The American Anthropological Association's position on "race"?

Question

What could be some objections or why someone would think this isnt a good definition of what is "Race"

if you care to read the article http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm

Answer 1

Race aside, it is sad to see a discipline that purports to be a science settling empirical matters by political means. Voting indeed!

Race is merely populations that vary among one human species.

Answer 2

ONE RACE= HUMAN RACE

MANY ETHNICITY'S = LATINOS, ANGLOS, JEWS, ARABS, ETC

MANY COLORS: BLACK, MULATOS, WHITE, MESTIOS, YELLOWS, ETC

Answer 3

They're largely debunking the concept of "race" as a constructed myth separating people along ethnic lines. It's supported by biological evidence and really should be common knowledge if it already isn't. Race is just one of the vestigal nationalistic myths people have been concocting to justify atrocities and incursions on other groups of people.  What they are saying is weather it be based on " social darwinism" religious belief or foundation myths militant expansionist members of most of the world's societies have at one time or another used the concept of a human hierarchy to justify their actions. Not going to get into weather those actions were justified or not, but the point is : a scientific definition of differences or similarities between ethnic groups is better than one based on ancient bias, wild speculation or pseudo science.

Answer 4

There is one race of humans on the planet and the Association knows this full well!

Next question.

Answer 5

The group position is 'race is a social construct', but they do explain this isn't a unanimous feeling among them, just a majority. Not a huge majority, I saw the results of a questionnaire for anthropologists and it was about 60/40.

As far as most geneticists go, it just refers to the continent where most of you ancestors came from a very long time ago. They go by DNA markers, not appearance. It's difficult to assign a race by a physical description, as there is so much over lap. You get black Asians, and Africans with epicanthic folds to the eye. But the DNA doesn't lie.

The same survey that put the anthropologists in the 'no race' camp put biologists in the 'race is real' camp by the same degree. The apparent consensus that there is 'no race' is a media construct.

Answer 6

While humans can be divided into 3 basic groupings (sub Saharan African, 'North Africans/M.E. European' & Asian)  the edges of these groups blur considerably & many exceptions exist.  Some Africans are much closer to Europeans or Asians (with the exception of skin color) than to other Africans.

Genetic (DNA) testing & division into haplogroups is a far better classification than either morphology or skin color when grouping humans. However, lacking a complete sequencing of a person's genome, even this method is fraught with flaws. Still, the medical profession, lacking an indepth analysis of a person's genome, must make decisions based upon 'race' when diagnosing problems & prescribing an appropiate treatment.  Until recently most illnesses were treated as if the patient were a white male, but we've recently discovered both s*x & race make a huge difference in both symptom & effective treatment.

Therefore, while race is a social construct, it is a meaningful grouping until some better genetic construct is put in place.

Answer 7

You really don't want to know what their position is.  It's not politically correct.   But then, science is not governed by PC.

Answer 8

IT'S JUST AN OPNION..A BIAS ONE,NONE NONE THE LESS AN OPINION.WHEN I SEE PEOPLE SINGLING OUT SPECIFIC GROUPS IN ANY ARTICLE,I CAN USUALY DETERMINE THAT IT WAS WRITTEN WITH SOME PERSONAL HATRED IN SOME WAY.

I DONT PUT TO MUCH STRENTH IN THE "AAA".NOR ITS STANDING.ITS JUST A POLITICAL AGENDA BASED BUNCH OF MISFITS.

BUT TRUTH BE TOLD,WE ALL HAVE PRE SET OPINIONS OR SO CALLED THEORIES ON ISSUES..THIS IS JUST ONE OF THOSE...EVEN THOUGH IT IS MIS-GUIDED.

SPIDER817