, we are not consistent
in using skin colour, nose shape or body shape and size, in putting different
people into one or another category Sometimes we use colour, then
other times we use hair curliness or nose shape.
Children of marriages between people
belonging to different races have biological characteristics of
both.
Variations in skin colour on a single
individual are greater than the variations in skin colour between the averages
of any two races.
A forensic anthropologist examining
a corpse, using DNA or other evidence, does not find biological evidence
of categories, but degrees of various biological characteristics that are
socially categorised into races.
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