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What is race, how do anthropologists define it. How the different races did arose
Answer:
Race is a way of classifying people, usually in terms of superficial physical characteristics, skin color, hair texture, cranial features, etc.
Anthropologists do not really use race as a way of classifying people anymore for a couple of reasons: first, genetic studies show that there is more variation within most "racial" groups than between them. Second, most racial groupings are at least partly social/cultural, rather than strictly biological. Thirdly, racial classifications oversimplify a complex, multivariate, pattern of human biological variability. Lastly, racial classifications provide no predictive basis for inferring human behavior.
The concept of "race" probably arose as a function of naval technology. When people had to travel overland, or anchor their ships after short journeys, differences between the people one encountered were predictably relatively minor. Once ships could stay out longer (weeks, months) then each landfall resulted in encounters with people who looked and acted remarkably different from the last people encountered. The first mentions one finds of "race" as a way of classifying people coincide closely with improvements in naval technology after 1400-1600 AD.
Anthropologists do not really use race as a way of classifying people anymore for a couple of reasons: first, genetic studies show that there is more variation within most "racial" groups than between them. Second, most racial groupings are at least partly social/cultural, rather than strictly biological. Thirdly, racial classifications oversimplify a complex, multivariate, pattern of human biological variability. Lastly, racial classifications provide no predictive basis for inferring human behavior.
The concept of "race" probably arose as a function of naval technology. When people had to travel overland, or anchor their ships after short journeys, differences between the people one encountered were predictably relatively minor. Once ships could stay out longer (weeks, months) then each landfall resulted in encounters with people who looked and acted remarkably different from the last people encountered. The first mentions one finds of "race" as a way of classifying people coincide closely with improvements in naval technology after 1400-1600 AD.
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