Biological conceptions of race

Abstract

This chapter examines the conceptions of race within systematic biology. The typological race concept represents one of the first comprehensive efforts to provide a biologically objective definition of “race.” This concept has its roots in the philosophical doctrine of essentialism as well as pre-Darwinian ideas about the objective basis of systematic classification schemes. Essentialism is the idea that natural kinds ought to be individuated in terms of kind-specific essences. After the downfall of the typological race concept, biologists began defining “race” geographically. According to the geographical race concept, a race is a geographically localized subdivision of a species that differs phenotypically and genetically from other conspecific populations. Ecological conceptions of race typically define races as subspecific groups composed of individuals who are phenotypically and genetically similar to one another due to a common selective regime. Phylogenetic conceptions, on the other hand, define races in part as lineages of reasonably reproductively isolated breeding populations. Against the phylogenetic conceptions of race, it is sometimes argued that races cannot be lineages because there is, and always has been, too much gene flow among human populations for human phylogenetic races to exist.