Talk:Caucasian race

Obsolete racial classification
“The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid,[a] Europid, or Europoid)[2] is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race.”

If races don't exist then how do you explain people being able to trace their predecessors through DNA analysis. 89.243.99.204 (talk) 00:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)


 * It's a question that often comes up. See our article Race (human_categorization), and in particular the section on forensic anthropology. For the most up-to-date scientific consensus on the topic, see this report or this summary. Generalrelative (talk) 00:46, 27 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Not an obsolete race category. It is a term used in legal documents in English speaking countries in Asia like Singapore. You can argue how to distinguish its living meaning from a historical meaning but a better case could be made that White is an obsolete race category since it was based on slavery and segregation laws and not even anthropology https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5076/ 24.246.137.99 (talk) 12:27, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * If legislators had made a law 200 years ago that everybody gets assigned to be either a "schnink" or a "schnonk" after birth, depending on a coin toss, those terms would probably be used in legal documents too. They would still not be real, and if the law back then had been based on a then-accepted scientific hypothesis which is now obsolete, the terms would be scientifically obsolete. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:03, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Regardless of whether or not the scientific community considers the term Caucasian to be obsolete, the community at large still accepts and uses the term. I think it best to focus on the definition of Caucasian as it is commonly used, and in a following section, note the various views of the scientific community. The introduction as it stands, strikes me as non-neutral. You may not like the term Caucasian, and you might have an agenda for its discontinuation, but Wikipedia is not a place for advocacy. CarlGrundstrom (talk) 16:10, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You may like the term Caucasian, and you may have an agenda for its continuation, but Wikipedia is not a place for advocacy. Jokes aside, see WP:ACADEMICBIAS. Generalrelative (talk) 16:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * No need to be insulting CarlGrundstrom (talk) 00:52, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The Using Population Descriptors in Genetics and Genomics Research report suggests that racial terms are not appropriate for scientific classification and recommends against using them, for technical reasons, but also because racial terms have been used for social oppression. Genetic similarity is the recommended approach. This article sums up the points of the report nicely https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2816403
 * The authors are advocating a change in how scientific studies classify genetic differences that is different than how most existing scientific studies have done their classifications. CarlGrundstrom (talk) 13:59, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * CarlGrundstrom, after having a short look at that article, I don't understand why it should be relevant here. Could you please explain ? Rsk6400 (talk) 13:22, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Remove obsolete from lead
The following change is proposed: Change to The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid) is a racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. Rationale is that there are 4000 and growing scientific articles on Pubmed using the label Caucasian over White or Eoropean https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%28Caucasian%29+NOT+%28white%29+NOT+%28Europe%29&sort=pubdate. This inckudes the most prestigious journals articles where the terms are interchangeable https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.315.5809.173a This is not a claim of objectivity but of equivalent and ongoing usage internationally within the sciences with White People Mrdthree (talk) 17:02, 23 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Why do you start five discussions when you have already been answered ? Three on this page, one on the reliable sources noticeboard and another one on my user's talk page. Rsk6400 (talk) 19:53, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It was how I could best understand User:IrlToad criticism: “ …this does not fit the criteria for an edit request. Edit requests should also be uncontroversial or based on consensus. A simple talk page section or potentially an RfC would be a more appropriate forum for the discussion” perhaps I misunderstood. Mrdthree (talk) 01:13, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * To try and resolve this, I would like to clarify: this article is not about the word "Caucasian" it is about the obsolete theory of the Caucasian race. The term "obsolete" will not be removed from the opening sentence, because it is important to indicate that the "Caucasian race", scientifically, is not a real thing.


 * As I indicated above, if you want some text added about the use of the word "Caucasian" near the text relating to its usage in the USA, that might be due. But if you want that, you should first write the text, with sources, then post it on this page for users to decide whether or not it should be added.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:46, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The use of Caucasian is not unique to North Anerica it is a legal term in Singapore and is used in laboratories throughout the world. why do you think a redirect to North American usage is sufficient for clarification ? Mrdthree (talk) 10:02, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I would refer the honourable member to the answer I made some moments ago. Boynamedsue (talk) 11:12, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * i think you are addressing the discussion above— I want to include/replace the redirect to White Amrericans to White people (as in the Caucasian disambiguate page). My point here is that Caucasian is still in use, e.g.https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.315.5809.173a
 * Eg2: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02288-x Mrdthree (talk) 15:13, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You have opened 5 threads. This one is entitled "Remove obsolete from lead", that is what I am discussing here. It is of no consequence whatsoever that the word "Caucasian" is still in use. This article is not about the word "Caucasian", it is about the obsolete theory of the "Caucasian race". So the word "obsolete" should remain in the lead. Boynamedsue (talk) 15:40, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Well put. Generalrelative (talk) 17:32, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I opened a total of 3 threads, 2 additional ones to answer a criticism by (user:irltoad). I apologize for any process issues this created I generally defer to others when they complain about process. You say “Caucasian race” is obviously different from Caucasian people, populations or ethnicity. I think it deserves clarification and non-regional redirection. Like the Caucasian disambiguation page, Caucasian should redirect to a non-regional page on ‘White people’ (not White Americans) cited evidence has been provided to demonstrate its international usage. There is an honest problem yet to be addressed: Caucasian is in growing use among the scientific community. Apparently even Caucasian as a race is frequently used in the scientific literature https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%28Caucasian+race%29+OR+%28Caucasian+racial%29+NOT+%28white%29&filter=years.1994-2024&timeline=expanded&sort=pubdate Mrdthree (talk) 19:28, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not discussing the redirect, as this is the thread you opened to talk about the word "obsolete", I have not voiced an opinion on it. None of the articles you have searched up relate to the anthropological concept of the "Caucasian race", which is the subject of this article. At the minute you are showing either WP:IDHT or a lack of WP:COMPETENCE to contribute to articles on anthropology.--Boynamedsue (talk) 20:04, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * We need to clarify that this is just another failed anthropology concept I didn’t realize that was the focus of the article because it’s nowhere in the lead paragraph. I assumed it might include information from more viable fields like population genetics .  As long as we add obsolete anthropology race classification I retract any concern.Mrdthree (talk) 21:43, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The concept of race, Caucasian or otherwise, is not accepted in population genetics either. The article specifically states it is a discarded concept in anthropology, it just requires the reader to read. I think the intro is fine.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:17, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The use of "Caucasian" (and "race" in general) as a misleading (Caucasians are the people of the Caucasus, obviously) demographic term – which itself is derived from the obsolete anthropological race concept – is mostly US based and certainly not used "in laboratories throughout the world". It is used in forensic and other laboratories in those countries where "Caucasian" sensu obsoleto still remains in use as a demographic term due to their segrationist past: it's the job of forensic anthropologists and medical practitioners to work in categories that are meaningful in the context of the society they work in (even if these categories are objectively meritless if understood as biological clades). (In most countries of the world, a demographic cohort that can include Icelanders, Moroccans and many South Asians at the same time would be meaningless in forensics and medicine.)
 * I am well aware that many of our readers also use these concepts in their everyday lives and expect them to be mirrored in WP as objective facts, whether out of ignorance or wilful rejection of science. But this expectation is channeled in the hatnote and the last paragraph. As a scientific term, "Caucasian race" is obsolete.
 * In order to address the concern that "Caucasian" is used as a demographic term outside of the US, we might consider changing the hatnote target from White Americans to White people. But I'm not sure if there's actually any country in the world still using "Caucasian" sensu obsoleto, but not plainly mimicking US usage. (Welcome to Talk:Swiss cheese (North America)). –Austronesier (talk) 17:14, 14 April 2024 (UTC)