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Racial, Social and Biological Constructs

            Once widely referred to as a biological construct we can now show race to be a social construct due to discoveries in human biology. With these new biological understandings we have also learnt that intelligence cannot be definitively related to race scientifically. In the following it will be argued we can relate them socially and explore the differences of biological and social constructs. A social construct is a classification that society places on people according to a characteristic. There are many different methods or equally valid procedures for defining these classifications. (Diamond, 1994). Race is now widely recognized to be a social construct. The American Anthropological Association statement on race (1998) states that the concept of race was a social system created as a means of referring to populations brought together during the 18th century in colonial America. The variations of physical appearance of these populations was used to determine their race. During the 19th century the use of these differences amongst races reached its greatest divide where it was argued that Africans, Indians and Europeans were of different species (American Anthropological Association, 1998).
             A species is defined as a group of organisms that share the same genome and can only reproduce with each other (Bastin, n.d.). It was not until the application of Gregor Mendel's (1822-1884) discovery of genes that allowed the expansion of science in biology in the last century. With this, as stated in the American anthropological association (1998) statement on race came the knowledge that the human population are not biologically distinct groups. Physical differences in human appearance occur from allele combinations in our chromosomes but genetically we are the same. It was until this genetic understanding that race was perceived as a biological construct. It is important to understand where these classifications come from so we can learn from them and apply them to current social and economic problems.


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