From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term race refers to the concept of dividing people into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of characteristics and beliefs about common ancestry.^[1] The most widely used human racial categories are based on visible traits (especially skin color, facial features and hair texture), and self-identification.^[2]

Conceptions of race, as well as specific ways of grouping races, vary by culture and over time, and are often controversial for scientific as well as social and political reasons. The controversy ultimately revolves around whether or not races are natural types or socially constructed, and the degree to which observed differences in ability and achievement, categorized on the basis of race, are a product of inherited (i.e. genetic) traits or environmental, social and cultural factors.

Some argue that although "race" is a valid taxonomic concept in other species, it cannot be applied to humans.^[3] Many scientists have argued that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, have many exceptions, have many gradations, and that the numbers of races delineated vary according to the culture making the racial distinctions; thus they reject the notion that any definition of race pertaining to humans can have taxonomic rigour and validity.^[4] Today most scientists study human genotypic and phenotypic variation using concepts such as "population" and "clinal gradation". Many contend that while racial categorizations may be marked by phenotypic traits, the idea of race itself, and actual divisions of persons into races, are social constructs.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]}

See also: Historical definitions of race

See also: Ancient Egypt and race

Given visually complex social relationships, humans presumably have always observed and speculated about the physical differences among individuals and groups. But different societies have attributed markedly different meanings to these distinctions. For example, the Ancient Egyptian sacred text called Book of Gates identifies four categories that are now conventionally labeled "Egyptians", "Asiatics", "Libyans", and "Nubians", but such distinctions tended to conflate differences as defined by physical features such as skin tone, with tribal and national identity. Classical civilizations from Rome to China tended to invest much more importance in familial or tribal affiliation than with one's physical appearance (Dikötter 1992; Goldenberg 2003). Ancient Greek and Roman authors also attempted to explain and categorize visible biological differences among peoples known to them. Such categories often also included fantastical human-like beings that were supposed to exist in far-away lands. Some Roman writers adhered to an environmental determinism in which climate could affect the appearance and character of groups (Isaac 2004). In many ancient civilizations, individuals with widely varying physical appearances became full members of a society by growing up within that society or by adopting that society's cultural norms (Snowden 1983; Lewis 1990).

Julian the Apostate was an early observer of racial differences and believed that they were the result of "Providence":

Come, tell me why it is that the Celts and the Germans are fierce, while the Hellenes and Romans are, generally speaking, inclined to political life and humane, though at the same time unyielding and warlike? Why the Egyptians are more intelligent and more given to crafts, and the Syrians unwarlike and effeminate, but at the same time intelligent, hot-tempered, vain and quick to learn? For if there is anyone who does not discern a reason for these differences among the nations, but rather declaims that all this so befell spontaneously, how, I ask, can he still believe that the universe is administered by a providence? — Julian, the Apostate.^[12]

Medieval models of "race" mixed Classical ideas with the notion that humanity as a whole was descended from Shem, Ham and Japheth, the three sons of Noah, producing distinct Semitic (Asian), Hamitic (African), and Japhetic (European) peoples.

The word "race", along with many of the ideas now associated with the term, were products of European imperialism and colonization during the age of exploration. (Smedley 1999) As Europeans encountered people from different parts of the world, they speculated about the physical, social, and cultural differences among various human groups. The rise of the Atlantic slave trade, which gradually displaced an earlier trade in slaves from throughout the world, created a further incentive to categorize human groups in order to justify the subordination of African slaves. (Meltzer 1993) Drawing on Classical sources and upon their own internal interactions — for example, the hostility between the English and Irish was a powerful influence on early thinking about the differences between people (Takaki 1993) — Europeans began to sort themselves and others into groups associated with physical appearance and with deeply ingrained behaviors and capacities. A set of folk beliefs took hold that linked inherited physical differences between groups to inherited intellectual, behavioral, and moral qualities. (Banton 1977) Although similar ideas can be found in other cultures (Lewis 1990; Dikötter 1992), they appear not to have had as much influence upon their social structures as was found in Europe and the parts of the world colonized by Europeans. However, often brutal conflicts between ethnic groups have existed throughout history and across the world, and racial prejudice against Africans also exists today in non-colonised countries such as China and Japan.

Further information: Race (historical definitions), Scientific racism, Craniofacial anthropometry

The first scientific attempts to classify humans by categories of race date from the 17th century, along with the development of European imperialism and colonization around the world. The first post-Classical published classification of humans into distinct races seems to be François Bernier's Nouvelle division de la terre par les différents espèces ou races qui l'habitent ("New division of Earth by the different species or races which inhabit it"), published in 1684.

According to philosopher Michel Foucault, theories of both racial and class conflict can be traced to 17th century political debates about innate differences among ethnicities. In England radicals such as John Lilburne emphasised conflicts between Saxon and Norman peoples. In France Henri de Boulainvilliers argued that the Germanic Franks possessed a natural right to leadership, in contrast to descendants of the Gauls. In the 18th century, the differences among human groups became a focus of scientific investigation (Todorov 1993). Initially, scholars focused on cataloguing and describing "The Natural Varieties of Mankind," as Johann Friedrich Blumenbach entitled his 1775 text (which established the five major divisions of humans still reflected in some racial classifications). From the 17th through the 19th centuries, the merging of folk beliefs about group differences with scientific explanations of those differences produced what one scholar has called an "ideology of race" (Smedley 1999). According to this ideology, races are primordial, natural, enduring and distinct. It was further argued that some groups may be the result of mixture between formerly distinct populations, but that careful study could distinguish the ancestral races that had combined to produce admixed groups.

The 19th century saw attempts to change race from a taxonomic to a biological concept. In the 19th century a number of natural scientists wrote on race: Georges Cuvier, Charles Darwin, Alfred Wallace, Francis Galton, James Cowles Pritchard, Louis Agassiz, Charles Pickering, and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. As the science of anthropology took shape in the 19th century, European and American scientists increasingly sought explanations for the behavioral and cultural differences they attributed to groups (Stanton 1960). For example, using anthropometrics, invented by Francis Galton and Alphonse Bertillon, they measured the shapes and sizes of skulls and related the results to group differences in intelligence or other attributes (Lieberman 2001).

These scientists made three claims about race: first, that races are objective, naturally occurring divisions of humanity; second, that there is a strong relationship between biological races and other human phenomena (such as forms of activity and interpersonal relations and culture, and by extension the relative material success of cultures), thus biologizing the notion of "race", as Foucault demonstrated in his historical analysis; third, that race is therefore a valid scientific category that can be used to explain and predict individual and group behavior. Races were distinguished by skin color, facial type, cranial profile and size, texture and color of hair. Moreover, races were almost universally considered to reflect group differences in moral character and intelligence.

The eugenics movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, inspired by Arthur Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-1855) and Vacher de Lapouge's "anthroposociology", asserted as self-evident the biological inferiority of particular groups (Kevles 1985). In many parts of the world, the idea of race became a way of rigidly dividing groups by culture as well as by physical appearances (Hannaford 1996). Campaigns of oppression and genocide were often motivated by supposed racial differences (Horowitz 2001).

In Charles Darwin's most controversial book, The Descent of Man, he made strong suggestions of racial differences and European superiority. In Darwin's view, stronger tribes of humans always replaced weaker tribes. As savage tribes came in conflict with civilized nations, such as England, the less advanced people were destroyed.^[13] Nevertheless, he also noted the great difficulty naturalists had in trying to decide how many "races" there actually were (Darwin was himself a monogenist on the question of race, believing that all humans were of the same species and finding "race" to be a somewhat arbitrary distinction among some groups):

Man has been studied more carefully than any other animal, and yet there is the greatest possible diversity amongst capable judges whether he should be classed as a single species or race, or as two (Virey), as three (Jacquinot), as four (Kant), five (Blumenbach), six (Buffon), seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz), eleven (Pickering), fifteen (Bory St. Vincent), sixteen (Desmoulins), twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawfurd), or as sixty-three, according to Burke. This diversity of judgment does not prove that the races ought not to be ranked as species, but it shews that they graduate into each other, and that it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive characters between them.^[14]

In a recent article, Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Jackson have suggested that any new support for a biological concept of race will likely come from another source, namely, the study of human evolution. They therefore ask what, if any, implications current models of human evolution may have for any biological conception of race.^[15]

Today, all humans are classified as belonging to the species Homo sapiens sapiens. However, this is not the first species of hominids: the first species of genus Homo, Homo habilis evolved in East Africa at least 2 million years ago, and members of this species populated different parts of Africa in a relatively short time. Homo erectus evolved more than 1.8 million years ago, and by 1.5 million years ago had spread throughout the Old World. Virtually all physical anthropologists agree that Homo sapiens evolved out of Homo erectus. Anthropologists have been divided as to whether Homo sapiens evolved as one interconnected species from H. erectus (called the Multiregional Model, or the Regional Continuity Model), or evolved only in East Africa, and then migrated out of Africa and replaced H. erectus populations throughout the Old World (called the Out of Africa Model or the Complete Replacement Model). Anthropologists continue to debate both possibilities, and the evidence is technically ambiguous as to which model is correct, although most anthropologists currently favor the Out of Africa model.

Main article: Multiregional hypothesis

Advocates of the Multiregional model, primarily Milford Wolpoff and his associates, have argued that the simultaneous evolution of H. sapiens in different parts of Europe and Asia would have been possible if there was a degree of gene flow between archaic populations.^[16] Similarities of morphological features between archaic European and Chinese populations and modern H. sapiens from the same regions, Wolpoff argues, support a regional continuity only possible within the Multiregional model.^[17] Wolpoff and others further argue that this model is consistent with clinal patterns of phenotypic variation (Wolpoff 1993). Lieberman and Jackson have related this theory to race with the following statement:

See also: Recent single origin hypothesis

According to the Out of Africa Model, developed by Christopher Stringer and Peter Andrews, modern H. sapiens evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago. Homo sapiens began migrating from Africa around 50,000 years ago and would eventually replace existing hominid species in Europe and Asia.^[19][20] The Out of Africa Model has gained support by recent research using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). After analysing genealogy trees constructed using 133 types of mtDNA, they concluded that all were descended from a woman from Africa, dubbed Mitochondrial Eve.^[21] Lieberman and Jackson have related this theory to race with the following comment:

Lieberman and Jackson have argued that while advocates of both the Multiregional Model and the Out of Africa Model use the word race and make racial assumptions, none define the term.^[23] They conclude that "Each model has implications that both magnify and minimize the differences between races. Yet each model seems to take race and races as a conceptual reality. The net result is that those anthropologists who prefer to view races as a reality are encouraged to do so" and conclude that students of human evolution would be better off avoiding the word race, and instead describe genetic differences in terms of populations and clinal gradations.^[24]

Further information: Race (biology) and Subspecies.

With the advent of the modern synthesis in the early 20th century, many biologists sought to use evolutionary models and populations genetics in an attempt to formalise taxonomy below the species level. The term subspecies is used by biologists when a group of organisms are classified in such a way. In biology the term "race" is very rarely used because it is ambiguous, "'Race' is not being defined or used consistently; its referents are varied and shift depending on context. The term is often used colloquially to refer to a range of human groupings. Religious, cultural, social, national, ethnic, linguistic, genetic, geographical and anatomical groups have been and sometimes still are called 'races'".^[25] Generally when it is used it is synonymous with subspecies.^[26][25][27] One of the main obstacles to identifying subspecies is that, while it is a recognised taxonomic term, it has no precise definition.^[26]

Some species of organisms do not appear to fragment into subgroups, while others do seem to form such subspecific groups. A monotypic species comprises a single group or rather a single subspecies. Monotypic species can occur in several ways:

• All members of the species are very similar and cannot be sensibly divided into biologically significant subcategories.
• The individuals vary considerably but the variation is essentially random and largely meaningless so far as genetic transmission of these variations is concerned (many plant species fit into this category, which is why horticulturists interested in preserving, say, a particular flower color avoid propagation from seed, and instead use vegetative methods like propagation from cuttings).
• The variation among individuals is noticeable and follows a pattern, but there are no clear dividing lines among separate groups: they fade imperceptibly into one another. Such clinal variation always indicates substantial gene flow among the apparently separate groups that make up the population(s). Populations that have a steady, substantial gene flow among them are likely to represent a monotypic species even when a fair degree of genetic variation is obvious.

A polytypic species has two or more subspecies. These are separate populations that are more genetically different from one another and that are more reproductively isolated, gene flow between these populations is much reduced leading to genetic differentiation.

Traditionally subspecies are seen as geographically isolated and genetically differentiated populations.^[26] Or to put it another way "the designation 'subspecies' is used to indicate an objective degree of microevolutionary divergence"^[25] One objection to this idea is that it does not identify any degree of differentiation, therefore any population that is somewhat biologically different could be considered a subspecies, even to the level of a local population. As a result it is necessary to impose a threshold on the level of difference that is required for a population to be designated a subspecies.^[26] This effectively means that populations of organisms must have reached a certain measurable level of difference in order to be recognised as subspecies. Dean Amadon proposed in 1949 that subspecies would be defined according to the seventy-five percent rule which means that 75% of a population must lie outside 99% of the range of other populations for a given defining morphological character or a set of characters. The 75 percent rule still has defenders but other scholars argue that it should be replaced with 90 or 95 percent rule.^[28][29][30]

When biologists study non-human populations, the standard threshold at which morphological diversity between two different populations is considered differentiated enough to be classified as subspecies is set at 70-75%. Smith et al. write:

The non-discrete nature of subspecies is evident from their definition as geographic segments of any given gonochoristic (bisexually reproducing) species differing from each other to a reasonably practical degree (e.g., at least 70-75%), but to less than totality. All subspecies are allopatric (either dichopatric [with non-contiguous ranges] or parapatric [with contiguous ranges], except for cases of circular overlap with sympatry); sympatry is conclusive evidence (except for cases of circular overlap) of allospecificity (separate specific status). Parapatric subspecies interbreed and exhibit intergradation in contact zones, but such taxa maintain the required level of distinction in one or more characters outside of those zones. Dichopatric populations are regarded as subspecies if they fail to exhibit full differentiation (i.e., exhibit overlap in variation of their differentiae up to 25-30%), even in the absence of contact (overlap exceeding 25-30% does not qualify for taxonomic recognition of either dichopatric populations or of parapatric populations outside of their zones of intergradation). Phenotypic adjustment to differing environmental conditions through natural selection is likely the primary factor in divergence of parapatric subspecies, and undoubtedly is involved in some dichopaffic subspecies. The founder effect and genetic drift are involved more in the latter than in the former.

Thus, according to the seventy-five percent rule two populations represent different subspecies if the morphological differences between them reach between 25-30%.

According to Sewall Wright, who was born in 1889, there is no question that human populations that have long inhabited separated parts of the world should, in general, be considered to be of different subspecies by the usual criterion that most individuals of such populations can be allocated correctly by inspection. It does not require a trained anthropologist to classify an array of Englishmen, West Africans, and Chinese with 100% accuracy by features, skin color, and type of hair in spite of so much variability within each of these groups that every individual can easily be distinguished from every other. However, it is customary to use the term race rather than subspecies for the major subdivisions of the human species as well as for minor ones.^[31]

Humans can be correctly assigned to races at much greater than 75% accuracy on the basis of morphological traits while chimpanzee subspecies are morphologically indistinct, and difficult or impossible to classify when raised in captivity.^[32][33][34]

On the other hand in practice subspecies are often defined by easily observable physical appearance, but there is not necessarily any evolutionary significance to these observed differences, so this form of classification is generally not accepted by evolutionary biologists.^[26][25]

Because of the difficulty in classifying subspecies morphologically, many biologists began to reject the concept altogether, citing problems such as:^[25]

• Visible physical differences do not correlate with one another, leading to the possibility of different classifications for the same individual organisms.^[25]
• Parallel evolution can lead to the existence of the appearance of similarities between groups of organisms that are not part of the same species.^[25]
• The existence of isolated populations within previously designated subspecies.^[25]
• That the criteria for classification are arbitrary.^[25]

Genetic differences between populations of organisms can be determined using the fixation index of Sewall Wright, which is often abbreviated to F_ST. This statistic is used to compare differences between any two given populations. For example it is often stated that the fixation index for humans is about 0.15. This means that about 85% of the variation measured in the human population is within any population, and about 15% of the variation occurs between populations.^[26][25]

Citing Smith, Templeton asserts that an F_ST value of 0.25 or 0.30 between populations is a “standard criterion” for subspecies classification. However, Smith doesn't mention the concept of F_ST in his paper, he is discussing variation in morphology and discusses the 75% rule. Templeton reported that white tailed deer have an F_ST of about 60% and the grey wolf has an F_ST approaching 90% for mtDNA. The F_ST of grey wolves is 0.168 in autosomal loci, however.^[35][36] On the other hand, in a paper reporting on the phylogenetic structure of the Leopard Panthera pardus species of Africa and Asia, Uphyrkina et al. found that 76.04% of mtDNA variation was distributed between leopard populations and 23.96% within populations, for microsatellite autosomal data, 0.358 (35.8%) of the variation was found between populations.^[37] This compares to a mtDNA F_ST of between 0.24-0.27 (24-27%), and a genomic F_ST of about 0.15 (15%) for humans,^[38] and an F_ST of 0.09-0.32 for autosomal microsatellite DNA between three Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) populations and of 0.51-0.68 between these three populations and the bonobo (Pan paniscus) populations.^[39] The following guidelines were suggested by Sewall Wright for interpreting F_ST:

“The range 0 to 0.05 may be considered as indicating little genetic differentiation. The range 0.05 to 0.15 indicates moderate genetic differentiation. The range 0.15 to 0.25 indicates great genetic differentiation. Values of FST above 0.25 indicate very great genetic differentiation.”

Wright found differences in F_ST for various species from 0.023-0.501.^[40] For humans the F_ST is usually given as 0.15, of this 15% that is distributed between populations about 3-6% is distributed between geographically close populations occupying the same continent and about 6-10% is distributed between more distant continental groups, these figures vary somewhat depending on the type of genetic systems used, but the general observation has been reproduced in numerous studies.^[41] This indicates that some of the between population variation for humans is found within any "race" and about 6-10% of variation is found between "races", giving an F_ST of 0.06-0.1 for human "races".^[42]

It has also been noted that:

• "First, compared with many other mammalian species, humans are genetically less diverse... For example, the chimpanzee subspecies living just in central and western Africa have higher levels of diversity than do humans (Ebersberger et al. 2002; Yu et al. 2003; Fischer et al. 2004)." Human variation is also distributed in an unusual and not easily understood fashion compared to other mammalian species: "The details of this distribution are impossible to describe succinctly because of the difficulty of defining a 'population,' the clinal nature of variation, and heterogeneity across the genome (Long and Kittles 2003).... This distribution of genetic variation differs from the pattern seen in many other mammalian species, for which existing data suggest greater differentiation between groups (Templeton 1998; Kittles and Weiss 2003)."^[43]
• "Since the 1980s, there have been indications that the genetic diversity of humans is low compared with that of many other species. This has been interpreted to mean that humans are a relatively young species, so populations have had relatively little time to differentiate from one another. For example, 2 randomly chosen humans differ at ~1 in 1,000 nucleotide pairs, whereas two chimpanzees differ at ~1 in 500 nucleotide pairs.^[44]
• "'Race' is a legitimate taxonomic concept that works for chimpanzees but does not apply to humans (at this time). The nonexistence of 'races' or subspecies in modern humans does not preclude substantial genetic variation that may be localized to regions or populations....The DNA of an unknown individual from one of the sampled populations would probably be correctly linked to a population. Because this identification is possible does not mean that there is a level of differentiation equal to 'races'. The genetics of Homo sapiens shows gradients of differentiation."^[45]
• "Humans are ~98.8% similar to chimpanzees at the nucleotide level and are considerably more similar to each other, differing on average at only 1 of every 500−1,000 nucleotides between chromosomes. This degree of diversity is less than what typically exists among chimpanzees.^[46]
• "The average proportion of nucleotide differences between a randomly chosen pair of humans (i.e., average nucleotide diversity, or π) is consistently estimated to lie between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 1,500. This proportion is low compared with those of many other species, from fruit flies to chimpanzees...."^[47]

At the beginning of the 20th century, anthropologists questioned, and eventually abandoned, the claim that biologically distinct races are isomorphic with distinct linguistic, cultural, and social groups. Thereafter, the rise of population genetics led some mainstream evolutionary scientists in anthropology and biology to question the very validity of race as a scientific concept describing an objectively real phenomenon. Those who came to reject the validity of the concept of race did so for four reasons: empirical, definitional, the availability of alternative concepts, and ethical (Lieberman and Byrne 1993).

The first to challenge the concept of race on empirical grounds were anthropologists Franz Boas, who demonstrated phenotypic plasticity due to environmental factors (Boas 1912), and Ashley Montagu (1941, 1942), who relied on evidence from genetics. Zoologists Edward O. Wilson and W. Brown then challenged the concept from the perspective of general animal systematics, and further rejected the claim that "races" were equivalent to "subspecies" (Wilson and Brown 1953).

One of the crucial innovations in reconceptualizing genotypic and phenotypic variation was anthropologist C. Loring Brace's observation that such variations, insofar as it is affected by natural selection, migration, or genetic drift, are distributed along geographic gradations; these gradations are called "clines" (Brace 1964). This point called attention to a problem common to phenotype-based descriptions of races (for example, those based on hair texture and skin color): they ignore a host of other similarities and differences (for example, blood type) that do not correlate highly with the markers for race. Thus, anthropologist Frank Livingstone's conclusion that, since clines cross racial boundaries, "there are no races, only clines" (Livingstone 1962: 279).

In a response to Livingston, Theodore Dobzhansky argued that when talking about "race" one must be attentive to how the term is being used: "I agree with Dr. Livingston that if races have to be 'discrete units,' then there are no races, and if 'race' is used as an 'explanation' of the human variability, rather than vice versa, then the explanation is invalid." He further argued that one could use the term race if one distinguished between "race differences" and "the race concept." The former refers to any distinction in gene frequencies between populations; the latter is "a matter of judgment." He further observed that even when there is clinal variation, "Race differences are objectively ascertainable biological phenomena .... but it does not follow that racially distinct populations must be given racial (or subspecific) labels."^[48] In short, Livingston and Dobzhansky agree that there are genetic differences among human beings; they also agree that the use of the race concept to classify people, and how the race concept is used, is a matter of social convention. They differ on whether the race concept remains a meaningful and useful social convention.

In 1964, biologists Paul Ehrlich and Holm pointed out cases where two or more clines are distributed discordantly—for example, melanin is distributed in a decreasing pattern from the equator north and south; frequencies for the haplotype for beta-S hemoglobin, on the other hand, radiate out of specific geographical points in Africa (Ehrlich and Holm 1964). As anthropologists Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda Jackson observe, "Discordant patterns of heterogeneity falsify any description of a population as if it were genotypically or even phenotypically homogeneous" (Lieverman and Jackson 1995).

Patterns such as those seen in human physical and genetic variation as described above, have lead to the consequence that the number and geographic location of any described races is highly dependent on the importance attributed to, and quantity of, the traits considered. For example if only skin colour and a "two race" system of classification were used, then one might classify Indigenous Australians in the same "race" as African people, and European people in the same "race" as East Asian people, but biologists and anthropologists would dispute that these classification has any scientific validity. On the other hand the greater the number of traits (or alleles) considered, the more subdivisions of humanity are detected, due to the fact that traits and gene frequencies do not always correspond to the same geographical location, or as Ossario and Duster (2005) put it:

Anthropologists long ago discovered that humans' physical traits vary gradually, with groups that are close geographic neighbors being more similar than groups that are geographically separated. This pattern of variation, known as clinal variation, is also observed for many alleles that vary from one human group to another. Another observation is that traits or alleles that vary from one group to another do not vary at the same rate. This pattern is referred to as nonconcordant variation. Because the variation of physical traits is clinal and nonconcordant, anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries discovered that the more traits and the more human groups they measured, the fewer discrete differences they observed among races and the more categories they had to create to classify human beings. The number of races observed expanded to the 30s and 50s, and eventually anthropologists concluded that there were no discrete races (Marks, 2002). Twentieth and 21st century biomedical researchers have discovered this same feature when evaluating human variation at the level of alleles and allele frequencies. Nature has not created four or five distinct, nonoverlapping genetic groups of people.^[42]

Population geneticists have debated as to whether the concept of population can provide a basis for a new conception of race. In order to do this a working definition of population must be found. Surprisingly there is no generally accepted concept of population that biologists use. It has been pointed out that the concept of population is central to ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation biology, but also that most definitions of population rely on qualitative descriptions such as "a group of organisms of the same species occupying a particular space at a particular time"^[49] Waples and Gaggiotti identify two broad types of definitions for populations, those that fall into an ecological paradigm and those that fall into an evolutionary paradigm. Examples such definitions are:

• Ecological paradigm: A group of individuals of the same species that co-occur in space and time and have an opportunity to interact with each other.
• Evolutionary paradigm: A group of individuals of the same species living in close enough proximity that any member of the group can potentially mate with any other member.^[49]

Richard Lewontin, claiming that 85 percent of human variation occurs within populations, and not among populations, argued that neither "race" nor "subspecies" were appropriate or useful ways to describe populations (Lewontin 1973). Nevertheless, barriers—which may be cultural or physical— between populations can limit gene flow and increase genetic differences. Recent work by population geneticists conducting research in Europe suggests that ethnic identity can be a barrier to gene flow ^{[50][51][52][53]}. Others, such as Ernst Mayr, have argued for a notion of "geographic race" [4]. Some researchers report the variation between racial groups (measured by Sewall Wright's population structure statistic F_ST) accounts for as little as 5% of human genetic variation². Sewall Wright himself commented that if differences this large were seen in another species, they would be called subspecies.^[54] In 2003 A. W. F. Edwards argued that cluster analysis supersedes Lewontin's arguments (see below).

These empirical challenges to the concept of race forced evolutionary sciences to reconsider their definition of race. Mid-century, anthropologist William Boyd defined race as:

A population which differs significantly from other populations in regard to the frequency of one or more of the genes it possesses. It is an arbitrary matter which, and how many, gene loci we choose to consider as a significant "constellation" (Boyd 1950).

Lieberman and Jackson (1994) have pointed out that "the weakness of this statement is that if one gene can distinguish races then the number of races is as numerous as the number of human couples reproducing." Moreover, anthropologist Stephen Molnar has suggested that the discordance of clines inevitably results in a multiplication of races that renders the concept itself useless (Molnar 1992).

The distribution of many physical traits resembles the distribution of genetic variation within and between human populations (American Association of Physical Anthropologists 1996; Keita and Kittles 1997). For example, ~90% of the variation in human head shapes occurs within every human group, and ~10% separates groups, with a greater variability of head shape among individuals with recent African ancestors (Relethford 2002).

With the recent availability of large amounts of human genetic data from many geographically distant human groups scientists have again started to investigate the relationships between people from various parts of the world. One method is to investigate DNA molecules that are passed down from mother to child (mtDNA) or from father to son (Y chromosomes), these form molecular lineages and can be informative regarding prehistoric population migrations. Alternatively autosomal alleles are investigated in an attempt to understand how much genetic material groups of people share. This work has led to a debate amongst geneticists, molecular anthropologists and medical doctors as to the validity of conceps such as "race". Some researchers insist that classifying people into groups based on ancestry may be important from medical and social policy points of view, and claim to be able to do so accurately. Others claim that individuals from different groups share far too much of their genetic material for group membership to have any medical implications. This has reignited the scientific debate over the validity of human classification and concepts of "race".

Mitochondria are small organelles that lie in the cytoplasm of eucaryotic cells, such as those of humans. Their primary purpose is to provide energy to the cell. Mitochondria are thought to be the vestigial remains of symbiotic bacteria that were once free living. One indication that mitochondria were once free living is that they contain a relatively small circular segment of DNA, called mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The overwhelming majority of a human's DNA is contained in chromosomes in the nucleus of the cell, but mtDNA is an exception. An individual inherits their cytoplasm and the organelles it contains exclusively from their mother, as these are derived from the ovum (egg cell), sperm only carry chromosomal DNA due to the necessity of maintaining motility. When a mutation arises in mtDNA molecule the mutation is therefore passed in a direct female line of descent. These mutations are derived from copying mistakes, when the DNA is copied it is possible that a single mistake occurs in the DNA sequence, these single mistakes are called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

Human Y chromosomes are male specific sex chromosomes, any human that possesses a Y chromosome will be morphologically male. Y chromosomes are therefore passed from father to son, although Y chromosomes are situated in the cell nucleus, they only recombine with the X chromosome at the ends of the Y chromosome, the vast majority of the Y chromosome (95%) does not recombine. Therefore, as with mtDNA, when mutations (SNPs) arise in the Y chromosome they are passed on directly from father to son in a direct male line of descent.

     Ancestral Haplogroup      Haplogroup A (Hg A)     Haplogroup B (Hg B) All of these molecules are part of the ancestral haplogroup, but at some point in the past a mutation occurred in the ancestral molecule, mutation A, which produced a new lineage, this is haplogroup A and is defined by mutation A, at some more recent point in the past a new mutation, mutation B, occurred in a person carrying haplogroup A, mutation B defined haplogroup B, haplogroup B is a subgroup, or subclade of haplogroup A, both haplogrups A and B are subclades of the ancestral haplogroup.

The Y chromosome and mtDNA therefore share certain properties. Other chromosomes, autosomes and X chromosomes in women, share their genetic material (called crossing over leading to recombination) during meiosis (a special type of cell division that occurs for the purposes of sexual reproduction). Effectively this means that the genetic material from these chromosomes gets mixed up in every generation, and so any new mutations are passed down randomly from parents to offspring. The special feature that both Y chromosomes and mtDNA display is that mutations can accrue along a certain segment of both molecules and these mutations remain fixed in place on the DNA. Furthermore the historical sequence of these mutations can also be inferred. For example, if a set of ten Y chromosomes (derived from ten different men) contains a mutation, A, but only five of these chromosomes contain a second mutation, B, it must be the case that mutation B occurred after mutation A. Furthermore all ten men who carry the chromosome with mutation A are the direct male line descendants of the same man who was the first person to carry this mutation. The first man to carry mutation B was also a direct male line descendant of this man, but is also the direct male line ancestor of all men carrying mutation B. Series of mutations such as this form molecular lineages. Furthermore each mutation defines a set of specific Y chromosomes called a haplogroup. All men carrying mutation A form a single haplogroup, all men carrying mutation B are part of this haplogroup, but mutation B also defines a more recent haplogroup (which is a subgroup or subclade) of its own which men carrying only mutation A do not belong to. Both mtDNA and Y chromosomes are grouped into lineages and haplogroups, these are often presented as tree like diagrams.

Groundbreaking work by molecular biologists such as Cann et. al. (1987) ^[55] on mtDNA produced three interesting observations relevant to race and human evolution.

Firstly, by estimating the rate at which mutations occur in mtDNA Cann et al. were able to estimate the age of the common ancestral mtDNA type: "the common ancestral mtDNA (type a) links mtDNA types that have diverged by an average of nearly 0.57%. Assuming a rate of 2%-4% per million years, this implies that the common ancestor of all surviving mtDNA types existed 140,000-290,000 years ago." This observation is robust, and this common direct female line ancestor (or mitochondrial most recent common ancestor (mtMRCA)) of all extant humans has become known as mitochondrial eve. The observation that the mtMRCA is the direct matrilineal ancestor of all living humans should not be interpreted as meaning that either she was the first anatomically modern human, nor that there were no other female humans living concurrently with her. A more reasonable explanation is that other women who lived at the same time as mtMRCA did indeed reproduce and pass their genes down to living humans, but that their mitochondrial lineages have been lost over time, probably due to random events such as producing only male children. It is impossible to know to what extent these non-extant lineages have been lost or how much they differed from the mtDNA of our mtMRCA. Cann et al.

Secondly Cann et al. postulate that their work supports an African origin for modern human mtDNA: "We infer from the tree of minimum length... that Africa is a likely source of the human mitochondrial gene pool. This inference comes from the observation that one of the two primary branches leads exclusively to African mtDNAs... while the second primary branch also leads to African mtDNAs... By postulating that the common ancestral mtDNA (type a in Fig. 3) was African, we minimize the number of intercontinental migrations needed to account for the geographic distribution of mtDNA types."

Thirdly the study shows that mtDNA types (haplogroups) do not cluster by geography, ethnicity or race, implying multiple female lineages were involved in founding modern human populations, with many closely related lineages spread geographically and many populations containing distantly related lineages: "The second implication of the tree (Fig. 3)-that each non-African population has multiple origins-can be illustrated most simply with the New Guineans. Take, as an example, mtDNA type 49, a lineage whose nearest relative is not in New Guinea, but in Asia (type 50). Asian lineage 50 is closer genealogically to this New Guinea lineage than to other Asian mtDNA lineages. Six other lineages lead exclusively to New Guinean mtDNAs, each originating at a different place in the tree (types 12, 13, 26-29, 65, 95 and 127-134 in Fig. 3). This small region of New Guinea (mainly the Eastern Highlands Province) thus seems to have been colonised by at least seven maternal lineages (Tables 2 and 3). In the same way, we calculate the minimum numbers of female lineages that colonised Australia, Asia and Europe (Tables 2 and 3). Each estimate is based on the number of region-specific clusters in the tree (Fig. 3, Tables 2 and 3). These numbers, ranging from 15 to 36 (Tables 2 and 3), will probably rise as more types of human mtDNA are discovered."

The Y chromosome is much larger than mtDNA, and is relatively homogeneous, therefore it has taken much longer to find distinct lineages and to analyse them. Conversely, because the Y chromosome is so large by comparison it can hold a great deal more genetic information. With regard to the three observations made by Cann et al. concerning mtDNA, Y chromosome studies show similar patterns. The estimate for the age of the ancestral Y chromosome for all extant Y chromosomes is given at about 70,000 years ago and is also placed in Africa, this individual is sometimes referred to as Y chromosome Adam. The difference in dates between Y chromosome Adam and mitochondrial Eve is usually attributed to a higher extinction rate for Y chromosomes due to greater differential reproductive success between individual men, that means that a small number of very successful men may produce a great many children, while a larger number of less successful men will produce far less children. Keita et al. (2004) say, with reference to Y chromosome and mtDNA and concepts of race:

Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA genealogies are especially interesting because they demonstrate the lack of concordance of lineages with morphology and facilitate a phylogenetic analysis. Individuals with the same morphology do not necessarily cluster with each other by lineage, and a given lineage does not include only individuals with the same trait complex (or 'racial type'). Y-chromosome DNA from Africa alone suffices to make this point. Africa contains populations whose members have a range of external phenotypes. This variation has usually been described in terms of 'race' (Caucasoids, Pygmoids, Congoids, Khoisanoids). But the Y-chromosome clade defined by the PN2 transition (PN2/M35, PN2/M2) [see haplogroup E3b and Haplogroup E3a] shatters the boundaries of phenotypically defined races and true breeding populations across a great geographical expanse21. African peoples with a range of skin colors, hair forms and physiognomies have substantial percentages of males whose Y chromosomes form closely related clades with each other, but not with others who are phenotypically similar. The individuals in the morphologically or geographically defined 'races' are not characterized by 'private' distinct lineages restricted to each of them.^[56]

Infobox Multi Locus Allele Clusters In a haploid population, when a single locus is considered (blue), with two alleles, wild-type (+) and mutant (-) we can see a differential geographical distribution between Population I and Population II, but there is a 30% chance of wrongly assigning any individual to either population based on a single allele. × + - Population I 70% 30% Population II 30% 70% For three loci blue, red and green, it becomes apparent that there is a correlation between certain allele frequencies. In this example Population I displays a correlation between wild-type blue (+) 70%, mutant red (-) 70% and wild type green (+) 70%. Population II has a correlation between the -, + and - alleles, each having a 70% frequency in this population. The genetic variation remains the same in these populations, irresepctive of the allele examined, but using a three locus approach, there is a much reduced chance of wrongly assigning any individual to a given population. × + - + - + - Population I 70% 30% 30% 70% 70% 30% Population II 30% 70% 70% 30% 30% 70% For an organism of genotype +/-/+, for each locus the chance of missclassification is 0.3 (30%), but when all three loci are take into account, the organism can be assigned to Population I with a 0.3x0.3x0.3 chance of error, that is a 0.027 (2.7%) chance of error. The two populations still share exactly the same alleles, but the frequency of these alleles varies between the populations. Using modern computer software and the abundance of genetic data now available, it is possible not only to distinguish such correlations for hundreds or even thousands of alleles, which form clusters, it is also possible to assign individuals to given populations with very little chance of error. It should be noted, however, that genes tend to vary clinally, and there are likely to be intermediate populations that reside in the geographical areas between our sample populations (Population III, for example, may lie equidistantly from Population I and Population II). In this case it may well be that Population III may display characteristics of both population I and Population II. For example Population III may be defined thus: × + - + - + - Population III 50% 50% 50% 50% 50% 50% In which case any individual from Population III is likely to be misclassified equally into either Population I or Population II.(Edwards (2003)Kittles and Weiss (2003))

Clustering analysis from Rosenberg (2006), there are seven clusters and most individuals belong to several clusters. Note the Kalash have majority membership in a unique cluster.

Genetic data can be used to infer population structure and assign individuals to groups that often correspond with their self-identified geographical ancestry. Recently, Lynn Jorde and Steven Wooding argued that "Analysis of many loci now yields reasonably accurate estimates of genetic similarity among individuals, rather than populations. Clustering of individuals is correlated with geographic origin or ancestry." ^[57]

In 2003 A. W. F. Edwards wrote a paper called Lewontin's Fallacy and claimed that Lewontin's argument that classification of humans was not possible due to the fact that the majority of variation is within group was a fallacy. He claims that this conclusion ignores the fact that most of the information that distinguishes populations is hidden in the correlation structure of the data and not simply in the variation of the individual factors. Edwards concludes that "It is not true that 'racial classification is . . . of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance' or that 'you can't predict someone’s race by their genes'."^[58] Likewise Neil Risch of Stanford University has proposed that self-identified race/ethnic group could be a valid means of categorization in the USA for public health and policy considerations,.^[59][60] While a 2002 paper by Noah Rosenberg's group makes a similar claim "The structure of human populations is relevant in various epidemiological contexts. As a result of variation in frequencies of both genetic and nongenetic risk factors, rates of disease and of such phenotypes as adverse drug response vary across populations. Further, information about a patient’s population of origin might provide health care practitioners with information about risk when direct causes of disease are unknown."^[61]

Researchers such as Neil Risch and Noah Rosenberg have argued that a person's biological and cultural background may have important implications for medical treatment decisions, for example an opinion paper by Neil Risch's group in 2002 states:

Both for genetic and non-genetic reasons, we believe that racial and ethnic groups should not be assumed to be equivalent, either in terms of disease risk or drug response.....Whether African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders or Asians respond equally to a particular drug is an empirical question that can only be addressed by studying these groups individually.^[62]

While another 2002 paper by Noah Rosenberg's group makes a similar claim

The structure of human populations is relevant in various epidemiological contexts. As a result of variation in frequencies of both genetic and nongenetic risk factors, rates of disease and of such phenotypes as adverse drug response vary across populations. Further, information about a patient’s population of origin might provide health care practitioners with information about risk when direct causes of disease are unknown.^[63]

This work used samples from the Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP), a project that has collected samples from individuals from 52 ethnic groups from various locations around the world. The HGDP has itself been criticised for collecting samples on an "ethnic group" basis, on the grounds that ethnic groups represent socio-cultural populations and not necessarily biologically homogeneous populations. The molecular anthropologist Jonathan Marks states:

As any anthropologist knows, ethnic groups are categories of human invention, not given by nature. Their boundaries are porous, their existence historically ephemeral. There are the French, but no more Franks; there are the English, but no Saxons; and Navajos, but no Anasazi...we cannot really know the nature of the actual relationship of the modern group to the ancient one...The worst mistake you can make in human biology is to confuse constructed categories with natural ones. And to overload a big project with cultural categories as the overall sampling strategy would be a serious problem^[64]

In the same issue of Science that published the Rosenberg data, Mary-Claire King and Arno G. Motulsky give a similar warning regarding the HGDP data:

The identification of clusters corresponding to the major geographic regions may depend on the sampling of individuals from well-defined, relatively homogeneous populations. If individuals were sampled from a worldwide 'grid' (or a worldwide grid weighted by population density), the clusters might be much less precisely defined. Does the correspondence of worldwide genetic clusters and major geographic regions suggest borders around genetic clusters analogous to the physical borders—oceans, mountain ranges, and deserts—separating geographic regions? No. Both the results of Rosenberg and colleagues and those of previous studies indicate that unlike separations between geographic regions, differences in allele frequencies are gradual.^[65]

Another study by Neil Risch in 2005 used 326 microsatellite markers and self-identified race/ethnic group (SIRE), white, African-American, Asian and Hispanic (individuals involved in the study had to choose from one of these categories), to representing discrete "populations", and showed distinct and non-overlapping clustering of the white, African-American and Asian samples. The results were claimed to confirm the integrity of self-described ancestry: "We have shown a nearly perfect correspondence between genetic cluster and SIRE for major ethnic groups living in the United States, with a discrepancy rate of only 0.14%." But also warned that: "This observation does not eliminate the potential for confounding in these populations. First, there may be subgroups within the larger population group that are too small to detect by cluster analysis. Second, there may not be discrete subgrouping but continuous ancestral variation that could lead to stratification bias. For example, African Americans have a continuous range of European ancestry that would not be detected by cluster analysis but could strongly confound genetic case-control studies. (Tang, 2005)

Studies such as those by Risch and Rosenberg use a computer program called STRUCTURE to find human populations (gene clusters). It is a statistical program that works by placing individuals into one of two clusters based on their overall genetic similarity, many possible pairs of clusters are tested per individual to generate multiple clusters.^[66] These populations are based on multiple genetic markers that are often shared between different human populations even over large geographic ranges. The notion of a genetic cluster is that people within the cluster share on average similar allele frequencies to each other than to those in other clusters.(Edwards, 2003 but see also infobox "Multi Locus Allele Clusters") In a test of idealised populations, the computer programme STRUCTURE was found to consistently under-estimate the numbers of populations in the data set when high migration rates between populations and slow mutation rates (such as single nucleotide polymorphisms) were considered.^[67]

Nevertheless the Rosenberg et al. (2002) paper shows that individuals can be assigned to specific clusters to a high degree of accuracy. One of the underlying questions regarding the distribution of human genetic diversity is related to the degree to which genes are shared between the observed clusters. It has been observed repeatedly that the majority of variation observed in the global human population is found within populations. This variation is usually calculated using Sewall Wright's Fixation index (F_ST), which is an estimate of between to within group variation. The degree of human genetic variation is a little different depending upon the gene type studied, but in general it is common to claim that ~85% of genetic variation is found within groups, ~6-10% between groups within the same continent and ~6-10% is found between continental groups. For example The Human Genome Project states "two random individuals from any one group are almost as different [genetically] as any two random individuals from the entire world."^[68] On the other hand Edwards (2003) claims in his essay "Lewontin's Fallacy" that: "It is not true, as Nature claimed, that 'two random individuals from any one group are almost as different as any two random individuals from the entire world'" and Risch et al. (2002) state "Two Caucasians are more similar to each other genetically than a Caucasian and an Asian." It should be noted that these statements are not the same. Risch et al. simply state that two individuals from the same ancestral geographical region are more similar to each other than either is to an individual from a different ancestral geographical region, a claim few would argue with. Jorde et al put it like this:

The picture that begins to emerge from this and other analyses of human genetic variation is that variation tends to be geographically structured, such that most individuals from the same geographic region will be more similar to one another than to individuals from a distant region.^[69]

Whereas Edwards claims that it is not true that the differences between individuals from different geographical regions represent only a small proportion of the variation within the human population (he claims that within group differences between individuals are not almost as large as between group differences). Bamshad et al. (2004) used the data from Rosenberg et al. (2002) to investigate the extent of genetic differences between individuals within continental groups relative to genetic differences between individuals between continental groups. They found that though these individuals could be classified very accurately to continental clusters, there was a significant degree of genetic overlap on the individual level, to the extent that, using 377 loci, individual Europeans were about 38% of the time more genetically similar to East Asians than to other Europeans.

The results obtained by clustering analyses are dependent on several criteria:

• The clusters produced are relative clusters and not absolute clusters, each cluster is the product of comparisons between sets of data derived for the study, results are therefore highly influenced by sampling strategies. (Edwards, 2003)
• The geographic distribution of the populations sampled, because human genetic diversity is marked by isolation by distance, populations from geographically distant regions will form much more discrete clusters than those from geographically close regions. (Kittles and Weiss, 2003)
• The number of genes used. The more genes used in a study the greater the resolution produced and therefore the greater number of clusters that will be identified.(Tang, 2005)

Distribution of European clusters identified by Bauchet. When two clusters are identified there is a north-southeast cline that may be due to demic diffusion during the European Neolithic

Additionally two studies of European population clusters have been produced. Seldin et al. (2006) identified three European clusters using 5,700 genome-wide polymorphisms. Bauchet et al. (2007) used 10,000 polymorphisms to identify five distinct clusters in the European population, consisting of a south-eastern European cluster (including samples from southern Italians, Armenian, Ashkenazi Jewish and Greek "populations"); a northern-European Cluster (including samples from German, eastern English, Polish and western Irish "populations"); a Basque cluster (including samples from Basque "populations"); a Finnish cluster (including samples from Finnish "populations") and a Spanish cluster (including samples from Spanish "populations"). Most "populations" contained individuals from clusters other than the dominant cluster for that population, there were also individuals with membership of several clusters. The results of this study are presented on a map of Europe. (Bauchet, 2007) The existence of allelic clines and the observation that the bulk of human variation is continuously distributed, has led some scientists to conclude that any categorization schema attempting to partition that variation meaningfully will necessarily create artificial truncations. (Kittles & Weiss 2003). It is for this reason, Reanne Frank argues, that attempts to allocate individuals into ancestry groupings based on genetic information have yielded varying results that are highly dependent on methodological design.^[70]. Serre and Pääbo (2004) make a similar claim:

The absence of strong continental clustering in the human gene pool is of practical importance. It has recently been claimed that “the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level” (Risch et al. 2002). Our results show that this is not the case, and we see no reason to assume that “races” represent any units of relevance for understanding human genetic history.

Similarly Witherspoon et al. (2007) have shown that while it is possible to classify people into genetic clusters this does not resolve the observation that any two individuals from different populations are often genetically more similar to each other than to two individuals from the same population:

Discussions of genetic differences between major human populations have long been dominated by two facts: (a) Such differences account for only a small fraction of variance in allele frequencies, but nonetheless (b) multilocus statistics assign most individuals to the correct population. This is widely understood to reflect the increased discriminatory power of multilocus statistics. Yet Bamshad et al. (2004) showed, using multilocus statistics and nearly 400 polymorphic loci, that (c) pairs of individuals from different populations are often more similar than pairs from the same population. If multilocus statistics are so powerful, then how are we to understand this finding?
All three of the claims listed above appear in disputes over the significance of human population variation and "race"...The Human Genome Project (2001, p. 812) states that "two random individuals from any one group are almost as different [genetically] as any two random individuals from the entire world."^[68]

Risch et al. (2002) state that "two Caucasians are more similar to each other genetically than a Caucasian and an Asian", but Bamshad et al (2004)^[71] used the same data set as Rosenberg et al. (2002) to show that Europeans are more similar to Asians 38% of the time than they are to other Europeans when only 377 microsatellite markers are analysed.

If a landmass is considered with variation distributed in two dimensions west - east. Top: Distribution of genetic variation if a small island model is considered, there are two "populations" with a narrow region of hybridisation where migration occurs, this pattern is clustered. Bottom: Distribution of genetic variation if isolation by distance is considered, all variation is gradual over the extent of the landmass, this pattern is clinal.

In agreement with the observation of Bamshad et al. (2004), Witherspoon et al. (2007) have shown that many more than 326 or 377 microsatellite loci are required in order to show that individuals are always more similar to individuals in their own population group than to individuals in different population groups, even for three distinct populations.^[68]

In 2007 Witherspoon et al. sought to investigate these apparently contradictory observations. In their paper Genetic similarities within and between human populations^[68] they expand upon the observation of Bamshad et al. (2004). They show that the observed clustering of human populations into relatively discrete groups is a product of using what they call "population trait values". This means that each individual is compared to the "typical" trait for several populations, and assigned to a population based on the individual's overall similarity to one of the populations as a whole: "population membership is treated as an additive quantitative genetic trait controlled by many loci of equal effect, and individuals are divided into populations on the basis of their trait values." They therefore claim that clustering analyses cannot necessarily be used to make inferences regarding the similarity or dissimilarity of individuals between or within clusters, but only for similarities or dissimilarities of individuals to the "trait values" of any given cluster. The paper measures the rate of misclassification using these "trait values" and calls this the "population trait value misclassification rate" (C_T). The paper investigates the similarities between individuals by use of what they term the "dissimilarity fraction" (ω): "the probability that a pair of individuals randomly chosen from different populations is genetically more similar than an independent pair chosen from any single population." Witherspoon et al. show that two individuals can be more genetically similar to each other than to the typical genetic type of their own respective populations, and yet be correctly assigned to their respective populations. An important observation is that the likelihood that two individuals from different populations will be more similar to each other genetically than two individuals from the same population depends on several criteria, most importantly the number of genes studied and the distinctiveness of the populations under investigation.

Given 10 loci, three distinct populations, and the full spectrum of polymorphisms, the answer is ω ~ 0.3, or nearly one-third of the time. With 100 loci, the answer is ~20% of the time and even using 1000 loci, ω ~ 10%. However, if genetic similarity is measured over many thousands of loci, the answer becomes "never" when individuals are sampled from geographically separated populations.

By geographically separated populations, they mean sampling of people only from distant geographical regions while omitting intermediate regions, in this case Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and East Asian. They continue:

On the other hand, if the entire world population were analyzed, the inclusion of many closely related and admixed populations would increase ω... In a similar vein, Romualdi et al. (2002) and Serre and Paabo (2004) have suggested that highly accurate classification of individuals from continuously sampled (and therefore closely related) populations may be impossible.... Classification methods typically make use of aggregate properties of populations, not just properties of individuals or even of pairs of individuals... The Structure classification algorithm (Pritchard et al. 2000) also relies on aggregate properties of populations, such as Hardy–Weinberg and linkage equilibrium. In contrast, the pairwise distances used to compute ω make no use of population-level information and are strongly affected by the high level of within-groups variation typical of human populations. This accounts for the difference in behavior between ω and the classification results.

Witherspoon et al. also add:

given enough genetic data, individuals can be correctly assigned to their populations of origin is compatible with the observation that most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them. It is also compatible with our finding that, even when the most distinct populations are considered and hundreds of loci are used, individuals are frequently more similar to members of other populations than to members of their own population.

One result of debates over the meaning and validity of the concept "race" is that the current literature across different disciplines regarding human variation lacks consensus, though within some fields, such as biology, there is strong consensus. Some studies use the word race in its early essentialist taxonomic sense. Many others still use the term race, but use it to mean a population, clade, or haplogroup. Others eschew the concept of race altogether, and use the concept of population as a less problematical unit of analysis.

In the 19th century, race was a central concept of anthropology. In 1866, James Hunt, the founder of the Anthropological Society of London, declared that anthropology’s primary truth “is the existence of well-marked psychological and moral distinctions in the different races of men.” However, this view was largely rejected by the community of social sciences in the second half of the 20th century.

Scientific support for the Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid terminology of racial classification has diminished over the past century. These terms originally denoted skull types and sprang from the technique known as craniofacial anthropometry, but these disciplines have been abandoned by the mainstream scientific community. Today they have only two common uses. They are used in forensic anthropology as an indicator of ethnicity of skeletal remains. And they can be used as euphemisms for making racially based distinctions that are now regarded as being racist and baseless by mainstream culture.

Since 1932, some college textbooks introducing physical anthropology have increasingly come to reject 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.^[73] The American Anthropological Association, drawing on biological research, currently holds that "The concept of race is a social and cultural construction. . . . Race simply cannot be tested or proven scientifically," and that, "It is clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. The concept of 'race' has no validity . . . in the human species".^[7]

In an ongoing debate, some geneticists argue that race is neither a meaningful concept nor a useful heuristic device,^[74] and even that genetic differences among groups are biologically meaningless,^[75] on the grounds that more genetic variation exists within such races than among them, and that racial traits overlap without discrete boundaries.^[76] Other geneticists, in contrast, argue that categories of self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful,^[77] that these categories correspond with clusters inferred from multilocus genetic data,^[78] and that this correspondence implies that genetic factors might contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation between groups.^[79]

In February, 2001, the editors of the medical journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine asked authors to no longer use "race" as an explanatory variable and not to use obsolescent terms. Some other peer-reviewed journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the American Journal of Public Health, have made similar endeavours.^[80] Furthermore, the National Institutes of Health recently issued a program announcement for grant applications through February 1, 2006, specifically seeking researchers who can investigate and publicize among primary care physicians the detrimental effects on the nation's health of the practice of medical racial profiling using such terms. The program announcement quoted the editors of one journal as saying that, "analysis by race and ethnicity has become an analytical knee-jerk reflex."^[81]

A survey, taken in 1985 (Lieberman et al. 1992), asked 1,200 American anthropologists how many disagree with the following proposition: "There are biological races in the species Homo sapiens." The responses were:

• physical anthropologists 41%
• cultural anthropologists 53%^[82]

The figure for physical anthropologists at PhD granting departments was slightly higher, rising from 41% to 42%, with 50% agreeing. This survey, however, did not specify any particular definition of race (although it did clearly specify biological race within the species Homo Sapiens); it is difficult to say whether those who supported the statement thought of race in taxonomic or population terms.

The same survey, taken in 1999 ^[83], showed the following changing results for anthropologists:

• physical anthropologists 69%
• cultural anthropologists 80%

In Poland the race concept was rejected by only 25 percent of anthropologists in 2001, although: "Unlike the U.S. anthropologists, Polish anthropologists tend to regard race as a term without taxonomic value, often as a substitute for population."^[84]

In the face of these issues, some evolutionary scientists have simply abandoned the concept of race in favor of "population." What distinguishes population from previous groupings of humans by race is that it refers to a breeding population (essential to genetic calculations) and not to a biological taxon. Other evolutionary scientists have abandoned the concept of race in favor of