I don't have a problem with that, what i'm though saying is "commonsense sense of real" or rather how someone perceives reality is not "real", or cannot be shown to mirror reality. For example that would assume there is a systematic relation between "reality" and our senses (so what we see, smell, touch etc., is "real" and not an illusion, or something else).

I can't disagree here.

Its all low....Once you remove this redefinition and use the traditional definition of race (Mongoloids, Caucasoid etc) you find the support is low everywhere. Very few modern biologist take these traditional race classifications serious.

"Mongoloids, Caucasoid etc" was never a traditional definition of race, rather these were major human continental level classifications. Race concepts often extended down to include micro, minor, regional, local, etc. divisions of species. So, as far as I can see, there is no re-definition. But if you think that the traditional race concept -- what time period did you have in mind, by the way? -- only characterized major human continental level divisions, maybe you could provide refs.

But I would agree that there is a semantic issue. I can't imagine that any biologists would argue that races -- as I understand them -- do not exist (in my commonsense sense of exist) or that the general race concept -- as I define it -- is meaningless or useless. Instead, some seem to argue that e.g., human races in the sense of taxa subspecies do not or that the race concept in the sense of "genetically homogeneous populations" is useless (since these don't exist). Do you disagree?

However if you look, 35% of this 75% are proponents of defining a race via "populationism" which is a local breeding population (deme)...What this study actually shows is the majority of Polish anthropologists (60%) don't defend or use traditional races like "Caucasoid", "Mongoloid" etc.

This point would be worth discussing. Dobzhansky's "population definition" strikes me as being conceptually fuzzy/confused. Thus, I am not sure how others interpret it. Let me quote from: "Heredity, race, and society":

The confusion is made worse by those who fail to distinguish groups resembling each other biologically from those united in a national or language community. "American" as applied to citizens of the U.S.A. can certainly designate no biological unit. There is no "American race" (unless it be the red men we displaced); nor is their a Swiss race or a French race. A nation may consist of more than one race, and several nations, like those of the British commonwealth, may be biologically alike. The inhabitants of northern Germany resemble physically the inhabitants of Denmark and Sweden more than they do the south Germans who in turn are physically similar to some Frenchman, Czechs, and Yugoslavs...

Race can be defined as populations which differ in the frequencies of some gene or genes... Races are populations which differ in the relative commonness of some of their genes. ... The populations of these villages or districts are different races by the above definition, but you will never be certain from which village an individual came by merely looking at him or examining his blood group... If a group of people, some of them of Norwegian and others of Italian descent are present in the same room and you are asked to tell which is which, you will probably guess mostly right but you will make some mistakes too. In short when we are saying that two populations are racially different we are not saying very much. They may be so different that it is possible to tell to which of them any individual belongs, or so similar that only very careful study by specialists can reveal their distinctness at all...

It is very easy to be deceived by differences amongst peoples even more superficial and easily acquired than language or ideas or religion. Dress and decoration, even hair do, may make people seem dissimilar as a group from the very populations from which they are descended...How does layman and how does a scientist arrive at the idea of race? Suppose that we have consider the inhabitants of an American city, such as New York. We know that different kinds of people who live in different sections of the city, in Harlem, in Little Italy, in the Norwegian colony in Brooklyn, and so on. As laymen we recognize the facial and bodily traits which are usual in different groups. In Harelem the majority of people have dark skin. tightly curled hair, broad noses, and thick lips and we know that these have come from African ancestors. In the Norwegien colony we find many tall people, many blonds, and many with blue eyes; whereas those of Italian descent tend to be shorter, brunnette, and dark eyed. Among those of South German or Swiss descent we are more likely to find medium stature, brown hair, fair skin, and round heads...

Considered biologically, the idea of Negro-white segregation as propounded by partisans of this measure in the United States is a plan to prevent the flow of genes between these races by social means -- customs and legislation -- instead of geographical separation. Milder forms of social barriers against intermarriage of groups of peoples, such as religious, economic, educational, and language divisions may also slow down the gene exchange between populations and postpone for a time the obliteration of the races. But the long tine trend is clearly towards race fusion.

Dobzhansky and Dunn are clear that by race they do not mean statistical populations which genetically differ on average e.g., UK and US citizens. And in other passages they make clear that morphs or forms e.g., blue and brown eyed individuals are not races. On the other hand, their race concept, at least as presented here, seems to diverge from mine in that apparently some individuals can not clearly be assigned to a specific race based on molecular (?) characters. (They are not really clear on the point, though.) What then makes individuals a member of a said races?

You seem to argue that their races are just demes/breeding populations which happen to differ on average genetically. (If I misinterpret, perhaps you could clarify.) That's a defensible reading. But how can it be reconciled with the statements in bold? Don't national or language communities represent demes which differ genetically on average; can't individuals therein be arranged by the probability of descendant sharing (mating)? Why wouldn't, were this reading correct, there be a "Swiss race"; didn't circa 1950 -- with the immigration laws as they were -- Switzerland form a breeding community different from other national ones. And if our individuals are arranged by probability of descendant sharing, why the concern about physically similarity? And why do Dobzhansky and Dunn continually refer to regional "ancestry" in regards to race -- what, by your construction, would that have to do with anything? And how do we make sense of the point about segregation. For Dobzhansky and Dunn, races are only indirectly "obliterated" by exogamy; as this allows for gene sharing. If races were just demes or just demes which differed genetically on average, lifting barriers to endogamy per se should do the obliteration.

Your reading then seems to be over simplistic. I'm not sure why Dobzhansky and Dunn didn't simply define race in the classic way -- as divisions were individuals are arranged according to lineage -- but this understanding seems to be less inconsistent with their overall discussion than does the notion of races as simply demes.

[Edit: 7/7/2015. I came across the following passage in "A review of some fundamental concepts and problems of population genetics" (attached):

The dictionary definition of "'population" is "the inhabitants of a country, place, or town." To the ecologist, a population is "any single or mixed species association in the laboratory or in nature that presents a closely interacting system which can be studied and expressed with some quantitative rigor" (Allee, et al., 1949). Such a concept of population is too broad for a population geneticist. We are dealing mostly, though not exclusively, with populations of a particular kind. These are the breeding populations of sexually reproducing species. For these, I have utilized Wright's expression Mendelian population, defining it as "a reproductive community of individuals who share in a common gene pool" (Dobzhansky, 1950).

"Races and breeds of sexual and cross-fertilizing species are Mendelian populations, but a Mendelian population is not necessarily a race. Races, breeds, varieties, species, and all other categories of systematics are recognized because and by means of the morphological, physiological, and genetical differences between them. Conversely, two or more Mendelian populations may or may not have similar gene pools. Thus, the inhabitants of a group of islands may form isolated breeding communities without immediate genetic divergence. Such island communities will be different Mendelian populations but they will not be different races. The existence of breeding communities may be apprehended by observing the kinship relationships and the pedigrees of a sample of individuals. Genetic and morphological differences between Mendelian populations may or may not exist. Much avoidable confusion would be prevented if anthropologists would keep in mind this simple distinction...

To complicate things further, Mendelian populations are usually organized into systems of various orders. The species is, in sexual and cross-fertilizing organisms, the most inclusive Mendelian population. This is as good a definition of species as any so far proposed, and incidentally also the shortest. species are composed of races or subspecies, which are subordinate Mendelian populations differing in relative frequencies of genes or chromosomal structures, and usually also in external appearance and in physiological and ecological properties. Major races consist of local populations or minor races which are seldom recognized or named by classifiers. The elementary local populations are Wright's panmictic units, which have also been called demes (Gilmour and Gregor, 1939). Demes may or may not be genetically distinct.

The infra-specific Mendelian populations maintain more or less distinct gene pools because they are, as a rule, separated in space. Among domesticated forms the geographic isolation is reinforced or superseded by reproductive barriers imposed by the breeders or masters. The numerous breeds of dogs live as sympatric Mendelian populations in New York City, and owe their separateness to the control of their reproduction by man.

The human species is by far the most complex system of Mendelian populations. As in other species, the geographic isolation is, or until recently was, the chief agent maintaining the separateness of the gene pools of human populations. However, the marriage regulation by custom, language, religion, class and caste, economic status, and occupation has introduced new population sub-divisions, which may be on their way towards superseding the geographic divisions. A person may belong to two or more partly overlapping Mendelian populations. Consider a person who resides in New York City, has a black skin, belongs to the unskilled worker class, speaks Spanish as his native language, and is a Roman Catholic. Such a person is potentially a member of several different but over-lapping breeding communities.

Clearly, Dobzhansky's races were not equivalent to demes or gamodeme as you once previously argued. It's not clear what he means by being "genetically distinct" and having "more or less distinct gene pools", though.

He does agree with the view that racial classifications should be based on many concordant traits:

"It is a commonly held opinion that a superior racial classification must be based on many traits. This is however true only to the extent that different traits show a congruity in their geographic distribution." (Dobzhansky, T. (1950, January). Human diversity and adaptation. In Cold Spring Harbor symposia on quantitative biology (Vol. 15, pp. 385-400). Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.)

"[This] is not to deny that a racial classification should ideally take cognizance of all genetically variable traits, oligogenic as well as polygenic.” (Dobzhansky, T. (1970). Genetics of the evolutionary process (Vol. 139). New York: Columbia
University Press.)

Thus, it seems to me that the set of possibilities is limited to something resembling Darwinian natural divisions, which Dobzhansky well characterized in "Evolution Genetics and Mankind" (1955). Quote: "A natural classification must take into account the greatest possible number of characteristics of the organism classified...[for Darwin] a natural system is one which puts together the near kin, and separates the distant relatives".

No?]

Then what you are showing is not "natural", but artificial and arbitrary. I don't know why you cannot see this. There is nothing "natural" or "real" about your race concept/classification.

This now seems to boil down to a semantic disagreement.

We both agree that we can't determine which systems of classifications are natural in the deep ontological sense of cutting being-in-itself by its joints -- since we can't determine what reality-in-itself is like. I don't, though, see this as a problem for "race naturalism" since "race naturalism" was never tied to this deep ontic sort of "naturalism". Consider that Kant was both the founder of transcendental idealism and the most prominent philosopher to develop and defend the race concept. Despite his transcendental idealism, which precluded any sort of "naturalistic" claims in the sense you mean, he yet clearly identified race as being a part of a natural historian's natural system:

A scholastic division is based upon classes and divides things up according to similarities, but a natural division is based on identifying lines of descent that classify the animals according to reproductive relationships. The first of these procures a scholastic system for memory; the second, a natural system for the understanding. (Of the Different Human Races)

My point here is that I am not committed by the concept's genealogy to defend Krom-like race-naturalism -- and, moreover, that the concept's genealogy does justify my identifying races with natural divisions in some Kantian/Darwinian-like sense.

Would you at least agree that this latter sense has currency in biology? Dobzhansky summarized the idea nicely -- and even employed the book analogy which you used. In case that it helps, I attached excerpts from his "Evolution Genetics and Mankind", which is available at https://archive.org/

Think the matter over and then let me know if you agree that races, as I define them, form natural divisions in the above sense -- and if this sense has currency. If you agree, you can't then accuse me of sophism. You can only disagree with my term use, while acknowledging that it has some legitimacy. I will in turn grant that (intraspecific) races, as I understand them, are not Krom-natural. I will just continue to assert that they generally were not thought of as being so.

I await your reply.

But even if what you are saying is true, as I showed: these races were originally thought as having major differences between them rather than showing trivial intergroup variation (in terms of averages).

Did you not like my discussion in Box 3.1?

...These subspecies and races as constant varieties were originally understood in contrast to the species realists' species. They were seen as superficial cuts of biological variation as compared to the realists' species, which, conceived as independent creations, were thought to sever biological nature at its joints. A collection of early definitions are listed below...

As for the other stuff. So, for example:

Buffon (1749): "Those of Formosa, and the Mariana islands, resemble each other in size, vigour, and features, and seem to form a race distinct from that of every other people around them…In Ceylon there is a species of savages, who are called Bedas; they occupy a small district on the north part of the island, and seem to be of a peculiar race…in the island of Mindoro, which is not far from Manilla, there is a race of men called Manghians, who have all tails of [four to five inches], and some of these men had even embraced the Catholic faith."

Blumenbach (1795): "Some races of Ethiopians are found with long hair: other copper-coloured nations again with curly hair"; “nations preserve their peculiar stature when they mingle least with the immigrants and strangers of other races.”

Dobzhansky extended ''race'' to the deme/local breeding population: tribes, clans, villages, etc.,)

My definition is consistent with the idea that certain "tribes, clans, villages, etc." are races. And this is consistent with other population genetic definitions, such as the one offered by Hartle and Clark (1997):

In population genetics, a race is a group of organisms in a species that are genetically more similar to each other than they are to the members of other such groups. Populations that have undergone some degree of genetic differentiation as measured by, for example, Fst, therefore qualify as races. sing this definition, the human population contains many races. Each Yanomama village represents, in a certain sense, a separate "race," and the Yanomama as a whole also form a distinct "race " Such fine distinctions are rarely useful, however. It is usually more convenient to group populations into larger units that still qualify as races in the definition given. These larger units often coincide with races based on physical characteristics such as skin color, hair color, hair texture, facial features, and body conformation." https://archive.org/stream/Population1/6.Hartl-Clark-Principles_of_Population_Genetics_djvu.txt

I agree that this understanding applies the race concept to divisions which were often not considered to be races. I discussed this issue in my paper:

It became clear in the 20th century that one could differentiate populations all the way down to the local level. Given this situation, one could define “the” race concept such to include all intraspecific natural divisions (for example: Hartl and Clark, 1997) or to include only those that differ “enough” (where “enough” denotes some arbitrarily chosen level of differentiation). Or one could, as we sensibly do, simply distinguish between the general concept and narrow ones – and recognize the narrowness of concepts of race which exclude less differentiated divisions. Our argument for why the “general concept” should be more inclusive would run along the lines of Hochman‟s (2013) argument for why there is no reason that “race” should describe a specific level of genetic analysis. We just draw a very different conclusion: it is (general) races all the way down – not no races at all.

But why is our argument sound? It is because, as said, there was never a claim the races described one “right” level of analysis. It has always generally been accepted that “race” described multiple nested levels. There has just been disagreement about how far down the concept extends. Hochman-like arguments work from the premise that there is no non-arbitrary reason for picking a specific level; this only works against race, in general, if race was originally understood to imply one “right” level; otherwise, it works for Dobzhansky‟s (1946) and our point – that the general concept should apply to all levels. Instead of ruling out races, it proliferates them!

I would not say that this constitutes a re-conceptualization of the race concept so much as a re-understanding of races. Whatever the case, it is a logical extension.

That said, you might be right that Dobzhansky's definition represents a fundamental re-understanding. This would be the case if he considered e.g., social classes to be races, since while these might be Mendelian populations which differ on average, they are not necessarily, and most often are not, genealogical or lineage based divisions. Consider Gannett's discussion in relation to one of Dobzhansky's statements:

"But the species population is split up into a complex series of subordinate populations or isolates. These populations are the geographically isolated races, and socially isolated local or religious communities, linguistic groups, economic classes, etc. Even though these subpopulations may have indistinct boundaries and may not be easy to delimit, they are nevertheless the fundamental biological entities which the anthropologist must study."

Regarding this passage, she notes, "Note that Dobzhansky referred only to geographically isolated populations as races, otherwise using ‘communities’ and ‘groups’. And yet, on his definition of race, any genetically distinct Mendelian population counts as a race."

She apparently considers Dobzhansky's races as "genetically distinct Mendelian populations" to include "socially isolated local or religious communities, linguistic groups, economic classes". To me this makes little sense in relation to his other discussions, some cited above. But perhaps he meant this. I have read many of his papers and have found nothing which clearly indicates that this is what he meant and much which suggests otherwise, including this passage where he conceptually separates races and economic groups. To determine the issue, I will have to read through his letters, since what he wrote in his papers is not clear. (I had to do the same for Darwin.) I signed up for an account at APS library, would you be interested in helping me look through the communications, if I am approved?

If it turns out that Dobzhansky considered e.g., somewhat assortatively mating economic groups, religious groups, etc. to be races, then I certainly would agree that he fundamentally redefined the concept, one which originally defined groups in terms of, and arranged individuals into groups by, genealogy and lineage. Now, to be clear, by such a hypothetical concept of race, natural divisions races would be these -- or at least would overlap with these; they would, when endogenous, be ones which were sufficiently linebred.

You say, though, that Dobzhansky "rarely mentioned "Negroids", or large continental groups". This is clearly false. For example, I attached excerpts from "Genetics of the Evolutionary Process". There is nothing unusual about this discussion. I am not going to go through all of his papers and books to count the many times he discussed "large continental groups", though, just to prove to you otherwise. The question is not how far up he extended his races, a cursory reading will tell you this, but how outbred he allowed them to be.

Moving on, regarding the topic of natural divisions, you state, "Very few (if any) modern biologists will find a human race concept based on genealogy to be useful because of the gene flow between populations". Why do you avoid answering my question? Is my usage of "biological natural divisions/classification" legitimate or not?

As for your claim, though, it is complete rubbish. Firstly, my "race concept based on genealogy" is not a "human race concept", it's a pan species one. Secondly, as far as I can tell, this concept picks out the same types of things that "retrospective genetic populations", "genetic clusters", "bio-geographic ancestry groups", etc. do, entities on which there is a tremendous amount of research, and which are recognized by many as being races:

"The difficulty with biological projects of subdividing our species is that they appear to introduce a conceptual framework that can easily revive unjust and damaging social practices. Although contemporary research may speak of “clusters” rather than “races,” it is relatively easy to foresee that the old, loaded word will often substitute for the aseptic scientific terminology. (Kitcher, 2007)"

"It appears that many scientists do not even believe this distinction makes a difference; they have concocted a thinly disguised euphemism for race they hope will not stir up as much controversy. Geographic ancestry has not replaced race -- it has modernized it." (Roberts, 2011)

"Race thinking in science is still with us today, despite a few brief retreats as recently as the year 2000. Increasingly, the use of race in certain geneticists’ circles can be seen as acceptable on several registers. Scientists who organize studies by race, even if they prefer the euphemism “continental genetic ancestry,” now hope to include racial minorities in projects with social justice and real capital effects." (Fullwiley, 2014)

"Thus, though the “population” concept is touted as an advancement in freeing genomics from racial bias, it is merely a terminological mask for “race” in genomics...The language employed to talk about “race” without talking about it overtly then takes the form of racial euphemisms like “population." (Williams, 2015)

If Marks thinks that research on what I call "race" is worthless, then he needs to explain why so much is being done. If the claim is simply that "race" is not a useful or politically correct term but that the divisions I call "races" are useful, then we are dealing again with sematics. And the issue reduces to irrelevance because I only claim that these types of divisions have a strong claim to the name "race", not that they must be called "races". And I clearly draw a distinction between the term "race" and concept "race".

Do you agree that the entities often called "populations", "clusters", "biogeographic ancestry groups" can, based on historic term usage and insofar as they actually cut out what I call races, legitimately be called "races"?

Fourthly, as I have shown a large chunk of biologists and anthropologists around the world agree that race concepts as they understand them are useful. Now, you counter that by "race" they often mean "population"; but for such an argument to work you would have to show that by "populations" they do not just mean "races" (in the sense of my meaning). The matter is, at best for your position, undetermined.

It seems as if you are out of arguments.

Very few (if any) modern biologists will find a human race concept based on genealogy to be useful because of the gene flow between populations..Quote:

Marks (2010): "Consequently, the more accurate mode of representing is not as a tree, but at a trellis.."

I should note that either you are Marks are confusing issues. One can have genealogy-based divisions while also having extensive reticulation. I discussed this point in numerous sections and I pointed out how the identification of races with strict-branch-like divisions or deep clades -- the type of entities that are inconsistent with reticulation -- makes no sense. Consider that Buffon and Duchesne, who imported the race concept into natural history and botany, were the first to discuss genealogical networks -- and they located races in these. Either Marks is conflating genealogy-based divisions with strict-branch-like ones or he is sophistically equating "race" with the latter.

Not sure how that helps, the population genetics view on race is post-typology when race was re-defined.

You need to do some more reading because you have a poor grasp of the topic. But first, do you agree that "natural division", in the sense I noted, has currency in biology? Now, you claim that the concept of race -- not to be confused with that of species -- has changed fundamentally. I don't see this and I will be happy to explain why, but I would like for you to answer the above question, so that we can make some progress in this discussion.

That said, when you say that race was thought about in a "typological" manner, I have no sense of what you mean. I see the term thrown around, but never well defined. One finds a similar situation with "essentialistic". So, you are going to have to explain your specific meaning.

I do recall reading a critique of "typological" thinking penned by Dobzhansky in the 50s. He criticized Kant's view, in particular, but then by 1970, after he became more acquainted with Kant's writing, he had nothing but praise. By typological thinking, Dobzhansky meant thinking of groups as homogeneous in nature and not recognized polymorphisms and intrapopulational variants. As I explained in my paper, though, race in the sense of divisions of a species was, in fact, not though this way, since races were contrasted with, on the one hand, species and on the other (inconstant) varieties. But perhaps you mean something else.

You say:

The traditional race concept was discredited, but instead of abandoning it, some scientists tried to salvage the word "race" and apply it to a new theory of race.

Well, in a sense the traditional race concept was "discredited", since races were defined in contrast to species and since the traditional species concept -- which actually was typological and intrinsic essentialistic -- was. In this same sense it could be said that quite a few biological concepts were "discredited" -- specifically everything the was defined in relation to species, such as individual variation (varieties) and higher order categories. One might just say that biology in the sense of natural history was discredited -- which it was, in a sense, with the acceptance of evolutionary theory. But I don't imagine that this is what you mean.

You say:

It never did. This is a modern redefinition. Show where Linnaeus for example defined a village as a "race" as you are now doing...

Again you need to do some more reading. Linnaeus did not think in terms of race, but rather species and varieties. His geographical groups were understood to be environmental induced degeneration (varieties) of the species type.

François Bernier (1625–1688) is believed to have developed the first comprehensive classification of humans into distinct races which was published in a French journal article in 1684, Nouvelle division de la terre par les différentes espèces ou races l'habitant, New division of Earth by the different species or races which inhabit it.

Bernier initially referred to his groups as species; in a subsequent edition he changed this to "species or race"; the term "race" only shows up a few times in his article; he never explained what he meant, so we don't know how he conceptualized groups. Unlike Buffon, he wasn't a naturalist and he didn't develop a race concept; and his article had little influence on subsequent writers. Doron (2011) has a fair discussion on Bernier. Try that. Generally, you seem to be confusing terms with concepts here, and variety concepts with race concepts above. But you say:

"None of these 17th-19th century scientists I could find proposed there were millions of races, only about 3 - 20 (i.e. large groupings)."

The "races" of Louis Agassiz would have been "species". Your inability to distinguish between concepts and terms is annoying, especially given that I went out of my way to draw these distinction. As for numbers, typically authors added qualifiers such as "major", "primary", "base", etc. when talking about a few large ones.

As I discussed in my paper, yes, micro groups would generally not have been thought of as being intraspecific races, since they were not seen as being distinguishable. But they can now be distinguished using molecular markers, so it is only logical to extend the concept. I don't say that one must define race this way, of course. I distinguish between a general concept and narrow concepts. The general concept would include such groups and narrow concept would specific subsets e.g., races in the sense of "major races" or "phenotypically identifiable ones".

Dobzhansky rarely touched upon "Negroids", "Caucasoids" etc. He also gave a very negative book review for Coon's The Origin of Races and criticised him for his crude racial terminology and racism etc.

The first sentence is hogwash. The second is irrelevant to your claim. But I don't feel like counting the number of papers and books in which he "touched upon "Negroids", "Caucasoids" etc", presently. Nonetheless, if you wish to pursue the claim you will have to quantify it -- for example: "In his discussion of race, he only discussed major continental races in 10% of the papers". Make an empirical claim that I can falsify.

A deme or breeding population is not a formal classification, but a unit of study. This is what you overlooked. So for example we can say a Swede on average is genetically distinct to an Eskimo, but only in regards to the Eskimo.

I very clearly distinguished between taxonomic categories and non-taxa classifications and units of analysis. I noted that "races" were not originally thought of as taxa and, after the creation of the subspecies category, they were not always though of so -- rather only formally recognized races were. This is hardly a new distinction -- it goes back to the 1700s. To put this another way, race, was often used as a unit of analysis. But you say:

According to Garn (1971) there are hundreds of thousands to millions of "microraces" [= demes in Garn's terminology]. It is not possible to draw this sort of classification, nor would it be needed because we are not dealing with a taxonomy.

Garn (1971) says, for example, "Races, moreover, are natural units and not artificial assemblages...Members of such a breeding population shared a common history...They have been exposed to common dangers, and they are the product of a common environment. For this reasons, and especially with advancing time, members of a race have a common genetic heritage".

While Garn's races may be be demes, it is clear that not all demes are Garn's races, as the members share a common genetic heritage (ancestry) and are not just defined in terms of the probability of descent sharing. If you want you could examine Garn's work in detail. It's difficult to simply defined race, so people who discuss the topic will defined it so and so and then offer qualifications. This was the case with Dobzhansky who didn't always clearly distinguish between races and Mendelian populations.

But you say:

So my answer is "retrospective genetic populations", "genetic clusters", "bio-geographic ancestry groups", has nothing to do with race and the issue of nested hierarchy aside, I don't see your "biological natural divisions/classification" legitimate because it is a formal classification.

Groups in hierarchical taxonomy represent "biological natural classifications", but, as I noted, "biological natural classifications" -- at least of the genealogical sort -- were from the beginning understood in a more inclusive way. This allows one to speak of non-taxa races as being natural divisions. If you wish I will develop this point more. Just consider that artificial classifications are not apart of hierarchical taxonomy, yet we can still describe non hierarchical taxonomic classifications such as morphs as being these. Since we can describe morphs as artificial, it stands to reason that we can describe non-taxa races as natural. But if you wish, I can provide a more detailed justification.

Yes, scientists in the 21st century are really pigeon-holing people into "Negroid" or "Caucasoid". That was sarcasm by the way.

Mostly, they use terms like "Oceanian, American, Sub-Saharan African, East Eurasian, and West Eurasian." I was able to find dozens of cluster analysis studies which listed these groups at k=5. So, they certainly are "pigeon-holing people". As for the specific terms, "Caucasoid" and "Mongoloid" show up a bit, though Negroid does less so. Quite a bit of research uses regional groups though -- for example admixture mapping research in the Americas -- European, African, and Amerindian are the groups and labels of choice. Since the groups aren't formally recognized -- i.e., given a latin name -- one can not expect people to label them the same.

I don't see "so much is being done", when the traditional race concept is virtually dead. This covers all the other points...Your main problem is that you don't seem to want to touch the traditional races with a bargepole, probably because you know it is toxic pseudo-science.

Honestly, I don't know what you are talking about. I specifically stated in the abstract: "Early 18th century race concepts are discussed in detail and are shown to be both sensible and not greatly dissimilar to modern concepts." I hardly threw early concepts under the bus. But perhaps you can elaborate on specific critiques of specific authors' "traditional races".

As Hochman says:

"The problem with weak versions of racial naturalism is that they do not contrast with anti-realism about biological race. When race naturalists weaken their position they end up agreeing with their opponents about human biology, and defending a trivialised definition of race."

Hochman's argument is silly, I wrote a whole section on it. But, let's start here:
what, to your mind, would constitute a non-trivial, historically consistent race concept. Be specific and explain why.

1. Race typology argued for homogenous groupings of individuals ("types"), and emphasized the variation between rather than within them. Deviations were explained as the product of mixture, so for example 19th century typologists argued blonde-haired Australian aborigines were the result of interbreeding with Europeans, and narrow-nosed Horner Africans were the result of mixture with "Caucasoids", both claims have been shown to be false... Marks says: "Again, the point of the theory of race was to discover [large] clusters of people that are principally homogeneous within and heterogeneous between, contrasting groups." If you cannot show this, you aren't talking about race...

I am relocating, so my replies might be delayed a bit.

When it comes to race, the historiography is generally pretty awful. It's improving, though, so if you are relying on secondary sources try more recent ones, for example:

Doron, C. O. (2011). Races et dégénérescence. L'émergence des savoirs sur l'homme anormal.

Doron, C. O. (2012). Race and Genealogy: Buffon and the Formation of the Concept of „Race‟.

Generally, it's better to look at the primary sources, which is what I did.

But yes, Dobzhansky, Relethford, Marks, and Hochman have all made easily demonstrable mistakes. (On request, I will enumerate them.) Regarding Dobzhansky, for example, he initially characterized Kant as something of a typologist; he changed his position by 1970:

To make this diversity manageable, pioneer anthropologists assumed that at some time in the past there existed several homogeneous, or "pure," races, each with a certain complex of morphological, and perhaps also psychological, traits. The modern diversity of humans is then ascribed to mixing of these basic racial types in various combinations and proportions. For example, Kant (1775) assumed four primary races: white, negro, Hunnic (Mongolian), and Hindu, and stated that it is "possible to derive from these four races all other hereditary ethnic characters, either as mixed or as incipient races . . . " (quoted from Count, 1950) (HUMAN DIVERSITY AND ADAPTATION, 1950).

[quote]Immanuel Kant, who was a naturalist before he became the prince of philosophy, wrote in 1775 the following remarkably perceptive lines.

It appears that Kant had a clearer idea about the distinction between individual variability ad the variability of population than many authors writing today. (Genetics of the Evolutionary Process, 1970)

3. The fact 19th century scientists once thought races were species demonstrates what I have been saying: races were seen to be vastly different. This is the opposite what we know today, and what you are arguing for (trivial/low amounts of genetic variation between groups).

I actually discussed this issue quite a bit. Since you seem to be uninterested in reading what I wrote, I will just quote a section:

By this narrative, once-upon-a-time races were thought to represent "real natural kinds," but it turned out that there were no such kinds and so mainstream scientists later rejected the concept. In actuality, close to the opposite occurred, at least insofar as we are referring to intraspecific divisions.

Let us clarify this latter point, first. As noted in section II, in context to natural history, the term “race” was used both exclusively to refer to a sort of intraspecific division and inclusively to refer to this in addition to species. The latter usage allowed for the question: “Are the races of man species?” Insofar as race was used to describe intraspecific variation it referred to “constant varieties,” genealogically understood. In the 20th century, the indiscriminate concept of varieties was retired and terms such as “polymorph” and “race” were employed to describe different sorts of intraspecific variation. “Race” gained an exclusively intraspecific denotation – though, outside of the natural sciences it was and is still often used in the inclusive sense, for example, when people refer to the “human race” and mean the “human species” or when fantasy fiction novels speak of different separately created races such as the elves and dwarves of Middle Earth. Since the term “race” had this dual meaning there is a sense in which some scholars believed that the races of man were natural kinds in the species realist sense – after all, some believed that races were species and that species were separate creations. Thus one has to interrogate the specific meaning of the claims. Smith (2013) makes it clear that he is speaking about races as “subdivision of the human species,” so we will frame our discussion in terms of this understanding.

For a more lengthy discussion try my section II-B "Semantic Complexities and the Evolution of the Race Concept".

Generally, Buffon, Blumenbach, Kant, and Duchesne developed a concept which they called "race" which described "constant varieties" understood genealogically. Polygenists, though, argued that the term "race" should be more generally applied. Thus, in reply to Kant, Georg Forster noted:

We have borrowed <the term> [race] from the French; it seems very closely related to <the words> racine and radix and signifies descent in general, though in an indeterminate way. For one talks in French of the race of Caesar <in> the same <way> as of the races of horses and dogs, irrespective of the first origin, but, nevertheless, as it seems, always with tacit subordination under the concept of a species... <The word> should mean nothing more than a mass of men whose common formation is distinctive and sufficiently at variance with their neighbors <such that they> could not be immediately derived from them. <They are> a lineage whose derivation is unknown, and consequently, one which we cannot easily count under one of the commonly accepted human varieties because we lack knowledge of the intermediary link.

Race, the term, then ended up referring to two concepts: (a) (exclusive) genealogically understood contant varieties and (b) (inclusive) genealogically understood contant varieties plus genealogically understood species. Only by the latter concept would some "races" -- the ones which were thought of as being species -- have been thought of in a typological manner (as you mean it). Since (b) includes (a), though, even if you wanted to equivocally argue that "races" were thought typologically (adopting concept b), you would have to admit that they also were not. As a result, even equivocation can not rhetorically save the argument. Do you disagree on this point?

4.[/b] Dobzhansky's focus was local populations, and not "Caucasoids" and "Mongoloids" etc. You can search for these terms on Google Books to see they rarely appear in his work: "Negroid" only appears 3 times in Mankind Evolving (and one of these is when he is quoting someone else), "Caucasoid" only appears once.

Dobzhansky made it quite clear that his concept scaled up. See the attached. Below are more example:

"The human species is compounded of numerous subordinate Mendelian populations, which form an intricate hierarchy, beginning with clans, tribes, and various economic and cultural isolates, and culminating in "major" races, and finally the species... Now, not only the major but also the minor populations differ in gene frequencies. They are "races" by definition...One must, however, be on guard not to invent a "population" by hand-picking a "group" of individuals who do not belong to a common gene pool. For example, people with O blood group, or long-haired people, or criminals are not Mendelian populations and can not reasonably be called races....The characteristic Mongoloid facial structure may be an example of "climatic engineering" which gives the greatest protection to cold and windy climates." (Race and Humanity)

"The five "races" of Blumenbach were:
...
This was a biological classification which obviously described existing differences between large populations inhibiting different parts of the world." (Heredity, Race and Society)

"Discrepancies between the "genetic" and the "taxonomic" species are to be expected mainly in those relatively rare cases where different groups do not interbreed despite the scarcity or absence of morphological differences between them (a good example of this sort are the "races"o f Trichogrammam inutum described by Harland and Atteck), or where geographically isolated races, without losing the ability to interbreed, have diverged so widely in their morphological characters that taxonomists feel compelled to consider them separate species (for instance, some "species" of pheasants." (A Critique of the Species Concept in Biology)

"The fossil Grimaldi people in southern France were like some Negroids now living in Africa..." (Evolving Mankind)

"Thus, the gene Rho is rare among whites but con~-non among Negroes, while Rhl is relatively rare among Negroes and common among whites and especially among Mongoloids." (HUMAN DIVERSITY AND ADAPTATION)

"Only one thing is certain -- the populations of Europe and Africa were not identical with those of Java and China. The human species was then, as it is now, differentiated into geographic races....All the branches but one withered and became extinct; the sole surviving branch is the present Homo sapiens. This branch has, in turn, split into diverging twigs -- the present human races." (ON SPECIES AND RACES OF LIVING AND FOSSIL MAN)
................

Interestingly, in "Heredity, Race and Society", Dobzhansky also states:

"One of the greatest absurdities of the so called race problem in the United states is that anyone who admits having some African ancestry is classed as a Negro regardless of his or her appearance. A "Negro" is then a member of a social and economic group rather than of a purely biological one[/b]. Some of the children born of such "Negroes" are indistinguishable from, and, "pass" among the whites in order to avoid anti-Negro discrimination."

"African Americans" surely represent a "breeding population which differs on average from "European Americans". If your and Gannet's interpretation is correct, why does Dobzhansky feel that it's absurd to consider "Negroes" to be a biological group? He does say that his races are "biological units", so why aren't Negroes one of these? However, if I am correct, why are "economic and cultural isolates" races? Is an "isolate" different from a "group"?

Anyways, you said:

5. Only Garn's "micro races" = demes. He had a hierarchy of populations. The largest were "geographical races" such as continents, but these were not demes (panmictic populations). That is why the hierarchy makes no sense

.

I don't think that Garn equated races with demes -- but I will have to read more of his articles to be sure. That is, I imagine that his races were like Dobzhansky's where while all races are "Mendelian populations", not all Mendelian populations -- specifically demes which were not genetically "distinct" -- are races. Thus, he notes that his races share a fraction of genes in common. Strictly speaking demes do not need to. Would not you agree?

They aren't pigeon-holing people. Pointing out someone's ancestors came from Oceania, or Sub-Saharan Africa is not a classification, it is just a description. Sauer (1992) covers this in detail, i.e. to identify someone as having ancestry from Northern Europe, does not mean they are a "Nordic race".

When you assign someone to a biogeographical group based on their ancestry, you are "pigeon-holing" (i.e., classifying) them no different than when you assign them to a "race" the same way. But I agree that one need not classify (group); one could just describe ancestry components -- and some researchers do this. If you want specific examples in which individuals are arranged into divisions I can give them. But you say:

Instead you claim it is "silly" and wrong, when the truth is your concept and redefinition of race is what is "silly" (it trivializes race, so what is the point?) and wrong (it is not a defence of the traditional race concept).

I discussed this above. Please refer me to the said people who in a typological manner divided the human species into races. Provide specific references so that I can read the papers.

Now, on that note, a clarification is necessary. Contrary to what you have implied, I do not adopt a "population" understanding of race -- indeed, I criticize these because I find them vague and ill-defined. The more I read Dobzhansky the more compelling I find my critique. Instead of a population understanding, I adopt a cluster class one, one which is perfectly consistent with Darwin's and mostly consistent with Blumenbach's and Buffon's. (It differs from Kant's class understanding in that it is a cluster ones, not a character essential class concept.) I do note, though, that "genetic population" and cluster concepts such as Hartl and Clark's are no different. Whether Dobzhansky's is depends on what exactly he meant by "genetically distinct" Mendelian populations.

So, your criticism of Dobzhansky's "re-definition" does not constitute a criticism of the concept I presented.

I think this debate is now over and it is getting repetitive, but to clarify point 6

We aren't making progress because you refuse to concede points, for example about biological "natural divisions".

On a positive note, you did force me to re-examine Dobzhansky-esque "Mendelian population" definitions. Though, you have not helped clarify his concept.

So someone can be identified as having regional ancestry: "Oceanian", "American", "Sub-Saharan African", "East Eurasian", and "West Eurasian", but that doesn't make them a race. These geographical labels are just descriptive, they aren't categories.

I conceptualize races as being divisions of a species into which individuals are arranged by IBD genomic similarity ~ propinquity of descent. I agree that arranging people by "regional ancestry" and identifying them as members of regional ancestry groups doesn't necessarily group them into races. I noted this:

Malik feels that race must mean something in addition to geographic ancestry and that there is no justification for calling mere “continental groups” races. Given our concept of biological race, a reply to Malik is ready on hand: “geographic ancestry,” let alone “continentally delineated group” is not, in fact, synonymous with biological race. Only when individuals from roughly the same geographic region descend from the same natural division do they belong to the same race; hence, the geographically defined sociological race of “Asians” in the US does not correspond to any biological one... The discord between geographically defined populations and races has been pointed out by others. For example, criticizing Neil Risch‟s continental racial classification, Condit (2007) notes: “Indeed, none of the groups claimed to be delineated as "continental‟ groupings are actually very closely coterminous with a continent as the term is otherwise understood” (HoSang, 2014). Of course, what Risch and others refer to are not continentally defined populations but intraspecific natural divisions – races – on the continental-level of genetic analysis.

Ok, but the studies of which I am speaking actually group individual into races -- or describe their racial ancestry (i.e., ancestry with respect to historic natural divisions).

I can't comment more because I don't have access to the Brace article. The abstract reads:

"Norman Sauer has posed the rhetorical question: if races do not exist, how come forensic anthropologists are so good at identifying them? The simple answer is that, as members of the society that poses the question, they are inculcated into the social conventions that determine the expected answer. They should also be aware of the biological inaccuracies contained in that "politically correct" answer. Skeletal analysis provides no direct assessment of skin color, but it does allow an accurate estimate of original geographical origins. African, eastern Asian, and European ancestry can be specified with a high degree of accuracy. Africa of course entails "black," but "black" does not entail African. The significant identifying features of a given region then are stochastically determined and are not the products of natural selection. If they are valuable for purposes of identification, they have no coherent adaptive, that is, biological, significance. Neither individual traits nor a configuration of them associated with a given region have any adaptive significance and thus have no comparative worth. Traits of adaptive value however are not constrained by region and cannot be used to identify "race.""

Yes, my races are "stochastically determined" in the sense that they are defined by descent and patterns of filatiion and not by specific phenotypes varied due to natural selection (such as skin reflectance). But this is what makes them "races" in the sense of both breeds and lineages -- and not morphs or some form of non-genealogical ecotype. Do they then not have meaning? Well, these races do differ on average in traits which were under selective pressure; they just are not delineated that way. (Brace is making a non sequitur here.) Also, since they index kinship they surely matter to those concerned about inclusive fitness (e.g., Salter, 2005). But maybe Brace has a better argument hidden in his paper -- could you attach a copy? -- regardless, he seems to grant that these groups defined in terms of "original geographical origins" correspond with ones defined in terms of propinquity of descent. (I presume that this is what he means by "stochastically determined".)

1. Race typology argued for homogenous groupings of individuals ("types"), and emphasized the variation between rather than within them. Deviations were explained as the product of mixture, so for example 19th century typologists argued blonde-haired Australian aborigines were the result of interbreeding with Europeans, and narrow-nosed Horner Africans were the result of mixture with "Caucasoids", both claims have been shown to be false.

Since we disagree, we ought to take a look at some of our "typologists". Below is what Hooton had to say in "Methods of racial Analysis"

In the existing confusion as to the connotation of race, it is clear that the term requires exact definition, if any progress is to be made in studies which relate to race analysis or racial problems. I offer the following definition, not with the hope of expectation that it will be generally accepted, but merely in order to elucidate my own position.

A race is a great division of mankind, the members of which, though individually varying, are characterized as a group by a certain combination of morphological and metrical features, principally non-adaptive, which have been derived from their common descent.

A Primary race is one which has been modified only by the operation of evolutionary factors, including the selection of its own intrinsic variation and of the modification, adaptive or non-adaptive, possibly caused by environmental stimuli.

A secondary or composite race is one in which a characteristic and stabilized combination of morphological and metrical features has been effected by a long continued intermixture of two or more primary races within and areas of relative isolation.

Assuming, for the moment, the validity of the foregoing definitions, it is apparent that the present populations of the world consists for the most part of secondary races and that the primary races are represented by inbred peoples within areas where little race contact is known to have taken place. Of such inbred peoples only a small fraction represent primary racial types either because they are absolutely unmixed or because pure racial types have been segregated out in relatively few individuals. For man has been a migratory animal from proto human times down to the present and the contact of races has always resulted in racial admixture

And below is what he had to say in "Plain statements about race."

I therefore intend to assert bluntly and simply what I believe to be the best consensus of scientific anthropological opinion upon what races are and what they connote.

(1) A "race" is a physical division of mankind, the members of which are distinguished by the possession of similar combinations of anatomical features due to their common heredity.
(2) There exists no single physical criterion for distinguishing race; races are delimited by the association in human groups of multiple variations of bodily form and structure-such as amount of pigment in hair, skin and eyes, form of the hair, shape of the nose, range of stature, relation of head length to head breadth, et cetera. These criteria are of mainly hereditary origin, but none of them is wholly impervious to environmental influences, such as the effects of climate, diet, exercise and altitude. It follows that race is essentially a zoological device whereby indefinitely large groups of similar physical appearance and hereditary background are classified together for the sake of convenience...

(7)A "pure" race is little more than an anthropological abstraction; no pure race can be found in any civilized country. Racial purity is restricted, at best, to remnants of savage groups in isolated wildernesses. The present races of man have intermingled and interbred for many thousands of years, so that their genealogical lines have become inextricably confused. Physical classifications of race merely attempt to delimit groups of approximate physical uniformity, with a restricted assumption of similar heredity.

(8) The composite origin of most of the existing races of man is demonstrable. Thus the Polynesian represents a stabilized blend of White, Negroid and Mongoloid elements. The so-called Nordic race is probably a hybrid derivative of several strains present in Europe during the glacial period, to which have been added in historic times Alpine, Mongoloid and other racial elements (carried by Lapps, Finns, Slavs and other peoples who have mixed with the inhabitants of the "Nordic" area).

....

Hooton equated his "primary races" with "pure races". He specifically stated that these are formed, in part, from the "selection of its own intrinsic variation" -- thus, they necessarily were not homogenous groups!

The strange thing is that in biology it's common to talk about "pure" strains or "pure" types without implying groups with little or no inter-individual variation. For example, in context to discussions of mendelian genetics here.

Who else should we check? How about Deinker? Being a good typologist, in "The races of man" he noted:

It is to these units that we give the name “races,” using the word in a very broad sense, different from that given to it in zoology and zootechnics. It is a sum-total of somatological characteristics once met with in a real union of individuals, [b]now scattered in fragments of varying proportions among several “ethnic groups,” from which it can no longer be differentiated except by a process of delicate analysis.

But were his racial "types" supposed to be homogenous somatic units? To determine, we can just look at his discussion of species:

The data relating to the formation of varieties, species, and races can therefore be applied to the morphological study of man only with certain reservations. “The idea of “species” must rest on the knowledge of two orders of facts, the morphological resemblances of beings and the lineal transmission of their distinctive characters. Here, in fact, the formula of Cuvier is still in force to-day in science. “The species is the union of individuals descending one from the other or from common parents, and of those who resemble them as much as they resemble each other.”[3] (I have italicised the passage relating to descent.) It is necessary then that beings, in order to form a species, should be like each other, but it is obvious that this resemblance cannot be absolute, for there are not two plants or two animals in nature which do not differ from each other by some detail of structure; the likeness or unlikeness is then purely relative; it is bound to vary within certain limits.

Neither Deinker's species nor his races were homogenous in the claimed way -- which is as we would expect since he along with this contemporaries were working from a Darwinian perspective, one in which inter-individual heritable variance was a prerequisite for evolution. To get the types of claimed "racial types" you have to go back to the Linnean view and concern yourself with species.

Now, on that note, you might be interested in this paper: Weiss, K. M., & Lambert, B. W. (2011). When the time seems ripe: Eugenics, the Annals, and the subtle persistence of typological thinking. The authors state:

The idea of type specimens had long been applied to races as types of humans. In 1926, a year after the Annals was launched, Hooton wrote that humans could be divided by morphological characteristics into pure races and individuals admixed among them (Hooton, 1926a). The world's leading human genetics text in the time of the Annals founding, Human Heredity (Baur et al., 1921), expressed a similar view. However, instead of vague morphological measures, its authors insisted that the defining traits should be traits that are clearly Mendelian, and hence genetic, real, reliable, and inherent. Using such traits they, too, sorted humankind into pure races and individuals admixed among them.

This is classic typological thinking, yet Pearson, Fisher et al. were far from naïve. They may have focused on a few visible or imagined behavioural stereotypes, but they knew that there was variation even within racial types: not all Europeans (not even all Jews!) are morphologically or genetically identical. So what kind of “type” were they thinking about?

The idea is a somewhat elusive one that can be related to our simulation exercise. A race can be characterised as a variable type in the following statistical way. In genetic terms, a “race” R would be defined by a vector of allele frequencies at a set of defining loci, say R = (p1, p2, p3, …) for a selected allele at locus 1, 2, 3 …Each individual in a “pure” race is a random draw from this vector of allele frequencies. A race is thus a population in multilocus Hardy–Weinberg genotype proportions based on its defining allele frequency type vector...

One might fancy that typological days are safely locked away in the cobwebs of history, but the same typological thinking is still here, all around us (Weiss & Long, 2009). In one of its more rigorous forms it is called “structure” analysis, after the first of several programs that perform it (Pritchard et al., 2000).

Structure programs divide sampled individuals into statistically homogeneous types (in the above Hardy–Weinberg sense of sampling from a type vector) and other individuals who are admixed among them. [Noted: by "statistically homogeneous types" the authors mean "discrete sets"]. The analysis is a sophisticated statistical genetic partitioning, based on specific assumptions about the nature of human evolutionary history. It has become a routinely used approach by scientists who would not dream of using words like “race” and have no discriminatory or eugenic intent, but who may not be aware of the history of such concepts.

Ironically, as is well known, even with low intrapopulation genotypic identity, if many loci are genotyped it is easy to place individuals in their respective populations (Witherspoon et al., 2007; Nievergelt et al., 2008; Weiss & Long, 2009; Weiss and Lambert, 2010). This is simply a reflection of the distance between the population type vectors. The low level of intrapopulation identity is a surprise only if one thinks as classical typologists seem to have done, in terms that only include a few stereotypical traits.

I highlighted the last sentence because it's another example of poor historiography. The "classical typologists" mentioned e.g., Hooton, Pearson, Fisher et al. did not intend to use "a few stereotypical traits" -- rather they used "multiple variations of bodily form and structure-such as amount of pigment in hair, skin and eyes, form of the hair, shape of the nose, range of stature, relation of head length to head breadth, et cetera." -- and they generally attempted to use as many as possible. Thus Hooton (1926) tells us: "The criteria by which race classifications are established are admittedly physical. Furthermore, they are necessarily multiple. No single bodily character exhibits a sufficient range of variation to enable us to assign to each of the great human groups which require racial classification a distinct and exclusive development of the feature. There are no enough variation of any one feature to go around, unless we confine ourselves to two or three primary and well-nigh hypothetical races...If follows that racial classification must be made upon the basis of a sum total of significant morphological and metrical features according to the measured and observed combinations of distinct variations of such features in large human groups."

The "classical racial typologists" differ from the "contemporaneous population typologists" in that the former used inherited morphological traits while the latter use molecular character. Weiss and Lambert are typical of more sophisticated and thoughtful race opponents. Instead of making up fantastic easily falsifiable once-upon-a-time-stories about what race was once said to have been they give a sensible account and then show that something like this understanding still has currency. They then argue that this modern race-like thinking is problematic because, just like the old type, it's "at beast inaccurate" not for the typically said reasons but given such and such standards and expectations that are rarely applied in other comparable instances.

Edited 2:47 07/19/2015

If race was originally the "weak form" of race naturalism (contra Hochman, Marks) and not a new concept or re-definition, then you need to explain -- why? You've already admitted racial differences are minor. So what is the point in a trivial classification?Furthermore clines capture these rather unimportant differences a lot more accurately: we can simply recognise the variation of a single trait across geographical space without arbitrarily having to impose a line of demarcation. Clinal maps for skin and eye colour, and a few other phenotypic traits have been produced since the 1960s.

Let me address the second point first since it is more easily addressable. Clines are character gradients; races, as I define them, are divisions of organisms. Clines describe singular traits; races, describe groups or organisms delineated in terms of ancestry which as a result differ in complexes of traits. Clines are interesting, but they are not races. Now, I could discuss ancestral relatedness without using discrete categories -- divisions -- but it's easier for me to think discretely, to talk about groups instead of degrees of ancestral affinity. In the same way, I often think about social classes instead of specific characteristics like education -- the former captures correlated variation too -- and when I think of social classes I tend to think categorically -- upper, middle, and lower. You can do otherwise; I am not saying that you should not. I am just asking you to recognize the validity of my way of thinking, since you undoubtedly recognize the validity of similar ways in other instances e.g., thinking about "ethnocultural groups" instead of memetic and somatic character gradients.

Moving back, Hochman and Marks, I believe, formulate their "strong form" differently. Could you please specify what so-said strong sense of race you had in mind? But you say: "You've already admitted racial differences are minor. So what is the point in a trivial classification?"

I never "admitted [that] racial differences" were "minor", rather I noted that they could be minor as is typically the case between minor races. As for major human races, they are moderate (see the quantification in section IV-K of my NofR paper), and between the formally recognized races of other species they are often major. Now, that said, the race concept, per my understanding is useful. This is why this concept is commonly employed in human related research, though under euphemisms. Consider the attached paper below. Let me quote from it:

In our group’s previous study, we found that area measures of cortical surface and total brain volumes of individuals of European descent in the United States correlate significantly with their ancestral geographic locations in Europe [9]. Here, we demonstrate that the three-dimensional geometry of cortical surface is highly predictive of individuals’ genetic ancestry in West Africa, Europe, East Asia, and America, even though their genetic background has been shaped by multiple waves of migratory and admixture events... Besides explaining more ancestry variance than other brain imaging measurements, the 3D geometry of the cortical surface further characterizes distinct regional patterns in the folding and gyrification of the human brain associated with each ancestral lineage. Results...The proportions of genetic ancestry were estimated using principal component (PC) analysis with whole-genome SNP reference panels for ancestry [12–14]. Four continental populations were used as ancestral references: West Africa (YRI, Yoruba in Ibadan), Europe (CEU, Utah residents with Northern and Western European ancestry), East Asia (EA), and America (NA, Native American). The metrics for summarizing genetic ancestry in each ancestral component were standardized as proportions ranging from 0% to 100%. These proportions represent how genetically similar an individual is to the reference population...An implication of our ancestry-related 3D models is that, unless properly controlled for, hidden population structures could present a challenge in brain imaging studies of admixed populations. The regional differences between ancestral groups include changing sulcus depths and folding angles. This issue becomes particularly relevant in large, multisite United States and international brain imaging studies [29].

Now, if you agree that the authors' "ancestral lineages", "ancestry groups", "continental populations", and "population structure" correspond with the race concept I am discussing -- division of a species, the members of which share more ancestry with each other than with members of other divisions, which differ in the frequency of hereditary traits -- then you should at least agree that some researchers consider the concept -- whether expressed statistically or otherwise -- to have utility and to be important in context to human, let along non-human related research. Marks and Hochmann are not morons. They are well aware of the ongoing research that employs the concept -- if defined statistically -- I am speaking of. As such, they have but two choices, they could acknowledge that the research employs a common race concept -- if not referred to as race -- and then try to assault the research a la:

“It appears that many scientists do not even believe this distinction makes a difference; they have concocted a thinly disguised euphemism for race they hope will not stir up as much controversy. Geographic ancestry has not replaced race — it has modernized it.” (Roberts, 2011)

“Thus, though the “population” concept is touted as an advancement in freeing genomics from racial bias, it is merely a terminological mask for “race” in genomics… The language employed to talk about “race” without talking about it overtly then takes the form of racial euphemisms like “population.” (Williams, 2015)

Or they can try to argue that the concept being employed is radically different from what was originally called race. They reasonably choose the latter option. Now a considerable portion of my NofR paper attempts to show that these population genetic concepts -- whether as employed in zoology or in medical genetic research -- are descendents of the early (intraspecific) race one(s) and, moreover, that they are ones which have undergone so little modification that referring to them as "race" -- or recognizing them as "race" concepts -- is well justified. Now, as for the general utility, I discussed this:

What is race? The term means many related things and is thus a polyseme. Here, we are not interested in “race” as either a term or a general notion but as a specific concept which picks out a type of biological variation not well captured by other concepts in the domain of biology. We might dispense with the term “race” were it not to appropriately describe the concept of interest and to help facilitate thinking about it. But what is this concept? To ask this question is to request examples of the sort of biological variation that we are trying to describe. Consider the following types of variation: New Yorkers and Parisians, blonds and brunets, East Asians and Europeans in New York, and humans and horses. From the perspective of biology, we would properly refer to the first as "(spatial) populations," the second as "morphs," and the fourth as "species." But what of the third? These are strangely sounding groups. After all, how is someone an ‘East Asian’ and yet also a ‘New Yorker’? Perhaps what is meant is someone who once lived in East Asia – who migrated from the East Asian (spatial) population –and who now lives in New York? Yet what if both our East Asians and Europeans were second or third generation immigrants, ones born in New York? In what way would such groupings be biological? Perhaps, in fact, there is nothing biological to speak of beyond the types of divisions which we have already named. Perhaps our East Asians and Europeans, as such, are nothing at all, biologically speaking.

I would like to think about: divisions of a species which differ in the frequency of hereditary traits because the members share more ancestry with members of the same divisions than with members of other ones. I don't feel that I owe you a justification for why. Perhaps I am interested in understanding evolutionary processes; perhaps I wish to be a biological racist and discriminate on the grounds of inclusive fitness; perhaps I just like categorizing people; perhaps it's easier for me to think of ancestral variation -- and so continuous correlated variation -- discretely; perhaps I wish to research the relationship between outcome differences and genomically defined racial ancestry in mixed populations; perhaps all of the above; perhaps none.

Now, (1) do you grant that my concept is coherent? (2) Do you grant that human races, so defined, really exist in the commonsense sense in which forests do? (3) Do you grant that the "folk classifications" which I discuss (not e.g., "Asian Americans, but e.g., East Asians) are consistent with this concept? (4) Do you grant that populations genetic concepts called e.g., ancestry groups -- which delineate groups using innumerous ancestrally informative molecular markers, cut out comparable classes? (5) Do you grant that there is a striking conceptual resemblance between my concept and these population genetic ones? (6) Do you grant that many researchers find the latter to be utile? If yes, what possibly then do we disagree about? It can only be on whether the concept I am discussing matches with some older concept called race. Well, I have showed, I think, that it descends from this concept. It's easy to trace the concept's lineage. The only issue then is whether there was so much modification along the way that the concept temporally speciated and thus "should" not be recognized as representing one concept. I explain why I think that the concept was cross temporally stable enough to be recognized as one and the same basic concept (cf, atoms, elements, and species) and I show that many common objections, e.g., that race was commonly thought to be...[inset outlandish entity], are absurd. We both agree that there have been modifications -- and I accept that the issue is a matter of judgement and that you may come to a different conclusion. Though, I would like to hear a sound case.

Now, regarding Dobzhansky try "Mankind Evolving" (1963): http://www.unz.org/Pub/DobzhanskyTheodosius-1962

Here, again, he calls the major human races "subspecies". Interestingly, he has a section called "races, classes, and castes as mendelian populations" in which he is careful to not equate classes and castes with races, though he does not explain why. He does note again that race classifications should be based on all variable traits. (This is the third piece in which he says this.) And he argues that it would be absurd to class siblings or parents-offspring dyads into separate races. (This is the second book in which he says this.) This is all rather puzzling. If social classes are mendelian population (which obviously differ on average) why are they not races? Yet if they are races, why could not sibs be of different races -- surely some of my sibs are in very different social classes than I. And if we delineated groups by all variable genes, there is no way that social classes would form races in multiethnic countries since the genetic variance between social classes -- defined by a few traits -- is much less than that between groups defined by propinquity of descent. I have to say that either I am utterly confused or that Dobzhansky's concept is somewhat so and that Gannet missed this.

Biology Today: An Issues Approach
By Eli C. Minkoff, Pamela J. Baker p. 195:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_Today:_An_Issues_Approach

Again, I asked for primary references because the historiography is so poor. Here were some other (demonstrably false) claims:

We argue that the recent research in genetics demonstrates that certain racial, and also ethnic, categories have a biological basis in statistically discernible clusters of alleles rather than in the traditional notions of human races as arising from categorically distinct ancestries or as possessing categorically unique essences (Marks 2006; Spickard 1992).

Both Linnaeus and Blumenbach were 18th century figures cited by Hrdlicka (1918a) for placing man within the natural history tradition ... The races defined by the western race concept were codified by Linnaeus and by the definitive 10th edition of Systemae Naturae (Linnaeus, 1758); he described five subspecies of humans listing both morphological and behavioral characteristics of each type that were considered a part of the essence of the category and were implicitly (and explicitly) understood to be part of the intrinsic biology of the race... The essence of the categories, believed to be stable and unchanging, was defined by science.

In the spirit of Aristotle, subspecies were first defined as types – as natural kinds defined in terms of an essential property possessed by all and only the members of the same subspecies.

Blumenbach stressed the unchanging and immutable nature of the races, apparently assuming that intermarriage never occurred.

[quote='Krom' pid='3469' dateline='1437317101']
Biology Today: An Issues Approach
By Eli C. Minkoff, Pamela J. Baker p. 195:



I see five claims:

(1) According to the "morphological concept" --> there were common features which were invariant throughout time and group
(2) Morphological concept --> was always a typological concept
(3) Typological concepts --> ignored intra-individual variation
(4) Morphological/typological concepts --> were based on Platonic essences
(5) Supporters of typological race concepts --> were supporters of typological species concepts

By "race" the authors obviously don't mean "species" per (5). Yet, intraspecific divisions were not understood to have platonic essences (in an actual platonic sense). Rather, Linnean species were understood to have aristotelian-like essences which were understood to be invariant across time and groups. The morphological concept of both species and races was not equivalent to a typological one, unless we are dealing with the authors' idiosyncratic definition. For example, Darwin's concept is commonly said to be a morphological one e.g.,

"To Darwin, the origin of species became the origin of the morphological gaps between populations. This species concept has been called the morphological species concept, although it emphasizes the clustering of members of the same species in morphological space" implementation."http://www.ucl.ac.uk/taxome/jim/Sp/speconc.html

Typological concepts such as Hooton's did not ignore intra-specific variation. Thus I quoted:

This is classic typological thinking, yet Pearson, Fisher et al. were far from naïve. They may have focused on a few visible or imagined behavioural stereotypes, but they knew that there was variation even within racial types: not all Europeans (not even all Jews!) are morphologically or genetically identical. So what kind of “type” were they thinking about?...

As far as I can tell, all 5 claims are false unless we adopt idiosyncratic definitions, which equate "morphological concept" with "typological concept" with "one invariant across time and space" with one based on "Platonic essences". And if we do this, I would wager that no one ever held this position.

That said, after searching a bit, I did find one homogenous-typological (intraspecific) race concept for you. Would you like me to point it out?

duplicate.

Typology didn't take in-group/intra population variation into account because it ignored in situ selection, and drift. For example Hooton, like Coon, Seligman etc, thought narrow nosed crania from East Africa and Egypt was the result of "Caucasoid" (Near-Eastern/South European) gene flow (they had to always involve "race mixture" models):

"An earlier generation of anthropologists tried to explain face form in the Horn of Africa as the result of admixture from hypothetical “wandering Caucasoids,” (Adams, 1967, 1979; MacGaffey, 1966; Seligman, 1913, 1915, 19341, but that explanation founders on the paradox of why that supposedly potent “Caucasoid” people contributed a dominant quantity of genes for nose and face form but none for skin color or limb proportions. It makes far better sense to regard the adaptively significant features seen in the Horn of Africa as solely an in situ response on the part of separate adaptive traits to the selective forces present in the hot dry tropics of eastern Africa." (Brace et al. 1993)

What is Brace saying, that horn of African populations do not often represent Negroid-Caucasoid admixed ones. Could you post the article? The excerpt sounds idiotic. It's well established that there is substantial admix in the HOA; debated is the time of occurrence, see: e.g., Hodgson(2014) "Early back-to-Africa migration into the Horn of Africa".

The explanation to Brace's "paradox" would be that variance in craniometric features is largely due to neutral variation which indexes descent (and is slow to change through selection); while variance in "skin color or limb proportions" are heavily under selection, which indexes modification. In this passage the guy sounds either like a complete moron or sophist -- but to better judge I would have to read the full paper.

But as to your point, what is it precisely -- that Hooton and other biometricians recognized individual variation but believed -- despite being Darwinists -- that it resulted only from the mixing of once pure races which were though to lack internal variability? How do you imagine that they thought that these races came about in the first place -- if not through selection on individual variation? Anyways, if you could clarify this point, I will be better able to refer you to specific passages.

(The problem for you is that, and I can show this through primary textual references, the Darwinists necessary (correctly) believed in species and racial heterogeneity, since selection and drift acting on individual variation was recognized as being what allowed for racination and latter speciation. So none of your Darwinian racialists will believe in (literally) homogenous primary or secondary races/subraces -- they will believe in, instead, relatively "homogenous" races/subraces, where what that means is rarely quantified and therefore difficult to show to be outlandish. And before Darwin, you had your monogenists and polygenists, who thought that races, respectively, were constant varieties or species. The former were not homogenous -- they included inconstant varieties -- and the latter were not intraspecific races. What you need is someone who (a) disliked the monogenist pretensions that differences were relatively unimportant, (b) was pre-Darwinian, (c) wasn't willing to contravene scripture and sign onto polygenism, and (d) was willing to propose a quirky biologically weird theory.)

And please stop quoting nonsense like this Brace passage and the one about platonic forms.

Edits.

I'm saying your (or any) race concept it isn't useful because there is more variation in populations than between them, and the remaining variation that has a geographical structure is trivial.

Quote: "The accurate determination of ‘race’ is virtually impossible with distribution of human variation within and between populations. For this reason, no-matter how sophisticated the method, there is no way to consistently identify an individual as belonging to one specific ‘race’.

You are making one of two arguments here:
(1) "race concept isn't useful because there is more variation in populations than between them" which precludes the accurate classification of humans into racial (i.e., genealogy-based) groups.
(2) "race concept isn't useful because there is more variation in populations than between them" which means that differences between said-human groups are of no importance.

Could you clarify which one? Position one is clearly false (despite it often being restated) since one can use numerous molecular markers to classify individuals into races. Even lewontin admitted this. In the same paper Lewontin clarified that his argument was (2). I noted:

This argument has been shown to be unsound. For the explanation why, readers are referred to the discussions of Mitton (1977; 1978), Risch et al. (2002), Edwards (2003), Witherspoon et al. (2007), Gao and Martin (2009), and Tal (2012). What is odd is that the idea of taking into account multiple indexes when making a racial classification is hardly new. Blumenbach in 1806 passingly noted that human racial classifications, being classifications in a natural system, should be based on “all bodily indications alike." Darwin noted that human racial classifications should be based on a full pedigree; moreover, he discussed the importance of correlated variation when it came to classification in general. In 1950, William Boyd showed how one could use multiple genetic loci to make such a classification and noted that one should use all possible genetic loci when doing so. And Lewontin (1978), in reply to Mitton (1977), agreed that it was obvious that one could divide humankind into biological races using multiple loci.

Here is an excerpt from Lewontin's reply to Mitton:

Indeed, the product approaches zero as the number of loci increases, so that when enough loci are looked at the multilocus identity between groups will be arbitrarily small as compared to the identity between individuals within populations...However, that remark completely misses the point. For any number of loci, large or small, the multiplicative measure used by Mitton necessarily gives a smaller proportion of the variation within groups than does the average of the single-locus values, and the magnitude of the difference depends upon the number of loci examined. The correct way to use all of the information from all of the loci is to use some kind of an arithmetic average, rather than a multiplicative one. Otherwise, the result is a tautology without any meaning for the real world.

Lewontin concedes Mitton's point -- and even says that it's tautologically true -- but then argues that what "really" matters is the average difference. According to him, yes, you can accurately classify -- because in a highly multi-variate analysis, in which traits are correlated, the variance between will be smaller than within -- but, he argues, the mean differences are still small.

Now, the above pattern roughly holds when it comes to e.g., craniometric traits as shown by Howell and others. Of course you have to use enough variables; in Howell's data, which you can freely download, there are around 80 measures. For other sets of traits it depends on how well they index genealogical relationship. This is why you have to weight by how well a character indexes descent.

Now, regarding the paper you cite, the authors fallaciously state:

"Since the majority of the biological variation in the human species occurs
among individuals with the minority being due to geographic differences (Brace
2005; Henneberg 2010; Lewontin 1976), it seems impossible to construct a  precise method of ‘racial’ identification."

This is obviously an erroneous claim for the reasons discussed above. (One of the benefits of defining race in terms of pedigree is that you can construct definite classifications -- assuming that you have very reliable indexes -- since genealogical relationship is a fact of the world.)

Now, as to their analysis, it looks like they tried to assign 20 individuals of unknown origin (e.g., "teaching skeletons bought by the University from India early in the 20th century)" into 9 different reference populations based on different traits using 9 different methods. Worse, 5/9 of there methods appear to be crude "counting methods" (1,3,4,5,6), which are quite outdated. Karl Pearson introduced multivate methods for racial analysis in the early 1900s e.g., Pearson's Coefficient of Racial Likeness.) I can't imagine how this paper passed review; do you not see the problems? Here were some of the possible reference groups:

1. White European or Black/American Indian/Eskimo
2. White European or Black or American Indian
3. Caucasoid or Mongoloid or Negroid
7. White or Black or East Asian/American Indian/Polynesian
8. South African White or South African Black
9. South African White or South African Black

So if we had an East Asian sample and perfectly reliable indexes, the analyses would assign it to Mongoloid for (2) and would fit it, procrustean style, into either "black" or "White" for 8 or 9. Don't you see that this would necessarily results in discordance? Did you even read the paper with a critical eye? In contrast to this, there are numerous well done analyses which show that based on x morphological characters you can reliable assign individuals into natural divisions.

I will just pretend that you didn't reference that paper, so as to keep my opinion of you inflated.

Now you said:

Carleton Coon, Edward E. Hunt Jr., William W. Howells, Joseph B. Birdsell, Stanley Marion Garn, Sherwood Washburn, William S. Laughlin, Harry L. Shapiro, Laurence Angel, Alice M. Brues, Gabriel Ward Lasker and Marshall T. Newman.

Only Coon and Brues did not give up race. All the others abandoned the racial approach for clines to analyse human biological variation (from the 1960s-80s) because they came to see race as useless.

This is an interesting claim, though of little relevance to our discussion. Could you provide a cite for Garn, Howell, and Birdell -- and maybe the others. If in fact some of them dropped "race" for "cline" I would like to see what they meant by "cline", since many people use it to mean "population continua" and not, properly, "character gradient" (which is how you defined it above and how I define it consistent with the original usage). The former, as I have pointed out are not antithetical to race since intraspecific races, as classically understood, can be cut out of these.

...............

Now, before I discuss the problem with argument (2) above, I would like you to clarify whether you mean (1, or 2). If (2), could you clarify the logic? Specifically, how would you quantify "importance" in terms of average racial difference?

(I, of course, assume that you mean that "race classifications are not useful -- in context to humans -- because..."; I imagine that you grant -- given your utility criteria -- that classifications would be useful as applied to certain other species. And that the race concept would be useful in deciding if human racial classifications were utile. No? Could you try to be a little more precise with your wording?)

"In accord with Dixon's views, Hooton believed the races were different enough to be separate species, writing: "the differences between the several races are quite as marked as usually serve to distinguish species in animals." (Wolpoff & Caspari, 1997, p. 143)

None of the race typologists in the early 20th century were arguing the variation between races was trivial/minor. Will you admit you are wrong about this?

It was the anti-typologist Franz Boas, who first showed "any existing biological differences are of minor importance" between putative races (Race, Language, and Culture. [1940], University of Chicago Press p. 13).

Here, I see two arguments:
(a) race typologists in the early 20th century (generally) argued that the variation between races was non-trivial/major.
(b) race theorists prior to Boas (generally) argued that the variation between races was non-trivial/major.

Would you agree that monogenists such as Prichard argued that the variation was relatively unimportant -- since it was of the intraspecific type?

A problem with both claims about the bimetric typologists is that "non-trivial/major"/"trivial/minor" is a somewhat subjective estimate; as such, it's difficult to put claims on a common metric and to evaluate if they overestimated differences.

For example, in my section IV-K I argued that differences between major human races were often "large" given social scientific standards. Regarding importance, I noted that sociologists, at least in the U.S., consider ethnic differences in e.g., education and income to be very important and large despite the fact that the differences typically account for less then 10% of the total population variance. I might apply Lewontin's logic to ethnic differences and argue that "racial inequality" doesn't exist -- but I feel that doing so would be silly. Anyways, I can't say that our sociologists are wrong or are overestimating the magnitude of differences, because "large" and "significant" are not quantitative estimates.

So how would you propose to evaluate early 20th century qualitative claims? I would think that we would just look at their quantitative data. Isn't it reasonable to assume that they thought that differences were no larger than their reported data showed? If so, since they present the data with means and standard deviations we can just look at that. If it shows differences no larger than what is now known, we can conclude that they though that differences were no larger or significant than they quantitatively are. If so, then I would just have to show that their metrical data was not greatly off to show that their evaluations were not. Do you agree?

And here's the Brace paper:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.1330360603/pdf

So Brace writes:

Evidently, traits that are distributed in conjunction with the graded intensity oftheir controlling selective forces will be poor indicators of population relationships
(Darwin, 1859). This is the logic behind Livingstone’s classic phrase, “There are no
races, there are only clines” (Livingstone, 1962:279). The use of a characterization
of a single trait that is under selective force control to generalize about any particular human population can only create confusion. This then will be the inevitable consequence of the use of a description of skin color to say anything about the general nature of human biological variation...

Figure 2 might be construed as providing support for the hoary folk belief that modern Homo sapiens can be sorted into three convenient “races”: “caucasoid,” “mongoloid,” and “negroid.” When the number of separate regional representatives is multiplied, however, it becomes clear that the ties between adjacent twigs on the dendrograms are simply indications of the extent to which geographically adjacent people are genetically related to each other rather than the extent to which they reflect anything that could be called a “racial” essence. Large geographic regions obviously will have many resident and related populations, and an assessment of their trivial traits will automatically produce adjacent twigs on a dendrogram which by definition constitute a cluster.

So, Brace's results support the idea that humans can be divided up into divisions delineated by propinquity of descent, by not ones divided by "essences". Ok, but location in genealogical space can constitute relational essences. So, in fact human can be divided into essentialist group, jut not intrinsic essentialist ones.

Remarkably, Blumenbach’s consideration of Egyptian form in the perspective of what he knew about the worldwide spectrum of human biological variation was more sophisticated than the crude, categorical “eitherior” treatment of his 19th and 20th century successors. He identified three “varieties in the national physiognomy of the ancient Egyptians:” an “Ethiopian cast,” “one approaching to the Hindoo” and a “mixed, partaking in a manner of both the former” (1794:191, original emphasis).His use of the term “mixed,” however, did not refer to the actual mixing of separate populations. Instead, it was a purely descriptive expression. He concluded that “the Egyptians will find their place between the Caucasian and the Bthiopian,” where he was using the term “Ethiopian” to refer to all of sub-Saharan Africa (1794: 193).

I would of course agree that Blumenbach’s considerations were sophisticated. I would disagree that later ones were not. Though we would have to look on a case by case basis.

The possibility of a connection between South Asia and Egypt emerged once
again as a result of the metric exercises carried out by some of the proteges of Karl Pearson in London. While there was a continuing effort to see something “negroid” in the Predynastic Egyptians (Morant, 1935, 19371, the use of the Coefficient of Racial Likeness managed to provide a quantitative dimension to Blumenbach’s assessment. Cranial similarities were shown between Predynastic Egyptians and “the primitive Indian, the Dravidian and the Veddah,” at the same time that a clear-cut separation from the “Negro type” was noted (Stoessiger, 1927:147)... Both discriminant function (Fisher, 193613, 1938) and D2 (Mahalanobis, 1930, 1936, 1949) have been accepted as useful approaches to population comparisons that are not plagued by the problems of the Coefficient of Racial Likeness (Howells, 1973), and we have used discriminant functions to produce the values in Table 5.

So the method Brace uses is just a more sophisticated version of the one used by biometric typologists.

[Blumenbach's] successors (except Prichard) adopted an increasingly categorical and essentialist view of the nature of human biological variation where a population was either one thing or another-or a literal mixture between them. Blumenbach, however, saw human form as grading without break from one region to another (Blumenbach, 1865). The continuum could be cut however one might choose to suit one’s convenience.

It wasn't just Blumenbach, but other race theorists such as Buffon and later Darwin. But the question is whether our mysterious "typologists" thought so too. Regarding Aristotlean essentialism, classics scholar James Lennox commented that Aristotle's essentialism “is at once sophisticated and remarkably unlike what passes for "Aristotelian essentialism" in modern philosophy”. He is absolutely correct; the same, I imagine, holds for 19th/20th century biometric typology.

The old-fashioned chimerical concept of “race” is hopelessly inadequate to deal with the human biological reality of Egypt, ancient or modern. But neither the use of clines nor clusters alone can present a complete account. An assessment of both is necessary before we can understand the biological nature of the people of the Nile valley.

Ok, but Braces "clusters" are Buffon's, Blumenbach's, and Darwin's -- and I would argue Hooton's -- races. So, in the end he is saying that we need both "cline" (character gradient) and "race" (correlated ensemble of character which index relationship) concepts. It's funny how the stuff you cite never really supports the stuff you say, when you look at what is discussed, not the words.

But you say:

The "race types" were an ideal/eidos, this is why. This view did not disappear after Darwin, it continued.

Again, I would like to see a specific references. I am 100% sure that you are confusing issues; a platonic eidos was a transcendent form, an Aristotelian essence was an immanent one or structural design/genetic program. Species realists believed in something like the latter and believed that these did not change over generations.

Now, the problem with your claims is that "types" and "essences" in the sense of eidos refer to species realist essences. So for example:

In this century, the systematist Ernst Mayr (eg, [1970]) has championed the view that what he calls 'typological thinking' has been abandoned by modern biologists in favour of what he calls 'population thinking'. Typology is the view that there are 'types' - unchanging forms that are what makes a species what it is. It derives from the philosophy of Plato, who claimed that true knowledge is knowledge of the Idea (Greek eidos ).

By definition these could not have been races in the sense of intraspecific divisions which diverged from a species common stock (Buffonian/Darwinain races). When you claim that races were thought of this way you are using "race" in the sense of "species" (as used by Morton and Nott) -- when doing so you are discussing a different concept. To be clear, insofar as our biometric typologists were discussing intraspecific race (divisions of a species), they were not discussing edios.

But what were they discussing. Let's refer to Hooton's from Up from Ape and finish that discussion:

On the evolution of races and racial classifications

(Pith: Populations becomes isolated and differentiate due to natural selection on individual variants; they can be divided into primary races, primary subraces, secondary races, secondary subraces. Comment: this is clearly a Darwinian frame as we would expect; no ever-present edios.)

http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4489
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4504
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4490
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4491
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4492
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4493
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4494
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4495
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4496
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4497

On the measure of races

(Pith: Races are diagnosed by quantitative and qualitative differences. Comment: quantitative differences necessitates individual variation; qualitative differences expressed in frequencies do likewise.)

http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4499
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4500
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4501

One variants in races and homogeneity

(Pith: With isolation and inbreeding races become increasing homogenous. Comment: Hotoon speaks of "more or less" and "relative" homogeneity; this implies individual variation -- both in his primary and secondary races -- as does the occurrence of novel mutations and ability of primary races to subracinate and species to racinate.)

http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4498
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4502
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4503
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4487
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4486
http://humanvarieties.org/?attachment_id=4505

(See also his discussion of somatotypes.)

What we can say is that Hooton did not emphasize individual variation. But he clearly recognized it and it shows up in his metrical data.

But what were they discussing. Let's refer to Hooton's from Up from Ape and finish that discussion:

In case you missed it, here's the point: Hooton was a Darwinian. His primary races differentiated from a common species population because selection acted on individual-variants and because populations were isolated. In the same way his primary subraces differentiated within primary races. Since these primary races included primary subraces and individual variation which allowed for subracianation, they were necessarily somewhat heterogenous. So you are down to arguing that he over-estimated the relative homogeneity of primary races -- calling them along with some sibships and some family stocks "types" or molds. Well, how shall we evaluate that position? "Type" versus "population" sounds a lot like descriptive emphasis to me.

Oh, I hope that you didn't miss this passage:

"...indeed, there are no such profound morphological and physiological differences between Mongoloids, Negroids, and Whites, as would seem to justify the implication of any very great and geologically ancient genetic discontinuities between these groups, it would seem preferable to recognize them simply as different races. Then because the differences between the various subgroupings within the three great or primary races are obviously more recent and quantitatively and qualitatively less than exist between the primary races respectively, it becomes necessary to relegate them to the subrace category"

You're mistaken about genetics:

This is not false (which you claim). Craig Venter and James Watson for example are more genetically similar to Seong-Jin Kim, than to each other:

Quote: (Barbujani & Pigliucci, 2013)

Naturally, I discussed the matter:

II-H. Genomic-Genealogical Complications
...

This suggests that, on the individual level, genealogical and genomic similarity need not always correspond. However the results are not clear cut. Tal (2012), discussing the example of James Watson, Craig Venter, and Seong-Jin Kim, noted:

"Our model also facilitates the assessment of results from analysis of complete genome sequences. The study of Ahn et al. (2009) suggests that the pairwise distances among three individuals, a Korean (“SJK”), Craig Venter and James Watson, measured by multilocus ASD, are roughly similar despite the distinct geographical origin of SJK in relation to Venter and Watson (see also their Fig. 2 E). These results are surprising in light of our model for n , which predicts that for worldwide distant populations (FST > 0.13) the probability for such an occurrence is virtually zero given as little as 200 independent and informative SNPs (Appendix F, Fig. F.1). In fact, with roughly 3.5 million SNPs sequenced in each individual genome, the pairwise distances Venter–Watson and Venter–SJK (or Watson–SJK) must show substantial discrepancy, since the ratio of average pairwise distances RAD is above 1.3 already at FST = 0.10 (see Fig. 5A). The paradoxical result is most likely an artifact of the high error rate and low coverage in Watson’s SNP calling (Yngvadottir et al., 2009)."

In short, it seems quite unlikely that Venter actually shares more genetic information with Kim than with Watson. Tal (2012) found the following, based on a hypothetical infinite number of slightly informative loci:

"The probability that a random pair of individuals from the same population is more genetically dissimilar than a random pair from distinct populations is primarily dependent on the number of informative polymorphic loci across genomes from the total population pool. This probability asymptotically approaches zero with a sufficiently large number of informative loci, even in the case of close or admixed population."

The reason for the disagreement between the results of Tal (2012) and Witherspoon et al. (2007) concerning close and admixed populations is not clear. Tal's (2012) results fit with those of Gao and Martin (2009) who found almost complete differentiation between populations when using a large number of loci. Whatever the case, we have to take into account possible instances of such discordance. When/if this occurs what does one do? There are two possibilities...

I solicited comments from both Barbujani and Pigliucci but after an initial exchange they did not follow up, presumably because they had nothing to say. It's funny that they cite this example (based on data from 2008), since whole genome data has become quite common -- if Barbujani & Pigliucci's position were true, the discordance would have been obvious in the 1000 Genomes sample. Also, it's odd because Watson's data has been updated, so the low coverage hypothesis could readily be disconfirmed.

Whatever the case, since I am an imaginative fellow, I did entertain the possibility:

Since we are advancing a general race concept, we will not decide which is the better method of defining "overall" genetic similarity in the case of genomic and genealogical discordance. We would suggest going with genomic similarity, though. If two horses begat, in the natural way, a genomic and phenotypic human, most people would probably classify the genealogical horse genomic human as a human. That is, we imagine that most people would classify by genomic phenotypic similarity, and not pedigree, in cases of discordance. So, when it comes to racial groups, doing the same would seem to be reasonable. Whatever the case, we leave the issue undetermined. These are just different formulations of a basic conception. In practice, this is not a pressing matter since, on the individual level, the correspondence between the two forms of genetic relatedness is extremely high when dealing with non-trivially-differentiated populations

In principle genomic similarity can be discordant with genealogical and genotypic similarity (the latter meaning similarity in coding DNA). In these cases, one would have to specify how to define race, species, etc.. You see this problem presently in taxonomy at least on higher order levels, where classifications delineated strictly by descent (i.e., cladistic ones) differ from those delineated genomic similarity. In practice, this is a non-issue especially when dealing with individual assignment to divisions. With enough ancestry informative markers you can without exception assign individuals their pedigree defined populations (or if the individuals are admixed, to some higher order or admixed population).

Anyways, in regards to our earlier discussion, I found the following passage in Darwin's "The Variation of Animals & Plants Under Domestication":

"Pallas maintained, and he has had some followers, that variability depends exclusively on the crossing of primordially distinct forms...In an early part of this chapter it was stated that Pallas and a few other naturalists maintain that variability is wholly due to crossing. If this means that new characters never spontaneously appear in our domestic races, but that they are all directly derived from certain aboriginal species, the doctrine is little less than absurd; for it implies that animals like Italian greyhounds, pug-dogs, bull-dogs, pouter and fantail pigeons, etc., were able to exist in a state of nature. But the doctrine may mean something widely different, namely, that the crossing of distinct species is the sole cause of the first appearance of new characters, and that without this aid man could not have formed his various breeds. As, however, new characters have appeared in certain cases by bud-variation, we may conclude with certainty that crossing is not necessary for variability."

I would like to see what Pallas actually had to say. Can you look for his work? He seems to be cited on account of the unusuality of his position.

I wonder if he thought that "races" were hybrid Linnean species (i.e., creator made ones) -- from what I recall, Linnaeus conjectured something like this regarding "constant varieties" -- if so, he would not have been discussing races in the sense of divisions of a species which descended from a common stock. The trick, for you, is to find someone who actually believed that races as "divisions of a species which descended from a common stock" were homogenous.

I only found one case and the author was a historian, not natural scientist. He also only seemed to be semi-serious when proposing his model.