[Taxacom] Race and taxonomy

[Thomas Lammers]

Dick:

I'm a Mayrian when it comes to these things, too, but I think you are waging an unwinnable "tomato is a fruit" debate.  As WE define "race" you are correct.   As the average person defines it, well, that's another matter.  You really are dealing with homonyms here; the word race doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to them, just as "fruit" doesn't mean the same thing to a structural botanist as it does to a green grocer.

You can argue this case from as purely an innocent academic perspective as you want, but there are forces afoot who will have no qualms about painting you as a fascist bigot and reactionary hatemonger.  There may even be those who feel the needthreaten you with personal violence if they learn that you believe "race has a biological basis."   

We probably should just abandon the term as too semantically loaded for general use and replace it with subspecies or prole or jordanon or somesuch.  

---- Original Message -----
From: Richard Jensen <rjensen at saintmarys.edu>

> I have become involved in an interesting discussion on my 
> campus.  One 
> of our faculty proposed a new course that included, in its 
> statement of 
> intent, the following clause:  "...race has no biological 
> basis."  I 
> took exception to this 


Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Curator of the Herbarium
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/Lammers.htm
http://www.kewbooks.com/asps/ShowDetails.asp?id=615