Can we be

biological realists
about racial
classification?
PHILA MFUNDO MSIMANG
UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL
2017

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theories of race, deferring a
direct discussion of racism (for
now)
These theories are assessed solely on grounds of their plausibility within their
scientific frameworks of construction
Questions of socio-political motives of theories are set aside here although
these are in themselves interesting and important questions and sometimes
transparently implied or stated as a purpose of a theory
The metaphysics of race has bearing on social issues, healthcare issues, policy,
scientific practices, folk conceptualizations of racial issues, etc., but those are all
distinct talks from this talk on the metaphysical groundwork that precedes
those practices that implicate one or another metaphysical theory of race
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 Contents START: What is contemporary
biological realism about race?

1.Contemporary The scientific contest:

biological some empirical
challenges
realism Which biological
3. races are ‘real’
2. Hypotheses Gerrymandering
about biological 4. biological races
race
Conceptual challenges: problems of The problem of
resolution, objectivity, and/or construction
5. population
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1.

Contemporary
biological
realism

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The scope of the field: where biological realism fits in
Philosophical framework Naturalism

Basic positions
Racial realism Racial irrealism

Naturalistic
Racial population Naïve racial Naturalistic racial
social
General categories
naturalism
(RPN)
constructionism
naturalism
(NRN)
skepticism
(NRS)
(NSC)

Interactive kind Referential

Cladistic race Typological race
Specific positions
(etc.)
constructionism
(etc.)
(etc.)
eliminativism
(etc.)

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 What does it take to be
biologically ‘real’?
Objectivity (present in biological ontology)
Taxonomically relevant groups (e.g., not marking out only individuals)
Groups are natural kinds (viz.: taxa/classifications are discoveries, not human
creations)
Biologically determined supremacy of classificatory system (i.e., the racial
taxonomy settled on must be biologically privileged over other theories)
Questions you should be able to answer: How many races are there or which
groups are the races? How do we tell racial groups apart?
P.S.: This is not the only way to be a racial realist (e.g., ‘social realism’) 6
The scope of the field:
Contemporary biological racial realism

General position RPN

Specific
NRP formulation
NRN ERC CRC

Sesardić Pigiucci &

Kitcher Andreasen
(2007) Thinkers
(2010)
Kaplan
(2007)
(2003)

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2.

Hypotheses
about biological
race

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 Philosophers using empirical
evidence to formulate
positions on biological race
All at least claim dependence on current research and its conclusions, and, like
all naturalists, claim that their positions are at least continuous with science
 The biologically realist approach asks which race concepts are biologically
supported, or what biological facts can be seen to show us objective races
Most contemporary race concepts are significantly different (metaphysically)
to previous (e.g., 19th century) concepts (even if some uphold some traditional
ideas and values about races and practices around classification)
Claims are contingent, so all are in some way defeasible hypotheses or have
conditions of satisfaction which are either supported or frustrated by evidence
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 Kitcher’s pragmatic race
account (NRP)
Reproductively isolated breeding populations: allopatric and sympatric
Geographical isolation, sexual selective isolation
Races are not necessarily of any evolutionary significance although their
relative differences may have biological consequences (e.g., in health)
America may have races in this sense since there is a relatively low number of
inter-population mixing between black-white-etc. populations
No significant genetic differences need exist between the populations and no
significant phenotypical traits need (exist even though they may): key
requirement is reproductive isolation over a number of generations
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 Kitcher’s pragmatic race
account (NRP) continued
Reproductive isolation over arbitrary numbers of generations
Health differences between groups can also divide along the lines of culture
and socio-economic status: health correlates do not make these groups
biologically real so health correlates do not necessarily support racial realism
Pragmatic race is explicitly investigation specific: it is determined by the
interests of the investigation and creates race groups on that basis meaning its
race groups are decision dependent and not objective
Race groups are populations determined by the context of inquiry, so the
position is not in about showing what races are real or not: it is about what
groups under what circumstances are biological populations (why call this race?)
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 Sesardić’s
(neo-)geographical race
account (NRN)
It is given that diversity within>between, but diversity is arguably structured
What makes A a member of population X rather than Y, Z? A’s structural
similarity to population X rather than Y, Z…
Groups non-essentialist, groups a statistical clustering of existing diversity into
its ‘inherent structure’
Phenotypic Δ reliably predict recent ancestral lineage’s continent of origin
Genetic population analysis using a particular model at a set grain of analysis
(i.e., K-5) produces population groups corresponding approximately to the
traditional geographical race concept
Taken as evidence showing that geographical races are biologically real
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 Sesardić’s
(neo-)geographical race
account (NRN) continued
Diversity across populations is clinal, clustering represents geographical
boundaries due to reduced gene flow: races do not ‘emerge’ out of this
Clinal gradation between groups makes division arbitrary: the lines drawn
between races based on phenotype are decision/investigator dependent
Accuracy in predicting ‘race’ from phenotype is only the ability to accurately
identify what an individual with such features is called; this has no necessary
connection to those demarcated races being natural kinds (cf. Sauer 1992)
Genetic clustering analysis can produce continental clusters but can also
produce ethnic, linguistic, economic, etc., clusters of populations: on world scale
clustering, no biological superiority of K = n clusters
Sesardić’s choice for K = # to be the ‘real’ racial taxonomy is, thus, unfounded
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 Pigiucci and Kaplan’s
ecotypical race concept
(ERC)
Ecotypes are a common biological concept, often used synonymously with
‘races’ of plants or animals in other literatures to denote varieties or types
Ecotypes are within-species populations distinguished by their phenotypical
features which are adaptive responses to environmental condition (e.g., skin)
Delineation of ecotypical groups is trait dependent and similar ecotypes in
geographically isolated places can evolve (think convergent evolution)
“adaptive genetic differentiation… between populations by natural selection
even where there is significant gene flow between the populations” (Pigliucci &
Kaplan 2003, 1165).
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 Pigiucci and Kaplan’s
ecotypical race concept
(ERC) continued
There are always a variety of non-concordantly selected traits that can be used
to make ecotypical races, none with principled superiority over any other
There is always a variety of selective regimes to choose from to use to define
an ecotype, and the choice is arbitrary or investigation/decision dependent
Like NPR, no ecotypical regime has any objective biological significance over
any other: significance is context/interest/decision dependent
If race is to be a natural kind, or if races are to be objective, or if race is to be
part of the ontology of biological objects in the natural world, ERC fails
Groupings of biological objects do not imbue biological realism to said groups
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 Andreasen’s cladistic race
concept (CRC)
Phylogenetic races are coherent: human populations can be represented as a
hierarchical tree its major and branches can be labelled as ‘races’
Cladistics can determine which branches can be labelled races, and these
branching populations can be represented as a cladogram
Races are monophyletic lineages of humans of taxonomic significance below
species level (N.B.: below species, but not as subspecies)
The case for CRC is contingent: “Cladistic classification… requires evolutionary
branching without reticulation” (Andreasen 2007, 474)
Claim of CRC dependent on what human diversity and evolution looks like and
is explicitly dependent on monophyletic evolution in Homo sapiens 16
 Andreasen’s cladistic race
concept (CRC) continued

From Cavalli-Sforza (1991; Cavalli-Sforza et al.

1994) as in Andreasen (1998 and 2005) From Winder & Winder (2014)

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3.

Which biological
races are ‘real’

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 What does it take to be
biologically ‘real’? continued
ECR and NRP questionable on ‘realness’: ECR populations are partially arbitrary and
NRP populations do not make claims to being natural kinds
CRC and NRN are realist positions: both claim races are natural categories
discovered in nature that delineate biological kinds within humans (it is a separate
question if these positions are at all true)
Biologically realist claims exist on a spectrum and are diverse in their metaphysics

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4.

Gerrymandering
biological races

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 The obvious example: Sesardić
and the idea of geographical
races
Clustering analyses determine “the gene allele frequencies of the clusters,
under the assumption of a particular number of clusters” (Winther 2014, 206)
 Which K = n counts as the ‘real’ racial taxonomy and which ones don’t is not
determined biologically but is rather decision dependent (e.g., choose K = 7)
Variation is geographically continuous (clinal) and reasonably reliable indicator
of recent ancestry, but doesn’t suggest ‘races’ (even geographic) are real kinds
Saving the appearance of geographical races is an instance of confirmation bias
(N.B.: despite having no biological privilege, such gerrymandering has social
implications—see Donovan 2016; Hochman 2016a; Kaplan 2014; HoSang 2014)
P.S.: There are many ways to accurately group individuals into biological
populations: why call them (or what is the motive of presenting these as) racial?
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The problem of classificatory
exceptionalism: why there are
no human subspecies
Species problem aside, conventions
exist for subspecies delineations
Human populations have Fst values
in the regions of “0.05 to 0.15, which
is below the conventional lower limit
of 0.25 for subspecies identification”
(Spencer 2014, 40; cf. Hochman
2013b, 340) Issues of determining taxonomic groups
from nested sets of biological populations
from discussion of the species problem
Races as subspecies are not real (in Zachos 2016, 159).
even if scientific conventions
determine what is ‘real’ 22
 The problem of pragmatics
Pragmatics refer to the ways in which races are used, as justified by theoretical
or practical interests (by ecological traits of interest for ERC, and by practical
interests in NRP and not by the metaphysics of its ontology)
Races here are not discovered per se, they are instantiated by investigator
interests (e.g., ECR sets on eco-phenotypes, NRP sets on isolated populations)
Races are gerrymandered: biologists choose what populations will count as
races for the purposes of their specific investigations
How are these positions biologically real if the groupings are arbitrarily
determined by investigation? No biological supremacy or privilege to any such
groupings, the justification and relevance of their racial concepts is contextual
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 The selection problems
The time selection problem
Arrow of time (is your population concept forward or backward looking? See Millstein 2015)
Scales of time problem (what evolutionary time scale are we working in defining populations?
See Gannett 2003).
Rates of interaction problem (migrations between vs interacting as one population)

Trait selection problem (which traits are the racial traits? See Ousley et al.
2009 and Hochman 2016)
The problem of cross-classification deepening on selected traits (discordant variation)
The problem of clinal continuity (where is the cut off or transition from kind to kind?)

The cluster selection problem

The K-selection problem (e.g., races at K-5) See Hochman 2013b and Winther 2014
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 The problem of population:
What objective populations?
Millstein’s (2015) Causal Interactionist Population Concept: on ‘limited
migration’ (“rare” between) vs ‘frequent migration’ (one “patchy population”)

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 APPENDIX A:
The problems
of biological
racial realism
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 realists about race:
More thoughts on its un-
viability
Winther (2014) shows how diversity partitioning and genetic cluster analysis
at most suggest “a pluralist conventionalist interpretation” of the populations
selected to be ‘races’ but not support the view that they are natural kinds
Hochman (2016a): “We can of course expect borderline cases in taxonomy.
When it comes to ‘race’, however, this issue is of such great magnitude that the
category itself must be thrown into question”. The species case is incomparable
Taking for granted the facts of population genetics, it is unclear “what this has
to do with ‘race’ as that term has been used through much in the twentieth
century” (Marks 2010)
Biological races don’t make much sense, and don’t have much (scientific) use:
they are either empirically flawed, inconsistent, beside the point, or redundant
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 We have come to the
end of the
presentation “Can we
be biological
realists about racial
classification?”

Comments and
queries are
welcome!
214525839@stu.ukzn.ac.za

Phila M. Msimang
UKZN, 2017
CC-BY ©
29 N/A