According to some anthropologists lately, all humans on earth are of the same race because any male and female human can mate and have fertile offspring. This is currently being taught in colleges and it will no doubt come to high schools. Does this sound familiar, social-activists changing definitions of words in the name of making the world better, at least in their mind? In the case of “marriage” the definition is being changed by judges, lawyers, gay proponents or others. That is expected. However, the definition of “race” is being changed by anthropologists who I thought were supposed to be more or less scientists. Scientists should not bend science as a way to make social progress. And I do not believe making race a meaningless word will solve race problems.
In the past, two animals were not considered the same species if they could not mate and produce fertile offspring. The exact definition was somewhat blurred as there are some animals considered separate species that may be able to mate and produce fertile offspring. However, they are too different in their lifestyles to be considered the same species, for example the coyote and wolf. They can mate and produce fertile offspring but the wolf mates at various times of the year and the coyote only in the spring. Wolves hunt in packs but coyotes either alone, as a mated couple, or as a family until the pups leave.
Like with the species category, the long time definition of the human races was also a little fuzzy. I think it was based more on visual impact than purely scientific data. That is, a person from the middle of China far from where his ancestors would have mated with Caucasians or Negroes (at least very often) would likely have a very Oriental appearance. Likewise, a person from the middle of Denmark far from where his ancestors would have mated with Negroes or Orientals (at least very often) would likely have a very Caucasian appearance. Of course where different racial groups were in close proximity the people there would often have a mixed racial appearance as the races would have interbred.
The imperfection of the traditional race classification is that although two groups by appearance are of the same race, one group may have particular genes more in common with a group from what appears to be another race. However, because races have mingled and bred, does that mean we should scrap any knowledge gained using a less than perfect system of classification? I think the new definition of race is even less perfect. For example with the new definition of race, if two animals can mate and produce fertile offspring they are not only of the same species but of the same race. So by this new definition coyotes and wolves would not only be the same species but the same race.
Again, I think this is a way of trying to solve racial problems by getting ride of the word race as it has been defined for a lot of years. The race classification may be a little fuzzy, and goal may be good, but the method is very questionable. In some ways it is like when “the church” butted into science and said the earth is flat and the center of the universe. The goal may have been good, but was it worth tainting science? The big difference now is that science is being tainted by a group of people who should act like scientists, not social engineers.
