Reading Response

By R.C. Lewontin, Confusions about Human Races,Published, Jun 07, 2006, http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/
The author used the prose form of writing, in which the article has paragraphs only, but no sections. While there is a flow of ideas, this essay is not easy to read because of the extensive writing, which makes the reader feel overloaded with information. In addition to that, the document does not have any chronology of events, and the author does not state how he intends to write his ideas.

The central claim of this article is the fact that many people confuse human races. He holds that "race" is a biological aspect of variations in the human species, but the world takes it for a social construct of classifying people.

Lewontin holds that "As a biological construct rather than a social one, people cease to see "race" as a significant reality that characterizes the species of humans."

Keywords - race, genetics, human, biological, and variations

New Vocabulary:Australian Aborigines, Negritos, Inuit, Tay-Sachs disease, Ashkenazi Jew.

Summary: Lewontin's Confusions about Human Races is a reminder to the people about the concept of human race. Widely touted as a social construct, "race" is a biological concept that outlines the realities that characterize the human species. Lewontin argues that researchers and scholars produce many objective natural divisions confirming that racial categories are representations of genetic differences and not social or historical factors. He uses Leroi Armand Marie's essay in the Op-Ed section of The New York Times - March 14, 2005, as evidence for his argument. Lewontin adds that Leroi's work points out the confusion about the factors of racial categorization as well as the recent erroneous deductions about the relevance of such identifications of the race for medical practice.

The author holds the four facts about the variation of humansupon which theworld seems to agree are the ultimate evidence for the understanding of race as a biological concept. First, the species of human have immense variations of genetics from one individual to another. Second, the largest chunk of humanvariation (nearly 85 percent) is a representation ofpeople within local linguistic or national populations. Examples include the French, Mexican, and Japanese. Third, some genetic traits such as skin color, the form of hair, shape of the nose, and some blood proteins like the Rhesus, vary together such that people with dark skin color are also likely to have dark, curled hair, broad noses, and a high likelihood of Rh blood type. Fourth, the genetic differences break down due to rampant migration and intergroup mating; although, it existed in the past, it is now widespread at a high rate.

Questions: Despite being informative, this article poses a few questions in a reader's mind. What is the solution to the confusion about race? Does it mean that race is only biological and has no relationship to the social ties?