How many human races do we have?

Question

do not count the rat race...

Answer 1

There is just a single human race.

The distinctions between different groups of humanity are literally no more than skin deep. Human populations have not been separated long enough to accumulate enough genetic difference to be classed as separate races.

Genetic analysis shows that there is frequently more genetic variation within a single human race than there is between them. In other words, the difference between a "black" person from Ethiopia and a "black" person from South Africa is likely to be greater than the difference between either of them and a Frenchman.

Human "race" is a social construct, not a biological one.

Answer 2

Meditteranean, Caucasoid, Aryan, Mongoloid, Australoid, Alpine, etc.

Answer 3

1 human race and thats all we need.

Answer 4

Only one. We all are from monkeys.

Answer 5

3..

Caucasoid (Caucasian / East Indian / Arabic)

Mongoloid (Asian, North / South American)

And African.

...if that's what you mean...

Answer 6

Just one. I believe it was a tribe that started in Africa, which should raise the question of why people are racist. right. we all come from those ancestors. Calahari Bushmen or something

Answer 7

only one but, if you want to race go for it

Answer 8

There is just one human race.

the differences between the different people groups are minute.

And we are not related to apes or monkeys!

Humans are very different, and it is only wishful thinking that links them - not evidence.

Answer 9

It really depends on what is meant by the word "race". If the word refers to a social construct like 'ethnicity', there can be more then a thousand races. If the word means groups that cannot interbreed, there are no races but one species.

Research into mitochondrial dna has demonstrated more gene mixing across distances and characteristics among individuals to the point that an individual Englishman may share more loci with someone in Asia then with the man next door even though the group of all Englishmen may share more in common then they do with a group of Asians.

If you are really interested in details, look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_races...

Answer 10

One!

By now, everyone who can read ought to already know this.

It is surprising just how many of us...don't!

Answer 11

six

Answer 12

Just the one.

There's no one, consistent, exhaustive and exclusive way to divide humans into racial sub-groups.

Notice that people are giving you different lists, with different numbers on them.

That's because it's a completely bogus concept.

Answer 13

The words you use in your question tend to create confusion especially regarding  a discussion of human beings.  "Race" has both a biological (scientific) definition and a political/ethnic/religious definition.

If you were to ask the question, "How many races of bees are there?", then you could get a definite answer - there are something like forty distinct racial groups of bee (for rice, by the way, there are about a hundred thousand different biological "races").  But when you start talking about people, your question becomes loaded because your are asking people (who know nothing about science) to give you an answer based upon personal beliefs in human differences: for example, there are millions of people in America who beleive that Protestants and Catholics are different "races".

Actually, if you use the biological definition of "race" (i.e, genetically distinct group of the same species) there are two (perhaps three) "races" of human beings: (1) the people you see every day around you , and (2) a small group of desert dwellers in the Kalahari desert called "Bushmen".  I'm not sure if African pygmies are considered a separate race; I think they might be.

The Bushmen were made famous by the two movies "The Gods Must Be Crazy" I and II.  Genetically, they are actually different enoulgh to be considered a biological "Race".

By the way, skin color, skull shape,  is completely irrelevant - all people, except the Bushmen, are descended from the same ancestors that walked out of Africa fifty thousand years ago.

However, you use the word "race" in your question to suggest that you intend to ask about the number of groups of people that can be distinguished based ethnic and political  and religious grounds.

If this is what you mean to ask, then there is no answer to your question because no matter how you try to group human beings they are always going to be different in some way.  If his is what you are trying to ask, the answer to your question then is "approximately six billion different "races"" .. because ther are approx., 6B people on Earth.

Answer 14

Generally, if you just by continent of ancestry you'll get the major genetic divisions in our species. So, five major divisions.

An eminent geneticist Neill Risch fed data from a lot of DNA  studies into a computer, and told it to divide it into groups.

http://racialreality.blogspot.com/2007/0...

The first  two groups, were sub Saharan Africans and everyone else.

When into three groups it was Africans, Europeans,  everyone else.

When into four groups it was Africans, Europeans, Aborigines,  everyone else.

When into five groups it was African, Europeans, Aborigines, Asians and Native Americans.

The last/least defined genetic group of people were the native Americans, as they are very closely related to Asians.

Given a bulk of DNA data, a computer divided us into our continental populations (races). African, European, Asian, Aborigine and native American. When run as a test program, this only mis-identified 3 from over 3,700 people.

Edit.

Daniel R is repeating a seventies misconception now called 'Lewontin's fallacy'. It's been endlessly repeated in the media until everyone believes it to be true. It's actually pretty easy to discern someones ancestry by a DNA test

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewontin's_...

Lewontin's Fallacy is a 2003 paper by A.W.F. Edwards that criticizes Richard Lewontin's 1972 conclusion[1] that race is an invalid taxonomic construct because the probability of racial misclassification of an individual based on variation in a single genetic locus is approximately 30%.

Edwards argued that while Lewontin's statements on variability are correct when examining the frequency of specific loci between individuals, the probability of racial misclassification rapidly approaches 0% when one takes into account more loci. This happens because of correlations between the loci frequencies within each population. In Edwards' words, "most of the information that distinguishes populations is hidden in the correlation structure of the data."

I also see the common misconception that 'race means species', it doesn't. It means 'an interbreeding population that shares characteristics'. It's much closer to the word 'breed' as used for dogs.

It's amazing how many people just assume that there's no way of telling people apart genetically into their racial groupings. The medias fault reallly. It's actually pretty easy. DNAwitness charge about $150 for it.

http://www.dnawitness.net/

Also, there are difference in pregnany length, age of menopause and rate of ageing in different races. Pees people off no end, but it's still true.

http://www.lifestyleextra.com/ShowStory....

Answer 15

Race? What do you mean?

If you equate race with specie, then there is only one. If you are speaking of race to characterize various physical attributes of different people, then there are many depending on whose grouping are you using. Kenny's answer is one way to put it.

Answer 16

Do people think if they keep repeating 'race is a social construct' that will make it so? And race does not equal species!

The DNA evidence shows it's easy to identify someones race, it's been used to solve crimes by getting a description of the perp. Race is used all the time in medical research and when developing drugs, as some work better on one race than another. So I'm not sure how a provable genetic difference, valid for all kinds of medical research, is a 'social construct'.

About five major groups. Black Africans, Europeans, Asians, Aborigines and native Americans.