Science is something that is sometimes overlooked when discussing the idea of race as we get swept up in identity politics. Since the Human Genome Project made it possible to examine human ancestry in much more detail and the ways that humans migrated out of Africa roughly 100,000 years ago to all parts of the world, it has shown the idea of race to be much more of a social construct that a biological one. ‘Race’ cannot be biologically defined due to genetic variation among human individuals and populations. The concept of the ‘five races’ (African, European, Native American and Oceanian) is now outdated as it was shown there is far greater genetic variation within these ‘races’ than between them. I think this is quite a unifying discovering as scientists have proven we are much more scientifically similar than many would have thought despite having a long and painful history of people acquiring a racial superiority mindset. Science, yet again, comes through to prove the ignorance and ludicrous ideologies of groups such as white supremacists.
Biology and race
15th October 2020
