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Philosophy of Science and Race

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This is a useful and interesting book for anyone interested in philosophical questions about Race, or the philosophy of social science. Zack gives a clear and provocative presentation of the argument that our folk categories of race are scientifically and philosophically unsound. Her argument depends on a more reductive account of the sciences than I hold, but her arguments are clear and need to be considered by anyone working in the area. I highly recommend the book.

Naomi Zack (born 1944) is Professor Emerita at University at Albany, NY. She has also written/edited Thinking About Race, American Mixed Race: The Culture of Microdiversity, Inclusive Feminism: A Third Wave Theory of Women's Commonality, Race/Sex: Their Sameness, Difference and Interplay (Thinking Gender), Women of Color and Philosophy: A Critical Reader, The Handy Philosophy Answer Book (The Handy Answer Book Series), and Ethics for Disaster (Studies in Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy).

She states in the Preface to this 2002 book, "While the full scientific story about the nonexistence of human races does require some patience and concentration to grasp, it does not require any more preparation and training than other subjects about which educated people feel obligated to know something... That is why, as a philosopher, I decided to compose a detailed conceptual account of how the idea of race fails at this time to have a support in the relevant contemporary sciences... If this page happens to be as far as any reader has time to go, let me give away the crux of the matter right here: It is the taxonomy of human races that science fails to support, not any one or even many of the herediary traits that society deems racial."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"The subject of this book is the philosophy of science of race. By 'philosophy of science' I mean systematic and logical analysis of the findings and conclusions of scientists." (Pg. 1)
"Once the biology of race is put to rest, 'race' will look and feel differently to people of all races. What we now accept as race will not have the same motivational force. Will that end racism? Only to the extent that racism is dependent on the assumption that race is biological, which is an empirical matter. My own guess is that racism is highly dependent on biological assumptions." (Pg. 8)
"Kant held that the inner nature or character of man is his distinctively human essence that makes it possible for him to develop as a civilized being. He believed that character varied among nations, however, because talent is not evenly distributed among human groups. And he concluded that the only race capable of progress in the arts and sciences is white European. 'The white race possesses ALL motivating forces and talents in itself.'" (Pg. 22)
"However, as a point of intellectual history, Hume's polygenicism was a milder form of white supremacy than Kant's monogenicism. The connections drawn by Hume did not purport to be necessary, although they were presumed to be permanent. Kant's connections between what he thought was physical race and what we still regard as moral virtues were posited as both necessary and permanent." (Pg. 31)

Zack thinks that unless you have discrete and mutually exclusive categories then you can't have biological races. This argument was shot down years ago. For instance, T. G. Dobzhansky in the sixties warned about the fallacious reasoning of "some new-fashioned writers, who claim that since races are not airtight pigeonholes they do not exist at all."

Research by the likes of L. L. Cavalli-Sforza shows that geographic populations with distinct ancestry and recognizable phenotypic traits also exhibit systematic differences in allele frequencies at a number of genetic loci.

Surprisingly, Zack also quotes Stephen Jay Gould's book 'Mismeasure of Man' with approval. This is despite the book being viewed as almost scientifically worthless by those in the relevant fields. For instance, Zack accepts Gould's claim that the general intelligence factor (g) is just a statistical artifact devoid of psychological reality. However, neuroscience researchers continue to investigate 'g' (see Thompson & Gray - Neurobiological Basis for Intelligence Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5, 471-482 (June 2004).

Zack rejects the hypotheses that there are group differences in cranial capacity and brain size, and that brain size is correlated with IQ ("Gould's debunking of such anthropometry is justifiably acclaimed"), although in reality these hypotheses happen to be well confirmed empirically. For instance, Leigh Van Valen found a statistically significant correlation between brain size and IQ in an important
paper from 1974, and his prediction that the correlation will prove to be
even stronger with better measurements was later corroborated (Deary 2010).

Zack's book would be more interesting if she addressed more contemporary arguments, rather than focussing on 18th century ones.

A book which purports to prove that there is "no such thing as race", might do well to begin with a good pragmatic definition of race. As Zack has failed to do so let me provide one for her. Race consists of acquired heritable differencs in human groups which evolve in geographical isolation.

Most of the obvious racial differences are environmental adaptions to climactic conditions. There is no scientific reason to assume, however, that these differences can only be superficial.

Whilst it is accepted that the climate of the Eurasian biome (relatively low sunlight) gave a selective advantage to fair skin, it is not accepted that the geographical demands of Eurasia placed a premium on certain non-physical qualities. Why?

It seems obvious that the long winters and difficult terrain of Eurasia required a human population which had an enhanced ability for organisation, co-operation and forward planning. Thus it does not seem outrageous to assume that these qualities have been selectevely "bred" into the peoples of Eurasia over the 40,000 year period of their separation from the mother continent. This would mean of course that race was indeed more than a case of skin colour. This hypothesis seems to be an anathema to the scientific and academic establishment for reasons which are perhaps more ideological than logical.

This is a stuffy and fearful book which hides behind pretentious jargon such as, "invalid taxonomic construct".Despite their scientific veneer, Zack's arguments failed to convince me. Reduced to plain english these arguments would convince no-one.

If race is really such an invalid concept, why do we require near constant reminding of its unreality? The concept of race clearly explains something meaningful to human beings, if not to over indulged academics.