Are humans a "race", races - or a species?

Question

It makes a large difference to how one sees things.

Answer 1

We are a species Homo sapiens.

P.S. As others have mentioned race is a cultural construct.

Answer 2

I think I have answered this question before: as a biologist. We are a large number of races only.....Caucasoid, Mongolic, Oriental, Asiatic-Pacific, Melanesian, Aryan, Dravidian, Red Indian, Austroaboriginal, African and umpteen subgroups and so on. The one thing that connects us all as humans is our chromosome number 23 pairs which do not fundamentally differ and are remarkably uniform throughout all the races which makes us to interbreed and marry and produce viable offspring who can still go on marrying and producing children. There is no sterility factor operating across the races.

That would not have been possible if we are seperate species, as there is always infra specific sterility factors operating.

Answer 3

humans are a species consisting of races

Answer 4

species !

Answer 5

Its a very interesting question to me as well... I think in this day and age its avoided as... well some unpleasantness in the past has led to a PC climate... There are obvious differences... which leads me to believe in a similar vein as Juan... We are all the same species but have over time evolved various and sundry differences based upon environment. We are a wandering bunch 'O' peoples but it would have been most interesting to see what would have occurred in our evolutionary process if we had remained isolated from each other for very long...

Answer 6

There are no separate races, only separate population groups.

Answer 7

I think we are just another kind of species. We are just another form of life on earth that will die off someday, so nothing for anyone to get to excited about. Oh well.

Answer 8

Genus - Homo; Australopithecus; etc.

Species - Homo sapiens; Homo erectus; etc.

Races - Homo sapiens sapiens; Homo sapiens neandertalensis; etc.

Answer 9

species like dogs all dogs but different races.

Answer 10

Human "races" don´t have enought genetic differences to be actually classified as such: they are called human types.

Answer 11

Species, with population variances.

Answer 12

We'd been asked this question at freshman level. There're 5 species among the human race.

Answer 13

Humans are a species made of different ethnicities or types. There really is not hard proof that human "races" exists. One reason is that each so-called "race" seems to evolve out of one another, and in the general racial categories (such as Caucasian, Asian, and African) there are more sub-racial categories as well. Human Beings are a species the consists of different ethnic peoples.

Answer 14

We are a species. The last other human species were Neanderthals, who became extinct about 30,000 years ago.

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Answer 15

A race

Answer 16

We are a diverse species. The members of our species have radiated in order to adapt to their environment showing the great resilient of our species. We can inhabit almost every niche out there. And yet we are genetically unified.

Answer 17

It's a species, it consists of races. But the thing is, they only differ in color, other than that they are the same (with some few exceptions like height and size)

Answer 18

We are a species......Race is difficult to define and to differentiate.....Physical Anthropology has retired the idea of Races and instead, it looks at the geographic site of our ancestors as a differentiating factor between people.....the environmental conditions of that site are the factors that were at work to cause us to look differently.   Transportation and travel have intermixed all people.  Technology with the heating and cooling of our shelter has greatly tempered the environmental factors that made us look different.  Over time it is predicted that the Human Species will become much more homogeneous. It is a normal human behavior to be suspicious, rejecting and even hostile towards people who look different than us.  It could be predicted that as we all come closer to looking alike, we will become less warlike and enjoy more Peace.....

Answer 19

We are a single species! The words race racism & racial are used only to disharmonize people of different cultures.

Answer 20

Species... and there's no scientific evidence proving "race" even exists. "Race" has been socially constructed to separate people based on looks.

Answer 21

A species with lots of variety. A species by definition can reproduce with one another and produce viable, fertile offspring. Race is a purely social idea and not biologically defined.

Answer 22

Human beings are a species of primate. Race, on the other hand, is an arbitrary human construct based upon classifying humans by skin colour.

Answer 23

species