Chapter 38 from my novel titled Me. A conversation on race between Xavier Washington and me, Adrian Dane Kenny, via the youtube commentary system.

Chapter 38

A conversation on race between Xavier Washington and me, Adrian Dane Kenny, via the youtube commentary system:

This guy named Xavier Washington, has been quite helpful with his insistance to display what he knows based on the anthropologists, and possibly, his wishful thinking.  He commented on one of my comments on a video on youtube.  The video can be found at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu4pjmBTN2Y&lc=z235c5ipquiqyhfo104t1aokgf0kmnz2w2ny2cy5qysrbk0h00410.1540811969793891.
I am adding some links so he can easily find the data and articles that I have realized are absolute.  No two's about it.  I am going to include that internet conversation here.  It is important, as I am sure many readers are confused or misinformed about this.  Apparently, even the anthropologists are confused.  Nina Jablonski, might be confused, and Sarah Tishkoff might be confused, and even some of the men too.  I just do not know exactly who, and I am not sure if they are just undecided, still working it out for themselves, or really a little deluded, about race only being a social construct. 
Here is the conversation:

Adrian Dane Kenny
3 weeks ago
race is genetic and biological.

Xavier Washington
10 hours ago
Race is a social construct and here are some central points:
The human genome lacks diversity with respect to other species of animal (assumedly due to some near-extinction event early in human history that limited breeding populations)
The variation of traits between individual human beings is large compared to the variation of traits between theoretical racial groups, meaning that statistically there is no evidence that ‘race’ is not a useful or verifiable biological concept
Haplogroups exist in the human species, reflecting lineages that were geologically isolated and thus historically incapable of interbreeding, but these group differences account for a very small proportion of the human genome, and are only maintained in the modern world by social and cultural restrictions
The concept of race itself is largely a function of the Colonial era, when technological innovations in arms and transportation allowed Europeans to expand rapidly outward and subjugate large regions of the world, encountering and exploiting a wide range of new peoples.

Adrian Dane Kenny
9 hours ago
@Xavier Washington thanks for the comment but it is actually biologic and genetic.  and that has been shown already.  I do not know why there is so much confusion about this.  And the differences are not trivial.

Xavier Washington
9 hours ago
@Adrian Dane Kenny  First: Humans are highly mobile, and very few populations of humans have been entirely isolated for long enough stretches of time to differentiate.
Second: Homo sapiens underwent a genetic bottleneck around 70,000 years ago, reducing the human species’ numbers to a mere 10,000 or so individuals. We’re all descended from them. This means we have a remarkably narrow gene pool for a 200,000 year old species much smaller than most species that are so old. Too small for subspecies. There isn’t enough variation. There’s more variation between different breeds of dogs than between different populations of humans. (And there aren’t any dog subspecies, either dogs are a subspecies of gray wolf).
Third there is a term for the sorts of regional variations in color and form that you see in humans, and that term is not ‘subspecies.’ It’s ‘locality.’ Corn snakes in one area have different colors from corn snakes in another area the localities aren’t different enough to be subspecies. They’re just regional variations, nothing more.
Humans toward the equator survived better with darker skin, while humans toward the poles did better with lighter skin to enable better vitamin D production. Little tweaks like curly or straight hair, eye folds, nose shape minor, minor, MINOR stuff. Who cares if a dog has upright ears or floppy ears? That doesn’t change the breed, much less the subspecies. Humans are obsessively nitpicky about each other’s minor variations.
Nothing about humans in any area is different enough to warrant more than a nod to locality differences and most of what we consider races are a mishmash of localities, not even distinct ones. Humans are all just a bunch of mutts, and need to get over this idea that these features have any meaning.

Adrian Dane Kenny
8 hours ago
@Xavier Washington thanks for sharing your thoughts.  regarding locality this is indeed a factor of subspecies, and even in some cases if long enough and the genetic pressures are different enough and high enough, it can even lead to different species.  Race is on the order of being part of subspecies.  an order of classification that occurs within a species.  Yes, all humans an mate successfully, but that does discount the genetic differences that are race.  Regarding the genetic isolation that lead to and caused the three dominant races of white, brown, and black.  the whites all made it to the British Isles and Northwest Europe.  The Browns are more scattered, but made it to the east, to the middle east, to north africa, to oceania, and also to the americas,  This group also includes interracial kids of white and black people, which is a little different.  And the blacks remained in sub-saharan africa, specifically, the congo.  There are also nutritional difference that led to the differences in races of humans.  And obviously difference in sun exposure.  Another component contributing and maintaining the three different races is assortive mating. 
So in the broadest categorization, the three dominant races are white, brown, and black. 
if you want to discuss this further, then you can send an email to me at adrian.kenny@post.harvard.edu.

Xavier Washington
8 hours ago
@Adrian Dane Kenny
 American Anthropological Association Statement on Race:
http://www.americananthro.org/ConnectWithAAA/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=2583
American Association of Physical Anthropologists Statement on Race
http://pages.ucsd.edu/~jmoore/courses/anth42web/CartmillRaceConcept1998.pdf
C. Loring Brace: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/does-race-exist.html
These are statements of anthropological positions on the concept of race. The last is a statement by C. Loring Brace who was my professor of Physical Anthropology at UCSB. Anthropologists  the scientists who study the range and depth of the human species do not find any support for the existence of race within the human species. Nor are there subspecies within the human species. There is only one human species and it is biologically one relatively homogeneous whole. The main difference among humans is cultural variation, not genetic variation. That is not being politically correct. That is being scientifically correct.
Race is a concept made up by racists to amplify insignificant differences to their own advantage. There is no scientific evidence for the concept of human races.


Adrian Dane Kenny
3 hours ago
@Xavier Washington yes those anthropologists are wrong.  I have already read that stuff, years ago, and even recently.  Race is used every day in medicine and surgery, and accurately so.  And while there is more to it than genetics.  it is a genetic phenomenon.  And unfortunately you are being incomplete when you state that humans are relatively homogenous.  Humans are a diverse group of animals that have genetic variation.  This is very apparent in surgery, when comparing the anatomical variation among humans.  But, yes humans are one species.  However, no, humans can be subspeciated, just like any other living thing.  Just make up a category that is logical and based on biology, anatomy, phenotype, and genetics.  Race is in that category.  There are three dominant races of humans: white , brown, and black.  And there are genetic differences that have been well documented.  These differences include the following: The genes that show the strongest signatures of positive selection by race are:
Phenotype category                             Genes     
Morphological traits, for example            ABCC11, EDAR, SLC45A2, PKP1, PLEKHA4, SLC24A5         
skin pigmentation and hair development
Immune response to pathogens            CEACAM1, CR1, DUOX2, VAV2
DNA repair and replication                            MPG, POLG2, TDP1
Sensory function, for example olfaction           COL18A1, OR52K2, RP1L1             
and eye development
Insulin regulation, metabolic syndrome,            ALMS1, CEACAM1, ENPP1     
obesity, diabetes, hypertension
Carious metabolic pathways, for example   ADH1B, ASS1, SLC39A4     
ethanol, intestinal zinc, and citrulline
Miscellaneous                              FBXO31, RTTN, SPAG6
Unknown                                     ABCC12, ADAT1, AK127117a, C17orf46, C8orf14, COLEC11, CPSF3l, DNAJC5B
Nature genetics 2008. 40, 340-345

This is from a journal title Nature, specifically Nature genetics, from 2008.  You can go and find the paper if you want to read it and understand some of the genetics of race. 
And I am sure if you have seen a white caucasian person, a brown person, such as an asian, indian, or mixed or multiracial person, and a black person, such as from the congo and subsahara africa, you can appreciate some differences immediately.  Those phenotypic differences are due to genetics.  Those are biological differences within humanity.  And they do indicate that there are more differences too.  Differences in the brains, in the skeletal structures, and even in other organs.  There is much to do and research on this topic.  I wonder if this is something that you might be interested in.
Dr.  Adrian Dane Kenny, M.D. 
adrian.kenny@post.harvard.edu

Adrian Dane Kenny
1 second ago
@Xavier Washington Also you can find the article at the following links, and also some more information abouthe genetics of the humans races.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18246066, https://www.nature.com/scitable/nated/article?action=showContentInPopup&contentPK=706, and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5606250_Natural_selection_has_driven_population_differentiation_in_modern_humans.  Let me know what you think.

I think that Xavier Washington is black, for some reason, or non-white at the least.  But I could be wrong.  The reason why I think he is black, is because most of the white people that I have interacted with on this have not entertained as much discussion on this with me.

Xavier Washington
4 minutes ago
​@Adrian Dane Kenny   Now that is just peusdo scientific nonsense
If different races have different brains, why do we all have the same basic needs and desires? Why do we all have the same emotions? Why can the same things make us laugh and cry? Why can we learn things in the same way? Different races do not have any difference in their brain that matters. Even if there are slight differences between people (which there are between each individual), they don’t fundamentally change our humanity. As a person whose brain is different from the majority of people, I understand that all too well. If a person can laugh and cry and feel all the same emotions you do, what do those differences matter?  What differences between skull shapes are these? Because unless you are a forensic anthropologist, you are going to find it extremely difficult to actually find much of a noticeable difference in skull structure between people of difference races.Things like teeth size, and other minute differences in small bones like that of the nose and temporal bones, are what distinguish skulls. And even then, they are not a reliable indicator of what race the skull in fact belongs to. A more complete skeleton is necessary for that. Generally the idea that different races have different skulls is linked to people who believe that small heads mean stupidity, and seem to also coincidentally really, really want to prove how people who aren’t white happen to have small heads.
There is much data from the medical field (and its parent sciences) that shows how different groups of people respond to different medicines / lifestyle choices. Biological race does not exist per-say but since humans lived everywhere on Earth, and adapted to differing conditions, we have different sets of traits to deal with the seasonal and floral / fauna varieties. Beyond this, long term access to environmental differences can lead to cultural changes which then impact DNA (milk, alcohol, melanin are commonly cited). These patterns are strongly associated with ethnicity, because ethnicity is a strong correlate to the genetics (bio networks) associated with said different medical outcomes / challenges. Again, these different bio networks were selected for since they increased reproduction rates in aggregate. So why race is a social construct, its real enough to be useful. Somewhat like electromagnetism is a made up human construct but the outcomes produced from the idea work (computers). This last part is important, its easy to confuse everything as a social construct. However, a social construct was created to aid our understanding the objective reality, i.e. science. And outcomes show its one of the best ones we have created, it is among the “most real.”
We are one race, the human race. ‘Species’ is a technical concept and it involves reproductive isolation based on genetic differences. Humans form one species; the races are not reproductively isolated at all. Biologists also use the technical concept ‘subspecies’ to distinguish populations within a species that are to some extent geographically isolated, and differ genetically, but do not show reproductive barriers. Most biologists are reluctant to call human races different subspecies, since they do not show much genetic differentiation and are no longer geographically isolated (most never were). As an aside, there is a formal organization, the ICZN which produces a formal code for zoological nomenclature, covering animals of all sorts.
Keep in mind that we all share ancestors 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, and that there is more genetic (and linguistic) variation in Africa than in the rest of the world combined. If you focus on skin color and hair cross-sectional shape, there is a lot of superficial difference between the races. But would you make a big deal about the difference between brown cows and spotted cows? Grey dogs and reddish brown dogs? Coloration evolves very easily. Within Ireland there are redheads, blondes and absolutely black haired folk. Different races? There are 20,000 genetic loci in humans, and it is superficial to fixate on 8 of them. Within the African “race” there are short and tall folk, just as there are in Serbia or Finland. There are type A, B and O Africans and Scots. There are Rh positive and negative Africans and Swiss. Within Italy are are “white” people who range from creamy pale to deeply brown, darker than some subsaharan ‘blacks’. Within subsaharan Africa there is great variation in coloring among ‘pure’ indigenous folk … to the extent that any human is ‘pure’.
A paper in Science 2002 by Rosenberg et al. on the Genetic Structure of Human Populations begins like this: “We studied human population structure using genotypes at 377 autosomal microsatellite loci in 1056 individuals from 52 populations. Within-population differences among individuals account for 93 to 95% of genetic variation; differences among major groups constitute only 3 to 5%. “ People vary far more within a race than between races. We just tend to judge the book by the cover. I don’t have a major problem with using the term ‘race’ in its conventional nontechnical meaning, but it is very fuzzy, it is not a scientific term, and it probably misleads us about the population genetics of humans. I sure would not hang a philosophy on it.
The idea of a racialized body is essentially a colonial project, used by colonial rulers to effectively categorize people for the purpose of census. By invoking the word ‘black’, ‘white’, ‘asian’ men, you are also invoking a whole other set of attributes related to that label. The label is not an empty word, but rather a meaning laden word that also signifies a whole other set of socio-cultural identities and issues. One simple way to think of it is that different races have preferences for different diets and different sports, as part of their ‘culture’ and that shapes their body as a result.
The notion that among human beings there exist races is not only obsolete, narrow minded, politically incorrect and, well, racist; what this notion is more than anything else, it is simply just wrong! One of the things that became evident after the completion of the Human Genome Project in about the year 2000, is that the genetic differences between various geographically defined groups of people is nothing more than an environmental adaptation of some characteristics, in no case deep enough to constitute different 'races'.
(Just consider races of dogs, comparing, for example, a San Bernard with a Chihuaha, to get the point.)
Here is an example: Sherpas living in high altitudes on the Himalayas have developed a different blood circulation system, to allow them to breathe and work under the rarefied atmosphere of the heights, a genetic difference arguably more drastic than the simple skin pigmentation to protect from the sun’s excessive UV radiation in the tropics. Yet, nobody has suggested, and rightly so, that Sherpas belong to some kind of a separate human 'race'. As another example, consider Gluten Intolerance: Peoples living for centuries in areas where no cereals grow, (Cereals: Wheat, Barley, Rye and Oats, the only produce of the earth that contain Gluten) may have retained genes related to gluten intolerance without any adverse effect. Should we define races by the incidence of gluten intolerance? Of course not. The physical differences between what used to be called 'races' are minor and the totality of individuals of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens belong to only one race: The human race.

Who is going to get the last word this time?
http://iczn.org/
I wrote out my response for this guy.  It took eight pages.  now I think that he is a white guy who is younger than me, or possibly a brown guy who is closer to my age, but still a little bit younger.  Although I could be completely wrong about that.  I think that I am going to win this one.  I have been waiting a long time for this.  To have someone challenge me so that I can aire out what I have been thinking and reading, and specifically someone who is actually very interested in the science, and educated enough in the science too.  This guy definitely seems educated enough in the science of human races and evolution to participate in this discussion. 
This is the kind of stuff that I was hoping to continue to do with Magdalena Romanowicz, but she has moved on to being a psyhciatrist and making money. 
In the meantime, off to subway to eat.  All I have had is that brioce and latte from explorateur.
Afterwards I stopped at caffe bene to sit and drink a chai latte.  On the way back, I ran into Lenox.  Another black-skinned jamaican.  he lives in 413.  In this building.  I told him I would stop by sometime.  He said, "alright, alright, alright."  I will talk to him about buildinga  state of the art soccer-football stadium in Kingston, Jamaica, for the Harbour view Football Club and the people of Jamaica.  Now, back to Xavier Washington.
I think that he is a white guy now, although his name kind of fits an african american too.  But xavier might actually be french of francophone, and washington might actually be british.

here is my response:
Adrian Dane Kenny
1 second ago
@Xavier Washington I identify some confusion in your response, although it is quite thoughtful and pretty well articulated. 
So different races do have different brains, although there is a lot of homology, as far as we know.  These differences do matter.  they are significant. 
humanity is a collective concept.
how is your brain or thinking different from the majority of people?  Since you made that comment.
And in fact the emotions and feelings of individuals are unique.  There is homology, but it is still unique and different for each human.  If you think about it, we are all 100% unique, separated by time and space, and therefore every gene and molecule is distinct, discrete, and unique.  But there definitely is homology.
The fact that forensic anthropologists can and have identified differences in skull shapes and skeletons of humans from different races verifies that those differences in fact exist, and have been proven, and are reliable.  It is not necessarily perfect all of the time, but it is reliable.
Long-term access to environmental differences actually leads to genetic differences.  One reason is due to different cultures and traditions.  Another is due to genetic mutations that in part, result from these differences.
"We are one race, the human race," is wrong.  We are one species, the human species, homo sapien sapien.  But humans are in fact more than one race.  In the broadest categorization, it is three races: white, brown, and black.
And yes, race is a sub-speciation. categorization.  It is real, biologic, genetic, and a result of evolutionary differences among humans.  Animals of a single species can viably mate.  That is merely a definition of a species, or one important fact for being grouped as one species.
Part of the reason why there is more linguistic variation among black-skinned congoid people is because of the fragmentation of the black race as compared to the white race.  The blacks roamed the sub-saharan africa, and did not organized in the same fashion as the white race did in the british isles and northwest europe.  This might also explain the differences in genetic diversity among those two different races of humans.  Although that is a debatable point because it could also be thought of this way as a result of the systems used for counting languages among the whites versus the blacks.  Which in part might be unfounded racial bias.  I am not sure though.  It could also so be thought that the development of language among the black-skinned humans is still more primitive than that of the white-skinned humans, and therefore has not aggregated into a smaller number of dominant languages.  I am not sure though.
The differences of skin color and hair are not merely superficial differences, they are genetic differences, encoded in the human genomes and the human gene pools. 
And yes, I do make a big deal about the differences between brown cows and spotted cows.  As well as between grey dogs and reddish brown dogs.  I do not think that coloration evolved easily, either. 
Regarding Ireland, yes, they can be classified into different races and ethnicities just based on hair color alone. 
There might be more than 8 genetic loci associated purely with race.  Another way to look at it, though, is that all 20,000 genetic loci of a human impact the race of that individual. 
When referring to race, I would restrict it to different and specific colors: white, yellow, orange, red, olive, brown, black.  When complicating it more, then I would start to use ethnicity. 
African really just refers to a continent.
With regard to Italy, the deep brown might not really be white, but instead are a part of the brown race, like the olive skinned italians.  They definitely are not the whitest.
Science 2002 Rosenberg, et al.  Genetic Structure of Human Populations.  This is a limited study.  They only use 377 autosomal microsatellite loci.  And their sampling is only 1056 individuals from 52 populations. 
This "within population differences among individuals accounts for 93% - 95% of genetic variation; differences among major groups constitutes 3% - 5%."  I am sure that it is wrong.  That in fact there is more genetic variation between a white man and a black man as compared to the genetic variation between two white men.  They are trying to make it seem like that might not be the case, some how. and that seems like flimsy science.  I would have to find that article and read it carefully to identify all of it's flaws and limitations. 
Race very much is a scientific term.  It is a simple observation, largely due to differences in skin color.  As well as iris color and hair color.  The underlying genetic mechanisms, at least has to do with melanin, among many other things.  It also has differences in skeletal structure and even other organs.  There are also differences in other genetic mutations and also in disease and incidence of disease. 
Part of the reason why colonials choose to understand and know race is to continue to mate assortively and intelligently. 
Different diets and different activities, even as a part of culture, still has genetic implications.
The notion of human races is not obsolete, narrow-minded, or politically incorrect.  However, it definitely is racist.  But even racism can be healthy. 
The genetic differences among humans from different geographically defined groups of people is in part an environmental adaptation, and is real, and it is a part of the evolution of races.  It is important.
Races and subspecies of dogs and other animals is also still important. 
the example of sherpas is a part of race and ethnicity that is a part of their evolution.  Sherpas just being called and identified as sherpa, with the similarity of this high altitude exposure does in fact contribute to their racial identity as a human, and as a part of a specific race and specific ethnicity. 
The broadest categorization of race, being primarily based by skin color, is white, brown, and black.

And xavier responded later, which I read at 1:30 am 30-10-2018

Xavier Washington
3 hours ago
Adrian Dane Kenny  Good lord this is a bunch of pseudo scientific racism
"So different races do have different brains, although there is a lot of homology, as far as we know.  These differences do matter.  they are significant."
There is absolutely no evidence of a divergence of brain structure, function, or capability across races, and a lot of evidence that there is none. All the races of humans that we encounter today are belonging to the highest evolved species of human beings called homo sapiens. Therefore the brain size is the same in all the races. The intellectual achievements dependent on the forces which nurture the brain and will vary from place to place and society to society.
"humanity is a collective concept."
I guess it depends on whether you see humanity as a collective whole or a collection of individual elements. The primacy of the whole says the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Humanity does not really appear to me to act as a collective whole (and thus does not really have a collective concious). Rather as a collection of individuals that sometimes act in concert and most of the time not. When it suits humanity to act together then some elements of conciousness appear (e.g. after tragedies, but the effect wears off), but most of the time we seem to seek our own survival and improvement of chances to survive rather than acting as a body.
"how is your brain or thinking different from the majority of people?  Since you made that comment."
There is enormous variability among human brains. No two brains are alike. Two intelligent people will have brains that are as different as the brains of an intelligent person and a less intelligent person. The available data are not very consistent. The physicist Albert Einstein’s brain was analyzed, but no major differences from the average brain were found. Again, this may be because of poor analysis techniques or low resolution, but it may also be because of the sheer variability of human brains.
"The fact that forensic anthropologists can and have identified differences in skull shapes and skeletons of humans from different races verifies that those differences in fact exist, and have been proven, and are reliable.  It is not necessarily perfect all of the time, but it is reliable."
 Skull shape is NOT used to determine "race'. There are three basic skull shapes (dolichocephalic, brachicephalic and mesocephalic, meaning long and narrow, short and wide and in between) but these are distributed among all geographic groups and are not limited to or distinctive of any specific group that would conventionally be classified as "race".  There are some regional differences in structures of the nasal cavity and other minor feature like dentition (shape of teeth), due to mutation that arose after groups were separated geographically and by thousands of years. But even those traits are highly plastic (variable) and can only suggest possible ethnic origin, not absolutely identify it.  In fact, physical anthropologists can really only identify a person's origins and ancestry by evaluating their DNA for distinctive mutations that correlate to certain geographic origins. Like skull shape, even blood types are shared or overlapped among all groups historically differentiated by "race". The idea that human "races" were cranially distinctive was an old notion (racist one at that) and one that has had to be discarded in the face of much greater evidence in recent decades. There are some general things that anthropologists can infer from skeletons that will allow them to draw some conclusions about the physical characteristics it once was. Age and Size  I know this sounds obvious, but knowing how old someone was when they died will help you assess their build, particularly in conjunction with indicators of malnutrition. Gender sort of. Women are generally lighter-framed than men, but there are instances where the skeleton of, for example, a very small-framed Asian man, has been initially misidentified as a woman. Additional characteristics, such as the surface texture of the back of the skull (due to male/female differences in muscle attachments) can be helpful, unless the skull is from a woman who carried burdens on her head (e.g. water, or market goods), in which case the muscle attachments will be more like those of a male skull. Angle of pelvic bones is also used, and is pretty reliable, but not 100%. Environment sometimes. People who have lived their lives in high altitude regions from birth or early childhood will have a slightly different-shaped ribcage, as the thinner air results in deeper breathing that Ethnic shapes the body over time. Genetic trends some ethnic groups have certain features that are more common than others. For example some east asians have a dental issue known as “tooth shoveling.” Not all, and it is found elsewhere, so you can’t say for sure that a skeleton with tooth shoveling is Asian, and one without is not all you can say is that there’s a greater chance that the are. Anthropologists spent a lot of time on this question in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, but ultimately, they were unsuccessful making large-scale categorizations based on skeletons alone.

Xavier Washington
3 hours ago
@Adrian Dane Kenny "Long-term access to environmental differences actually leads to genetic differences.  One reason is due to different cultures and traditions.  Another is due to genetic mutations that in part, result from these differences."
Humans do show some phenotypic and genotypic variation by geographical  origin. Geographic isolation after human migrations, and natural or sexual  selection, have resulted in some alleles being more frequent in some groups that in others, and ancestry determines the distribution of these gene variants, but this is only for a few genes. That is basically the whole concept of "race" from a biological point of view. It is a fuzzy one, because there is no precise demarcation between ethnic groups, as humans have been migrating and moving around the globe for a long time, in different migratory waves. In today's world, with globalization and relatively easy world travel, geographic isolation is a diminishing parameter. We meet and fall in love with people whose recent ancestors came from all the continents in the world. It makes even less sense nowadays to think of human ethnic groups as "pure races" or "breeds". If we feed genomic data from thousands of people from all over the world, and we use algorithms to find relatedness or to build trees or to find patterns of genetic variation, we will get clusters that show that genetics mimic geography to a large extent. But THIS IS A PRETTY TRIVIAL FACT, and it makes perfect sense that people who have lived together within one geographical region for thousands of years or even shorter times will share more gene variants in common. If you use genomic data from just Europeans, gene frequencies closely mirror geography. And like the great Italian human population geneticist Luigi   Cavalli-Sforza reminds us, if we feed one of these programs genomic data  from people in neighboring tiny Tuscan towns, they will pick up genetic   differences between the inhabitants of neighboring towns Sienna and Florence. Geography is a better determinant of genetics than "ethnicity" (of course,  depending  on how we describe ethnicity; for those not in the US,  remember that  "Hispanic" is an ethnicity). A recent example was just published, finding genetic differences in people original from the British Isles: these people all look the same, the Welsh, the Cornish, etc., but you can differentiate them genetically if you compare them to each other, because of the intrinsic genetic variation and its association to geography.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07331
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1805472/
https://www.genomeweb.com/microarrays-multiplexing/fine-scale-genetic-map-britain-gives-clues-ancient-population-movements
"We are one race, the human race," is wrong.  We are one species, the human species, homo sapien sapien.  But humans are in fact more than one race.  In the broadest categorization, it is three races: white, brown, and black."
99% of all anthropologists, sociologists and biologists today would agree that there is no such thing as race in humans. Therefore there is no way to classify humans by race, and any such classification would be highly arbitrary and made upon social and cultural assumptions. The final scientific verdict is that races simply do not exist. The closest you can get with classification is to identify genetic markers within haplogroups and extract the most dominant marker (most dominant markers are actually below and even far below 50% of all genetic markers present within a single individual), of which there are thousands. So if we are to categorize humans still, then we can only say there is either one race or thousands of races. You can throw all your notions that there are 4 to 7 races away, they are completely outdated and obsolete.
"And yes, race is a sub-speciation. categorization.  It is real, biologic, genetic, and a result of evolutionary differences among humans.  Animals of a single species can viably mate.  That is merely a definition of a species, or one important fact for being grouped as one species."
Your notions are is false. There are ethnic differences which are passed down genetically, and some of those fall into broad categories, however, the term for this is Clines, and having one sort of Cline does not mean anything about the other Clines you may have. Human traits are broadly distributed. Attempts to divide humanity into Races has used as few as three, up to more than thirty. None of the classifications have been demonstrated to hold any useful meaning. Humans have been migrating back and forth across the continents for over 200,000 years. Genetic traits have been mixed and remixed over and over. There's some evidence that every human alive is descended in part from a single individual who lived about 200,000 years ago. Race, as a biological term, is something that happens when a species develops in separated areas over long periods of time, experiencing genetic drift. Eventually you develop into subspecies and then true different species. On the way to that point, it is handy to refer to a section of a species which has developed many differences but not sufficient to be a new subspecies as a Race. Biologists have set a limit as to how much divergence is needed in order to call that section a separate race; the section must have enough traits in common with all others in that section and yet different from the common traits in  the first section.  Humans fall far far short of that degree of common difference. Further, when you divide them up into apparant groups, you'll find that the subsets of those groups often have as many of those divergent commonalities as do the larger groups themselves. Dark skin happens to people who develop for some time in a high sunlight environment.  Even though the populations of India, Africa, and Australia have similar skin color, they are just as distinct from each other as they are from say Irish or Innuit peoples and more to the point, just as similar.  The Aboriginal peoples of Australia demonstrate the largest difference, because they were isolated much longer than any other peoples on earth.  For the past 200,000 plus years, humanity has shown two traits; one, we migrate constantly, and two, the only thing restricting our mating habits is distance.  Since 1950 the UN has recognized what is increasingly biologically obvious (it was obvious even then, and has only become more so with our more sophisticated genetic capabilities), which is that there are no races within our species. Or, if you want to be fair about it, there's one. 
It's Human.

Xavier Washington
3 hours ago
@Adrian Dane Kenny "Part of the reason why there is more linguistic variation among black-skinned congoid people is because of the fragmentation of the black race as compared to the white race.  The blacks roamed the sub-saharan africa, and did not organized in the same fashion as the white race did in the british isles and northwest europe.  This might also explain the differences in genetic diversity among those two different races of humans.  Although that is a debatable point because it could also be thought of this way as a result of the systems used for counting languages among the whites versus the blacks.  Which in part might be unfounded racial bias.  I am not sure though.  It could also so be thought that the development of language among the black-skinned humans is still more primitive than that of the white-skinned humans, and therefore has not aggregated into a smaller number of dominant languages.  I am not sure though."
More pseudo scientific racism I see. Europe is tiny compared to Africa and there are a lot of tribes, ethnicities, cultures, etc. in Africa. Many of the languages in Sub Equatorial Africa are actually quite similar:  The Bantu expansion is the name for a postulated millennia-long series of migrations of speakers of the original proto-Bantu language group. The primary evidence for this expansion has been linguistic, namely that the languages spoken in Sub-Equatorial Africa are remarkably similar to each other. Europe used to have many more languages, but many of these are now extinct or near extinct. Modern humanity arose in East Africa between 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. As time passed, humans migrated throughout Africa then, around 60,000 years ago, some went northward into Asia, Europe, Australia, the Americas, the Pacific Islands and, finally, just 800 years ago, New Zealand. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982205002095 describes how the amount of diversity in the human genome can be correlated to the distance travelled on hypothesized migration routes from East Africa. In summary, a small number of humans left Africa with a subset of human genes, hence little diversity in that group and their descendants, while most of humanity at that time, with a more diverse set of collective genes, remained in Africa.
"The differences of skin color and hair are not merely superficial differences, they are genetic differences, encoded in the human genomes and the human gene pools."
Humans have a very small genetic variability and there are NO human races. Although, we do have some variability. Albino people exist, mixed-race people exist and have all sorts of different skin tones (including those that are visually identical to “white” people and “Black” people), certain skin tones exist in multiple “races”, etc. When humans were migrating across the globe, skin color evolved depending on proximity to the equator (along with other environmental factors that may influence sun exposure). This means that people with ancestral locations closest to the equator will all have a similar skin tone, although these people may be from Africa, Australia, southeast Asia, or South America. Likewise, those furthest from the equator will have similar skin tones, including people from North America, Asia, and Europe (and sometimes the southernmost regions of South America and Africa). Humans are lazy thinkers, and historically skin color has lead to discrimination and enslavement. Race means whatever people choose to mean; science gives it little meaning but instead thinks in terms of common descent patterns, shared genes (which cross racial categories), or genetic closeness (due to common descent). Dark skin and similar hair of West Africans and Andaman Islanders, e.g., does not match genetic closeness overall; Europeans are actually closer to West Africans than Andaman Islanders who “look” West African.
"Regarding Ireland, yes, they can be classified into different races and ethnicities just based on hair color alone."
That makes no sense whatsoever.
"his "within population differences among individuals accounts for 93% - 95% of genetic variation; differences among major groups constitutes 3% - 5%."  I am sure that it is wrong.  That in fact there is more genetic variation between a white man and a black man as compared to the genetic variation between two white men.  They are trying to make it seem like that might not be the case, some how. and that seems like flimsy science.  I would have to find that article and read it carefully to identify all of it's flaws and limitations."
Its defiantly not wrong More variation exists within races (>95%) than between races (<5%), which means if all races except one died humanity would only lose like 5% of its genetic diversity. Races contain little uniqueness.

Xavier Washington
3 hours ago (edited)
@Adrian Dane Kenny "Race very much is a scientific term.  It is a simple observation, largely due to differences in skin color.  As well as iris color and hair color.  The underlying genetic mechanisms, at least has to do with melanin, among many other things.  It also has differences in skeletal structure and even other organs.  There are also differences in other genetic mutations and also in disease and incidence of disease."
"Race" does not exist. All human beings have the same genetic make up. Race as based on skin color in the United States has no basis in scientific fact. There is nothing to indicate any superiority of any kind in one Race over another. In fact there is more racial variation between groups then across them. Eye color is a genetic trait, with specific loci in our DNA, my father’s eyes are green and mom eyes are brown eyes, and mine are hazel. Are the three of us separate races? My father's hair is wavy, my mother's hair was curly. Mine is both. I am lighter than a black person, but darker than a white person. I have a pointy nose, like the men in my father's side of the family. These are the things in certain combinations that we call "race". If you could map my genes, you would find dominant and recessive genes for these and many more things. I'm also pretty smart. My parents were pretty smart. Am I smart because of them, or was it an accident? Nature vs nurture is it all nature? No nurture?
http://www.understandingrace.org/
The prevalence of genetic disorders actually runs in family lines, not races, but because we think of most families as being made up of a single race it is tempting to oversimplify it that way. Some families contain the gene for Tay-Sachs disease. Some of the original families to get the mutation happened to be Ashkenazi Jews, and because historically Jews have tried to marry mostly other Jewish people and raise their children to be Jewish, most of the family lines that carry the Tay-Sachs gene are still Jewish. But it's not a "Jewish" disease, it's a disease that happens when two people each carrying a specific recessive gene (that was passed down through their families) each contribute that recessive to their mutual child. Someone today of any race could carry the Tay-Sachs mutated gene, because of some interracial relationship a hundred years ago.
It is most commonly found among people who KNOW they are descended from Ashkenazi Jews, but when I say it's "more common" among them what I mean is that on the statistical average, about 1 in every 27 adults of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage carry a single Tay-Sachs gene (to suffer from the disease you have to have a matched pair, which occurs on average in about 1 in every 3,500 newborns among Ashkenazi-descended families). In the general population of the US, the prevalence of having one copy of the mutation is about 1 in 300. So, yes, it is more common among Ashkenazi Jews, but plenty of non-Jewish people end up carrying it, and even among Ashkenazim it's fairly rare. Yet people talk about it as if it were purely a racialized disease, a curse linked to a religion and a shameful sign of some kind of tribal taint.
Every other genetic disease that is spoken of as being "more prevalent" among a given race is just as muddy. But it's quick and easy to talk about "racial" diseases even if it's scientifically and statistically nonsense, and it's very tempting to fall into sloppy thinking when it reinforces our society's general tendency to want to enforce racial boundaries and treat them as real and unchangeable. Very few widespread genetic disorders are even as new as several thousand years old tens or hundreds of human generations. I guarantee that if you trace back your family tree assiduously even five generations you will find out you are related to an awful lot of people you didn't think you had any connection to and all of their descendants might have the same gene mutations you have, from your common ancestor a hundred or two hundred years ago. Now roll that back twice, three times, four times as far back into history and you end up with currently-living people, all descended from a common ancestor, with wildly differing apperances, races, cultures of upbringing, and every other variable you can think of. Yet they share that shared genetic heritage.
There is no connection between skin color and the color of internal organs because first of all the phenotypic characters is what is coded by the genes and the color of the internal organs is included in that. The pigment that gives color to our skin(mostly melanin) is in no way responsible for giving color to our internal organs and since our internal organs are all vascularized the only color we see is red, if they hadn't been vascularized we wouldn't have seen that color, in such a situation this question would have been more relevant.

Xavier Washington
2 hours ago
@Adrian Dane Kenny "Part of the reason why colonials choose to understand and know race is to continue to mate assortively and intelligently."
Colonialism’s main byproduct was plantations. These plantations employed slave labor as it would not be profitable by paying adequate wages. The easiest way to get slave labor was by buying them from African warlords; African Americans were also incredibly skilled at practicing agriculture due to the nature of their homeland. Thus, after centuries of buying almost exclusively African Americans for the slavery on plantations and the such, it became ingrained in many Europeans’ minds African Americans were an inferior race as they were almost all slaves for European companies and nations. Therefore, you get the all inclusive term racism. Thus, one can say colonialism is a large contributing factor to racism against African Americans specifically. It also affected other races, such as Chinese Asians due to the opium trade perpetuated by the British Empire, etc. racism really fed some of the excesses of colonialism (because it made the colonizers sure that their “lower race” victims didn’t deserve to have a say in their own treatment).
Different diets and different activities, even as a part of culture, still has genetic implications.
Wrong, By definition, culture is learned, not instinct, not something you are born with. Genetics does affect personality and natural talents, but these traits are spread out through all peoples of the Earth randomly. If one is lucky, their natural, genetically endowed talents will be considered valuable by the culture/society they are born into. In that way, they will be encouraged and appreciated. If the opposite occurs, they will tend to suppress that trait. In that way, different cultures will appear to have a higher percentage of talented people in them (whatever that talent might be) and less of whatever trait is considered less desirable. This may give the impression that particular cultures naturally have a common mix of genetically imbued people in them. This can lead to stereotypes such as this culture being more musically inclined and that culture being better with money, or better craftsmen, or producing more professionals, or making better soldiers. This is an illusion, even though statistically it may appear true because a higher percentage of them actually do these things. Humans always try to find patterns in things. Fortunately, humanity has overcome the natural boundaries of the world and people and cultures are intermingling more, allowing more children to aspire to what their natural talents would allow them to. The most successful nations provide this freedom of expression, along with free quality education and encourage children to discover and nurture their talents. In this way, they maximize the natural talents of their people. Of course, many old school types lament the loss of control by their particular cultural beliefs with this process and fight it, such as some extremist religious types curse America for its open and progressive culture which they see infecting their children. This even happens with some Americans. There are certain alleles of genes which increase chance of hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes. If your family has a history of either lifestyle disorders, then it can be assumed you have higher chance of developing these diseases as you get older. But it isn’t necessary or 100% sure you will have the disease too. If you take precautions in diet from an early age and exercise, there is a very high chance you will develop the disease much later in life and the symptoms will be milder or you might not have the disease at all!
"The notion of human races is not obsolete, narrow-minded, or politically incorrect.  However, it definitely is racist.  But even racism can be healthy."
You have a obsolete 18th to 19th century and to some extension a Nazi mindset when it comes down to race.
Racism is wrong from a moral standpoint because it is a fundamentally abhorrent behavior.  It rests on the oppression of a group, or members of a group, and racist actions perpetuate the suffering that comes as a result of that oppression.  It goes against the foundation of moral reasoning because any benefit that you gain from it comes at the expense of someone else.  It obscures any moral truth to your actions since it is based on prejudicial or hateful thoughts, rendering any good you actually do (or just think you do) meaningless.
Racism is wrong from a philosophical standpoint because it is used primarily as a tool for maintaining unequal power structures.  While the majority may have no problem using racism or other means of discrimination in order to maintain their hold on power, systems that are based on inequality are inherently flawed and destined to be overthrown (or at least overhauled) at some point.  It prevents full political engagement for all citizens, which is still the modern ideal we are striving for, and stops us short of creating a lasting society that adequately represents everyone.
Racism is wrong from a scientific standpoint because it asserts that certain groups are biologically different from others in a way that allows us to make summary judgments about them.  It presumes to know that negative attributes are directly tied to racial qualities instead of broader social statistics.  It fundamentally limits the potential we attribute to everyone else and thus is short sighted, as it prevents us from benefiting from what all people may have to offer.
Racism is wrong from an economic standpoint because it fundamentally discounts the value of entire groups of people, as both consumers and producers.  If you don't think one group of people is worth as much as another, you are going to miss out on any economic opportunity that group may have in the future.  It may also be an economic liability to you in an open society that calls people out for their racist behavior or policies.  Being racially inclusive is not just good PR, it's good for business.
Racism is wrong from a personal standpoint because I wouldn't want to be in the position of someone where the cards were automatically stacked against me.  I don't want to live in a world where people are automatically seen as criminals because they look a certain way.  I don't want to support the institutions that reward people for explicitly or implicitly discriminating against others for any reason, even if they can justify it to themselves.  And I don't want to accept injustice in the world when there are many ways to fight against it.

Adrian Dane Kenny
2 seconds ago
@Xavier Washington So Xavier, you have to become aware of anatomical variation.  This becomes very important in surgery.  And there are differences in anatomy associated with race.  One area to explore is the differences in neuroanatomy according to races of humans.  I know there are differences, it just has to be proven, if it already has not been proven.  And there already is a lot of literature on the difference in intelligence according to human races.  These differences in intelligence have already been proven repeatedly.  The brain size is not the same across all races of humans.  The white caucasians have the largest brains, overall, and there are differences in neuroanatomy. 
Humanity is referring to all 8 billion or so humans.  That is a collective concept. 
Regarding the albert einstein example, I am know that it has to do with poor analysis techniques and low resolution. 
Skull shape is one factor of race. 
Geographic isolation of different humans is one key factor in the evolution and dvelopment of races of humans.  One of the most important parts is that the white caucasians, all white caucasians made it to the British Isles and Northwest Europe.  The brown races migrated and walked vastly and made it to the east, asia, the americas, and oceania.  And the black races remained in sub-sahara africa, west africa and the congo.  These are very strict demarcations that caused races of humans to continue to evolve.  As well as assortive mating.  And also the nutritional differences, and the development of cultural differences, differences in customs and rituals, and traditions.  And eventually this even led to the differences in civilizations, and inventions and creations.  It is not fuzzy. 
In today's world assortive mating maintains the races of humans.  as well as geographic tendencies for different races of humans.  where are the white countries? in the north.  where are the brown countries?  in asia, in the middle east, in north africa, in south america.  where are the black countries? in sub-saharan africa, west africa, and the congo.   And as a result of the trans-atlantic slave trade, some are in the caribbean. 
If it is really 99% of all anthropologists, sociologists, and biologists that think that there is no such thing as race, then all 99% of them are wrong.  It is just like belief in god.  Billions of people think that god exists.  All of them are wrong.  Just because a lot of people believe something, it does not make them correct.  I know both of these groups are wrong. 
Race at it's simplest is based on color of skin.  That is very clear.  White, brown or black.  And next is color of hair.  Blonde, ginger, red, brown or black.  Again very clear.  And then iris color.  Blue, grey, green, hazel, brown, or dark brown.  Also very clear.  That is not difficult.  that is reliable, reproducible, biological, due to genetics, and a result of evolution.  It is racism.  But racism is intelligent.  And is acceptable.  Being a racist does not mean that you have to go out a murder people from a different race.  It just means that you acknowledge it, use it, and know it exists.  Race realism.  Eugenics.  Being a eugenicist does not mean that you have to participate in genocide. 
Go back to that nature article from 2008, they documented 33 genes that show the strongest signatures of positive selection by race.  If you want to see a list of some other genes that are associated with color in different animal models then you can look at this site http://www.espcr.org/micemut/. 
For me it is, there are three races: white, brown, and black, and then there are several subraces, and then below that there are thousands of ethnicities.   That is the order of race.  And it is a sub speciation category. 
I do not agree with the delusion that every human alive descended in part from a single individual who lived about 200,000 years ago.  Instead I am sure it was populations of hominins that had differences along the way, and this is evident in race.  The white race is more genetically similar to rhesus macaques than other races of humans.  the brown asian race is more genetically similar to the chimpanzee than other races of humans, and the brown indian race is more similar to orangutans than other races of humans, and lastly the black race is more genetically similar to gorillas than other races of humans.  And none of that is derogatory, or something to be ashamed of.  It is just the way it is.  The color of skin, hair, and irises supports this.  And I know there are genes causing this, and that have been encoded to maintain these characteristics due to evolution. 
the only thing restricting mating habits is not just distance, it is also racism, it is also culturalism, it is also attraction, aesthecism, and intelligence.  There are a multitude of factors that affect mating habits.  Note, some people who can find partners even choose not to mate and have offspring.  Convenience, lifestyle, economics, desire.  these also affect mating habits. 
Again human is not a race, it is a species.  to say that human is a race is to err in biology. 
It seems that you are stuck on a delusion that there are no human races.  Mixed race people do not have tones that identical to white or black.  These people are brown.  Science definitely gives a lot of meaning to race.  Race is the phenotype of humans.  The phenotype of an animal.  If all humans did look the same then humans would be one species and one race but that is not the case, which is even evident merely from skin color. 
It was not just skin color that led to discrimination and enslavement of blacks, it was also differences in intelligence.  Another factor of race.  And the less intelligent blacks became slaves because they were not cognitively advance enough, or intelligent enough to prevent it.  There was nothing that they could have done.  Furthermore, it is the whites who created civilizations and militaries and empires, not the blacks.  And the browns did not do much of this.  The best example of intelligence among the browns is the chinese.  And they had dynasties and built a great wall, but it is the whites who dominate earth.  That is not changing. 
regarding intraracial variation versus interracial variation.  Are you purporting that the genetic variation between two white irish caucasian men is more than the genetic variation between a white irish caucasian man and a black congoid man.  Come on!  Obviously interracial genetic variation is greater than intraracial genetic variation, no matter what any scientist tries to think or say based on some convoluted theory. 
It is primarily nature. 
I have been wondering if you are white, brown, or black.  It seems like you are brown. 
This site has some glaring errors.  for instance, "slavery and the invention of race"  race was not invented to enslave and slavery did not invent race.  Races of humans evolved due to many reason, most of which you have already acknowledged.  Migration, sun exposure, diet, climate exposure, nutrition, assortive mating, intelligence, cognitive ability, culture, differences in civilizations.  These are the things that led to races of humans. 
sickle cell anemia is not muddy.  Thalassemias are not muddy.  even osteoporosis.  All of these diseases have a predilection for a race.  It seems muddy to you, but it is not. It is quite clear and well documented.  you can read about it in harrisons internal medicine.  Or even on wikipedia. 
It is not really descended for a single common ancestor, in fact it is descended from groups of ancestors.  There is admixture. 
I am not indicating that it is the color of the internal organs that differs much, instead i am indicating that there is anatomic and physiological variation in organs according to race. 
And actually you are wrong about melanin not being important for the color of organs. It actually is for some, it might depend on which ones, though. 
And it is not true that all internal organs are red because of blood.  For instance the kidneys are black on the outside. 
learned behavior affects genes, man!  Every living thing is genetic. 
"any benefit that you gain from it comes at the expense of someone else."  Just like everything else.  The only way to not harm anything other than yourself is to die. 
How old are you? 

Maybe he will respond again, but I am ready to move on now. I think he is still struggling with what is tended to be considered socially acceptable, and what is the truth. 
6:45 am 30 October 2018

Xavier Washington
1 hour ago
@Adrian Dane Kenny The concept of “race,” to begin with, is the idea that the human species is divided into discrete, easily discernible, sub-groups on the basis of inherited, readily visible physical characteristics. If you believe in the existence of “races,” you would contrast, say, a typical Norwegian with a typical Nigerian; the differences are readily apparent. One has lighter skin, the other darker. One has light, straight, thin hair; the other’s hair is curly, even kinky. One has a flatter nose, broader lips, and so on. I’m not subscribing to this view; just stating what it is.
Before Darwin came along in the mid-19th century, we had no idea how these differences could form, or why. And these sub-groups surely appeared to be physically distinct. So, in the late 18th and early 19th century, biological scientists, acting upon the then-available data, attempted to classify all of humanity into basically three “races”: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. Don’t forget, these were also the days when “phrenology” was believed by many to enable medical professionals to predict and control personality and behavior based on the lumps and curves of a person’s skull; when women were deemed to suffer from “hysteria” as a result of nervous anxieties associated with the uterus (“hysterika” in ancient Greek), or when bleeding and “cupping” were still cutting-edge forms of medical treatment. Needless to say, science had come to many conclusions that later proved wrong as more data were gathered.
The idea of “whiteness,” and of “color,” pre-dated these misguided scientific classifications by many centuries, but is not ancient. When ancient and medieval people spoke of “race,” that term was synonymous with what we now call ethnicity, or nationality, and denoted people living in a designated area who shared a particular culture, language, and most often, religion. Thus, writers discussed “the French race” or the “English race” or the “Italian race” with that meaning. However, once Europeans began to explore far beyond their own shores and “discover” native peoples of distant lands to conquer and exploit, an all-purpose, catch-all term for the European “race” was needed. The “good guys” who were allegedly more highly developed culturally, believed in Christianity instead of pagan gods or superstitions, dressed like European gentlemen instead of “naked savages,” and so on, were labeled “white,” and everyone else was “non-white,” and therefore inferior, sub-human, and perfectly okay to exploit, especially if white folks by doing so “helped” the non-white populations “achieve” a semblance of European culture and refinement by bringing them “white” ways, including Christianity, European clothing, European languages, and European education for the native children all while suppressing (sometimes violently) the native cultures, languages, and ways of life and forcing the natives to accept this mass acculturation. It was even deemed a good deed, labeled “the white man’s burden,” and seen as the inevitable “destiny” of the inferior, “colored” races to be taught “right” ways by their white superiors. None of this is new to you, right?
Anyway, needless to say, many of those attitudes, including the belief that biologically distinct, scientifically recognized “races” exist as distinct “breeds” of humanity, persist to this day. But, these discrete “races” do not really exist, not in the way the believers in that theory mean it.
Here’s where we get to the “social construct” crux of things. When a sufficiently large number of people believe in some thing, even though that thing does not really exist, sociologists and anthropologists call it a “social construct.” That means it’s an idea, one which is commonly shared in a society, which the members of that society have constructed in their own minds, but which has no direct correlation to scientifically observable fact.
When pagan or animist cultures believe that every tree, every rock, has its own “spirit,” that is a social construct. Science cannot detect or describe fairies or water sprites; but the people who believe in them act as if they are real.
When a group of people with some common values and goals declare themselves to be a “nation-state,” that is a social construct. There is no “dotted line” on the ground dividing one nation from another (unless the people drew one); their “nation” is a concept that exists in their minds, not one that exists independently of the shared belief in that idea.
So what about race? After people already firmly had the “race” idea in mind, science changed its mind. New data, especially from the science of genetics and the possibility of genome mapping and DNA analysis, allowed a much finer-grained look at how people were related to one another, than ever before. Yes, there is a range of variability in the human genome. Yes, there is a corresponding range of variability in what people look like, as well as in other characteristics. But what scientists came to realize, as more of this data came in, is that there really are no sharp and lasting dividing lines between one population group and others which, over a significant period of time, lived next to each other, and interacted with each other, including marrying each other and having offspring together. That is, we are all one, indivisible human “race.”
So, what about those obvious, visible differences between a Norwegian, and a Nigerian? What, do they think we are all idiots? Anybody can see that they are different.
But, what you are seeing, if you look at just those two, widely separated population groups, is an illusion. That illusion reinforces the social construct that “discrete races exist.” People are not stupid; they do not believe counterfactual things unless there is some “evidence” that reasonably leads them to think a thing is true, even if it isn’t, and even if that evidence is illusory.
Like “flat earthers,” for example. Who, apparently, are still around. Or, like people who believe in a “geocentric” universe, with the Sun and other celestial objects all revolving around the earth, instead of Earth being just one of many planets orbiting the Sun. Both of those things appear to be true; so many ordinary people, and many scientists as well, believed them, for many centuries, until new data proved them wrong (at least, for the scientifically-minded among them). Others still believe.
But, back to race. Why do I say the stark, readily discernible differences between a Norwegian and a Nigerian are an “illusion”? Because rather than fitting into discrete, clearly separated “boxes” of racial characteristics, all of humanity forms one, smooth, continuum of phenotypic features and genetic relatedness, as we go from one local native group to another, each gradually blending into the features of its neighbors.
The part that is a “social construct” is the myth that sharp dividing lines exist. Because, that typical Nigerian looks very much like, and is closely related to, a typical Chadian. Who is very much like, and closely related to, a typical Sudanese. Who in turn is very like a Levantine Arab, who is very like a Turk, who is very like a Bulgarian, who is very like a Hungarian, who is very like a Pole, who is very like a Norwegian. Where are the sharp dividing lines? They do not exist.
That is what is meant when sociologists say “race is a social construct.”

Xavier Washington
1 hour ago
@Adrian Dane Kenny "It was not just skin color that led to discrimination and enslavement of blacks, it was also differences in intelligence.  Another factor of race.  And the less intelligent blacks became slaves because they were not cognitively advance enough, or intelligent enough to prevent it.  There was nothing that they could have done.  Furthermore, it is the whites who created civilizations and militaries and empires, not the blacks.  And the browns did not do much of this.  The best example of intelligence among the browns is the chinese.  And they had dynasties and built a great wall, but it is the whites who dominate earth.  That is not changing."
That right there is telling me that i'm dealing with a racist narrow minded individual. You, sir, should be ashamed of yourself. How such thoughts could even came on your mind? Human being has equal strength and capacity but countries and societies are the main part of the every individual's growth. Democratic countries have responsibilities to provide intermediate needs including free education, health care, technology and opportunity.  The concept of slave trade is very old and its beginnings in Africa are no different than in other places. During warfare. One nation could conquer a village or a city or defeat an army, and take the people back home as slaves. Different cultures had different rules regarding how you could treat these slaves, and the African civilizations were no different. The trade of African slaves to other nations and empires is first well documented with the Arabs, during the high middle ages.
I'm gonna blow your ignorant racist mind, Africa did have a number of rich and flourishing civilizations. Many of these are also not well documented as part of western history because there was hardly any interaction with the west except for a few like the Egyptian's. Think about it: what do you suppose was happening in the African continent for all of human history prior to the modern age? People there were just sort of... hanging out playing checkers? No, they did what people everywhere else did: they organized into political units that in many areas grew to enormous, politically complex empires with thriving institutions of arts and learning.
African achievements of any variety: Iron and Steel Industries: Mining of iron ore, smelting, and steel thrived to the point that resources were depleted in the early first millennium. Read details from medieval ethnographers here: https://selfuni.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/medieval-east-african-iron-and-steel-industries/
Mathematics: Africans pioneered basic arithmetic 25,000 years ago. The Ishango bone is a tool handle with notches carved into it found in the Ishango region of Zaïre (now called Congo) near Lake Edward. The bone tool was originally thought to have been over 8,000 years old, but a more sensitive recent dating has given dates of 25,000 years old. On the tool are 3 rows of notches. Row 1 shows three notches carved next to six, four carved next to eight, ten carved next to two fives and finally a seven. The 3 and 6, 4 and 8, and 10 and 5, represent the process of doubling. Row 2 shows eleven notches carved next to twenty-one notches, and nineteen notches carved next to nine notches. This represents 10 + 1, 20 + 1, 20 – 1 and 10 – 1. Finally, Row 3 shows eleven notches, thirteen notches, seventeen notches and nineteen notches. 11, 13, 17 and 19 are the prime numbers between 10 and 20.
Agriculture: Africans cultivated crops 12,000 years ago, the first known advances in agriculture. Professor Fred Wendorf discovered that people in Egypt’s Western Desert cultivated crops of barley, capers, chick-peas, dates, legumes, lentils and wheat. Their ancient tools were also recovered. There were grindstones, milling stones, cutting blades, hide scrapers, engraving burins, and mortars and pestles.
Established Kingdoms: On the 1 March 1979, the New York Times carried an article on its front page also page sixteen that was entitled Nubian Monarchy called Oldest. In this article we were assured that: “Evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy in human history, preceding the rise of the earliest Egyptian kings by several generations, has been discovered in artifacts from ancient Nubia” (i.e. the territory of the northern Sudan and the southern portion of modern Egypt.)
Writing: In around 300 BC, the Sudanese invented a writing script that had twenty-three letters of which four were vowels and there was also a word divider.
Building in Stone: West Africans built in stone by 1100 BC. In the Tichitt-Walata region of Mauritania, archaeologists have found “large stone masonry villages” that date back to 1100 BC. The villages consisted of roughly circular compounds connected by “well-defined streets”.
Walled Cities: West Africa had walled towns and cities in the pre-colonial period. Winwood Reade, an English historian visited West Africa in the nineteenth century and commented that: “There are … thousands of large walled cities resembling those of Europe in the Middle Ages, or of ancient Greece.”
Lord Lugard, an English official, estimated in 1904 that there were 170 walled towns still in existence in the whole of just the Kano province of northern Nigeria.
Cheques: In the tenth century, an Arab geographer, Ibn Haukal, visited a fringe region of Ancient Ghana. Writing in 951 AD, he told of a cheque for 42,000 golden dinars written to a merchant in the city of Audoghast by his partner in Sidjilmessa.
Art: Yoruba metal art of the mediaeval period was of world class. One scholar wrote that Yoruba art “would stand comparison with anything which Ancient Egypt, Classical Greece and Rome, or Renaissance Europe had to offer.”
Glasswork: Glass windows existed at that time. The residence of the Ghanaian Emperor in 1116 AD was: “A well-built castle, thoroughly fortified, decorated inside with sculptures and pictures, and having glass windows.”
Excavations at the Malian city of Gao carried out by Cambridge University revealed glass windows. One of the finds was entitled: “Fragments of alabaster window surrounds and a piece of pink window glass, Gao 10th – 14th century.”
Voyages to the Americas: Malian sailors got to America in 1311 AD, 181 years before Columbus. An Egyptian scholar, Ibn Fadl Al-Umari, published on this sometime around 1342. In the tenth chapter of his book, there is an account of two large maritime voyages ordered by the predecessor of Mansa Musa, a king who inherited the Malian throne in 1312. This mariner king is not named by Al-Umari, but modern writers identify him as Mansa Abubakari II.
Urban Culture: Mali in the 14th century was highly urbanised. Sergio Domian, an Italian art and architecture scholar, wrote the following about this period: “Thus was laid the foundation of an urban civilisation. At the height of its power, Mali had at least 400 cities, and the interior of the Niger Delta was very densely populated”.
The Malian city of Timbuktu had a 14th century population of 115,000 5 times larger than medieval London. Mansa Musa, built the Djinguerebere Mosque in the fourteenth century. There was the University Mosque in which 25,000 students studied and the Oratory of Sidi Yayia. There were over 150 Koran schools in which 20,000 children were instructed. London, by contrast, had a total 14th century population of 20,000 people.
National Geographic recently described Timbuktu as the Paris of the mediaeval world, on account of its intellectual culture. According to Professor Henry Louis Gates, 25,000 university students studied there.

Xavier Washington
1 hour ago (edited)
​@Adrian Dane Kenny I see you believe in "race realism". “Race realism” is a form of “racialism” or “scientific racism”. “scientific racism (sometimes race biology or racial biology) is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.” Does this definition match your idea of “race realism”? Well, no empirical evidence exists for any meaningful idea of racial superiority. This is because genetically, there are much larger differences between individuals of any race than there are between “races”. So biologically, there is no such thing as a “race”. There is no way to group humans into anything like what we think of as a “race”, by looking at individual genomes. Next, scientific racism asserts racial superiority. Racial supremacy is by definition racist. “race realism” is racist. And scientifically wrong. Perhaps you didn't understand that the topic of important here is DNA.  Time for you to go read a Genetics Textbook and stop reading with the Racist 19th Century Eugenics or white Supremacist sites.
The definition of “species” is a collection of organisms that can inter-breed and produce fertile offspring. All humans can interbreed, so for 100% sure we’re the same species.
The definition of “subspecies” is harder. A common definition is that subspecies of the same species are capable of interbreeding, but do not usually do so due to geographic location, sexual selection or some other issue. While this might have been true at some time in the past (eg Aboriginal Australians didn’t interbreed with Europeans until sometime after Europeans discovered them and started to colonize that continent) it’s certainly not true today. Humans routinely travel around the world and there have been no boundaries to interbreeding for at least a couple of hundred years.
Hence, we’re not of different subspecies.
Then there is this term “race”. Races are genetically distinct sub-species populations that are phenotypically distinct. “Phenotypically distinct” means that the composite of observable traits (body shape, development, behavior, etc) are different.
So here we get into a grey area. People like to pick one specific phenotypical distinction (skin color being the most commonly identified) point out that this is genetically inherited and thereby partition humanity into races. But that’s kinda weird because there is no single gene you can point to that determines skin color. When someone with white skin and someone with black skin have a child together, it won’t necessarily be either white or black but more often anywhere on the spectrum between the two. So although it’s genetic in nature it’s not one gene, but MANY interactions of genes that apply here. But that’s also true of many other obvious traits left handedness, for example. If two left-handed people have children, there is a higher probability that they will be left-handed, but it’s not certain many genes are involved.
We don’t say that people who are left-handed are a different race from right-handed people so why do we pick the gene for skin color to make the distinctions into “races”. This makes no sense. There are probably a hundred different phenotypes we could have chosen to make the divisions and we picked one of them.
It’s like saying that a Yellow Labrador dog is in the same racial group as an Irish Terrier because they have the same colored fur but place the Black Labrador into the same group as a Rottweiler. Nobody would do that.
In biological/taxonomic terms, we should probably use the term “strain” (one step down the taxonomic pyramid from “race”) but somehow we don’t do that.
You can say that certain characteristics, such as thick or thin lips, dark or fair skin, narrowed or open eyelids etc, are much more common in some human groups than in others, and that this applies to very large blocks of humanity. But although these visible differences apply to billions of people and can be used to divide them roughly into groups with particular geographical origins, they are still only small differences, and often less than between the people of one village and their neighbors. Aside from a few specific genes such as Tay Sachs and sickle-cell (only applies to west africans and black americans who are descendented from west african slaves), the super-dark skin found in south Sudan and the superior muscle fibers of people with ancestry in the Great Rift Valley, there are no genes peculiar to particular races. There are no “African genes” or “white genes” that make people one race or another: just different statistical probabilities of particular characteristics in particular communities. And the racist obsession with skin color is especially daft, since in all respects except color, which is a very minor feature, ethnic Europeans are exactly the same people as Pakistanis or Tunisians. It’s like saying white poodles are totally different from every other dog, including other poodles, because they’re white.
Conclusion: Science doesn't support race. "Race" does not exist. All human beings have the same genetic make up. Race as based on skin color in the United States has no basis in scientific fact. There is nothing to indicate any superiority of any kind in one Race over another. So please take that pseudo 18th century scientific nonsense elsewhere because it has no place in the modern world.
I'm done with this conversation. I could keep going, but at this point I’m starting to feel sick by your oblivious racism and pseudo scientific outdated and narrow minded kind of thinking.

Adrian Dane Kenny
1 second ago
@Xavier Washington Yes, I do understand that race can be put on a continuum, which is not completely wrong, and has some truth to it, but race formed because of discrete differences that summated over time.  If you understand all of that, then surely you must understand the biology of race and that it is real, biological, genetic and the result of evolution.  It is a genetic construct and a biological construct.  Gene have already been well defined that are a part of the genetic basis of race.

Adrian Dane Kenny
2 seconds ago
@Xavier Washington Human beings do not have equal strength or equal capacity. 
The great civilizations are again in the north, created by white people with the assistance of brown people.  Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Lybia, Algeria.  And then there is South Africa, started by the Dutch.

Adrian Dane Kenny
1 second ago
@Xavier Washington I agree that all humans a a part of a species, classified as homo sapien sapien. 
Regarding the genetics of race, including skin color, iris color, and hair color, you can start with the genetics and pathways of melanin.  For instance the MC1R gene. 
My impression of you is that you are not white enough to truly be accepted as a white caucasian, and you are not black enough to truly be a black nigger.

Adrian Dane Kenny
1 second ago
@Xavier Washington also, subscribe to my channel, man!

Adrian Dane Kenny
1 second ago
@Xavier Washington Don't tell me that you can not see the difference and also describe some of the differences.  I will send an article that I have been working on to you if you would like.  It has some pictures so that you can sit and compare quite conveniently.  You can even google search to find some pictures to compare fenotypes of humans as well as other apes.  Unforunately I can not copy and past the fotos here.

Adrian Dane Kenny
1 second ago
@Xavier Washington if interested, then send an email to me at adrian.kenny@post.harvard.edu, or adrian.d.kenny@gmail.com.  And I wonder how old you are?  now.
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Don't tell me that you can not see the difference and also describe some of the differences.

The fotos are at the bottom of this blog. 
1. A white irish caucasian man
2. Two rhesus macaque monkeys
3. A black man
4. A gorilla
   
It is quite clear to me that blacks are more like gorillas than whites, and white are more like rhesus macaques than blacks.  I know that the genetics, when properly studied, will support this truth.  Evolution differences. 
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Another comment that I had placed for this same video:
Adrian Dane Kenny
3 weeks ago
Regardless, the genetics of race is not trivial and the difference of genes between races is not trivial.  I know that the scientists who trivialize race are doing something wrong and seem to be more political than scientific.  Some anthropologists tend to do this.  And if the humans are divided into two races, then it is white and black,  that is where there is the largest difference.  And if it is three races, then it is white, brown, and black.  and the white are western european caucasians, the brown are largely asian,  and the black are black skinned people.