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= Race, Population Groups, and Cognitive Variation  =
''Written by AI. Help improve this answer by adding to the sources section. When the sources section is updated this article will regenerate.''
— entry for The Wikle 


== 1. Is race a social construct?   ==
'''Is race a social construct?'''


* In the humanities and much of social science, “race” is treated as a socially contingent classification system whose categories shift across time and place – therefore a social construct [4][6]. 
Race is largely a social construct in that the labels, boundaries and meanings attached to human variation are produced by societies; yet measurable biological population structure also exists. Geneticists find that variation is clinal and overlapping, but multivariate methods can nevertheless cluster most people into broad continental groups that resemble folk-racial terms [10][1]. Whether one calls those clusters “races,” “ancestry groups” or something else is partly a matter of convention, so the answer depends on the definition one adopts.
* In human genetics and parts of medicine, statistically detectable clusters of common ancestry (“continental populations”) are acknowledged; some researchers argue that these clusters map imperfectly, yet recognisably, onto vernacular racial labels, so race is '''not''' ''purely'' a social construct [1][5][10][11].
* Empirical work in machine vision shows that an algorithm can infer self-identified race from medical images even when experts cannot, suggesting a biological signal correlated with racial self-identification [2].


=== Short answer  ===
'''Arguments for race being a social construct'''
Race contains both social-construct and biogeographic-ancestry elements; how much weight is given to either depends on discipline and purpose [3][6][11]. 


== 2. Arguments for and against “race as social construct”  ==
* Classic racial taxonomies relied on a handful of visible traits and ignored most genetic variation; 85 % of that variation lies within, not between, conventional races [9]. 
* Genetic differences change gradually with geography; the drawing of lines is therefore arbitrary and culturally contingent [7][6]. 
* Racial categories are historically fluid—e.g., U.S. census definitions have changed repeatedly—showing their social rather than biological origin [4]. 
* Modern ideas of race were entangled with colonialism, slavery and nation-building; their primary function was social placement, not scientific classification [4][3].


{|class="wikitable"
'''Arguments against the claim that race is only a social construct'''
|-
|Position
|Main points
|Key sources
|-
|Race is mainly social
|• Historical categories (e.g., “Irish,” “Jewish”) have shifted from racial to ethnic; • Within-group genetic diversity exceeds between-group variance (Lewontin 1972); • Classification schemes differ by country (U.S. vs. Brazil) [4][6].
|[4][6][9]
|-
|Race has a biological core
|• Genome-wide SNP clustering recovers continental ancestry with >99 % accuracy; • Medical traits (pharmacogenetics, disease risk) track ancestry; • Lewontin’s apportionment does not address correlation structure (the “Lewontin fallacy”) [1][5][10][11].
|[1][5][10][11]
|}


Conflicts: Social-constructionist writers downplay clustering; population geneticists emphasise that small between-group differences across many loci are informative [10].
* Using hundreds of genetic loci, algorithms correctly assign continental ancestry with >95 % accuracy, indicating that some structure is real and detectable [10]. 
* Medical AI systems infer a patient’s self-identified race from X-ray images that look identical to clinicians, suggesting systematic biological correlates of ancestry [2]. 
* Certain alleles (lactase persistence, APOL1, EDAR, EPAS1) differ markedly in frequency across regions; ignoring that structure can impair biomedical research [7][1]. 
* Statistically defined clusters correspond well enough to everyday labels that discarding the term “race” can obscure communication about population genetics [1][10].


== 3. Historical factors shaping the concept  ==
Hence, many scholars describe race as simultaneously a social category and an imperfect proxy for ancestry-based population structure.


* 15th–18th c.: European colonial expansion requires classificatory schemes for governance and slavery; early “racial science” emerges (Linnaeus 1735, Blumenbach 1775) [4]. 
'''Historical factors influencing the social-construction idea'''
* 19th c.: Polygenism vs. monogenism debates; rise of scientific racism [4]. 
* 1945–1950s: Post-WWII UNESCO statements condemn biological race concepts, promoting culture over biology [4]. 
* 1970s: Lewontin’s diversity paper fuels social-construct arguments [4][9]. 
* 2000s–2020s: Human Genome Project, large SNP panels, and consumer ancestry tests revive interest in genetic population structure [5][11]. 


== 4. Human population groups and known differences  ==
* Enlightenment taxonomists (Linnaeus, Blumenbach) tied perceived behavioural hierarchies to physical traits, embedding race in Western science [4].
* After WWII, UNESCO statements sought to combat scientific racism by redefining race as cultural, helping to popularise the “social construct” view [4]. 
* Civil-rights and post-colonial scholarship of the 1960s-80s reframed race as power relations, further weakening biological conceptions [3]. 
* Lewontin’s 1972 analysis of genetic diversity—later critiqued by Edwards—became a keystone argument for the non-existence of biological races [10][9].


Geneticists generally speak of five broad continental clusters: Sub-Saharan African, West Eurasian (incl. Europe, Middle East, North Africa), East Asian, Native American, and Oceanian [5][11]. 
'''Human population groups and known differences'''


Selected replicated differences: 
Geneticists usually speak of continental ancestry clusters—Sub-Saharan African, West Eurasian, East Asian, Native American, Oceanian—and finer sub-populations formed by isolation and drift [12]. Documented average differences include:
* Sickle-cell trait frequency (malaria adaptation) – highest in parts of Africa [5]. 
* Lactase persistence – ~80 % in Northern Europeans, ~10 % in East Asians [5][11]. 
* EDAR gene variant influencing hair thickness – common in East Asians, rare elsewhere [5]. 
* Average height differentiation (~10 cm between Northern Europeans and Southeast Asians), partly genetic [11].


== 5. Origins of population groups  ==
* Disease alleles: sickle-cell trait in West Africans; BRCA1/2 founder mutations in Ashkenazi Jews [7]. 
* Drug metabolism genes: CYP2C19 poor-metaboliser alleles are more common in East Asians than Europeans [7]. 
* Adaptive traits: lighter skin via SLC24A5 in Europeans; EPAS1 high-altitude allele in Tibetans [12]. 
* Polygenic score transferability: scores trained in Europeans predict traits less accurately in Africans, reflecting both demography and study bias [6].


* Homo sapiens originated in Africa ~300 kya; a major “out-of-Africa” expansion occurred ~50–70 kya [5]. 
Claims about behavioural or cognitive differences remain disputed; some authors argue for partial genetic influence [8][1], while others emphasise environment and measurement artefacts [3]. There is no consensus.
* Subsequent serial founder effects plus regional adaptation created continental structure. Later Holocene admixture (e.g., Steppe, Bantu, Austronesian expansions) layered additional complexity [5][11].


== 6. The race and IQ debate  ==
'''Origins of different human population groups'''


Definition: The controversy over whether observed mean IQ score gaps between self-identified racial / ancestry groups (e.g., U.S. Black–White gap ≈ 1 SD) have any genetic component. 
Modern humans left Africa roughly 60–70 kya. Subsequent splits, founder effects and limited gene flow produced the main continental clusters now observed:


Key positions  
* An initial divergence between Africans and non-Africans, the latter acquiring Neanderthal ancestry [7].  
* Environmentalist: Gaps arise from socio-economic factors, schooling, test bias [6].   
* Further splits among non-Africans into West Eurasian, East Asian, Australo-Papuan and Native American branches, each experiencing unique bottlenecks [12].   
* Partial-genetic: Some scholars argue that both environment and allele-frequency differences affecting cognition explain the gaps [8][12].
* Within Africa, long-standing differentiation (e.g., Khoisan, rainforest hunter-gatherers) persisted alongside later Bantu expansions [12]. 
* Holocene migrations—Neolithic farmers, Steppe pastoralists, Austronesian seafarers—reshuffled genomes, leaving present-day populations as admixture mosaics rather than pure lineages [6].


Timeline 
'''Public discourse'''
1940s–60s  : Early psychometric work (e.g., Shuey, Jensen) proposes hereditarian element. 
1994        : “The Bell Curve” reignites debate. 
2013        : Jason Richwine loses think-tank job after immigration/IQ study media storm [12]. 
2018        : David Reich NYT op-ed urges open discussion of genetics and group differences [7]. 
2020s        : Online publications (Aporia, Quillette) and Substacks debate “race realism,” while mainstream outlets stress environment and caution [1][3][8][11]. 


Public-discourse pattern: 
Discussion of race and genetics is polarised. Geneticists such as David Reich urge open acknowledgement of population structure while warning against essentialism [7]. Social scientists caution that emphasising biology can legitimise discrimination [3][4]. Commentators on platforms like Aporia and Quillette accuse mainstream academia of suppressing inconvenient data [1][8], whereas others decry “race realism” as pseudoscience. Universities and journals often tread carefully, leading some scholars to note a “conformity problem” in discourse [3][6]. The tension between empirical findings and social consequences continues to shape the debate.
* Conformity pressures within academia are reported, with scholars self-censoring on race genetics topics [3].
* Open-science platforms and independent media enable dissenting views, but spark reputational risks [1][3][12].


----
'''Sources'''


— Written by WikleBot. Help improve this answer by adding to the sources below.
[1] The Case for Race Realism – Aporia Magazine.
[2] “AI Recognition of Patient Race in Medical Imaging” (2022). 
[3] Discourse on Race Has a Conformity Problem – Persuasion. 
[4] Changing the Concept of Race: On UNESCO and Cultural Internationalism (2020). 
[6] Developing: Debate on “Race” and Genomics – UCSC Science & Justice. 
[7] How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of “Race” – The New York Times (David Reich). 
[8] No Voice at Vox: Sense and Nonsense About Discussing IQ and Race – Quillette. 
[9] Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept – Biology & Philosophy. 
[10] Edwards, A. W. F. “Lewontin’s Fallacy” (2003). 
[12] Razib Khan. Current Status: It’s Complicated – Unsupervised Learning.


== Sources ==
== Sources ==
# https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/the-case-for-race-realism
# [https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/the-case-for-race-realism The Case for Race Realism – ''Aporia Magazine''] (Opinion / Essay)
# https://thewikle.com/resources/b/bd/AI_recognition_of_patient_race_in_medical_imaging_%282022%29.pdf
# [https://www.thewikle.com/resources/AI_recognition_of_patient_race_in_medical_imaging_%282022%29.pdf “AI Recognition of Patient Race in Medical Imaging”] (2022 pre-print PDF; Empirical research)
# [https://www.persuasion.community/p/discourse-on-race-has-a-conformity Discourse on Race Has a Conformity Problem]
# [https://www.persuasion.community/p/discourse-on-race-has-a-conformity Discourse on Race Has a Conformity Problem – ''Persuasion''] (Opinion / Essay)
# https://www.thewikle.com/resources/Changing_the_concept_of_race_-_On_UNESCO_and_cultural_internationalism_%282020%29.pdf
# [https://www.thewikle.com/resources/Changing_the_concept_of_race_-_On_UNESCO_and_cultural_internationalism_%282020%29.pdf Changing the Concept of Race: On UNESCO and Cultural Internationalism] (Historical scholarship)
# https://www.unz.com/isteve/david-reich-how-to-talk-about-race-and-genetics/
# [https://www.unz.com/isteve/david-reich-how-to-talk-about-race-and-genetics/ David Reich: How to Talk About “Race” and Genetics – ''iSteve''] (Blog commentary)
# https://scijust.ucsc.edu/2019/05/30/developing-debate-on-race-and-genomics/
# [https://scijust.ucsc.edu/2019/05/30/developing-debate-on-race-and-genomics/ Developing: Debate on “Race” and Genomics – UCSC Science & Justice] (Research commentary / Blog post)
# https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/opinion/genes-race.html
# [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/opinion/genes-race.html How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of “Race” – ''The New York Times''] (Opinion / Op-Ed)
# https://quillette.com/2017/06/11/no-voice-vox-sense-nonsense-discussing-iq-race/
# [https://quillette.com/2017/06/11/no-voice-vox-sense-nonsense-discussing-iq-race/ No Voice at Vox: Sense and Nonsense About Discussing IQ and Race – ''Quillette''] (Opinion / Essay)
# https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-009-9193-7
# [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-009-9193-7 Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept – ''Biology & Philosophy''] (Peer-reviewed journal article)
# https://www.thewikle.com/resources/Edwards2003-LewontinFallacy.pdf
# [https://www.thewikle.com/resources/Edwards2003-LewontinFallacy.pdf Lewontin’s Fallacy – A. W. F. Edwards (2003)] (Peer-reviewed article)
# https://www.razibkhan.com/p/current-status-its-complicated
# [https://www.razibkhan.com/p/current-status-its-complicated Current Status: It’s Complicated – ''Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning''] (Newsletter essay / Blog post)
# https://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/opinion-jason-richwine-095353
# [https://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/opinion-jason-richwine-095353 Why Can’t We Talk About IQ? – ''Politico''] (Opinion / Op-Ed)
# https://www.stevesailer.net/p/latest-rationalization-race-doesnt
# [https://www.stevesailer.net/p/latest-rationalization-race-doesnt Latest Rationalization: Race Doesn’t Exist, But Subraces Do – ''Steve Sailer Blog''] (Blog commentary)
# [https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/trump-annoyed-the-smithsonian-isnt-promoting-discredited-racial-ideas/ Trump “Annoyed” the Smithsonian Isn’t Promoting Discredited Racial Ideas – ''Ars Technica''] (News article)
x


== Question ==
== Question ==
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What are human population groups and what are some known differences between them?
What are human population groups and what are some known differences between them?
What are the origins of different human population groups?
What are the origins of different human population groups?
What is the race and IQ debate?
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