La raza biológica: cuatro conceptos

Resumen

ABSTRACT. BIOLOGICAL RACE: FOUR CONCEPTS

The idea of human race as a biological reality has a long history. This trajectory is rooted strongly since the seventieth century within several scientific disciplines that are now considered part of the so-called “scientific racism”, which try to establish a natural hierarchy of races. In our days, these disciplines have been abandoned and are widely regarded as pseudoscientific. Nevertheless, the question of race as a biological reality continues to be the subject of discussion, both philosophical and scientific. Drawing on advances in genetics and genomics, some researchers argue that it is possible to identify human races based on genetic differences. Other authors argue for the existence of human races from a phylogenetic approach. A different position is to conceive the races by incorporating ecological adaptation into genetic variation. The analysis of these approaches raises questions of profound philosophical depth. First, with respect to the terminology used in conceptualizing human races. Second, the difficulties involved in the classifications resulting from these approaches when compared to racial folk classifications. However, the question of race and its possible biological actuality remains controversial.

KEY WORDS. Human races, naturalism, realism, genetic variation, folk races, biological reality, pseudoscience