This is possibly trigger warning, but I mean these questions honestly and literally, without any sort of racist implication.
Why do we say that the differences among humankind (such as White, Black, Asian, Hispanic) are attributed to what we call ‘race’, and not, for instance, breed or subspecies? (Like it would be with animals.) We have different traits, such as skin color, build, and disposition to certain allergies and diseases. But yet we wouldn’t say we are a different species, we would say that we are a different race.
But why is the term race never used for anything else outside of humankind? There could be some differences among types of rams, for instance, but we would not say that the rams are of two different races. No, we would say that they are a different subspecies or something like that, even being sexually compatible just like us. And if that wasn’t the perfect example for you, then suppose that two different groups of animals are perfectly and analogously different to each other in the same way two groups of humans are different to each other racially. We would still say that the humans have a difference in race, but the animals have a difference by some other category. Why is that?
Thanks in advance, and again, I’m not saying different races are a different species, I really am just curious as to this whole naming convention. What makes differences among humans racial, but those same differences to other animals would not be racial?
In: Biology
“Race” is a social construct with biological associations, exclusively applied to human beings. “Breed” would probably be an applicable term, but aside from some rather shameful exceptions in human history, we don’t breed (verb) humans in the same way we breed animals for specific traits. The differences in human races have been, except for the past few hundred years, based almost exclusively on geography and other social distinctions.
Humans are all in the same species, homo sapiens sapiens. The term “species” is a little problematic in terms of pure biology, but one species is generally agreed to be distinct from another if the two cannot produce viable offspring. Horses are one species, even though there are a lot of different breeds, and ditto for donkeys. They can’t be grouped in the same species, because even though they can produce offspring (mules and hinnies) those offspring are infertile. Subspecies don’t have this offspring problem.
The species distinction can get tricky, and species are often recategorized by biological taxonomists. So for example, all dogs are “canis familiaris,” because they can interbreed, even chihuahuas and great danes. But dogs can also reproduce with wolves, “canis lupus,” and their puppies can also breed with both dogs and wolves. At this point biologists believe that, according to our definition of species, all wolves and dogs are technically the same species. So dogs are sometimes categorized as “canis lupus familiaris.” But due to the striking difference in body structure and behavior, dogs and wolves are often categorized differently just for the sake of convenience.
Despite some interesting research and theory, there’s currently no evidence that any human can create offspring with our closest biological relatives, the great apes. We’re a distinct species, and all of us are the same species. We’re divided into races, more as a social, political, and geographical convenience than a biological distinction, though there are some medical applications for the term. You could call the different races “breeds,” but we don’t, and again that’s a social construct…if only because breeds and breeding is something we apply to animals and not ourselves.
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