Biological Differences And Race Research Paper

"CHINK!!!! Yeah..that's right…look at us with those chinky eyes! Go back to where you belong!" Those words will forever ring in my ears. I was standing in line for lunch while talking to a friend while a couple of boys, fourth and fifth graders, were making fun of the only Asian girl in the school, me, a lonely kindergartener. I will never forget that moment when I realized that I was different.

Scientist found that 85% of genetic differences occur within racial groups and the other 15% occurs between them. (Journal of Human Biology 2009)

There is also a great deal of research done on genetic differences versus perception. It was even proven that the concept of race is merely a social construct and not nearly as scientifically in-tune as many believe it is. A study conducted by Eric D’Arcy of Harvard University in 2002 on alleles revealed a substantial observation on genetic differences between races and a socially constructed perception. Scientists found that, while alleles that were region-specific did show up, they really only appeared and occurred in numbers barely enough to construct any sort of trademark. In fact, they were found only in about 1% of the people of that specific region.

The principles of genetics and evolution show that race, biologically does not exist. The differences that appear in humans does not come from an allele that marks for a specific race. Usually most of the variations we see in humans comes from mutations that occur. The change in DNA is a major factor of variation in humans, it is something random which means certain attributes aren’t associated with a specific race. Another important thing to note is that all humans share the basic structure of DNA. This reinforces the idea that race is a social construct, not a reality of nature. Another main source of variation comes from gene flow (the movement of alleles to and from a certain location). Populations have always been moving from one place to another, and through this a trait can become more unique or more common. So there is less to do about

Scholars say that the term race should not be used because it does not have any basis in scientific fact and really has no use today. According to the AAA’s statement on race, there is 94% variance in genes of individuals within one “racial” group. Race has its basis in colonization, when trying to conjure reasons why some groups of people, i.e. Native Americans and Africans, had lower places in society than the white people. That’s why the groups of “races” are so broad and meaningless today. The concept of race is just used to spread prejudice and give so called “scientific reasons” to discriminate against another group. The term

It may be hard to understand, but race is not biological, rather it’s a social construction. Race is dynamic in which it varies over time, space, and even place. What is considered white in the United States may be different from what is considered white in China. There are three reasons for why race is a social construction and they are that race was not created by a single person rather a mass of people, as societies change so does race, and because race is different and defined differently from place to place.

Even though race is often confused with something having to do with biology it is not, instead race is a cultural construction. People commonly use biology to try and determine the race of another person by using physical characteristics and skin color to put them in a racial classification. Assigning race based on physical characteristics is problematic since traits vary independently they are not inherited as some sort of genetic package based on the race a person is. Therefore using biological concepts to explain race is problematic since society is the one who defines what race is and because those definitions change race is a cultural construct.

In the U.S., the term “race” has different connotation compared to other countries like Brazil. As the book Culture defines it- in Chapter 11: Ethnicity and Race- a race is nothing more than a biologically related ethnic group. Often, the tendency of North American society to rely on hypodescent, leads to stress and lack of self-identity. As a matter of fact, the book describes hypodescent as the arbitrary classification of interracial children as a member of the least privileged ethnic group to which either of their parents corresponds. Besides, in today’s world U.S. population has become increasing diversified. Diversity has led to racial tension between different groups. Latinos is one general term given to people who speak a Latin-derived language (this includes South American

Firstly, the idea of race is based off of the physical differences in humans, not differences in genetics. In fact, if you look into the research that has been done, humans of different races share at least 99.9% of the same genes. In the other 0.1% of differences, only 10% are actually impacted by different races. So in reality, only 0.01% of genes are changed depending on one’s race. That is, people who look very different from you have very few biological differences. People that look like you have the same amount of differences as people that don't. Even when you compare our species to other

An article by Live Science further explains race as a social construct by saying that race as biological factor holds no credible facts to back up the notion and that race is a combination between social and cultural aspect. As quoted by Michael Yudell, a professor of public health at Drexel University in Philadelphia, “It's a concept we think is too crude to provide useful information, it's a concept that has social meaning that interferes in the scientific understanding of human genetic diversity and it's a concept that we are not the first to call upon moving away from.” In this statement, Yudell expands upon the fact that race has no place when speaking of the biological factors of humans in general because genetic diversity shows no significant differences between different racial categories of human beings. Moreover, the genetic diversity of all human population is so vast that science only further explains why race is a pure matter of random physical traits chosen by society within history based solely upon the location and features of humans beings that hold no scientific

Is Race Biologically Real? People often use the meaning of “race” like a sticker; race is defined by skin color, eyes and body shape, hair texture and facial features. However, there are no genetic markers which will prove that one race is different than another. The concept of race isn’t biologically real but “race” it’s a method to divide a group from another one. Race doesn’t have any genetic basis. There is no genetic characteristic such as; gene or feature to tell the differences between humans. In other words, the race isn’t biologically real because there is no scientific evidence which can prove that race is biologically real because there is no ‘genetic markers’ evidence-which cannot be denoted that one particular group is different than other.

“And thus in the Land of the Color-line I saw, as it fell across my baby, the shadow of the Veil. Within the Veil was he born, said I; and there within shall he live, - a Negro and a Negro’s son. Holding in that little head- ah, bitterly! - the unbowed pride of a hunted race, clinging with that tiny dimpled hand – ah, wearily!- to a hope not hopeless but unhopeful, and seeing with those bright wondering eyes that peer into my soul a land whose freedom is to us a mockery and whose liberty a lie.”

In the nineteenth century biologist attempted to create a science of racial differences that would support the view of racialism. “These traits and tendencies characteristic of a race constitute, on the racialist view, a sort of racial essence; and it is part of the content of racialism that the essential heritable characteristics of what the nineteenth century called the “Races of Man” account for more than the visible morphological characteristics—skin color, hair type, facial features—on the basis of which we make our informal classification (Appiah 394). As of today, most scientists working in these fields continue to reject racialism. The claims of racialism are not supported by science. Plausibly, Appiah states that racialism doesn’t necessarily have to be an ethical issue. An individual may possibly acknowledge racialism but still believe that constructive moral characteristics are equally disseminated across the different races. But, what is logically possible and what usually occurs are two different things. “I believe—and I have argued elsewhere—that racialism is false; but by itself it seems to be a cognitive rather than a moral problem” (Appiah 394).

The English term ‘race’ is believed to originate from the Spanish word raza, which means ‘breed’ or ‘stock’ (Race). People use race to define other groups, this separation of groups is based largely on physical features. Features like skin color and hair don’t affect the fundamental biology of human variation (Hotz). Race is truly only skin deep, there are no true biological separations between two ‘racial’ groups. Scientifically speaking, there is more variation between single local groups than there is between two large, global groups; the human variation is constantly altering (Lewontin). The majority of today’s anthropologists agree that race is a form of social categorization, not the separation of groups based on biological

If you would have asked me, "Do you believe race is biological or that is was socially constructed?", I would have responded with the same examples you may commonly receive from scientist or anthropologist; that race is in fact biological and deeply rooted and shared from generation to generation by DNA. However, through analyzing Pearson 's, Chapter 11 Race & Ethnicity we discover various examples in which history has built the shelves in which everyone is neatly categorized for its convenience even if not entirely in truth.