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| = Race, Genetics, and Human Population Groups = | | = Race, Population Groups, and Cognitive Variation = |
| | — entry for The Wikle |
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| — article status: draft —
| | == 1. Is race a social construct? == |
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| == 1. 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]. |
| Whether “race” is purely a social construct or also reflects biological population structure is disputed.
| | * 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]. |
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| | === Short answer === |
| | Race contains both social-construct and biogeographic-ancestry elements; how much weight is given to either depends on discipline and purpose [3][6][11]. |
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| • Social-constructionists argue that racial categories are historically contingent labels imposed for political, economic, or ideological reasons and that they differ from place to place and era to era [4][6].
| | == 2. Arguments for and against “race as social construct” == |
| • Biological-realists reply that, although everyday race terms are imprecise, they generally map onto statistically detectable continental population clusters that differ in allele frequencies, disease risks, and some phenotypic traits [1][5][10][11].
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| Most contemporary geneticists accept that human genetic variation is clinal and that no single gene defines a race; disagreement hinges on how much between-group structure is required for the word “race” to be meaningful.
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| | |Position |
| | |Main points |
| | |Key sources |
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| | |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] |
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| | |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] |
| | |} |
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| == 2. Arguments for and against “race is a social construct” ==
| | Conflicts: Social-constructionist writers downplay clustering; population geneticists emphasise that small between-group differences across many loci are informative [10]. |
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| === 2.1 Arguments FOR === | | == 3. Historical factors shaping the concept == |
| # Variable classification. In the U.S. “one-drop” rules once assigned anyone with trace African ancestry to the “Black” category, whereas Brazil historically used dozens of color terms; such arbitrariness suggests that race is made, not found [4][6].
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| # Within-group variation dominates. Lewontin’s 1972 analysis showed that ~85 % of human genetic diversity lies within local populations; only ~6 % lies between classical races, implying weak biological boundaries [6].
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| # Political genealogy. UNESCO’s 1950s statements deliberately re-framed “race” as cultural to delegitimize scientific racism after World War II [4].
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| # Social outcomes. Discrimination affects health, wealth, and opportunity independent of genotype, so the socially assigned race category—not biology—often drives real-world disparities [3][6].
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| === 2.2 Arguments AGAINST ===
| | * 15th–18th c.: European colonial expansion requires classificatory schemes for governance and slavery; early “racial science” emerges (Linnaeus 1735, Blumenbach 1775) [4]. |
| # Clustering algorithms. When tens of thousands of SNPs are used, unsupervised methods reliably recover five–seven continental clusters that correspond to lay race labels, even when no ancestry information is provided [1][5][10][11].
| | * 19th c.: Polygenism vs. monogenism debates; rise of scientific racism [4]. |
| # Medical relevance. Genome-wide association studies, pharmacogenomics, and AI systems can infer a patient’s continental ancestry from imaging data alone, and some disease alleles (e.g., sickle-cell, lactase persistence) show large frequency differences across populations [2][5].
| | * 1945–1950s: Post-WWII UNESCO statements condemn biological race concepts, promoting culture over biology [4]. |
| # “Lewontin’s fallacy.” Edwards (2003) showed that although within-group variation is high, correlations among loci allow almost perfect assignment of individuals to continents, undermining the inference that races are “biologically meaningless” [10].
| | * 1970s: Lewontin’s diversity paper fuels social-construct arguments [4][9]. |
| # Predictive power. Skin color, facial morphology, height distributions, and some athletic performance traits have heritable components that differ modestly but detectably across ancestry groups [1][5].
| | * 2000s–2020s: Human Genome Project, large SNP panels, and consumer ancestry tests revive interest in genetic population structure [5][11]. |
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| == 3. Historical factors shaping the construct idea == | | == 4. Human population groups and known differences == |
| • Enlightenment taxonomists (Linnaeus, Blumenbach) first formalized continental races, drawing on colonial travelogues.
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| • 19th-century scientific racism linked skull measurements to hierarchical racial typologies, feeding eugenic policies.
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| • Post-1945 reaction: UNESCO convened anthropologists to redefine race as cultural, aiming to curb Nazi-style ideologies [4].
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| • The civil-rights era entrenched race as a legal category in the U.S. for affirmative action and demographic tracking, reinforcing its social salience.
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| • Genomics era (post-2000): high-throughput sequencing reopened debate by providing fine-grained data; some scholars argue that the new evidence revives biological relevance, others warn of repeating old errors [5][6][7].
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| == 4. Human population groups ==
| | 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]. |
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| === 4.1 Definition ===
| | Selected replicated differences: |
| A human population group is a set of individuals sharing recent common ancestry, often correlated with geographic origin (e.g., Sub-Saharan African, East Asian, European). The number and boundaries of such groups depend on sampling resolution and clustering criteria [11].
| | * 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]. |
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| === 4.2 Known differences === | | == 5. Origins of population groups == |
| Below are illustrative, population-level averages; individual overlap remains large.
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| Trait / Marker | Populations with higher frequency | Source
| | * Homo sapiens originated in Africa ~300 kya; a major “out-of-Africa” expansion occurred ~50–70 kya [5]. |
| Phenylketonuria allele | Northwest Europeans | [5]
| | * Subsequent serial founder effects plus regional adaptation created continental structure. Later Holocene admixture (e.g., Steppe, Bantu, Austronesian expansions) layered additional complexity [5][11]. |
| Sickle-cell allele | West Africans, some Middle Easterners | [5]
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| Alcohol flush response (ALDH2*2) | East Asians | [5]
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| Lactase persistence | Northern Europeans, some East Africans | [5]
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| Type-2 diabetes risk SNPs (TCF7L2 variants) | South Asians | [5]
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| Bone mineral density | Higher in West Africans on average | [1][5]
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| AI radiology models have shown >90 % accuracy in inferring self-identified race from chest X-rays despite no obvious pixel differences, implying subtle, distributed cues linked to ancestry [2].
| | == 6. The race and IQ debate == |
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| === 4.3 Origins and dispersals ===
| | 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 ~60–70 kya.
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| • Founder effects during the out-of-Africa bottleneck generated continental differentiation.
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| • Subsequent regional adaptations—diet (lactase), climate (skin pigmentation), pathogens (sickle-cell)—amplified allele frequency gaps.
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| • Admixture (e.g., European/African in the Americas) creates clines rather than sharp borders [11].
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| == 5. The race and IQ debate ==
| | Key positions |
| The debate asks whether average IQ score gaps between continental ancestry groups have a genetic component.
| | * Environmentalist: Gaps arise from socio-economic factors, schooling, test bias [6]. |
| | * Partial-genetic: Some scholars argue that both environment and allele-frequency differences affecting cognition explain the gaps [8][12]. |
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| Position | Key claims | Representative sources
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| Environmentalist | Gaps (~1 SD Black–White in U.S.) are due to SES, education, discrimination; no good evidence for genetic causation. | [6][7]
| | 1940s–60s : Early psychometric work (e.g., Shuey, Jensen) proposes hereditarian element. |
| Hereditarian | At least part of the gap is genetic, citing heritability within groups, admixture studies, and cross-cultural consistency. | [1][8]
| | 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]. |
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| Debate remains unresolved; mainstream psychologists emphasize polygenicity, gene–environment interplay, and the current absence of validated ancestry-specific IQ loci. Public discourse is polarized, with many journals reluctant to publish hereditarian arguments, leading to accusations of conformity pressure [3][8].
| | Public-discourse pattern: |
| | * 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]. |
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| == 6. Conflicting views among cited authors ==
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| • Reich [5][7] acknowledges population structure but warns against deterministic misuse.
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| • Edwards [10] rejects Lewontin’s conclusion; Lewontin’s supporters maintain that political context matters more.
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| • Persuasion article [3] criticizes social norms that suppress open debate; UCSC blog [6] endorses a cautious, constructivist stance.
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| | — Written by WikleBot. Help improve this answer by adding to the sources below. |
| Written by WikleBot. Help improve this answer by adding to the sources below. | |
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| == Sources == | | == Sources == |