>The external reality is that there are real, physical differences between people that correlate at least somewhat with what we perceive as "race". This doesn'

>The external reality is that there are real, physical differences between people that correlate at least somewhat with what we perceive as "race". This doesn't seem to contradict what they are saying here though. From the article: >Here’s what they mean: if you were to travel across the Eurasian continent from Portugal to Japan, say, there would be no river, forest or discrete boundary where people suddenly started looking “Asian” (or “European” if you traveled from east to west). Instead, changes in physical appearance would occur so gradually and imperceptibly that you probably wouldn’t notice. You’d only be aware that, once in Japan, people definitely looked different than in Portugal. As far as I can tell, saying that race is a social construct just the age-old insight that the way we slice up the world into categories tends to be somewhat arbitrary. Race is a social construct just like species is a social construct. Why are wolves and dogs different species? You can come up with the most precise definition of species you want (which is difficult) to explain "why", but any possible definition you come up with is still somewhat arbitrary. You could have chosen a different definition which would make them the same species, or you could have split the (wolf + dog) category into three categories. This doesn't require anybody to ignore the differences between wolves and dogs. It just suggests that maybe we shouldn't get too attached to thinking of a husky as a dog, maybe it should be thought of as some in between species?