Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: Biological research on race has often been seen as motivated by or lending credence to underlying racist attitudes; in part for this reason, recently philosophers and biologists have gone through great pains to essentially deny the existence of biological human races. We argue that human races, in the biological sense of local populations adapted to particular environments, do in fact exist; such races are best understood through the common ecological concept of ecotypes. However, human ecotypic races do not in general correspond with ‘folk’ racial categories, largely because many similar ecotypes have multiple independent origins. Consequently, while human natural races exist, they have little or nothing in common with ‘folk’ races.
Source: Philosophy of Science
DOI: 10.1086/377397
Authors: Massimo Pigliucci, Jonathan Kaplan
Institutions: University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Oregon State University
Language: English
Topic: Race, Genetics, and Society
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2108620162