Race and Discrimination
Race has been a theme of discussion in numerous college guides and media, especially following the numerous cases of discrimination that are based totally on one's race. Precisely, the aspect of discriminating some individuals based on their coloration has been leaving profound impacts to the minority groups such as lower shallowness as well as failing to achieve or accomplish the set dreams due to barriers that have been set out of discrimination, such as some races not being allowed to be taught in classrooms that are meant to be for the top-quality races.
Seeking Equality
However, as a way of trying to seek for ways of sensitizing men and women from discriminating others based on race, some colleges and scientists have determined in concluding that all human beings belong to the same group (Homo sapiens), and no race is more superior to the other. This opposes the social constructs which claim that race or human diversity that is based on the complexion is biological, and that is why it is transmitted from one generation to the other. This paper entails an analysis of what popular media and introductory college-level courses get correct about scientists` arguments concerning race, in terms of what these materials get it correct about science and what they get incorrectly concerning the same.
Scientists' Understanding of Race
In the mid 20th century, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a statement claiming that all human beings belong to the same species (Homo sapiens), and that race is a biologically invalid or it is a myth (Robert n.p). This claim is highly reliable since most of the scientists who came up with this conclusion had extensive knowledge, skills, and experience conducting research concerning human variation. This means that there is no way that these scientists could have come up with this conclusion without having substantial evidence that race is not a biological reality.
Moreover, following the findings of the UNESCO concerning race, numerous other scientists came up citing the same findings and conclusions. Currently, numerous researchers who have vast experience and knowledge of human variation strongly agree that biological races do not agree with humans. This has gone to the extent that some of the journalists and lecturers support the claim that race is nowhere in biology. For example, in 2010, Guy Harrison, a highly acclaimed journalist revealed that when he joined into the University, most of the anthropologist lecturers were against the concept of biological races and this was in contrast to what Harrison believed (that race is biologically based).
The UNESCO findings were also echoed by a number of researchers who had held their annual American Assignment for the Advancement of Science meeting. Most researchers claimed that the research on human variation should be abandoned since it has already been understood that the underlying genetics of human species as well as the manner in which surface distinctions of facial features, hair, skin color may increase in the contemporary world, they do not have the basic biology of human differences. According to a biological anthologist at the University of Michigan, Loring Brace, race is a social construct that has mainly been obtained from perceptions that have been conditioned by events of recorded history and it has no basis in fundamental human biology (Boyd 17-27). This is a new definition of race that most individuals have never attempted to look at race in Brace`s perspective. Precisely, most individuals who propagate racism in the present times do so after being influenced by history, in terms of how the whites or other superior races were propagating racism.
These sentiments were also echoed by John Ladd, an anthropologist at the Brown University, who claimed that the initial arguments that race is a biological reality are a misconception of the truth, and the current and conventional generations had been concocting a biological basis in order to mistreat other individuals on the basis of their race. Ladd also supported the findings of the researchers at the UNESCO, who claimed that all human beings are the same since they belong to the same group of Homo sapiens. He claimed that race is a product of the genetic evolution of humankind, and it is equivalent to how the locomotion or walking feature of human beings has evolved from walking with legs and hands to walking upright. According to Ladd, the genetic diversity that we have in the present times is as a result of human evolution as well as the impacts of continental drift (Robert n.p). Ladd and other researchers in the American Advancement of Science meeting at Atlanta concluded that scientists could reveal superficial characteristics that would explore more genetic commonalities and differences including racial categories with the use of various tools in the molecular biology.
Challenges to the Understanding of Race
Consecutively, scientists cannot prove or provide supporting claims that race is biologically intrigued. Precisely, there is no any scientist who has ever managed to test and prove that race is biologically linked. In science, anything that can be proven or tested scientifically is a fact, and anything that cannot be proven is a fiction. This means that those who link race as a biological component based their arguments on fiction. According to the policy statement by the American Anthropological Association, human beings are not unambiguous, nor have there at any time human beings have been clearly demarcated on biologically distinct groups (Robert n.p). An anthropologist from the University of California, Jonathan Marks, argued that there are no clear racial boundaries that reveal that one racial group stops and another one begins. In addition, Marks revealed that despite this, there is a consistency in living patterns and their biological and physical characteristics. Precisely, individuals who live close to each other geographically tend to have similar characteristics as opposed to people living far way from each other.
Arguments Against Science
Moreover, most anthropologists are concerned that despite the fact that there is no reality that human races are biologically intrigued, racism is still one of the prevailing challenges in the United States and Europe. The Journalist, as well as numerous other individuals including me questions why this is so whereas, the much scientific evidence is against it. What everyone expects is the challenge of racism to come to an end, or to be very minimal especially after being propagated by individuals who have not yet contemplated that race is not a biological reality. In addition to this, it is cheaper for most educated men and women in the contemporary world to accept facts such the earth rotates around the sun and it is not flat, yet they have not yet seen or have no proof of this claim, but it is challenging for them to believe and accept the modern science concerning human variation (Fried n.p). This aspect raises more question than answers as to why this is so.
In addition, though the environment influences the physical characteristics of an individual, it only affects the surface in such a way that it slightly changes the hair and skin, and this means that in the genetic make-up of an individual, the environment has very little or no effect at all. This contradicts the notion that human beings belong to the same group and the racial differences are as a result of their environment or continental drift. In addition, Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, geneticists at Stanford University claimed that physically acquired characteristics cannot influence the DNA of an individual, and neither can the physically acquired characteristic be inherited by the future generations. This means that even though the environment has a great contribution or influence in human diversity, the chances that the physically acquired characteristics can influence genetic characteristics are close to none.
Moreover, some researchers maintain that race is a biological reality, and those who contradict this claim need to read extensively, especially about the initial three major races. Precisely, there are three categories of races and each race that we have today is a sub-race of either of the three races, which are not limited to the Whites, the Negroid and the Mongoloid (Fried n.p). This means that the human differences are as a result of these three primary unmixed races. Each race has its unique features in terms of the skin tone, eyes, size and color of the hair among others.
Works Cited
- Boyd William C. "Genetics and the Races of Man." Readings on Race. Ed. Stanley M. Garn. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas 1968. 17-27.
- Fried Hansen. Race: A Biological Reality. Posted on March 2017. Accessed from, https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/race-biological-reality.
- Robert Lee. Scientists Say race has No Biological Basis. Posted on 20th February, 1995. Retrieved from, http://articles.latimes.com/1995-02-20/news/mn-34098_1_biological-basis.
- Robert Wald. There is no such thing as race. Posted on 8th November, 2014. Retrieved from, http://www.newsweek.com/there-no-such-thing-race-283123.
