The Status of the Race Concept in Physical Anthropology

Author(s): Matt Cartmill

Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 100, No. 3 (Sep., 1998), pp. 651-660
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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MArr CARTMILL
Departmentof Biological Anthropologyand Anatomy
Duke University
Durham,NC 27710

The Status of the Race Conceptin Physical Anthropology

Therearehereditarydifferencesamonghumanbeings. Some of these differenceshave geographicalcorrelates.Some genetic variantsthatproducephysicalor behavioraldeficits occursignificantlymoreoften in some areas,or in some ethnic
groups,thanin others.However,none of these facts providesanyintellectualsupportfor the raceconcept,for racialclassifications,or for socialhierarchiesbasedon ethnic-groupmembership.
The geographicalelementof the race concept is importantin theorybut is widely ignoredin practicesince it does not
conformwell to the factsof currenthumanphenotypedistribution.Muchof the literatureon supposedracialdifferences
involves such geographicallymeaninglessexercises as studyingdifferencesamong "races"by subdividinga sampleof
NorthAmericans.If racesare defined as geographicallydelimitedconspecific populationscharacterizedby distinctive
intelregionalphenotypes thenhumanracesdo not exist now andhave not existed for centuries.[race,humanvariation,

ligence]

concept of race is a divisive and emotionally

charged topic among physical anthropologists.
The historyof the AmericanAssociationof Physical Anthropologists'"Statementon Biological Aspects of
Race"(AAPA 1996) atteststo ourdivisions on this issue.
The AAPA statementhad its inceptionat the 1989 meetings of the AmericanAssociationfor the Advancementof
Science, where the Canadianpsychologist J. Philippe
Rushtonwas invited to delivera talk on his notoriousracial theories(RushtonandBogaert1989). Some physical
anthropologistswho happenedto be present were appalledto hearRushton's views propoundedunderthe auspices of the AAAS. They felt that physical anthropologists, as the supposedscientificexpertson mattersof race,
ought to have been consultedbeforeRushtonwas given a
platform.Convincedby this incidentthatit was high time
for physical anthropologiststo take an official stand
againstscientific racism,they askedthe Executive Committee of the AmericanAssociation of Physical Anthropologists to establish a committee to work toward that
end.
A workinggroupset upunderthe directionof Sol Katz,
the AAPA's representativeto the AAAS, submitted a
draft statementon race in 1992 to the AAPA Executive
Committee(Sirianni1992).TheExecutiveCommitteerevised it furtherandpassedit along for approvalto the Association's business meeting in Toronto in 1993. The
statementwas rejectedby a vote of 43 to 35, with 4 abstentions (Sirianni 1993). Nevertheless,the AAPA executive
was given permission to rewrite the statementand disThe

seminatetherevisionin thenameof theAssociation.After

threeyearsof additionaldiscussion,debate,andrevision,
the statementwas f1nallyapprovedby theExecutiveCommittee and publishedin the December 1996 issue of the
AmericanJournalof PhysicalAnthropology(AJPA).
Some AAPA members who spoke against the race
statementin Torontowere opposed to it on philosophical
grounds.The AAPA, they argued,simplyhadno business
making pronouncementsof this sort. If the issues being
dealt with were mattersof scientiElcfact, they shouldbe
thrashedout in the scientific literature,not settledby passing resolutionsatmeetings.It was no moreappropriatefor
the AAPA to have an official position on the facts of human racial variation,these people insisted, thanit would
be for it to have an official position on the phylogenyof
marmosets,or the diagnosticskeletalsigns of syphilis,or
any otherfactualissue. And if the issues in questionwere
mattersnotof fact butof politics andmorality,thenphysical anthropologistscould say nothingmore authoritative
aboutthemthananyoneelse.
Although these objections to the "Statementon Biological Aspects of Race"had nothingto do with the issue
of race as such, the rejectionof thatstatementat the 1993
AAPA business meeting also reflected substantivedisagreementsaboutraceamongbiologicalanthropologists.l
Some of us, myself included,regardhumanracesas oversimplified or nonsensical constructs(Brace 1964, 1996;
Goodman and Arrnelagos 1996; Harrisonet al. 1977;
Keita and Kittles 1997; Livingstone 1962; Marks 1995;
Molnar1992; Montagu 1942a,1942b). Othersthinkthat

AmericanAnthropologist100(3):651-660. CopyrightO 1999, AmericanAnthropologicalAssociation

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races are real biological entities. In a 1985 survey, 365

physical anthropologistswere askedwhetherthey agreed
with the statement,"Therearebiological races withinthe
species Homo sapiens." Almost half of them (N= 181)
said they did. Almost as many (N = 148) said they did not
(LiebermanandReynolds 1996).
A similar1978 survey,which revealeda similardifference of opinion, showed that the positions thatphysical
anthropologiststakeon these issues tendto correlatewith
their social status and culturalbackground(Lieberrnan
and Reynolds 1978). Scientists' attitudestowardthe race
conceptareprobablyalso correlatedto some degreewith
their politics. Experience suggests that (as might be expected)physicalanthropologistswho rejecttheconceptof
race tendto lean moreto the political left thantheiropponentsdo. Butthedivision betweenthe two campsis notreally a splitbetweentender-mindedliberalegalitariansand
tough-mindedconservative elitists. To a surprisingextent,physicalanthropologistsin bothcampsmakesimilar
assertions,cite similar sources, and express similar fervent oppositionto racistpracticesandbeliefs. The difference betweenthem is mainly one of emphasis.The findings that one group admits grudgingly and seeks out
reasonsfordisregardingarespotlightedby theothergroup
as the centralfacts that reveal the way things really are.
Thereis a case to be madeforeach side, andit is nothardto
find physical anthropologistswho have questioned the
existence of races in one publicationbut have used racial
categoriesto structuretheirdatain another.

The Case for the Race Concept

Thosewho defendracialtaxonomiesgenerallysay they
arejust one way of expressing the generally recognized
fact thathumangenetic variationis correlatedwith geography.Forexample,most of the world's people who have
verydarkskinandwoolly-textured,tightlycurledhairlive
in Africa southof the Tropic of Cancer.Althoughmany
people who live elsewhere also meet this description,the
great majorityof them are descended from people who
lived in sub-SaharanAfrica. In some partsof the world,
simplydisappeared
immigrantsfromtropicalAfricaDhave
into the generalpopulationthroughinterbreeding,but in
other areas for instance,in North America they have
formedpersistentethnic groups with distinctive cultural
traditions and a tendency toward preferential mating
within the group.Within such ethnic groups, assortative
matinghasmaintainedhigh frequenciesof a recognizably
"African"facial appearanceand of genetic variantsthat
occurwithhigh frequenciesin equatorialAfricanpopulations (forexample,thehemoglobin-Smutationassociated
with sickle-cell disease). Defenders of racial taxonomy
arguethatit is not unreasonableto thinkof suchgroupsas
African-derivedbreeding populations,or to distinguish
themwithlabelslike "AfricanAmerican"thatreflecttheir

Africanancestry,or to lump themtogetherfor some purposes with theirparentpopulationsin Africaas constituting a"Negroid"group.
Proponentsof theraceconceptacknowledgethatracial
classificationscan be usedto discriminateagainstpeople.
Butbecausesuchclassificationsreflectcertainfacts of human biology, they can also be used justly and fairly to
servebenignends.Forexample,doctorsneed to be alerted
to theelevatedprobabilityof sickle-celldisease inpatients
of equatorialAfrican ancestry.Forensicanthropologists
may be asked by the police to provide racial identiElcations to help in solving crimes-say, to determinewhether
a skeletonfound in the woods could be thatof an African
Americanmurdervictim. Becausetherearesome skeletal
traits that occur more frequently among some North
American ethnic groups than among others, it is sometimes possible to answersuchquestionswith a fairdegree
of conEldence.And becauseraciallydefinedethnicgroupings arereal andimportantelementsin Americanculture,
we often need to recognize such groupingsin investigating the interactionbetween cultureand biology. For instance, if we wish to determinewhetherBlack children
have been systematically exposed to higher environmental lead levels thanWhites, we need to structureour
samplein termsof race(Schell 1997).

The Case against the Race Concept

Biological anthropologistswho denythevalue of racial
typology wouldgrantall thesepoints,butwouldinsist that
racialcategoriesareneverthelessbiologically incoherent
and heuristicallymisleading. As one classic textbook of
humanbiology expressedit two decadesago,*'Classifications of maninto Mongoloids,Caucasoids,Negroids,etc.
undoubtedlyexpress certain genuine features of human
variationbut they do so in a crude and misleading way"
(Harrisonet al. 1977:184).
Proponentsof the race concept usuallydefine races in
termsof the typical or averagepropertiesof regional human populations,as though racial categories were geographicallydelimited biological subspecies. Summarizing the definitions of"race" proposedby proponentsof
human racial classifications over the past half-century,
Molnar( 1992:23)notes thatall suchdefinitionsstressthe
concept of races as geographicalentities:"Primarily,the
divisionsarebasedon the sharingof a commonterritoryor
spaceand[assume]thatgeographyplayedsome role in establishingboundariesuntilrecenttimes."
But this is not how the concept of race is in fact employed in eithercommonusageor the scientific literature.
Geographyhas little to do with the race concept in its actualapplication.Studiesof "racial"differencesoftendraw
their data from so-called Black, White, and Asian individuals born in the same geographicalregion. For example, much of the publishedliteratureon supposed racial

CARTMILL/

differences in "intelligence"is based on data sampled

from native-bornNorth Americans identified as representativesof differentraces.
If NorthAmerican"Blacks,""Whites,""Asian-Americans," "Amerindians,"and so on are racially different,
then (since all thesepeople inhabitthe same geographical
region)races are notgeographicallydistinct.And if these
people are not raciallydifferent,then (since the range of
their combined phenotypes encompasses roughly the
whole range of variationin the humanspecies) races are
notphenotypicallydistinctive.Therefore unless we decide to leave the modernpopulationsof at least Australia,
North and South Africa, Oceania,large partsof Eurasia,
andthe entireWesternHemisphereout of the humanpicture-definitions of races as geographically delimited
populationsmarkedby distinctivephenotypescannotcorrespondto anycurrentreality.
When advocates of racial taxonomy try to take these
facts into account,the resultsare predictablyincoherent.
For example, in theirclassic textbookon race,Coon et al.
( 1950) triedto deal with the modernpopulationsof North
Americaby recognizinga "primaryhumanrace"( !) called
"North American Colored,"which"includes all forms
fromForestNegroto theborderlineof White,with all possible combinations.... AmericanIndianis a thirdgenetic
element in the mixture.... For purposesof racial taxonomy it might more reasonablybe subdividedinto Negro
andMulatto,withtheleastNegroidextremeincludedwith
the NorthwestEuropeanWhites,intowhichbodymanyof
its numbershave alreadybeenassimilated"(p. 131).
Obviously, a classificatory unit defined in these
strained and nebulous terms is not delimited by either
geography or genetics, and has no taxonomic utility or
biological meaning. Indeed, some proponentsof racial
classification grant that such "racial"groups as "North
AmericanColored"are biologically meaningless.'4Most
humanpopulationstoday,"writes Shipman(1994:B-1),
"arethe result of a delightfuland thoroughadmixtureof
genes frommanydifferentgroups.Eventhosewith strong
ethnic identitiesareoften a genetic mixture,includingthe
erroneouslylabeled 'race' of AfricanAmericans.... African Americansare not a race."But the same reasoning
appliesto otherethnicgroupsof NorthAmerica,including
"Whites,""AsianAmericans,"and "NativeAmericans."
It applies as well to similar groups in other regions that
have experienced large-scale immigrationfrom outside
over the courseof the past300 years.Whenall these parts
of the world are omitted from our racial classifications,
thereis notmuchleft to classify.
More commonly, advocatesof racial typologies try to
leave most of the inconvenientfacts aboutmodernhuman
populationsout of the picture.Such proponentsgrantthat
races are less distinctthanthey used to be, but insist that
"geographyplayed some role in establishingboundaries
untilrecenttimes."The ideahere is thatracialphenotypes

STATUSOFTHERACECONCEPT 653

were pretty well correlated with geography (with Negroidsrestrictedto Africa,Caucasoidsto westernEurasia,
Mongoloids to eastern Asia, and so on) until the era of
Europeancolonialism, when massive populationmovements both voluntary(like the colonizationof South Africaby Dutchsettlers)andforced(like the initialcolonization of the Americasby enslavedAfricans,or of Australia
by deportedEnglish convicts) broughtdifferentraces togetherin variouspartsof the worldandproducedracially
mixed populationsthatarenot easy to classify. This artificially induced and unnaturalcommingling of different
races has muddiedthe originalpicture,butenoughof the
humanspecies remainsin a relativelypristineconditionto
enableus to reconstructthe originalsituationby studying
"primitive isolates" today in uncolonized parts of the
worldlike Amazonia,the Iturirainforest,andLapland.Or
so the storygoes.
It is true that humanpopulationsin some partsof the
worldweremoreuniformanddistinctivea thousandyears
ago thanthey are at present.But populationslike those of
modern North America, with high levels of phenotypic
variabilitymaintainedpartlyby migrationandgene flow
from elsewhere, are not a new phenomenon. Similar
populationshave inhabitednorthernand southernAfrica
andmuchof western,central,andsouthernAsia for centuries or millennia.It would have beenjust as futile anexercise to tryto applyracialtypologies to the highly variable
people of Egyptor Indiafourthousandyearsago as it is to
do so in the United States today.In suchpopulations,"racial" types are polymorphic,like ABO blood-groupphenotypes.Itmakesno moresense to classify theindividuals
comprisingthese populationsinto racialcategoriesbased
on epidermalpigmentation,hairtexture,or nose, lip, and
eyelid shape (the traitsthat loom largestin our racial typologies, probablybecause they areall visible in people's
faces) thanit wouldto separatethemintoraceson thebasis
of theirABO phenotypes.Infact, it makeseven less sense,
since ABO phenotypes are discrete, whereas "racial"
types in such populationsare highly variableand intergradeimperceptiblywith each other.
There are of course things to be learnedabouthuman
adaptationsby tryingto reconstructthe past distributions
of humanphenotypes.Skin pigmentationfurnishesa familiar example. The darknessof humanskin in the Old
World appearsto be inversely correlatedwith distance
from the equator.Populationsthatdeviate from this generalpatterncanplausiblybe interpretedas recentmigrants
fromhigherto lower latitudes,or vice versa(Brace 1996).
The patternprobablyreflects a long historyof low-level
naturalselection favoringdarkskin in areasof high yearroundinsolation.We mightnot discernthispatternso easily if we used moderndata uncriticallyandpretendednot
to know that the presence of large numbers of pinkskinnedpeople in theTransvaalandof black-skinnedpeople in Canadais a relativelyrecentphenomenon.

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But thereare also things we can learnabouthumanadaptationsby looking at modernphenotypedistributions.

Europeancolonies were establishedthroughoutmost of
the worldduringthe eighteenthandnineteenthcenturies.
In temperate-zoneareas Australia,New Zealand,North
America, southernSouth America, and South Africathese colonies tended to expandand supplantor supplementtheindigenouspeoples;in tropicalareas,theygenerally made less of an impact.Crosby (1986) suggests that
thisdifferentialsuccess reflectsEuropeanculturaladaptation to temperate-zoneecologies. However, it might also
reflect patternsof selection againstEuropeanphenotypes
in equatorialclimates. Perhapspink-skinnedvariantsof
Homosapiensdo not thrivein areasof high year-roundinsolation.To testthisthesis, we needto look atrecentpopulations,notatourreconstructionsof populationsthatlived
a thousandyears ago. Both past andpresentdistributions
providebiological dataon humanadaptationsandmicroevolution.Itis a mistaketo thinkthattoday's humanpopulations are somehow unreal,unnatural,or corrupted,or
that modern technology has freed them from selection
pressures.
No matterwhether we look at past or at present-day
populations,the use of racialcategoriesin structuringour
sampleshinders,not helps, ourefforts to describehuman
variationandexplainits causes.If we wantto frameortest
hypothesesaboutthe adaptivesignificance of skin color,
the appropriatequestion to ask is not, "Do Negroids do
better than Caucasoids in some environments?"but
rather, "Do dark-skinnedpeople do better than lightskinned people in some environments?"Since there is
considerablevariationwithin,andoverlapbetween,"Negroids"and"Caucasoids"with respectto skin color, analyzing the variationin terms of racial categories serves
only to blurthequestionandintroduceirrelevantvariables
into thedata.
Similar criticisms apply to any attemptto use racial
categoriesin describingor analyzinghumangeneticvariation. Since there are thousands of separate, independentlyassortingvariableloci in the humangenome,it
is highly unlikelya priori thatvariationat any particular
locus will covarywith any other.We would thereforeexpect on theoreticalgroundsthat a descriptiveclassification basedon a smallnumberof ';racial"traitswouldbe of
little use in summarizingthevariationthatoccursatanyor
all of theothervariableloci in the humangenome.Empirical studies bear out this expectation. Even if we try to
backdatethe evidence to A.D. 1S00 by restrictingourdata
base to supposedly isolated aboriginalpopulations,the
geographicpatternsof variationat most loci do not fit our
racial typologies. In the case of the ABO system, for example, the A allele reaches its highest frequencies in
southernAustralia,Europe, northeasternAsia, and the
Arctic fringes of North America;the B allele in central
Asia andWest Africa;andthe O allele in the New World,

New Guinea, and northern Australia (Cavalli-Sforza

1996:171-173). Other genetic loci generally show patterns that are discordantwith racial typologies, ABO allele distributions,and/oreach other.These facts underlie
Lewontin's often-quoted (1972) conclusion that"only
6.3Soof humandiversity[is] attributabletorace,"andthat
there is more genetic variationwithin"racial"groupings
thanthereis betweenthem(cf. Templeton,this issue).

Are There Trends in the Use

of the Race Concept?
The debatebetweenbiologicalanthropologistswho defend the conceptof race andthosewho deploreit has been
going on for over half a century(Barkan1992). It is not
clear whetherthis debate is moving towarda resolution.
Different observers have different perceptions of the
changingimportanceof theraceconcept.Some thinkthat
the use of racial categories and concepts is a vanishing
relic of outmodedanddiscreditedways of thoughtin biological anthropology (Landau 1997; Sanjek 1994),
whereasothersdiscerna recentresurgenceof theraceconcept in skeletal biology, forensic anthropology,paleoanthropology, nutritional studies, and human genetics
(GoodmanandArmelagos 1996;LiebermanandJackson
1 995).

As far as I know, the only empiricalstudy bearingon

these claims was undertakenby Littlefieldet al. (1982),
who concludedthatthe l 970s hadwitnesseda suddenand
widespreadabandonmentof racialclassificationin textbook presentationsof human biology. To try to assess
similartrendsin the primaryscientificliterature,I undertook a survey of the research articles published in the
AAPA's official journal,the AmericanJournal of Physical Anthropology,from 1965 to 1996.I surveyedthe oddnumberedyearsplus the 12 issues from 1996 (themost recentcompleteannualfile atthetimeof thiswriting).Of the
l ,749 scientific articlescontainedin these 17 annualfiles,
810(46So)dealtwith some aspectof modernhumanvariation and therefore might potentially have used racial
categories.I divided these 810 articlesinto those thatutilized racial categories, either in structuringthe sample or
analyzing the data, and those that did not. Papers were
scored as not involving racial categories if their human
subjects were grouped into classes defined strictly in
terms of geography ("Lithuanians"),genotype ("hemoglobin-S homozygotes"), phenotype ("obese people"),
ethnic self-identification("Amish"),or any combination
of such criteria."Racialcategories,"as defined here, include traditionalracial taxa ("Australoids"),self-contradictory geographical descriptions("AustralianEuropeans"),ethnic identificationsinferredby the researcherby
just looking at people, andanygroupingsdefinedin terms
of supposedhistoricaloriginsratherthanobservablecharacteristics.The followingareexamplesof racialcategories

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neithertheproponentsnorthe opponentsof racialclassification have any grounds for thinking that history is on
theirside.

Biological Determinism, Biological

Superiority, and Race
Althoughphysicalanthropologistsaredividedoverthe
concept of race, they share a generalconviction thathumanbehavioris signiElcantlychanneled,constrained,and
determinedin variousways by humanbiology. This conviction is not universally shared by anthropologistsin
othersubfields.I suspectthatmanysocial andculturalanthropologistswould dismiss this idea as politically motivated"biologicaldeterrninism."Some seem to regardany
claims abouthumanbiology as racistorelitist, andto think
of eugenics and TheBell Curve (Herrnsteinand Murray
1994) whenevertheyhearpeopletalkabouthumanbehavior in thesamebreathas biology or genetics.
Thereare some good historicalreasonsfor these associations. ThroughoutWestern history, the wealthy and
powerfulhavefoundit comfortableandexpedientto overestimatethe importanceof heredityin explainingthe differencesbetweenpeople, in orderto try to reassurethemselves and persuade others that the prevailing social
inequalitiesarejust andnatural.Inmost or all complexsocieties, the ascriptionof social statushas been to some degree hereditary,andmembershipin low-statusclasses or
castes has been widely regardedas a matterof simple inheritance,as thoughpoverty, ignorance,and powerlessness were dominantalleles at single genetic loci. Such
practicesandassumptionshave never been morebroadly
applied,more widely accepted,more stronglyupheldby
mistakenscientificexpertise,andmoreproductiveof misery, injustice,and evil than in the case of the concept of
biologicalrace.Physicalanthropologyhas in thepastprovided moreintellectualsupportfor this conceptandits attendantevils thanmanyof its presentpractitionersrealize
or care to remember(Blakey 1994, 1996; Marks 1995;
Montagu1942b;Wolpoff andCaspari1997). Muchof the
animusthatattachesto the conceptof raceamongphysical
anthropologistsstemsfrom its shamefulhistory.
Still, I thinkthatthecurrentwidespreadsuspicionsconcerningbiologicalconceptsin anthropologyinvolve some
misapprehensions.In what follows, I hope to persuade
some skepticalcolleagues in othersubEleldsof anthropology thatadmittingthe reality and significance of hereditary biological differences between individualsdoes not
compel us to thinkthatraces arerealbiological entities,or
to believe thatthe rich are wealthy because of theirsuperiorgenes. If we can arriveat a consensuson these points,
perhapswe can agree at a minimumthat "biologicalanthropology"is nota contradictionin terrns.
People are animals.As such, we face the same fundamental biological constraintson our lives as other ani-

mals. To live, we need to breathe,assimilatefood, andexcrete wastes. If we stop doing any of these things, we die.
Eventually we die anyway, no matterwhat we do. Like
other sorts of animals, we also face particular,speciesspeciElcbiological constraints.Salmoncan breathewater
but cannot learn to play the piano. The reverse is true of
most human beings. Culturalinnovationsmay someday
enable us to evade ourpresentbiological constraints,but
at the momentwe arestuckwiththem.
People also face environmentalconstraints on their
lives. Althoughmany of these arebeyondhumancontrol,
a lot of themareimposedon us by otherpeople.Mostof us
could be richer,wiser,kinder,moreaccomplished,healthier, andhappierthanwe areif only we had spentourlives
in differentenvironments.Almosteverysortof humanpotential is limited by both environmentaland biological
factors.I cannotlearneverythingthereis to learnbecause
my brainandmy lifespanarefinite.Thisis a fact of human
biology, which would be true in any environmentcurrentlyattainable.But by the time I die, I will have learned
even less thanI might have given my brainand lifespan,
because of my choices and because of the constraints
placed on me by my environment.This is truefor all people, no matterwhattheirhereditarycapacitiesare.
I hope thatwe can all agreethatthese are simple, obvious truthsaboutthehumancondition.(Theyarealso truths
about the salmon condition, the horse condition, and so
on.) It follows thatit makesno sense to ask whethera particularcapacityis in principle limitedchiefly by heredity
or by environment.Everythingis in principle lOOSo limited by bothheredityandenvironment.The life of a concert pianistmust begin with a fertilizedhumanovum; an
opossum ovum will not sufElce,because of its biological
limitations.On the otherhand,no matterwhatsortof a human ovum we startwith, it cannotdevelop into a concert
pianist in most environments say, in Europein 10,000
B.C., or in the womb of anopossum,or in a 10Sosolutionof
formaldehyde.Asking whetherpiano-playingskill is primarilydeterminedby heredityorby environmentis therefore meaningless.The relativeimportanceof heredityand
environmentin producingthe observed differences between people in this or any othertraitdependson the relative variabilitiesof the two factorsin any particularsituation.If all people were raisedin identicalenvironments,
any differencesamongthemnot due to theirown choices
would obviously be due to heredity.If they were genetically identical,all such differenceswould be due to environmentalfactors.
In the worldas it is today,it seems clearthatsome of the
differencesbetweenpeople (say, the differencesbetween
an infant with Tay-Sachs disease and its parents)are almost entirelydeterminedby genetic factors.Others(say,
the differences between political liberals and conservatives) areas faras we know determinedalmostentirelyby
environment and individual choices. Yet others (e.g.,

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piano-playingability)areprobablydeterminedby combinations of, or interactionsamong environment,heredity,

and choice. Although scientists often try to estimate the
relativecontributionsof thesefactorsto theobservedvariation in various humantraits,we need to rememberthat
such estimates are themselves dependent on environmental variables. Some people believe that they can
evaluate the relative contributionsof environmentaland
geneticfactorsto a traitby comparingthattrait's variation
amongidenticaltwins (who areclones of eachother)with
its variationamong fraternaltwins (who are genetically
different).But even this approachdoes not reallyallow us
to factoroutenvironmentalinfluencesaltogether,because

the environment
determinesthe extentto whicha given
traitis influenced
bygenetiefactors.
Forexample,in a culturalcontext where (say) redheadedpeople were stereotyped as stupidand ineducableand were accordinglyneglected by theirteachers,we wouldexpect identicaltwins
to resemble each othermore closely in theireducational
attainmentsthanfraternaltwins, simplybecauseidentical
twins aremore likely to have the samehaircolor thanfraternaltwins are.In suchanenvironment,success in school
might be causally linked with genetic factorsthat would
not affecteducationalattainmentin otherenvironments.
Becausethe degreeto whichanytraitis geneticallyconditioneddepends on environmentalcircumstances,there
is no such thing as "heritability"in the abstract.To quote
Weizmannet al. (1996:192-193), "Heritabilitiesdepend
on the specific genetic compositionof the populationand
the environmental circumstances experienced by that
population.... [They] cannot be generalized to other
populationsor otherenvironmentalconditions."
What is true of heritabilityis also true of fitness. The
theoryof naturalselection entails thatwithinany species,
some genetic variantsare more fit than others-that is,
there are nonrandomfactors that make certain variants
morelikely thanothersto leave copies in thegene pools of
succeeding generations.Not all evolutionarychange is
drivenby naturalselection,andit is notalwayseasy to distinguish variants favored by selection from those that
prosperdue to mere coincidence. For example average
humanskin pigmentationmay well have decreasedfrom
the seventeenththroughthe nineteenthcenturiesA.D. as a
side effect of the great expansions and emigrations of
light-skinnedEuropeanpopulationsduringthe era of colonialism.At themoment,humanpigmentationmay be on
theupswingagaindue to higherpopulationgrowthratesin
the tropicalcountriesof Africa, Asia, and the Americas,
where average skin color is darkerthan it is in Europe.
Thereis no reasonto suspectthatthese historicalfluctuations reflect changingpatternsof naturalselection on humanskincolor.
Genetic variantsfavored by naturalselection can be
properlydescribedas biologically superiorto others.But
suchvariantsare superioronly in relationto a specific en-

STATUSOFTHERACECONCEPT 657

vironmentalcontext,includingthe species itself, its population structure,and its relationshipto and interactions
with all aspects of its circumstances.Again, there is no
suchthingas generalizedfitnessin the abstract.Forexample, lizardsbornwithoutlimbsaregenerallyat a disadvantage, but therehave been situationsin the past where this
was not the case which is why thereare snakesandlimbless lizardsin theworldtoday.Likewise, people who are
bornwithoutlimbsaregenerallyat a disadvantage;butwe
can imagineor createenvironmentswherethey arejust as
fit as anyoneelse, oreven moreso.
Our culture leads us to regardmental abilities as the
most importantmarkersof humanstatus.Bothourcultural
traditionsandourown professionsas scholarsandteachers encourageus to lumpall mentalabilities togetheras a
single variablecalled"intelligence,"to equatehigh"intelligence" with biological superiority,and to feel thatpeople with exceptionalmentalabilitiessomehow deserveto
be at the top of theheap.Whena manwith a crippledbody
becomes a greatastrophysicist,we are awed andinspired
by his example.Whenan illiterate,inarticulate,andunreflective man becomes a great boxer, we are less impressed.If thestupidprizefightermakesten timesas much
money in the course of a year as the crippledastrophysicist, we regardit as a scandal.Becauseintellectualstendto
value otherskillful manipulatorsof symbols morehighly
thanthey value skillfulboxers,gardeners,hunters,or masons, most of the publisheddebate concerning the supposed biological superiorityof certainhumanpopulations
has centeredaroundtheissue of congenitalaveragedifferences in "intelligence"between "races."While nobody
gets very excited if scientists suggest that Swedes are on
the averagetallerthanJapanesefor genetic reasons,everybody gets hot under the collar whenever someone
claims thatSwedes areon theaveragesmarterthanNigerians for genetic reasons. The difference between the two
responses is due in partto the fact that"intelligence"is a
notoriouslydubiousvariable,which is far less clearly def1ned and less easily quantifiedthan "height."But at a
deeperlevel, the differencereflects the differentcultural
values thatwe attachto statureandIQ.
However we choose to define or subdivide "intelligence," it is an unpleasantfact thatsome genetic variants
make theirpossessors stupiderthanotherpeople: thatis,
they resultin impairedmentalabilities in all currentlyattainablehuman environments.Some of these genes are
known to be significantlymore common in some human
populationsand ethnic groups than in others. These two
facts suggest (but do not prove) that humanpopulations
andethnicgroupsmay well differcongenitallyin average
mentalpotentialat birth.This conclusion sounds shocking. However, even if it is true,it turnsout to be far more
innocuousandless interestingthaneitherracistsor egalitariansassume.

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The example of Tay-Sachsdisease will show why this

is so. CentralandEasternEuropeanJews Ashkenazim
historicallytendedto malry andmate mainlywithintheir
own ethnicgroup.Endogamousmatingwithina relatively
small local populationlike this can be expectedto reduce
genetic diversity. In such situations, damaging genetic
variantsmay by sheer chance accumulateandproliferate
more rapidlythan they are being removed by naturalselection.This appearsto have happenedin the Ashkenazic
population.One such variantthatoccurs in elevated frequenciesin Ashkenazimis an ugly recessive lethalmutation that produces a disorder variously called infantile
amauroticfamily idiocy, cerebralsphingolipidosis,type I
GM2gangliosidosis,orTay-Sachsdisease.Heterozygotes
for this mutation(childrenwho inheritit fromone parent,
butnot fromthe other)areperfectlynormal.Buthomozygotes (children who inherit it from both parents)never
grow up. In suchchildren,toxic fatty-acidcompoundsaccumulatein the tissues of the nervoussystem, producing
nerve-cell degeneration,blindness, paralysis, and early
death(Ampola 1982;Volk 1964).
TheTay-Sachsmutationis significantlymorecommon
among people of Ashkenazic smcestrythan it is among
otherCentraland EasternEuropeans(Aronson 1964). It
might well prove to be the case that, when all the TaySachshomozygotesarecountedinto thepicture,the average genetic potentialfor variousmentalabilitiesis lower
at birth among Ashkenazim than it is among non-Jews
from the same area.I do not know whetherthis is in fact
true,andI am not particularlyanxiousto filndout,because
theanswerwouldbe socially andpoliticallyuninteresting.
Even if Ashkenazimhave on the average lower intelligence thantheirneighbors,thatwould not imply thatany
particularmemberof the grousay, AlbertEinstein-is
mentally defective. Congenitalmental deficiency is not
caused by belonging to an ethnic group thathas a lot of
congenitally stupidpeople in it. It is caused by carrying
certaincombinationsof genes in certainenvironments.
Again, thatlast phraseneeds to be stressed.Becauseno
gene acts independentlyof its environment,genetic variantsthataffect mentalabilitiesin one settingmayhaveno
effect in otherenvironments.Themetabolicdiseasecalled
phenylketonuriaillustratesthis rule. Like Tay-Sachsdisease, this disorderis caused by a recessive allele. People
who arehomozygousfor this allele cannotproperlymetabolize theaminoacidphenylalanine.If theyingestit, toxic
compoundsaccumulatein their tissues and cause neurological damage,resultingin epilepsy andmentalretardation. However, such people can avoid this fate simply by
avoiding phenylalanine.If they adhere to a suitablyrestricteddiet from birth onward, they suffer little or no
damage(Ampola 1982;KaiserandBickel 1971;Williamson et al. 1971). In environments where phenylketonuriacsare unableor unpreparedto avoid phenylalanine, the genetic locus of the phenylketonuriamutation

represents a "gene for intelligence." In other environments,it does not.Ourscience andtechnologyenableus to

createfavorableenvironmentsin which phenylketonuria
becomes a relativelyharmlessgenetic variant.Someday,
we may be able to create environmentsin which TaySachs homozygotes, or othersortsof so-called "congenital mental defectives," are not handicapped.As we alter
ourenvironmentsin pursuitof suchaims, thecontribution
of genetic variationto variationin humarlmentalabilities
will decline accordingly.
I suspect thatthe questionof interethnicdifferencesin
averagementalabilitiesattractsmore attentionthanit deserves because some of the people who write aboutit and
oughtto know betterarenotreallythinkingaboutheredity
in terms of particulateMendelian inheritance.Rather,
they are thinkingaboutit in termsof our folk conceptsof
"blood"heredity.Supposefor the sake of argumentthat,
say, the inhabitantsof Irelandmake lower averagescores
on IQ tests thanthe inhabitantsof Scotland.Average genetic differencesbetweenthe two populationsmightwell
be contributingto thatdifferencein testresults.Buteven if
all this weretrue,it wouldnotimplythatIrish"blood"representssome sortof a hereditarytaintthatdooms all those
of Irishdescent to some degreeof congenitalthick-headedness. It might simply mean that, say, the phenylketonuriamutationoccurs in higher frequenciesin Ireland
thanin Scotland.Any geneticallyconditioneddifference
in average mental abilities between two human groups
will fit thisgeneraldescription.
As the theoryof naturalselection would lead us to expect, all genetic variantsknownto yield grossmentaldeficiencies in the presentrangeof humanenvironmentsoccurin quitesmall percentagesin every ethnicgroup,local
population,or';race." No doubt there are undiscovered
variantsthat producesmallerand subtlerdeficiencies in
variousenvironments.Such genetic variantswill be less
heavily selected against than the seriously deleterious
variantsthatproducephenylketonuriaor Tay-Sachsdisease, and thereforemay occur in higher frequencies;but
they are equally unlikely to occur uniformlythroughout
anyethnicgroup.A possibleexceptionmayoccurin cases
where certain phenotypes are culturally interpretedas
markersof ascribedmembershipin a stigmatizedgroup.
In cultural settings where (say) left-handed or darkskinnedor obese childrenareheld to be congenitallystupid, we mightexpect suchchildrento be differentiallyneglected, discriminatedagainst,andtaughtto thinkpoorly
of themselves. In these environments,but not in others,
genetic variantspromotingright-handedness,light skin,
or slendernessmay turnout to be "genesfor intelligence."
Again, it shouldbe emphasizedthatthereis no such thing
as a "gene for intelligence"outside a particularenvironmentalcontext,andthatculturealways affects theinteraction betweengenes andenvironmentin ourspecies.

CARTMILL/ STATUSOFTHERACECONCEPT 659

Summaryand Conclusions
Almost every sortof humanpotentialis limitedby both
environmentaland genetic factors,but it makesno sense
to ask whethera particularcapacityis limited chiefly by
heredityor by environment.The environment(including
culture)dete1lllinesthe contributionof genetic factorsto
phenotypicvariation.Geneticvariantsthataffecta phenotypic traitin one setting may have no effect on it in other
environments.Superioror fittergeneticvariantsaresuperioronly in a specif1cenvironmentalcontext.Thereis no
suchthingas "heritability,""fitness,"or"biologicalsuperiority"in the abstract.
Hereditarydifferencesbetweenhumanindividualsare
real and important,and thereare significantaveragedifferencesin variousrespectsbetweensome regionalpopulations.Correlationsbetween genetics andgeographyare
a legitimatesubjectfor scientific investigation.However,
these facts do not oblige us to thinkof humanvariationin
racialterms.Regionalpopulationsthatdiffersignificantly
in one respect usually resemble each other,and contrast
with some third population, in certain other respects.
Many regional populations today (e.g., those of North
America)have been largely formedby centuriesof massive immigrationfromwidely separatepartsof the world.
The sympatric"racial"groupsconventionallyrecognized
within such populationsare neithergeographically,phenotypically,nor genetically discrete.The aggregatevariation within such populations encompasses the entire
rangeof variationin all the immigrantgroupscombined,
andanytypological"racial"groupsthatwe attemptto distinguish in the populationwill containlarge numbersof
individualsdescendedfrommembersof theothergroups.
If human races are geographicallydelimited populations characterizedby regionally distinctivephenotypes
thatdo not occur elsewhere in significantnumbers,then
races no longer exist and have probablynot existed for
centuries,if ever. And if races arenot geographicallydelimited,thenracialclassificatorycategoriesaremerelylabels for polymorphismsthatvary in frequencyfrom one
partof the worldto another,like redheadednessorType A
blood. If "Negroid"and "Caucasoid"people occur on
every continent,it makes no more sense to describethese
groupingsas geographicalsubspeciesthanit would to describe redheadsor people with Type A blood as human
subspecies.In particular,it makesno sense to tryto study
differences between races by subdividinga sample of
North Americans. Yet a lot of the existing literatureon
supposedracialdifferencesoffersto dojust that.Structuring our samples using these chimericalracial categories
often obscures the natureand causes of past and present
umanvarlatlon.
Like othersocial constructs,racesarerealculturalentities. For many people, membershipin a racialgroupconstitutesan importantpartof theirsocial identityand self.

image.Butsocialfactsarenotnecessarilypartof thebiological landscape.In multiethnicregionalpopulations,

racesaremerelyethnicgroupslinkedto vague,inconsistent,andstereotypical
idealphenotypes.
Growingawareness of the meaninglessness
of racialtaxonomyis currently leadingincreasingnumbersof U.S. citizens to
refuseto classifythemselvesracially,or to allowthemselvesto beso classiE1ed
byothers(Fish1995).Inthelong
run,we wouldprobablybe betteroff if we all followed
theirexample.
Notes
Acknowledgments.
I am gratefulto GeorgeArmelagos,Kaye
Brown, Jon Marks, Dan Schmitt, Ted Steegman, and three
anonymousrefereesfor theirhelpfulcommentson earlierdrafts
of this paper.
1. For a quick surveyof the polarpositions amongphysical
anthropologistson the subjectof race, see the recent issue of
Evolutionary
Anthropology
in which two distinguishedphysical anthropologistswere asked to provide separatereviews of
the same four books dealingwith issues of race andhumangenetic diversity (Armelagos 1995; Harpending1995). Each reviewer praisedthe samebooks thatthe othercondemned.

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