Is race a social construct?

Written by AI. Help improve this answer by adding to the sources section. When the sources section is updated this article will regenerate.

Overview

The word “race” is used in at least two main ways in contemporary discourse:

as a sociopolitical label that groups people according to rules that differ across time and place, and
as a loose biological shorthand for clusters of human genetic ancestry.

Whether those two meanings can be kept separate—or whether one should be preferred over the other—lies at the heart of the modern debate.

Is race a social construct?

Short answer

Yes, in the sense that the everyday categories “Black,” “White,” “Asian,” etc., are defined by social rules that vary by country and epoch and are not required by biology alone [4][6].
No, or at least “not only,” in the sense that humans do form partially distinguishable genetic clusters that broadly map onto continental ancestry, and these clusters can be predicted from DNA far better than chance [1][5][7][10][11].

Most scholars therefore speak of race as socially constructed yet constrained by population genetics. The relative emphasis differs among authors, yielding ongoing controversy.

Arguments that race is primarily a social construct

Classification rules are historically contingent: a person classified as “Black” in the U.S. might have been “coloured” in South Africa or “white” in Brazil at the same time period [4].

Genetic variation is mostly within continental groups (~85 %, Lewontin 1972); hence between-group boundaries are blurry [6].

Genomic clustering methods require researchers to pre-specify the number of clusters; the output can shift with sampling decisions and statistical settings [6].

The label “race” has been entangled with colonial and political projects; UNESCO’s 1950 and 1951 statements called the biological race concept scientifically obsolete and socially harmful [4].

In medicine, social conditions (e.g., access to care) often explain outcome disparities as well as, or better than, genetic ancestry [6].

Arguments that race is not purely a social construct

When thousands of genetic markers are used, individuals cluster reliably into groups that align with self-identified continental ancestry—even when no population labels are supplied to the algorithm [10][11].

A convolutional neural network can infer a patient’s self-reported race from radiological images with high accuracy, even when human experts cannot, suggesting a biological signal not reducible to social labelling [2].

Certain allele frequency differences (e.g., lactose persistence, sickle-cell trait, EDAR variants affecting hair morphology) follow continental patterns and have medical relevance, implying that ignoring population structure can harm precision medicine [5][7].

Critics of the Lewontin 85 % figure note that multiple loci considered jointly can separate populations with near-perfect accuracy (Edwards 2003) [10].

Empirical geneticists such as David Reich argue that while race is a poor proxy, ancestry differences do exist and matter for some traits; denying this risks eroding public trust in science [5][7].

Authors disagree over how much weight to give these points. Aporia’s “Race Realism” essay emphasises them; the UNESCO historiography and some genomics sociologists emphasise social construction.

Historical factors shaping the “social construct” view

18th–19th c. naturalists (Linnaeus, Blumenbach) first formalised continental races, often ranking them hierarchically.

Early 20th c. eugenics misused race categories; Nazi race science culminated in genocide, discrediting biological race in post-war scholarship.

UNESCO 1950, 1951, 1964 statements promoted “the race concept must be abandoned” and substituted “ethnic group” [4].

1972: Richard Lewontin’s famous paper quantified within- vs. between-group genetic variance and was widely interpreted as proving race is meaningless.

1990s–2000s: The Human Genome Project popularised the slogan “there is more genetic variation within races than between them.”

2003: Edwards’ rejoinder “Lewontin’s Fallacy” rekindled debate by showing that multivariate methods can classify populations [10].

2010s–2020s: Cheap whole-genome sequencing and admixture studies complicated the picture; public discussion polarised along political lines [3][5][6][11][13].

Human population groups and known differences

Meaningful population (or ancestry) groups are usually defined by common descent across geographic space. A minimal list often used in medical genetics is:

West Eurasian (roughly Europe & Near East),
East Asian,
Sub-Saharan African,
Native American,
Oceanian,
South Asian.

Selected documented differences:

Disease alleles: Sickle-cell trait (African malarial regions), Tay-Sachs (Ashkenazi), alcohol-flushing ALDH22 variant (East Asia) [5][7].

Morphology: Average skin melanin, hair‐shaft shape (EDAR V370A), tooth-shovel trait, high-altitude haemoglobin adaptations in Tibetans [5][11].

Height: Northern Europeans are among the tallest populations; Pygmy groups are among the shortest. Polygenic height scores track this partially but incompletely [11].

Drug metabolism: CYP2C19 poor-metaboliser alleles are more common in East Asians than Europeans, influencing clopidogrel dosing guidelines [7].

All differences are statistical averages with large overlap among individuals.

Origins of the major population groups

Modern Homo sapiens left Africa ~60–70 kya.

A series of founder effects and isolation by distance produced continental genetic structure; for example, East vs. West Eurasians diverged roughly 40 kya, with later back-migrations [5][7].

Admixture with archaic humans (Neanderthals and Denisovans) varies by region (higher in Oceanians) [5].

Subsequent Holocene migrations (e.g., Bantu expansion, Steppe pastoralists, Austronesian dispersal) reshaped regional genomes, so present-day populations are mosaics rather than discrete branches [11].

The race and IQ debate

Definition The “race and IQ” debate asks whether average IQ score gaps among population groups are wholly environmental or partly genetic.

Key moments

1969: Arthur Jensen argued a partly genetic explanation for the Black–White gap in the U.S.

1994: “The Bell Curve” (Herrnstein & Murray) reignited controversy.

2003–2010: Increasing twin and adoption data suggested high heritability within populations but did not settle between-group causes.

2013: Heritage Foundation analyst Jason Richwine resigned after criticism of his dissertation claiming Hispanic–White IQ differences were partly genetic [12].

2017: Quillette article criticised mainstream media for dismissing any genetic component without argument [8].

Polygenic scores: GWAS now predict a share of IQ variance in Europeans, but portability across ancestries is limited, making inferences about group gaps uncertain [11].

Positions

Genetic contribution likely non-zero (race-realist writers)[1][8][13].
Evidence insufficient; environment dominates (critics, many psychologists).
Most genomicists caution that present methods cannot definitively answer between-group causation [5][6].

Timeline of public discourse

1700s Linnaeus classifies Homo sapiens* into four continental “varieties.”

1850s Scientific racism peaks; craniometry used to rank groups.

1945 End of WWII discredits overt racial typologies.

1950–51 UNESCO statements: race mostly social, replace by “ethnicity” [4].

1972 Lewontin variance analysis [6].

1994 “The Bell Curve.”

2003 “Lewontin’s Fallacy” paper [10].

2013 Richwine controversy [12].

2018 David Reich NYT op-ed argues for a middle position [7].

2021 Substack, Aporia, Persuasion hosting freer debates amid claims of “conformity pressure” in academia [1][3][11].

2022 AI imaging paper suggests non-visible racial signal in tissue scans [2].

Updated Sources

The Case for Race Realism – Aporia Magazine (Opinion/Essay) – https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/the-case-for-race-realism

“AI Recognition of Patient Race in Medical Imaging” (2022 pre-print, empirical research PDF) – https://www.thewikle.com/resources/AIrecognitionofpatientraceinmedicalimaging%282022%29.pdf

Discourse on Race Has a Conformity Problem – Persuasion (Opinion) – https://www.persuasion.community/p/discourse-on-race-has-a-conformity

Changing the Concept of Race: On UNESCO and Cultural Internationalism (2020, historical scholarship PDF) – https://www.thewikle.com/resources/Changingtheconceptofrace-OnUNESCOandculturalinternationalism_%282020%29.pdf

David Reich: How to Talk about Race and Genetics – Unz Review (Interview/Blog) – https://www.unz.com/isteve/david-reich-how-to-talk-about-race-and-genetics/

Developing Debate on Race and Genomics – UC Santa Cruz SciJust (Blog overview) – https://scijust.ucsc.edu/2019/05/30/developing-debate-on-race-and-genomics/

How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of Race – New York Times (Op-ed) – https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/opinion/genes-race.html

No Voice, Vox: Sense & Nonsense in Discussing IQ & Race – Quillette (Opinion/Analysis) – https://quillette.com/2017/06/11/no-voice-vox-sense-nonsense-discussing-iq-race/

“On the Concept of Race” (Philosophy of Biology, peer-reviewed 2009) – Springer – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-009-9193-7

Lewontin’s Fallacy – A. W. F. Edwards, 2003 (Peer-reviewed PDF) – https://www.thewikle.com/resources/Edwards2003-LewontinFallacy.pdf

The Current Status: It’s Complicated – Razib Khan Substack (Blog) – https://www.razibkhan.com/p/current-status-its-complicated

Jason Richwine IQ Controversy – Politico (News/Opinion) – https://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/opinion-jason-richwine-095353

Latest Rationalization: “Race Doesn’t Exist” – Steve Sailer Blog (Opinion) – https://www.stevesailer.net/p/latest-rationalization-race-doesnt

Trump Annoyed the Smithsonian Isn’t Promoting Discredited Racial Ideas – Ars Technica (Satire/Commentary) – https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/trump-annoyed-the-smithsonian-isnt-promoting-discredited-racial-ideas/

Sources

Question

Is race a social construct? What are the arguments for and against race being a social construct? What historical factors influenced the idea of race as a social construct? What are human population groups and what are some known differences between them? What are the origins of different human population groups? What is the race and IQ debate?