I.

Introduction

Race, largely discredited system of classifying human beings according to common descent and superficial physical characteristics. The concept of race is not particularly helpful biologically or sociologically: all so-called races belong to the one biological species Homo sapiens and show only minor genetic variations. Culture is considered a far more important factor than race in determining behaviour and lifestyle. The high profile of the issue of race is a result of the political uses of notions of superiority associated with racism.

As a biological concept, race was clearest when distinctions were made by reference to morphological traits, such as skin pigmentation, hair form, shape of nose, and body form. The arrival of genetic analysis blurred the picture. Before genetic definition the classification of races depended on a combination of geographic, ecological, and morphological factors; However, the progressive use of genetic analysis (see below) showed that gene variants, or alleles, were indifferent to such boundaries and allowed race to intermingle through intermediate forms. With increased mobility and interbreeding it became clear that the number of races was in principle infinite, and the whole concept of race suspect.

No two human beings, not even twins, are identical. The proportions of human traits and, to an extent, even the kinds of traits are differently distributed from one part of the world to another. In the past, when people travelled less and marriages were likely to be between neighbours, races tended to develop and be retained as geographical entities. Although some historic conceptions of race were thus based on geographical variation in physical traits such as skin colour and hair form, such traits can accurately be used to ascribe a person to a race only insofar as they were inherited from ancestors belonging to the population in question.

Every individual has two biological parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on, increasing to many billions of ancestors as far back as ancient times. However, the world did not then contain that many people; most early ancestors, if known, would appear over and over again as progenitors of many different lines of descent. This is what is meant by inbreeding. Inbreeding helps to maintain both a degree of separation among sub-populations and a degree of similarity within such populations. Human experience also includes countless instances of outbreeding with members of other groups. Thus, over time, it becomes impossible to separate one race from another.