Race is a classification of humans beings into different
categories on the basis of their biological characteristics.
There have been a
variety of schemes for race classification based on physical characteristics such as skin
colour, head shape, eye colour and shape, nose size and shape etc.
A common race
classification system uses four major groups: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid and
Australoid.
The term 'race' was once
popular in anthropology, but has now fallen into disrepute, because the idea of racial
classification has become associated with racism - the claim that there is hierarchy of
races.
The idea of race
categories also appears to be unscientific, since humans are able to mate across all
‘races’ and have done so throughout history, creating an enormous variety of
human genetic inheritance.
In addition the defining
characteristics of ‘race’ do not appear in all members of each so-called race,
but merely occur with some degree of statistical frequency.
If the defining
characteristic of each ‘race’ does not appear in all members of each
‘race’ then the whole definition is clearly inadequate. |