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A modern definition of "species" generally gives a set of objective criteria that you can use to determine if two organisms are the same species (such as "can t
by burkaman 5y ago
A modern definition of "species" generally gives a set of objective criteria that you can use to determine if two organisms are the same species (such as "can they produce fertile offspring"). Is there any definition of race like this? Genuine question, I don't think I've ever seen a definition of race more specific than "a collection of people with similar physical characteristics" or something like that, and I can't find one now. There's lots of definitions of what all the different races are, but none of what a "race" actually is.
Is there any definition of race where, given two people, you can apply some criteria to determine whether or not they are the same race? The criteria can't be "look at the definitions of each race and categorize the two people" because that's circular, how were those particular categories chosen? With species, you can determine that a bird and a fish are different species without knowing what birds and fish are.
- naasking 5y agoThe imprecise definition of "species" is exactly what I was describing. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_concept
- burkaman 5y agoI agree we don't have a perfect definition of species, but I'm wondering if we have literally any definition of race. Has anybody even tried? Is there any criteria more specific than "if two people look very different then they are different races"?
- naasking 5y agoCan't say to be honest, I don't have that much interest in the topic of race beyond its informal use to define cohorts in studies. More than likely someone could start from ethnicity and expand it from there, but the whole endeavour is likely doomed from the start given the sensitivity of the subject.