Race (human categorization)

==== United States ====
Since the second half of the 20th century, [[physical anthropology]] in the United States has moved away from a typological understanding of human biological diversity towards a genomic and population-based perspective. Anthropologists have tended to understand race as a social classification of humans based on phenotype and ancestry as well as cultural factors, as the concept is understood in the social sciences.{{sfn|Caspari|2003}}{{sfn|Lieberman|Kirk|Corcoran|2003}} Since 1932, an increasing number of college textbooks introducing physical anthropology have rejected race as a valid concept: from 1932 to 1976, only seven out of thirty-two rejected race; from 1975 to 1984, thirteen out of thirty-three rejected race; from 1985 to 1993, thirteen out of nineteen rejected race. According to one academic journal entry, where 78 percent of the articles in the 1931 ''Journal of Physical Anthropology'' employed these or nearly synonymous terms reflecting a bio-race paradigm, only 36 percent did so in 1965, and just 28 percent did in 1996.<ref name="Lieberman, Kirk, et al. 2003" />

A 1998 "Statement on 'Race'" composed by a select committee of anthropologists and issued by the executive board of the [[American Anthropological Association]], which they argue "represents generally the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists", declares:<ref name="AAAonRace" />

{{blockquote|In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species.&nbsp;...

With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century,&nbsp;... it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups.&nbsp;... Given what we know about the capacity of normal humans to achieve and function within any culture, we conclude that present-day inequalities between so-called "racial" groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances.}}

An earlier [[Statistical survey|survey]], conducted in 1985 {{harv|Lieberman|Hampton|Littlefield|Hallead|1992}}, asked 1,200 American scientists how many ''disagree'' with the following proposition: "There are biological races in the species ''Homo sapiens''." Among anthropologists, the responses were:
* [[physical anthropologist]]s: 41%
* [[cultural anthropologist]]s: 53%<ref name="presentations2005" />
Lieberman's study also showed that more women reject the concept of race than men.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reynolds |first1=Larry T. |last2=Lieberman |first2=Leonard |title=Race and Other Misadventures: Essays in Honor of Ashley Montagu in His Ninetieth Year |publisher=Altamira Press |date=1996 |isbn=1-882-28935-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/raceothermisadve0000unse/page/159 159] |url=https://archive.org/details/raceothermisadve0000unse/page/159}}</ref>

The same survey, conducted again in 1999,<ref name="Lieberman 2001" /> showed that the number of anthropologists disagreeing with the idea of biological race had risen substantially. The results were as follows:
* [[physical anthropologist]]s: 69%
* [[cultural anthropologist]]s: 80%

A line of research conducted by Cartmill (1998), however, seemed to limit the scope of Lieberman's finding that there was "a significant degree of change in the status of the race concept". [[Goran Štrkalj]] has argued that this may be because Lieberman and collaborators had looked at all the members of the American Anthropological Association irrespective of their field of research interest, while Cartmill had looked specifically at biological anthropologists interested in human variation.<ref name="Štrkalj 2007" />

In 2007, [[Ann Morning]] interviewed over 40 American biologists and anthropologists and found significant disagreements over the nature of race, with no one viewpoint holding a majority among either group. Morning also argues that a third position, "antiessentialism", which holds that race is not a useful concept for biologists, should be introduced into this debate in addition to "constructionism" and "essentialism".<ref name="MorningSocial">{{cite journal |last=Morning |first=Ann |date=November 2007 |title='Everyone Knows It's a Social Construct': Contemporary Science and the Nature of Race |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_sociological-focus_2007-11_40_4/page/436 |journal=Sociological Focus |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=436–454 |doi=10.1080/00380237.2007.10571319 |s2cid=145012814}}</ref>

According to the 2000 [[University of Wyoming]] edition of a popular physical anthropology textbook, [[forensic anthropology|forensic anthropologists]] are overwhelmingly in support of the idea of the basic biological reality of human races.{{sfn|Gill|2000a}} Forensic physical anthropologist and professor [[George W. Gill]] has said that the idea that race is only skin deep "is simply not true, as any experienced forensic anthropologist will affirm" and "Many morphological features tend to follow geographic boundaries coinciding often with climatic zones. This is not surprising since the selective forces of climate are probably the primary forces of nature that have shaped human races with regard not only to skin color and hair form but also the underlying bony structures of the nose, cheekbones, etc. (For example, more prominent noses humidify air better.)" While he can see good arguments for both sides, the complete denial of the opposing evidence "seems to stem largely from socio-political motivation and not science at all". He also states that many biological anthropologists see races as real yet "not one introductory textbook of physical anthropology even presents that perspective as a possibility. In a case as flagrant as this, we are not dealing with science but rather with blatant, politically motivated censorship".{{sfn|Gill|2000a}}

In partial response to Gill's statement, Professor of Biological Anthropology [[C. Loring Brace]] argues that the reason laymen and biological anthropologists can determine the geographic ancestry of an individual can be explained by the fact that biological characteristics are [[cline (biology)|clinally]] distributed across the planet, and that does not translate into the concept of race. He states: {{Blockquote|text=Well, you may ask, why can't we call those regional patterns "races"? In fact, we can and do, but it does not make them coherent biological entities. "Races" defined in such a way are products of our perceptions.&nbsp;... We realize that in the extremes of our transit&nbsp;– Moscow to Nairobi, perhaps&nbsp;– there is a major but gradual change in skin color from what we euphemistically call white to black, and that this is related to the latitudinal difference in the intensity of the ultraviolet component of sunlight. What we do not see, however, is the myriad other traits that are distributed in a fashion quite unrelated to the intensity of ultraviolet radiation. Where skin color is concerned, all the northern populations of the Old World are lighter than the long-term inhabitants near the equator. Although Europeans and Chinese are obviously different, in skin color they are closer to each other than either is to equatorial Africans. But if we test the distribution of the widely known ABO blood-group system, then Europeans and Africans are closer to each other than either is to Chinese.{{sfn|Brace|2000a}}}}The concept of "race" is still sometimes used within [[forensic anthropology]] (when analyzing skeletal remains), [[biomedical research]], and [[race-based medicine]].<ref name="Gill; Armelagos; et al." /><ref name=Witzig/> Brace has criticized forensic anthropologists for this, arguing that they in fact should be talking about regional ancestry. He argues that while forensic anthropologists can determine that a skeletal remain comes from a person with ancestors in a specific region of Africa, categorizing that skeletal as being "black" is a socially constructed category that is only meaningful in the particular social context of the United States, and which is not itself scientifically valid.<ref name="anthropology" />