Are There Really Only 3 Races?

Question

Are there only 3 races, caucasiod,negroid,mongoloid?

If so then how come some people branch out and say there are more than that like hispanic and all that other b.s..

Answer 1

Because they are uneducated, or Stupid, if you will.

Answer 2

No.  Race is a typological construct used as a convenient shorthand to talk about (sometimes accurately, more frequently inaccurately) large groups of people.  There is more biological variation within the so-called races than between them.  That is, so-called negroids show more biological differences between each other than between the average negroid and the average caucasoid, for example.  This is the first clue that there is really no such thing as a "race".

Answer 3

Well, skin color is a very poor measure of race in my opinion. If one really wanted to divide humans into races, we'd have to use haplogroups as they are much more likely to describe human characteristics than skin color.  

West & Southwest Africans are likely to be Haplogroup L2, Central & South Africans haplogroup L1 & East Africans can be either haplogroup L3, M or N.   North Africans & Middle Easterners are likely to be Haplogroup N.  East Africans & West Africans are, in my estimation, different enough  to be classified as different races.  

All in all we have identified more than 50 different haplogroups & continue to find more every day.

Answer 4

First of all, all humanoid individuals alive today are members of the species Homo sapiens- all other humanoid species have been extinct for quite some time.  Thus, determining "race" or "ethnicity" becomes a somewhat subjective exercise.  In other words, we all have the same type of genetic makeup (although it obviously varies in many ways between individuals), and the word "race" is only valid as a social term, not a scientific one.  Indeed, melanin content is the chemical determinant of "skin color" (man was darker-skinned since he originated near the heat of the Equator, but as he migrated to colder areas, he evolved to be fairer-skinned over many, many years) , and scientists generally agree that "race" is more of a spectrum that a "black or white" issue.    So, there are as many "races" as recongizes just as there are as many countries in the world as society recognizes- it is purely an issue of perspective.

Answer 5

Clinal Variation anyone?

Answer 6

I agree with Scott M.

Answer 7

there are 4 caucasian, black, latino, and asian

Answer 8

Well, the whole concept of *race* itself is B.S. It's just another method by which humans have learned to distinguish themselves from one another. There's a reason why you can't determine someone's "race" by examining blood factors -- in the eyes of evolution, there's no such thing.

There is actually more biological variance between "negroid" people than any other "race" in the world, supporting the anthropological theory that life began in Africa -- and that we are ALL, therefore, actually African.

Of course, I was raised to not judge or make assumptions about people based on their race. And for the longest time as I child, I has no concept of the notion at all. So I guess that's why I embrace this view.

Answer 9

uumm... there is only one race , human, just different cultures

Answer 10

No. Modern geneticists believe there's now 6 genetic lineages or races.

  Africans, Europeans, Austro-Melanesians, East Asians, Native AMericans and a Kalash one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race#Race_a...

The Kalash one is unique because it's found throught out South Asia especially in the Kalash people. Scientists are still investigating whether this fourth race was an Indo European one

Answer 11

There are no races. It was invented by the colonial powers to justify there conquest of others. To have a separate race a group of humans would have had to be geographically  isolated long enough so that they evolved differently and could no longer inter breed with other humans. Through history humans have always bread and interbred with other humans. There is the possibility that some island people would have eventually evolved into a different race but European expansion put a stop to that.

Answer 12

Life is not a triathlon.  There are many races.

Answer 13

Because they don't know anything about Biology. Osteologically, there are only 3 "races" and even these often overlap. Hispanic is not a racial category. It isn't even an ethnic category and sometimes not even a language category. Think of it the same way as the word "American" in terms of its ability to tell you anything about the person in question. This is just a term the US government census invented and it is not marked as a racial category. There are "hispanics" of every so-called race.

Answer 14

No...There is 1...the human race.

Answer 15

Hispanic does not qualify for a separate race. Classifications have been going on for some time now and they tend to change over time. A separate culture, which Hispanic is, is not the same thing as a racial classification.

Wikipedia does a good job explaining it so I've included it.

Answer 16

Race is nothing more than a political contrivance used to justify prejudice. We're all human.