This paper will start by making an assertion that many politically correct academics would consider frustrating, alarming and infuriating: “Race exists as a biological concept.” Despite the unpopularity of the idea that race exists, slightly over half of all biological/physical anthropologists today believe in the view that human races are biologically valid and real.1
Although the simple statement “race exists as a biological concept” might make many feel uncomfortable and want to bury their heads in the sand, this paper will attempt to prove that the statement is true. Before doing so, however, it should be noted that this paper focuses only on the question of whether there is such a thing as race. It will not discuss concepts of racial inferiority or superiority and nor will it even attempt to examine the scientific utility of classifying humans by race. The focus of this paper, as stated upfront, is entirely limited to whether race exists as a biological concept.
Definition of Race
First, there are easily-perceived traits such as hair and eye color, body build, and facial traits which vary among human population groups; these differences are easily perceived by the layman; and these traits are determined at least partially (and perhaps wholly) by ancestry (genetics).2 Race then is simply the label given to that human population grouping. In other words, as population geneticist Steve Sailer has put it, race is a lineage; it is a very extended family that inbreeds to some extent.3 Under this definition, race and ancestry are synonyms. Other synonyms for race are cluster, population, statistical collections of alleles, cline, clinal grouping, lineage, and regional pattern. The aforementioned are all terms that many population geneticists use instead of race;4 however, these terms all mean the exact same thing as race.
Note that race does not mean the same thing as “species,” if the word species is defined as a biologically distinct breeding unit.5 Because it is possible for members of different racial groups to breed with one another, the races are not separate species. Also, it is not possible to take any given human and unambiguously classify him or her as belonging to one particular race (as would be required with species classification). Race in the biological sense therefore is more a statistical concept. It is, to put it plainly, simply a major division of the human species grouped by ancestry.
Racial Traits
race is distinguished by a particular combination of inherited features. Anthropologists such as University of Wyoming Professor George Gill--who, as a forensic anthropologist, determines race scientifically by analyzing the bone structure of skeletons--recognize three major discernable racial groups: Caucasoid (white), Mongoloid (yellow), and Negroid (black).6 Basically, all people on Earth can be classified into one of or a mixture of these three ancestries (races).7
Skin color is only one of many phenotypic traits that make up the three major racial groups. Stanford University Professor Luigi Cavalli-Sforza describes those of the Caucasoid ancestral group as having a strong chin, light to dark hair that can be straight or slightly wavy, blue to brown eyes, thin lips, and a pasty white to tan complexion.8 Geographically, whites are native to the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. One of the other races, the Negroid ancestral group, is characterized by a prominent jaw, broad nose, curly to frizzy hair, dark brown eyes, generally large lips, and a yellow-brown to bluish-black complexion.9 Black Negroids are native to Africa.10 In the words of Cavalli-Sforza, “There are clear biological differences between populations in the visual characteristics that we use to classify races.”11
Classification of humans into different racial groups is essentially arbitrary, since the lines can be drawn anywhere.12 However, when humans are grouped into the traditional Caucasoid- Mongoloid-Negroid classifications, it can, as J. Philippe Rushton has concluded based on the hundreds of inherited clusters that are unique to each group, have much predictive and explanatory power.13
These inherited features run deep. No one can seriously deny that there is great diversity within the human genome, and differences are significant enough that the term “race” can be used to describe the different ancestral clusterings of populations. Below is a listing of some racial differences between just the white race and the black race. In delineating these differences, this paper focuses only on physical biological differences. The question of differing intelligence and psychology between the black race and white race is beyond the scope of this paper, and will be intentionally ignored.
It should also be noted that race is based on ancestry, not on any arbitrary combination of traits. A white person is racially similar to another white person simply because the two of them have a great deal more recent ancestors in common than they do with blacks. As geneticist Steve Sailer noted, “Race starts with boy meets girl, followed by baby.“14 However, implicit in discussions of whether there is such a thing as race is the question of whether racial differences are merely skin deep; therefore, this listing will show that racial traits include far more than superficial skin color. The listing is not intended to define race by traits; it is instead intended to show ways in which two of the three main ancestral groups--the black race and white race--differ genetically.
Nicotine processing differs in blacks and whites. Blacks appear to absorb 30% more nicotine from each cigarette than Whites do. 15
A CPR Chicago Project study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that the black community was at higher risk for cardiac arrest and subsequent death than the white community, even after controlling for other variables. [Note: there are a couple ways to interpret this disparity. It might be caused by nothing more than racism (as the race deniers would point out), and/or it might be caused by genetic differences in the way heart attacks affect blacks vs. whites.] 16
Elderly blacks have a lower life expectancy than elderly whites, even after researchers controlled for significant factors such as educational status.17
In a study comparing birthrates of blacks (both American-born and African-born) and American-born whites, slight differences were found. [Note: this indicates that differing birthrates might be caused at least partially by genetics.]18
White patients who receive kidney transplants have a higher survival rate than black patients.19
Black men and women with the highest body-mass index have a much lower death rate than white men and women with the highest body-mass index.20
Treatment with the drug Enalapril results in a significant reduction in the risk of hospitalization for heart failure among white patients with left ventricular dysfunction, a heart ailment, but no such reduction among black patients with the same disorder.21
“Black Americans and Africans have a high frequency of a CYP2D6 allele that encodes an enzyme with impaired activity. This allele is virtually absent in whites.22
“There are marked differences between whites and blacks in the frequency of polymorphisms of adrenergic receptors, including the (beta)1-, (beta)2-, and (alpha)1-adrenergic receptors.”23
The distribution of drug receptor polymorphisms differs among populations of different racial backgrounds, which causes people of differing racial backgrounds to have different responses to drugs.24
Although blacks tend to receive lower doses of hemodialysis kidney treatment than whites, their survival when receiving dialysis treatment is better than that for whites.25
Breast cancer mortality is higher among black women than among white women in the United States, even when controlling for socioeconomic factors.26
Black patients and white glaucoma patients respond differently to different surgical treatments.27
One in 400 blacks inherits sickle cell, versus only 1 in 1,000,000 whites.28
Physicians tend to prescribe more calcium channel blockers for blacks than whites because studies have indicated they work better to lower high blood pressure in that racial group.29
For blacks with mild kidney disease linked to hypertension, the drug ramipril, an ACE inhibitor (the most commonly prescribed blood pressure medicine) is not the best at protecting against kidney failure as it is with whites, a new study has found.30
Blacks are more sensitive to pain than whites.31
Blacks respond more poorly to certain chemotherapy drugs than whites.32
Compared to whites, blacks have narrower hips.33
Blacks have wider shoulders than whites.34
Black athletes have less body fat than whites.35
Black athletes have more muscle than whites.36
Black males have 3% to 19% more testosterone than white males.37
Black babies are born on average one week earlier than white babies.38
Black infants, although born on average one week earlier than white babies, are more mature than white infants are when born, as measured by bone development, amniotic fluid and other indices.39
Black children physically mature faster than white children, as demonstrated by the fact that black infants hold their necks erect earlier by an average of two weeks, walk an average of one month earlier, and enter puberty an average of about one year earlier.40
Brains of whites are on average five cubic inches larger than brains of blacks.41
White men have brains 8.2% larger than black men do.42
Twenty percent of whites have a gene that prevents their bodies from producing alpha-actinin-3, a muscle protein that provides the explosive power in fast-twitch muscles. Only 3% of blacks have that gene.43
Blacks have a longer arm span than whites, and the hand of a black is relatively longer than the forearm, compared with a white.44
Teenage blacks demonstrate a significantly faster patellar (knee) tendon reflex time than white teenagers.45
In 1999, even though they only made up 12% of the total US population, blacks accounted for 47% of all new AIDS cases in the United States. [This indicates that either blacks are more biologically susceptible to HIV, they are more sexually active, or both. Even the latter explanation, however, arguably is based on biology.]46
Forensic anthropologists can identify the racial origin of a skeleton with a higher degree of accuracy than an eyewitness looking at the living person.47
To a trained osteologist, the bone traits of the nose, mouth, femur, and cranium can reveal a person’s race just as well as skin color, hair, nose form, and lips can.48
When the gene that controls production of thrombomodulin--a protein found in the walls of blood vessels-- mutates, it causes blacks to have six times the risk of developing heart disease than for whites with the exact same gene mutation. This means that the gene may act differently in blacks than in whites.49
In the 2000 Olympics, for the fifth consecutive Olympics, the eight men who reached the final of the 100-meter dash were all blacks of predominantly West African descent. Given that blacks of West African descent constitute only 7.5% of the world’s population, the probability of this occurring by chance is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%. Therefore, unless this phenomenon can be demonstrated to have occurred due to the social environment blacks live in, the only explanation other than happenstance is that the races differ genetically (and thus race exists as a biological concept). 50
Although they dominate at the 100-meter and 400 meter dashes, blacks of West African descent are marginal at running races of 1,500 meters and higher. This is either a coincidence, is explained by social factors, or is caused by genetics.51
As of 1997, 134 out of the 134 times the 100-meter dash had been sprinted in under 10 seconds, a black of West African descent did it.52
The sheer number of differences listed above shows that racial differences are profound; the existence of race is self-evident.
Of course, any racial differences are average. Individuals within races have their own traits, which can differ from the norm of their racial background. However, when one compares the racial groups with one another in each of the above traits, no purely cultural or society-based explanation suffices. Genetic and biological explanations are required; therefore, race must exist as a biological concept. Genes play a role in athletic ability, bone structure, susceptibility to various diseases, and even tolerance for pain--differences that go far beyond skin color.
Racial differences have an evolutionary explanation. According to the currently accepted theory of human evolution, Africans and non-Africans split about 110,000 years ago when non- Africans (the ancestors of Mongoloids and Caucasoids) left Africa. Yellows and whites split around 70,000 years ago.53 Natural selection then carried itself out over hundreds and thousands of generations.
Although the simple statement “race exists as a biological concept” might make many feel uncomfortable and want to bury their heads in the sand, this paper will attempt to prove that the statement is true. Before doing so, however, it should be noted that this paper focuses only on the question of whether there is such a thing as race. It will not discuss concepts of racial inferiority or superiority and nor will it even attempt to examine the scientific utility of classifying humans by race. The focus of this paper, as stated upfront, is entirely limited to whether race exists as a biological concept.
Definition of Race
First, there are easily-perceived traits such as hair and eye color, body build, and facial traits which vary among human population groups; these differences are easily perceived by the layman; and these traits are determined at least partially (and perhaps wholly) by ancestry (genetics).2 Race then is simply the label given to that human population grouping. In other words, as population geneticist Steve Sailer has put it, race is a lineage; it is a very extended family that inbreeds to some extent.3 Under this definition, race and ancestry are synonyms. Other synonyms for race are cluster, population, statistical collections of alleles, cline, clinal grouping, lineage, and regional pattern. The aforementioned are all terms that many population geneticists use instead of race;4 however, these terms all mean the exact same thing as race.
Note that race does not mean the same thing as “species,” if the word species is defined as a biologically distinct breeding unit.5 Because it is possible for members of different racial groups to breed with one another, the races are not separate species. Also, it is not possible to take any given human and unambiguously classify him or her as belonging to one particular race (as would be required with species classification). Race in the biological sense therefore is more a statistical concept. It is, to put it plainly, simply a major division of the human species grouped by ancestry.
Racial Traits
race is distinguished by a particular combination of inherited features. Anthropologists such as University of Wyoming Professor George Gill--who, as a forensic anthropologist, determines race scientifically by analyzing the bone structure of skeletons--recognize three major discernable racial groups: Caucasoid (white), Mongoloid (yellow), and Negroid (black).6 Basically, all people on Earth can be classified into one of or a mixture of these three ancestries (races).7
Skin color is only one of many phenotypic traits that make up the three major racial groups. Stanford University Professor Luigi Cavalli-Sforza describes those of the Caucasoid ancestral group as having a strong chin, light to dark hair that can be straight or slightly wavy, blue to brown eyes, thin lips, and a pasty white to tan complexion.8 Geographically, whites are native to the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. One of the other races, the Negroid ancestral group, is characterized by a prominent jaw, broad nose, curly to frizzy hair, dark brown eyes, generally large lips, and a yellow-brown to bluish-black complexion.9 Black Negroids are native to Africa.10 In the words of Cavalli-Sforza, “There are clear biological differences between populations in the visual characteristics that we use to classify races.”11
Classification of humans into different racial groups is essentially arbitrary, since the lines can be drawn anywhere.12 However, when humans are grouped into the traditional Caucasoid- Mongoloid-Negroid classifications, it can, as J. Philippe Rushton has concluded based on the hundreds of inherited clusters that are unique to each group, have much predictive and explanatory power.13
These inherited features run deep. No one can seriously deny that there is great diversity within the human genome, and differences are significant enough that the term “race” can be used to describe the different ancestral clusterings of populations. Below is a listing of some racial differences between just the white race and the black race. In delineating these differences, this paper focuses only on physical biological differences. The question of differing intelligence and psychology between the black race and white race is beyond the scope of this paper, and will be intentionally ignored.
It should also be noted that race is based on ancestry, not on any arbitrary combination of traits. A white person is racially similar to another white person simply because the two of them have a great deal more recent ancestors in common than they do with blacks. As geneticist Steve Sailer noted, “Race starts with boy meets girl, followed by baby.“14 However, implicit in discussions of whether there is such a thing as race is the question of whether racial differences are merely skin deep; therefore, this listing will show that racial traits include far more than superficial skin color. The listing is not intended to define race by traits; it is instead intended to show ways in which two of the three main ancestral groups--the black race and white race--differ genetically.
Nicotine processing differs in blacks and whites. Blacks appear to absorb 30% more nicotine from each cigarette than Whites do. 15
A CPR Chicago Project study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that the black community was at higher risk for cardiac arrest and subsequent death than the white community, even after controlling for other variables. [Note: there are a couple ways to interpret this disparity. It might be caused by nothing more than racism (as the race deniers would point out), and/or it might be caused by genetic differences in the way heart attacks affect blacks vs. whites.] 16
Elderly blacks have a lower life expectancy than elderly whites, even after researchers controlled for significant factors such as educational status.17
In a study comparing birthrates of blacks (both American-born and African-born) and American-born whites, slight differences were found. [Note: this indicates that differing birthrates might be caused at least partially by genetics.]18
White patients who receive kidney transplants have a higher survival rate than black patients.19
Black men and women with the highest body-mass index have a much lower death rate than white men and women with the highest body-mass index.20
Treatment with the drug Enalapril results in a significant reduction in the risk of hospitalization for heart failure among white patients with left ventricular dysfunction, a heart ailment, but no such reduction among black patients with the same disorder.21
“Black Americans and Africans have a high frequency of a CYP2D6 allele that encodes an enzyme with impaired activity. This allele is virtually absent in whites.22
“There are marked differences between whites and blacks in the frequency of polymorphisms of adrenergic receptors, including the (beta)1-, (beta)2-, and (alpha)1-adrenergic receptors.”23
The distribution of drug receptor polymorphisms differs among populations of different racial backgrounds, which causes people of differing racial backgrounds to have different responses to drugs.24
Although blacks tend to receive lower doses of hemodialysis kidney treatment than whites, their survival when receiving dialysis treatment is better than that for whites.25
Breast cancer mortality is higher among black women than among white women in the United States, even when controlling for socioeconomic factors.26
Black patients and white glaucoma patients respond differently to different surgical treatments.27
One in 400 blacks inherits sickle cell, versus only 1 in 1,000,000 whites.28
Physicians tend to prescribe more calcium channel blockers for blacks than whites because studies have indicated they work better to lower high blood pressure in that racial group.29
For blacks with mild kidney disease linked to hypertension, the drug ramipril, an ACE inhibitor (the most commonly prescribed blood pressure medicine) is not the best at protecting against kidney failure as it is with whites, a new study has found.30
Blacks are more sensitive to pain than whites.31
Blacks respond more poorly to certain chemotherapy drugs than whites.32
Compared to whites, blacks have narrower hips.33
Blacks have wider shoulders than whites.34
Black athletes have less body fat than whites.35
Black athletes have more muscle than whites.36
Black males have 3% to 19% more testosterone than white males.37
Black babies are born on average one week earlier than white babies.38
Black infants, although born on average one week earlier than white babies, are more mature than white infants are when born, as measured by bone development, amniotic fluid and other indices.39
Black children physically mature faster than white children, as demonstrated by the fact that black infants hold their necks erect earlier by an average of two weeks, walk an average of one month earlier, and enter puberty an average of about one year earlier.40
Brains of whites are on average five cubic inches larger than brains of blacks.41
White men have brains 8.2% larger than black men do.42
Twenty percent of whites have a gene that prevents their bodies from producing alpha-actinin-3, a muscle protein that provides the explosive power in fast-twitch muscles. Only 3% of blacks have that gene.43
Blacks have a longer arm span than whites, and the hand of a black is relatively longer than the forearm, compared with a white.44
Teenage blacks demonstrate a significantly faster patellar (knee) tendon reflex time than white teenagers.45
In 1999, even though they only made up 12% of the total US population, blacks accounted for 47% of all new AIDS cases in the United States. [This indicates that either blacks are more biologically susceptible to HIV, they are more sexually active, or both. Even the latter explanation, however, arguably is based on biology.]46
Forensic anthropologists can identify the racial origin of a skeleton with a higher degree of accuracy than an eyewitness looking at the living person.47
To a trained osteologist, the bone traits of the nose, mouth, femur, and cranium can reveal a person’s race just as well as skin color, hair, nose form, and lips can.48
When the gene that controls production of thrombomodulin--a protein found in the walls of blood vessels-- mutates, it causes blacks to have six times the risk of developing heart disease than for whites with the exact same gene mutation. This means that the gene may act differently in blacks than in whites.49
In the 2000 Olympics, for the fifth consecutive Olympics, the eight men who reached the final of the 100-meter dash were all blacks of predominantly West African descent. Given that blacks of West African descent constitute only 7.5% of the world’s population, the probability of this occurring by chance is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%. Therefore, unless this phenomenon can be demonstrated to have occurred due to the social environment blacks live in, the only explanation other than happenstance is that the races differ genetically (and thus race exists as a biological concept). 50
Although they dominate at the 100-meter and 400 meter dashes, blacks of West African descent are marginal at running races of 1,500 meters and higher. This is either a coincidence, is explained by social factors, or is caused by genetics.51
As of 1997, 134 out of the 134 times the 100-meter dash had been sprinted in under 10 seconds, a black of West African descent did it.52
The sheer number of differences listed above shows that racial differences are profound; the existence of race is self-evident.
Of course, any racial differences are average. Individuals within races have their own traits, which can differ from the norm of their racial background. However, when one compares the racial groups with one another in each of the above traits, no purely cultural or society-based explanation suffices. Genetic and biological explanations are required; therefore, race must exist as a biological concept. Genes play a role in athletic ability, bone structure, susceptibility to various diseases, and even tolerance for pain--differences that go far beyond skin color.
Racial differences have an evolutionary explanation. According to the currently accepted theory of human evolution, Africans and non-Africans split about 110,000 years ago when non- Africans (the ancestors of Mongoloids and Caucasoids) left Africa. Yellows and whites split around 70,000 years ago.53 Natural selection then carried itself out over hundreds and thousands of generations.
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