Race Reconciled Re-Debunks Race – Anthropology 1.6

Race Reconciled Re-Debunks Race – Anthropology 1.6

Living Anthropologically: Anthropology – Understanding – Possibility
2013-02-27

Jason Antrosio, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York

In May 2009, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology published Race Reconciled, a special issue with cutting-edge work by biological anthropologists. These researchers have read the critique of Richard Lewontin, and some have been in the forefront of re-examining Lewontin’s work (see previous section Attacking Anthropology and the Race Revival and see also the post on Teaching Race Anthropologically). These researchers do not agree on everything, and they have pointed debates. They are from the number-crunching and bone-measuring side of anthropology. Some of the articles are dense and difficult reading, with enough numbers, statistical tables, and computer simulations to make it hardly like reading at all.

Still, it is important to plow through the findings, because it is what our best bone measurers and number crunchers can accomplish. They very clearly recognize human biological variation. They see variation and measure it every day, examining things people cannot even visibly discern, like tiny bone markers and genetic material. And with all the disagreements, number-crunching, and consideration of how much humans vary, they agree,

Race is not an accurate or productive way to describe human biological variation” –Heather J.H. Edgar and Keith L. Hunley, Race Reconciled, 2009:2

Why?…

Read the entire article here.

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