Transcript Modern Human Diversity

ANT 2000H
 History of Race in Anthropology
 Early 19th Century
 Early 20th Century
 Modern Perspectives
 Human Biological Diversity
 Race as a Biological Concept
 Science - early 19th Century: One Race or Several
Species?
 Charles Pickering – “Races of Man and Their
Geographical Distribution”
 Samuel G. Morton – anthropomorphic measurements
of skulls
 Charles Darwin – “The Origin of Species” and “The
Descent of Man”
 Science - early 20th Century – the Evolution of the
concept of Race
 Earnest Albert Hooton “Up from the Apes”
 Ales Hrdlicka
 Franz Boaz – ‘Father of American Anthropology’
 William Montague Cobb
 Ashley Montagu = “Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The
Fallacy of Race”
 Carleton Coon – notion of separate evolution
 Modern Perspectives on Evolution and Race
 William C. Boyd – immunochemist
 Blood types
 Richard Lewontin – proportion of human variation that
can be statistically explained by “ race” found to be
insignificant
 Stephen J. Gould – “The Mismeasure of Man”
 Old perspectives in modern times: “The Bell Curve” by
Herrnstein and Murray
 Scientific racism?
 Humans are a single, highly variable species
inhabiting the entire globe.
 Minute variations of our DNA each give us a unique
genetic fingerprint, yet this variation remains within
the bounds of being genetically human
 The vast majority of human variation exists within
populations rather than among populations.
 In biology, a race is a population differing geographically,
morphologically, or genetically from other populations of
the same species.
 There is no agreement on how many differences it
takes to make a race.
 Any one race does not have exclusive possession of
any particular variant of any gene or genes.
 The differences among individuals and within a
population are generally greater than the differences
among populations.
 Concept of race not applicable to human variation
 Even so race exists as a cultural category
 Confusion of social with biological factors is
 Anthropology abandons the race concept
 No utility in understanding biological variation
 Anthropologists study clines, the distribution and
significance of single, specific, genetically based
characteristics and continuous traits related to
adaptation.
 Why is classifying humans by “races” detrimental?
 Is using racial classifications helpful or harmful?
 In applications (college, job, etc)
 In the medico-legal system
 Why does racism continue to be a problem?
 Within the US?
 In other parts of the world?
 How do you think that the concept of “Race” has
changed over the past 20-25 years?
 What is the future of the concept of “Race”?
 How will it evolve and why?