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Originally Posted by jorgelito
When I say "scientifically false", I mean race is a social construct as opposed to anything scientifically meaningful.
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Something is "scientifically meaningful" as long as it is sufficiently well-defined. Whether it is useful or not is another question, and that depends on what exactly you want to use it for.
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You mention yourself to be caucasian. What does that mean? From the Caucasus region? Are you Russian? Georgian? Ukranian? (which are nationalities, not races). Or are you white?
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I am actually of Ukranian and Russian descent, but I was using race in the common sense. Although not the definition preferred by physical anthropologists, it is easy to use and mostly unambiguous. Feel free to substitute another definition if you want. I have no idea which is most useful for what I'm talking about.
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I understand what you are saying about inherited traits (skin color, etc) but how does that make one better at math than another?
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It doesn't. Or at least it's not obvious that it does. It is possible that genes controlling some physical characteristics could also influence mental ones. Who knows?
The simpler and more likely mechanism is that different races have slightly different 'gene pools.' People of one race tend to marry into the same race (at least until very recently). This has been happening for so long (where "race" initially had a geographic meaning) that the features we now identify with each group were able to become nearly universal. Why shouldn't other characteristics have evolved along with the obvious ones in this time? It is known, for example, that certain genetic problems are much more prevalent among particular races.
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If it was that easy, if we could just slap everyone into neatly ordered groups like oh, race, then racial profiling would make sense. Gender bias would make sense because there would be scientific proof and basis or grounds for discrimination.
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It might make sense if all [insert group A] were better than all of [insert group B] at some task, but that's a ridiculous oversimplification.