1. Forensic Anthropology Race Lecture
Race as a Biological Concept
Stephen Jay Gould: Evolutionary Biologist
-“Race is an outdated creation of the human mind that attempts to simplify
biological complexity by organizing it into categories.”
Clyde Snow- Forensic Anthropologist
“Race is real, & it can be describes with 80% accuracy.” (pulled 80% out of no ware
made it up a lot of forensic anthropologist still think along these lines)
Race (official def. in dictionary) – “a local geographic population distinguishes as a more or less
distinct group by genetically transmitted & obvious physical characteristics.
*truth- so many different characteristics are similar in different groups of people
Ethnicity – developed 1950’s, refers to cultural characteristics that distinguish groups people
*not a biological concept & it is not applied for non-human animals
***we impose categories on others, ethnicity is self-defined***
Race as a biological concept
Is defines in the biological sciences as a “subspecies”
but were all only 1 species that’s alive (Homo sapiens sapiens) we aren’t
more than one subspecies, there is a ton of variation but we
simply can’t categorize it
Species- can mate & produce viable offspring
Where did it begin?
Carl von Linnea.k.aCarolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) Swedish, “the Father of Taxonomy”
Categorized and named everything, believed god appointed him to do it
1735 SystemaNatura
Named human species
Homo sapiens
Homo monstrosus
-included humans in the Animal Kingdom & primate order - he was saying we were animals
His “specimens” were brough back by ship captains and included tall stories
Names 5 human subspecies
1. Homo sapiens europeaus – European, cheerful, inventive, ruled by law
2. Homo sapiens asiaticus- Asians – melancholy, stiff, hair black eyes black….

2. 3. Homo sapiens americanus – North American Indians –face harsh, angry, paints
himself w/ red paint….
4. Homo sapiens afer- Africans
5. Homo sapiens ferus- human subspecies reserved for four footed, mute, hairy
individuals
He put race in categories w/ his on top like Morgan
Linneaus classification based his groupind on
 Perceived physical attributes
 Perceived cultural attributes
 Geographic location
We still judge based on perceptions there are differences but we simply can’t categorize
Johann Blumenbach (1752-1840) German
“Father of Anthropology”
Anthropology- study of culture & biology of humans
Anthropometry- the measurement of the human form
Blumenbach used “scientific’ methods to delineate human races
Caucasians, Mongolid…….
*come on were only one species Human Genome Project tracks us back to one women in Africa,
early populations came from Africa, looks at variation in genes
Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909) Criminology –some of the distinguishing traits of criminals
-if you had these physical characteristics then you were a criminal
19th Century “Science” as a justification for Rascism
 Thomas Jefferson – “all men are created equal”
Notes on state of Virginia states “Negros were inferior in body & mind)
& he called on science to examine these differences
 Louis Agasses& Joshua Nott
Negros are a different species
 Samual Morton- innated differences
“Race Science” used to justify
-slavery, Indian Removal Acts, Genocide, Sterilization Programs, Wars, land grabs &
colonization
Holocaust Anthropologists- followed anthropometry experiment and measured
Subspecies def. –can mate & produce viable offspring but usually don’t (because of some
kind of isolating mechanism, like geographic isolation)
Subspecific Classification Criteria
1. Some degree of population isolation (are we humans truly isolated? No,
we can travel everywhere)

3. 2. Adaptive Selection for traits (we manipulated the environment to our
needs doesn’t hold many exceptions)
3. a significant amount of genetic variation (there are no mutally exclusive
races, genetic testing can’t determine variation w/in a population then
between)
4. Enough time to subspeciate
****bottom line we aren’t subspecies because we aren’t isolated, don’t need adaptive selection
because we manipulate the environment, we can’t look at genetic code to distinguish race***
Race is a biological construct that is subjective,
arbitrary (random), purely taxonomic (only in
our attempts to always classify & categorize), a
continuum, impossible to delineate
In Chico Fordisc spits out possible race for features
Truth it doesn’t work not everything fits perfectly