Race: An Empty Category?

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Race: An Empty Category? "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." --Albert Einstein What is race? How many races are there? What are the genes that separate each race? How many genes are there? What do evolutionists, scientists, or anthropologists have to say about race? And even more importantly, what role does race play in your life? When I was a young girl of about 6, I had a friend of a different race who was particularly interested in answering the unsolved mysteries of our world. She explained to me that she was made "some place different than white girls." I took a good look at the both of us and determined that this must be correct. As I grew older, I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I ever believed this. And as I got even older, I started to question whether or not other people were told the same story. Race, in the sense that I will be addressing it, is popularly defined as: "1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics," or "2. Biology. a. An interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms differing from other populations of the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits. A race that has been given formal taxonomic recognition is known as a subspecies." (1) But what if we could not distinguish a more or less distinct group through genetically transmitted differences? Imagine how the definition of race would need to change if the very idea of a "geographically isolated population" become a rare occurrence? For too long, racial categories have had too forceful an impact on our understanding of human variation. Many findings i... ... middle of paper ... ...existence of race. 4. http://search1.npr.org/search97cgi/s97_cgi?action=FilterSearch&QueryZip=Race NPR.org Audio clips taken from the Travis Smiley Show concerning Race (includes several commentators) 5. http://www.umich.edu/news/Releases/2003/Jun03/supremecourt.html University of Michigan website- An article on their victory in the case involving race as a factor in admission to their Law School. 6. http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/population4.html World Almanac for Kids Online: The 2000 United States Census 7. Bamshad, Michael J., and Olson, Steve E. "Does Race Exist?" Scientific American Dec. 2003: 23+. 8. http://www.scinfo.org/sicklept.htm The Sickle Cell Information Center: Is sickle cell only in African Americans? 9. "AAPA Statement on Biological Aspects of Race." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 101 (1996): 569-570.

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