Human Variation: Races, Types, and Ethnic Groups [Paperback]

Stephen Molnar (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0134461622 | ISBN-13: 978-0134461625 | Publication Date: October 1991 | Edition: 3rd

Discarding the concept of race as misleading, this book examines the biological basis for human variation and biological diversity at the population level—appropriate because of the many ways in which humans can adapt to environments, organize activities, and regulate breeding behavior. It reviews the history, behavior, and demographic structure of contemporary populations, and their effects on the distribution of major genetic polymorphisms and distinctions of body form, size, and skin color. Chapter topics include racial variation and the perception of human differences, the biological basis for human variation, traits of simple inheritance, hemoglobin variants and DNA markers, traits of complex inheritance, distribution of human differences, human variability and behavior, and changing dimensions of the human species. For individuals interested in genetic science—and the recent significant achievements in this field.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This volume examines the range of human biological diversity in contemporary populations, and discusses and evaluates past attempts to classify and explain human variation in the light of recent data and theoretical interpretations.

From the Back Cover

Discarding the concept of race as misleading, this book examines the biological basis for human variation and biological diversity at the population level—appropriate because of the many ways in which humans can adapt to environments, organize activities, and regulate breeding behavior. It reviews the history, behavior, and demographic structure of contemporary populations, and their effects on the distribution of major genetic polymorphisms and distinctions of body form, size, and skin color. Chapter topics include racial variation and the perception of human differences, the biological basis for human variation, traits of simple inheritance, hemoglobin variants and DNA markers, traits of complex inheritance, distribution of human differences, human variability and behavior, and changing dimensions of the human species. For individuals interested in genetic science—and the recent significant achievements in this field. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 445 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall College Div; 3rd edition (October 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0134461622
• ISBN-13: 978-0134461625
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #829,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A diverse, useful, yet disorganized work on human variation., September 4, 2003

By 

"electric5heep" (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Human Variation, Races, Types, and Ethnic Groups (5th Edition) (Paperback)

Having survived a quarter-long course in anthropology using this as a textbook, I've acquired a pretty good feel for its strengths and its faults.

Let's start with the latter and work toward the former. What will bother most people is the occasionally lacking organization/illustration of the subject matter. While this is fine in a college environment, the layman can easily get lost in its pages. The chapters were probably practical enough from the author's perspective, the bulk going from one "racial" feature to another and exposing the actual evolutionary roots, but I would have liked more theoretical continuity.

Also, despite the mass of excellent data, the book lacks a proper genetic analysis of human variation. Research has given us an idea of how far various conventional "groups" are from each other, genetically speaking--sometimes in direct contravention to the expected associations. This sort of analysis is elementary to tracking our remarkable journey into the far reaches of the world, and should not be omitted in a text that considers what happened in the process.

As an extension of my first complaint, it's the lack of theoretical perspective which makes "A reader's" review possible. Had the author made the meta-scientific point of race being an irrelevant construct, my fellow reviewer would not have spoken of "...the big *racial* differences in size, speed, leaping ability, and muscularity...," since there are quite valid selective factors behind such variation, independent of any perceived "race." To Molnar's credit, he *does* take a look at stature in its evolutionary context. In any case, one must not turn "a feature present in people seen as belonging to a race" into "a racial feature." Accordingly, Molnar should have noted the inherent logical circularity of racial distinctions: Races are defined by certain features, and those features are racial because they define races. How do they define races? Because races have them. What defines a race? Those features. It is our perceptual emphasis on apparent differences that creates racial categories, and only secondarily do some intrepid pseudo-scientists attempt to provide a more sophisticated academic "justification" of those categories. This book is rife with detailed information to use against these sorts, but it helps to grasp the bigger picture in advance.

Ultimately, Molnar fails to ask a rather philosophical question: What makes a category scientifically real? If you're going to say that races don't really "exist," the standard of existence must be made explicit. The short answer is that things are scientifically real insofar as they fit into science's theoretical machine; in this case, evolutionary theory and its applications. The concept of distinct "races" arose in less enlightened times, and it is thus incommensurable with the language of modern biology. Science has no use for it, since, functionally, there is only the genetic paint of human inheritance spread over a geographical canvas, tinted by natural selection. Internally, there is no way to rigidly divide the resulting image, since one shade blends into another through space and time; externally, the substrate and the tint are often indistinguishable. Does the blending occur in more or less dramatic ways? Certainly. However, as Molnar amply illustrates, there are no simple *primary* colors in human variation (save Homo sapiens sapiens itself), and the belief that they do exist overlooks a complex history of inheritance and selection. As a result, attributing features to those "colors" is scientifically sloppy, and socially sloppy as well. "Black" Entertainment Television, "Black" crime, "Black" culture, "Black" poverty, "Black" genetic resistance to disease: Some forget the generality of racial terms, and all hide the functional factors, be they cultural, historical, selective or deeply hereditary. Race is the ultimate red herring, and Molnar should have made that explicit. Intelligent readers will find that his data can speak for itself, or at least it will help the reader recognize that understanding can only be found in that data, which, taken unto itself, contains no meta-categories.

All in all, "Human Variation, Races, Types, and Ethnic Groups" is best seen as the educated man's reference book on race, for use in illustrating your own arguments. If you're seeking a guided journey through the subject, look elsewhere.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Human Variation and Genetics, September 21, 2005

By 

Jason Fox "Dental Anthropology geek" (Bloomington, Indiana, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Human Variation, Races, Types, and Ethnic Groups (5th Edition) (Paperback)

Molnar's book is a wonderful introduction to human genetics, variation, and racial classification (that is, race is an illusion), just as the title suggests. Parts of the book are highly involved and technical, giving both the amateur and the professional room for learning. The book would be great for undergrads and graduate students.

4.0 out of 5 stars dry but beneficial, May 4, 2009

By 

Lisa G. Cunningham (Fairfax, Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Human Variation: Races, Types, and Ethnic Groups (6th Edition) (Paperback)

Molnar's text begins (for most of the book) in science and the search for categorising differences caused by mutation and adaptation. It then moves to biology... for the rest of the book with maybe a chapter or two on straight history. If you want to discover the truth about why there is no biological basis for "race" I highly suggest this book, read along with Brace's "Race is a Four-Letter Word".