Biological differences among races don’t exist

2 Comments

Molly Monsees
Durham, NC

Race is a real cultural, political, and economic concept in society, but it is not a biological concept. In a scientific sense, there is no such thing as race.

Keep the conversation going - comment and discuss with your thoughts

  • Matt West

    Lie. Race is a valid biological concept. A trained anthropologist can tell the race of a skeleton based on it’s features.

  • Enrique Garcia

    Thank you for the insight! I agree with your points. But I guess I did not specify what I meant with the word behaviour. When I said behaviour, I meant cultural behaviour/social behaviour not biological. I agree with that fact that human groups have adapt to their environments differently and consequently have different biological differences.

    But can we says that Asians are smarter because they have adapted that way and have genetic differences in their DNA? Or is it because most were raised in a cultural and social environment that emphasizes those points?

    This issue gets frustrating when individuals use outliers as a mean to disprove this points.

    For example, I have heard “So and so is a psychopath and he was born that way! It goes to show social behaviour is in our DNA!”

    This issue gets even more complicated when statistic shows certain behaviour patterns. For example: “My grandfather was an alcoholic, my dad was an alcoholic, is alcoholism imprinted in my DNA or is it as a result of the cultural experiences I have been expose to?” Or you think about so much that it becomes real? Self-fulfilling prophecy?

    I guess most of the confusion arises from the fact that we have different definitions for the same concept. Or that we have vague definitions of some concepts. For me race is a social process. A verb, not a noun. I do not call people racist, because that leaves the idea of race unquestioned. Behaviour for me implies social and cultural process. Being in the medical field, behaviour implies different meanings for you.

 

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