Unraveling race

Thesis (M.A.) California State University, Los Angeles, 2012Committee members: Mark Balaguer, Mohammed Abed, Talia Bettcher, Kayley VernallisBiodeterminism, Eliminativism, Philosophy, Race, ScienceThe purpose of this paper is to explore the history of racial taxonomy and its enduring adverse effects on society. Within the context of the current race debate, the question of whether race is a legitimate term rests on how we define it, and in turn, how we deploy it. Recent developments in the biomedical and genetic fields have only worked to complicate these matters. Superficially, it may seem that there are very real reasons to embrace the gene as an explanatory precept of race- but within the realm of biology, this conjecture has produced a fierce debate about both its scientific accuracy and social utility. It is clear that genotypes and ancestry do not necessarily correlate with phenotypes and visual traits (skin color, facial features, etc.). And, it is also clear that no one gene can account for the things that we define as being properties of race. As such, it seems that racial concepts, forged not from the natural sciences and biology but rather from the social concepts of law, politics and history, should be abandoned as a biological category altogether