• Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 day ago

    biologically no

    Biologically still kinda yes in that most of the world was mostly reproductively isolated from each other for most of history, and as such something as hypothetically meaningless as skin color correlates with likelihood of a whole array of other genetic things.

    For example, the bigger a threat malaria was in your ancestors’ part of the world the more likely you are to inherit sickle cell (which has a bunch of downsides but also makes you resistant to malaria). It’s the reason frequency of lactose tolerance varies based on where your ancestors are from. It also impacts organ transplant availability, because the organ compatibility markers are not uniformly distributed across all racial/ethnic groups.

    • amino
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      11 hours ago

      none of the things you just listed are physical traits that race depends on. it’s purely based on perceived phenotype

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 hours ago

        Right, but because most of humanity has been mostly reproductively isolated from each other for most of history there is a correlation between expressed phenotype in the handful of things that we think of as “race” and a boatload of other assorted genetically linked things.

        Like how dogs with certain eye colors are more likely to go deaf.