Short Answer Week 3

Question 1

What are the two different methods that occurred in racial classification? (give one example each)

Answer 1

The first method is the assignment of individuals to different racial groups. A good example of this is Hume’s concept that whites are superior to blacks. A second method is the evaluation of different racial groups. A good example of this is Blumenbach rated by beauty instead of intellectual capacity.

Question 2

Name one thing that Bernier did differently in his study about race, than those who had come before him?

Answer 2

Bernier created the modern biological idea of race by dividing people into 4-5 different groups of races. This was what differentiated his study from past ones which divided people by anthro or cultural differences.

Question 3

Blumenbach invented the name Caucasian. According to his reasons for doing so, why might one think that we should abandon using the term today?

Answer 3

We should abandon using the term because it expresses bias about non white races and valorizes whites. The term should also be abandoned bc it justifies racist account for human racial taxonomy.

Question 4

Explain Paul Taylor’s “arbitrary demarcation” response to the biological idea of race?

Answer 4

We think that different skin colors equals a different race. In reality we should actually focus on other features and not just skin color.

Question 5

In the simplest terms, explain why race is not biologically real.

Answer 5

Race is not biologically real because it is socially constructed. Race reflects history, politics, and shared social traditions among dominant and subordinate human groups.

Question 6

What does ancestry DNA test show and doesn’t show?

Answer 6

It shows a snippet of DNA match to another person’s DNA who lives in a certain continent and whose ancestors have lived there for 100-200 years.
DNA does not show any results that can be guaranteed with a higher confidence level than 50%