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Dear Ray I believe that 'race'/'ethnic group' are important sociological constructs which (unfortunately) correlate highly with many social outcomes. I do not believe that human 'races' are meaningful genetic constructs. Some subdivisions have both biological and sociological meaning - such as sex/gender. Others like 'race' and 'class'/'caste' are meaningful sociological concepts but not meaningful 'biological' concepts. Best wishes Dave Alan Zaslavsky wrote: >On Sun, 2 Nov 2003, Ray Thomas wrote: > > >>Maybe Dave Gordon was talking to the wrong people in Washington. The >>people who need convincing that race is not a scientific construction is the >>US Bureau of Statistics. The Bureau actually has a heading on their >>website that lists about 200 "Racial statistics news releases" that go back >>to 1996. One of the more recent, dated June 12, 2003, starts as follows: >> >> > >It would be silly to conclude from the effort devoted to measuring "race" >by the U.S. Census Bureau that they believe that race is a scientific >(much less biological) construct. Collection of "race" information is a >statutory requirement upon the Bureau, mostly due to laws intended to >monitor compliance with civil rights provisions with respect to >legislative districting and a number of other issues. Modifications of >the "racial" categories have taken place over the years to make the >answers more reliable (in the measurement sense, i.e. to maximize the >extent to which the same answer will be provided by the same person at >different times and in different data systems) and in response to >political pressures, often from the affected groups. > >There is no doubt that "race" is a widely used social categorization in >the U.S. and furthermore corresponds to a significant extent to the lines >along which social goods are inequitably divided (even after controlling >for measures of social class such as income or occupation), hence the >widespread use of racial categories in measuring disparities of various >kinds within the U.S. population. Of course when racism has vanished then >we won't have to worry about that any more, but in the meantime ... > >Alan Zaslavsky >Harvard Medical School >[log in to unmask] > >****************************************************** >Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your >message will go only to the sender of this message. >If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's >'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically >to [log in to unmask] >******************************************************* > > > -- Dave Gordon Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research University of Bristol 8 Priory Road Bristol BS8 1TZ, UK E-Mail: [log in to unmask] Tel: (44)-(117)-954 6761 Fax: (44)-(117)-954 6756 ****************************************************** Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your message will go only to the sender of this message. If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically to [log in to unmask] *******************************************************