The concept of race has historically been flawed at best. This type of human categorization, which draws no basis of biological evidence, has been used for centuries to successfully subjugate large groups of people, paving the way for white supremacists to gain even more emotional, and ergo economic, control over the American working class. Patrick Appel is not the first to delve into the myth of “race”, but he does offer a well-rounded, professionally composed vindication that responds to several misinterpretations of scientific research in the field of genetics. Appel presents this through his 2014 article, “Why ‘Race’ Isn’t Biological.” Biologically, races are defined as “genetically distinct populations within the same species” (Live
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With support from Dr. Charles W. Mills, biologist H. Allen Orr, and anthropologist Agustín Fuentes, he comes to the conclusion that race is a social construct. He presents several justifications by biologist Jerry Coyne along with writers Nicholas Wade and Razib Khan that support the opposite viewpoint before explaining why all evidence “still fails to prove that races are biological” (Appel). Appel quotes several believers of biological racism in his article in order to directly disprove their rationalizations. While his adversaries reference plenty of scientific studies and research, Agustin Fuentes refutes their logic, protesting, “This is not to say that humans don’t vary biologically, we do, a lot. But rather that the variation is not racially distributed.” Essentially, Nicholas Wade, who is not a scientist by any means, manipulated scientific information in order to prove his point. Appel finishes with an assertion that “calling these populations ‘races’ is a semantic rather than a scientific decision” (Appel). He is in agreement with Jacqueline Howard in that vocabulary is a major complication in this
With support from Dr. Charles W. Mills, biologist H. Allen Orr, and anthropologist Agustín Fuentes, he comes to the conclusion that race is a social construct. He presents several justifications by biologist Jerry Coyne along with writers Nicholas Wade and Razib Khan that support the opposite viewpoint before explaining why all evidence “still fails to prove that races are biological” (Appel). Appel quotes several believers of biological racism in his article in order to directly disprove their rationalizations. While his adversaries reference plenty of scientific studies and research, Agustin Fuentes refutes their logic, protesting, “This is not to say that humans don’t vary biologically, we do, a lot. But rather that the variation is not racially distributed.” Essentially, Nicholas Wade, who is not a scientist by any means, manipulated scientific information in order to prove his point. Appel finishes with an assertion that “calling these populations ‘races’ is a semantic rather than a scientific decision” (Appel). He is in agreement with Jacqueline Howard in that vocabulary is a major complication in this