Race in Biological Context
The article was written by the outline writing service
According to the modern understanding of the term "race", there are biological and sociological factors of its definition. In the biological sense, race is defined as a complex of inherited features that are common for a group of people. Such feature refers to physical appearance, namely skin colour, hair colour, eye colour, jaw structure. On the other hand, there are few differences between human races because they have many common features. The biologists refer all people to the same species, namely Homo sapiens. Many scientists believe that the division of men into races is subjective because they share near 99% of the same genetic materials. Sociological or ethnic factors of people definition have more features such as nationality, culture, ancestry, language, and beliefs.
The development of the genetics as a science changed the understanding of the human race concept. As biological concept, the scientists consider race as a fundamental notion that characterizes human species. Nevertheless, there are many researches that claim genetic differences in the defined groups.
One of such researches is the 3rd edition of Exploring Biological Anthropology, which combines the modern discoveries in this field (2012).
In 17th and 18th centuries, the anthropologists searched different ways to classify people based on such physical characteristics as skin colour, body proportions, hair type. The racial division was proposed by Carleton S. Coon in 1962. Carleton classified all people into four major races. There is universal agreement upon it. The world population is divided in Caucasian, Negroid, Mongoloid, and Australoid. The United Nations decided to replace the term "race" with “ethnic groups”. The number of ethnic groups on earth is about 5 000 (Lewontin, 2006). These groups have different culture, traditions, rituals, beliefs as well as language.
Races have different physical characteristics such as colour of skin, colour of eyes, the form of lips and noses, and the hair type. There are many ethnicities within each race.
Welsh, Germans, French, Spanish etc. are the ethnicities of the Caucasian race. Their physical characteristics include light eyes and skin, narrow noses and lips, wavy or straight hair. The Caucasian race consists of many nations that are categorized as non-white.
Race in Social and Cultural Context
In addition to the physical characteristics, races are determined by the genetic differences such as metabolic processes and blood groups. The genetic variation is defined among people within national and linguistic groups. The genetic variation depends on immigration and on the number of population. For example, the population of USA is genetically very changeable due to large populations which come from different countries. It follows that races do not appear from human genetic variation.
Numerous studies based on researches of the DNA and proteins confirmed that around 85% of genetic variation is found within separate national groups (2006). The rest of human variation is present among local populations of the one of “races”, and less than 10% of the human variations are between classic geographical races that are identified by the skin and eye colour, hair and nose shape (2006).
Considering race in social context, it should be noted that today, in the USA, "ethnicity" means "race". In the ethnical context, the scientists divided people into groups that have three common characteristics: 1) culture, 2) biological ancestry and 3) alleged origin place (2006).
Today, at the time of globalization and mass migrations, the differences between races or ethnic characteristics become increasingly blurred. While the conflicts regarding ethnic grounds occasionally happen in the Third World countries, there are countries where people of different cultures are closely connected. Canada is one of such examples. The policy of multiculturalism in Canada was introduced in 1971 (Peter, 1999). The aim of this policy was to equalize the rights of the citizens of all racial and ethnic groups. This act promoted the possibility for different nations to keep their identity. It was the recognition of cultural diversity of Canada. This policy was well-received in the society and, today, Canada is the striking example of multiculturalism.
The respective ethnic groups were formed during a long period of historical and political processes. For example, occurrence of China’s ethnic groups resulted from the changes of dynasties and migration. New groups emerged, some disappeared, and some joined the other ethnic groups. One of the China’s ethnic groups, the Han, was formed as a result of other ethnic groups’ merger (Guangxue, 2004). China is one of the largest multi-national countries in the world. There are near 56 ethnic groups in this country (2004). The Han comprise 91% of Chinese population. The other ethnic groups account for 8% of population and are shared into 55 different minorities (2004)
The known biologist Th. Dobzhansky introduced the concept of the “geographical race" and proved that each population differs genetically (2004). The scientist claimed that each population is a special “geographic race”.
Conclusion
There is no biologically grounded way to divide the human populations in different races. The existence of race is very contentious. The groups of population within the races have more differences than those among the races. It should be noted that genetic differences between groups are being gradually destroyed due to migration and mixing of races. Race today is more geographical concept because the determination of person's race depends on the origins that mean the part of the world their ancestors originated from. People can be differentiated by their country of origin, language, culture, traditions, beliefs, and rituals. Therefore, the race exists socially, but not biologically.
References
Guangxue, H. (2004) China’s ethnic groups Vol. 02 No. 3
Lewontin, R. C. (2006) Confusions about human races. SSRC.org Retrieved from http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/
Peter S. Li, (1999) The multiculturalism debate. In Race and Ethnic Relations in Canada (2d ed.).
Stanford, C., Allen, J. S., &Anton, S. C. (2012) Exploring biological anthropology: The essentials (3rd ed.). Books a la Carte Edition.
