[lucasnemeth]

Race is a social construct, there's no biological explanation for race. The set of characteristics that are identified with different races are social constructs, those clusters of features does not correlate to a significant difference in biological terms. Genetic methods do not support or explain the classification of humans into discrete races. Races are not genetically homogenous and lack clear-cut genetic boundaries.

Two people from different races can be way more similar genetically than two people from the same race. The concept of race was built over a long story of separating humanity in different ethnic groups, and then physical characteristics of some of those ethnic groups started slowing being adopted as a mean to show that those people are intrinsically different, but they are just an unimportant set of characteristics that does not convey important information from a genetic perspective, they gained social meaning through culture. The modern concept of race took form in the enlightenment, https://twitter.com/Limerick1914/status/757227361582608384, when the original western notion of which ethnic groups exists in the world was built into a racist anthropology.

That doesn't mean that "all lives matter" or we shouldn't talk about race. Race is a social construct, and as a social construct, it exists. Money is also a social construct. But, the concept of race makes no sense besides the social structure that was built on. That why different countries consider that the set of existing races is different, for instance, the only country that really considers "latino" a race is the US.

Going back to your question, the extinct humans actually had important biological differences, the different races have not.

[hasenj]

Honestly, I think calling something "a social construct" is meaningless political rhetoric.

If humans and Neanderthals interbreed for a long enough period without annhiliating each other through war, wouldn't their offspring converge over time?

Some ethnicities are more susceptible to certain diseases. Is that a social construct?

[mikeash]

Our standard conceptions of race are also meaningless political rhetoric, so calling race a social construct seems entirely appropriate then.

We still, at least subconsciously, apply the "one drop rule" in all sorts of situations, including describing the race of the current US president. Sub-saharan Africa contains more genetic diversity than everyone else, yet we lump them all together in one "race."

Yes, there are distinct genetic differences between various groups of people, and many of those differences have real-world consequences. But the relation of those groups with what we call "race" is almost zero.

[cygx]

Some ethnicities are more susceptible to certain diseases. Is that a social construct?

Obviously not. But quoting Wikipedia[1], an average of 85% of genetic variation exists within local populations, ~7% is between local populations within the same continent, and ~8% of variation occurs between large groups living on different continents, whereas [a]pproximately 10% of the variance in skin color occurs within groups, and ~90% occurs between groups, which indicates that this attribute has been under strong selective pressure.

When defining human race, we hone in on a few easily identifiable characteristics that have remained stable due to selective pressure (eg skin colour) and overblow their significance. Eg we suspect that humanity went through a genetic bottleneck when it left Africa, decreasing diversity. And yet, we generally lump the rather diverse African population that did not go through it into a single race.

It's probably more useful to just look at specific genetic traits of interest instead of drawing somewhat arbitrary boundaries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation

[alphonsegaston]

It's not at all meaningless but reflective of the fact that notions of race (or something like it) are entirely subjective and variable across cultures, even across time within cultures. Whites, as an American example, did not in our recent past include all kinds of people from countries in the Mediterranean or Eastern Europe. The same is true of ethnic categorizations.

And yes, some ethnicities being susceptible to diseases is a social construct because ethnicities follow the same shifting standards. Your talking about the intersection of an imprecise categorization with biological understanding that is only dependent on the latter to remain true. It's useful today because (in some societies) it can signal aspects of biology. But human societies in the future could have entirely different notions of race and ethnicity that change or renders the overlap meaningless.

[scatters]

Poor people are more susceptible to certain diseases than rich people. That doesn't stop money being a social construct.

[fdsaaf]

Race absolutely correlates with genetic clusters. Look at this map, [1], and say that there's no correlation between genetic markers and continental origin. Forensic anthropologists can identify race very well using nothing but bone structure.

The idea that race is scientifically invalid is complete nonsense. You can argue that race doesn't correlate with phenotypical characteristics that we care about (okay, but it does though), but arguing that race itself is just in our heads is nonsense.

Is it any wonder that more and more people distrust science on issues like evolution, climate change, autism, and so on when scientists claim that you can't really tell whether someone is white, black, or asian?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_history_and_geography...

[grardb]

> The idea that race is scientifically invalid is complete nonsense. You can argue that race doesn't correlate with phenotypical characteristics that we care about (okay, but it does though), but arguing that race itself is just in our heads is nonsense.

You couldn't be more wrong.

My mother is Puerto Rican, and my father is mostly Irish (with some ancestors from other European countries). My 23AndMe results show that all of father's genes are from Europe, and my mom's come from Europe (mostly Spain, but with a tiny bit of Ashkenazi), Africa, and the Caribbean (Native Americans, likely the Tainos).

My genetic makeup is roughly 7% Native American, 14% African, and most of the rest is European; some percentage is inconclusive.

You may be able to guess that I mostly look white, and you'd be correct. However, with my mother being roughly half non-white and half white, what would you guess? I'll tell you right now that I wouldn't guess that she's from Europe, but she does have relatively light skin. Her sister, however, could easily pass for a black person.

To think that your phenotype can be determined just by looking at your genes is ridiculous, and it's clear to me that you have very little experience in diverse environments. Things like skin and hair color are complex and are determined by multiple alleles, and there's no way to know which ones are going to be dominant.

Even aside from genetics, the social construct of race is even more complex, and I challenge you to do more reading on why that's the case.

Edit: To add more fuel to this, most of my girlfriend's genes come from China and surrounding areas in the Southeast. If we have a child, what will they look like?

Roughly 3.5% Native American, 7% African, 39.5% European, and 50% East Asian. Tell me, what race will they be? What about their phenotype? There's simply no way of knowing. Scientifically, race just does not exist.

[mikeash]

Race and "continental origin" are only vaguely related.

For example: what race is the current President of the United States? Most would say "black" (or "African American" if they're trying to be politically correct). And yet his ancestry is half European.

This is hardly an isolated example. The average African American has about one quarter European ancestry. About 10% of African Americans have a majority European ancestry.

Yes, you can use genetics to divide up humans into related groups. But those groups will not match with how we divide up races.

[ZeroGravitas]

Could you list what races you think exist, and some kind of paper that establishes a scientific method for where the dividing lines in the genetic gradients are drawn and why such a line needs to be drawn at all? That is, going from DNA to races, and not vice versa. Is there still an Irish race for example?

Also, is it worth pointing out that the people who don't believe in climate change, think vaccines cause autism, think evolution and fossils are a hoax etc. could make your exact claim about how scientists not coming clean on their pet subject and rather intentionally misrepresenting the facts to the public for whatever nefarious reason makes it their own fault that no-one believes in science.

How do you convince yourself you're not one of them and therefore actually the cause of the very problem you lambast scientists for? I'm sure they have books with nice diagrams proving them correct too.