Since an African guy can be more closely related to a European guy than other African... Race is rather inaccurate.

If you want to practise a more scientifically accurate form of tribalism and discrimination, try DNA perceptual hashing!

So now you can classify your self to others more accurately!

E.g. are you DNA group A? If not then other DNA group A people can now safety lynch you. They need a drop of your DNA first just to confirm however. Will you please oblige?

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..."All the S9LL30XXA's should go home." — normzone
-- mofosyne, Apr 15 2015

culture:general ?
-- normzone, Apr 16 2015


Given a drop of blood. Can you with just the tools in your car trunk find markers for the things you wish to hate ? Can you do now ? Can you do it for under a dollar ?

So much easier to hate based on height or weight or color of skin.

"May I have a sample of your blood so I can decide whether to call you names, and maybe stab you for good measure ?" "no" "Why not ?"
-- popbottle, Apr 16 2015


// perceptial // isn't in the dictionary so my DNA stays where it is.
-- xandram, Apr 16 2015


It would be a really cool project to construct a family tree for all of humanity. If everyone gave just a quick cheek-swab (we don't need blood), you could reconstruct every person's family tree. You wouldn't need complete genome sequencing (though that'll soon be cheap enough) - just a set of a few hundred very variable regions (plus mitochondrial, because you can get some cool information therefrom).

It would have to be done on a voluntary basis, but it would be a really, really cool thing to do.

In theory, if you had a large enough sample of humanity, you could then pick a manageable number of people to sequence completely, and reconstruct the genome of, say, the first humans.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 16 2015


The word "race" is not only not accurate, it is very close to STUPID (main exception: uses such as in the phrase "human race")

Try the word "breeds" the way various cats or dogs are referenced using the word "breeds".
-- Vernon, Apr 16 2015


"Race" can have a perfectly reasonable and accurate meaning, even if it's not often used reasonably or accurately.

For example, many coherent groups of people share a common ancestry which goes back for tens of generations, with little immigration. Such groups often have physical and cultural features that distinguish them from other groups. There's nothing wrong or inaccurate about calling such a group a "race". The problem comes when "race" is carelessly assigned, or used as a basis for racist discrimination.

If you think the word "race" has been tainted by misuse (and to some extent it has), you still need an alternative word to describe a true grouped-by-decent collection of people. "Ethnicity" doesn't work (many groups that define themselves as having the same ethnicity contain individuals from many different descents).

To describe human groups as "breeds" is inaccurate, because they have not "been bred" in the way that cats or dogs have; it is also, of course, demeaning in the same way that it would be demeaning to refer to people as "livestock".
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 16 2015


Classification by "race" is pretty arbitrary. Why is it even needed? Seems to be some vestige of the time when colonialism and taxonomy were in vogue. Science types tend to use more accurate descriptors, don't they?

As for human "race", Eventually, what we are now is going to be more genetically similar to Australopithecus than what we will have become. We recognize corporations as legal persons. There are and will be movements to recognize some animals and machine AIs as persons. So the whole idea of a human race is also arbitrary and pointless.
-- the porpoise, Apr 16 2015


[thepor], try reading the annotation by [MaxwellBuchanan], above.

"Race" is an oft-misused term, but when used correctly it is not an arbitary definition. It refers to a population of people who share a common [genetic] ancestry. It's a simple term of classification. If it has been devalued by misuse, that's not the fault of the word.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 16 2015


I think "race" is sometimes used to describe a taxon beneath "species", presumably to describe a subset which have become somewhat genetically isolated, but which are perfectly capable of breeding with individuals across the species.
-- EnochLives, Apr 16 2015


If someone had just told me I was going to be in a race I would have paid more attention to the starters pistol instead of ducking for cover.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 16 2015


Too funny, [fries].

This would lead to hate groups making statements like " All the S9LL30XXA's should go home ".
-- normzone, Apr 16 2015


[Max], what's arbitrary about racial definitions is the degree of commonality. At one end of the spectrum, all homo sapiens are of the same race. At the other end, the McCoy and Hatfield clans are different races. But yes, you can define a race by any criteria that you like and it may serve as a useful short-hand for discussion.
-- the porpoise, Apr 16 2015


//what's arbitrary about racial definitions is the degree of commonality//

Yes, certainly. The same is true of most cladistic classifications. "Species" is fairly well defined (though not perfectly). Most of the other levels are not. What of it?

It makes sense to speak of the Andaman islanders as a different race from the Australian aborigines - members of one race are more closely related to eachother than they are to any member of the other. You can speak of races within each group - again, members of one race are more closely related to eachother than to any member of the other.

Humanity is a branched structure (or was until we started to travel more). Defining group A as being of one race, and group B as being of a different race, simply means that there is some point in the tree at which the descendants of all of group A are different from the descendants of all of group B. Clearly at some higher level they are both part of the same race. It makes no difference whether you're talking about terminal twigs sprouting from two different branchlets, or two major boughs of a big tree. It's really quite simple.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 16 2015



random, halfbakery