Talk:Race (biology)

Penguin Dictionary of Biology
Much of the above discussion might have been helped by this entry: infraspecific variation, p296/7 in Abercrombie et al Dictionary of biology, Penguin, 8th ed. Part of entry: "A race is a non-formal category used chiefly in zoological contexts". The word is still used, though less than it was in the past. I think the adjective "informal" captures the sense well. That is why it would not be right to redirect it to a formal category. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Does it tell anything else? So, according to this definition, race is a "category", not a "taxonomic rank" as restored by this revert. However, this is a poor definition because it does not explain how this particular "category" has been defined. My very best wishes (talk) 13:20, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The key part of the definition is "informal". "Race" is now an informal rank, so it's probably best not to call it a "taxonomic rank" since this suggests formality, whatever qualification follows. But "race" is a rank in the general sense of a position in a hierarchy. The sources given clearly establish it as being used for populations lower than (i.e. within) subspecies. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No, this is your personal interpretation of cited sources and therefore an example of WP:OR. Taxonomic rank has a very specific meaning in biology. So far no one provided a single secondary RS telling: "race is a taxonomic rank". My very best wishes (talk) 04:01, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:NOR applies to article text, not talk page discussions, which are often and necessarily about how to interpret and integrate what various sources are telling us; the requirement to write in our own words, rather than plagiarize, requires this process. The article doesn't say "race is a taxonomic rank", anyway. Was there some other rib of the dead horse you cared to beat on?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:59, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Current version tells: "In biological taxonomy, a race is an informal rank ... below the level of subspecies in the formal taxonomic hierarchy." This is wrong and WP:OR as something not claimed by secondary WP:RS. You can invoke "dead horse" as many times as you want, but an incorrect claim on a WP page will remain an incorrect claim. Race does not belong to biological taxonomy as currently claimed on this page. My very best wishes (talk) 13:21, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, so how would you describe the way "race" is used in, say, this paper? Which part of the sentence you object to doesn't apply? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:08, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OK. This article does not use race as a biological taxonomy rank anywhere. Taxonomic units in this paper are species (indicated by italic): Medicago sativa and Meloidogyne chitwoodi. This publication uses "race 2" as a biological population with a similar genotype and a phenotype ("Thirty genotypes were screened in replicated tests with M. chitwoodi race 2 or M. hapla, and the reproductive factor (RF) was calculated"). Obviously, indicating a specific race (population or variety) was important in their study. Yes, one could argue that a microbiologist would indicate a bacterial strain in a similar manner. Therefore, a distinction between "race" and "strain" is something debatable and possibly murky. Typically, a strain represent descendants of a single population, whereas "race" is frequently a group of related populations geographically separated from other groups (one race can be represented by several strains). In addition, "strains", but not races are widely used in biological databases for bacteria and viruses. However, regardless to the relationship between "race" and "strain", race is not a taxonomic unit/rank, and it has not been used as a taxonomic unit/rank in this particular publication. My very best wishes (talk) 21:28, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * "M. chitwoodi race 2" is a taxon used in the paper (as per the definition of taxon here, which can be found in more or less the same form elsewhere – I just picked this one because it's online). It is placed in a classification consisting of a species – a formal Code-regulated rank – and within it (i.e. below it) a race – an informal rank. And this is precisely what the article says. No more from me; we must agree to differ. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:00, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, but your link on the internet does not qualify as an WP:RS by any stretch of imagination. No, M. chitwoodi race 2" is not a taxonomic unit according to International Code of Zoological Nomenclature or any other biological RS. My very best wishes (talk) 22:46, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We've all been over this several times before. You are confusing biological taxonomy and biological nomenclature; the latter, consisting of formal taxa, is governed by the ICZN, ICN, etc.; the former is broader, and includes informal taxa. There's an entire thread about this above, in which you also engaged in the same WP:IDHT behavior, as if the fact that you confused them at some point means that reality changed and merged them into the same thing. Nothing seems to ever correct your perception on this, and you keep bringing it up again and again as if your argument had not already been refuted. (This is why you've been accused of trolling a few times up there; this pattern of circular "proof by assertion" is unconstructive and appears to serve no purpose other than to generate noise on the talk page. You've indicated offense at being viewed that way, but have done absolutely nothing to shift the view, and are only reinforcing it.) The source: It's not a high-quality one, but it appears to pass RS as an acceptable tertiary source, since it's professionally edited (by two research and academic biologists, and has some lower level staff, most of whom appear to be biology student interns). It's not categorically unreliable, and you've presented no evidence of reliability issues with the specific publication. It would be a higher quality source if it were affiliated with a notable institution, but there's no requirement for that at WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR, or any other sourcing-related page. It's certainly good enough to illustrate a point on a talk page. And, as Peter noted, the definition in question is found essentially the same in other sources; the link he gave you was for your convenience. He didn't need to provide you one anyway, since our own article Taxon, and the other two related articles linked above, already have sources you can read for yourself. If (as above in other discussions) you refuse to do the work to find and read sources, that's you recusing yourself from the consensus formation process about the sources and what is being sourced, not some magic wand that prevents consensus from forming without you.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:42, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I did not confuse anything. Please read this section of our page on biological taxonomy. It provides a very specific description what word "taxon" means in modern biology, and it is governed by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, exactly as described on the page. You are wrong about this. My very best wishes (talk) 01:32, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * their nomenclature purviews. You've logic-trapped yourself.  ICN does in fact recognize race, simply as informal. Moving on, since no one agrees with you. No amount of re-re-re-repeating an argument no one accepts, without new sources, is going to change anyone's mind.  People's minds change when you present information they were missing and then reanalyze in light of how that data fits in with what they already had, not by constant assertion that you're right. Several people's minds have changed about various things on this page just in the last couple of months (including mine) because of the presentation of facts and data, and sound reasoning about them.  Everyone seems to be engaging in this process here (both the sourcing and the reanalysis) except for one. (Well, two, counting the recurrent sock.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:43, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * We can argue about this to infinity. That's why I asked you to simply provide a direct quotation from a source in another section above ("race is..."), but you did not provide it so far, even though you have the source handy. Having such quotation is maybe a minor thing, but a step towards constructive discussion.My very best wishes (talk) 14:13, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I decline to be drawn into a circular argument that is off-topic in this discussion and already the subject of its own thread. No, we talk about this to infinity, per WP:Talk page guidelines. To return to the topic of the article: I notice that you've ducked attempting to rebut the argument that was presented.  Please address the observation that your insistence that ICZN and ICN define taxonomy (as you understand it), combined with the fact that ICN accepts race as an informal taxon, demonstrates that race is a taxonomic term, even within the argument you're advancing. Just handwaving in the direction of other discussions about other sources and questions does not make this observation go away.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)


 * To return to the topic of the thread: The Penguin Dictionary of Biology 8th ed. is obsolete; the current edition is the 11th (2004) . It's also been accidentally misapproached, I'd bet, as it seems to have presented a definition of race as a stand-alone term only, and no one checked if it also had separate entries for physiological race, etc. I have another source on hand from the same era that, like Wordsworth/Chambers, treats the term more broadly at the race definition, and also includes physiological race, etc. in their own entries, and that one in particular is botanical/mycological, not zoological). There's clearly (from sources already in article) been a resurgence in use of race by itself in mycology and phytopathology.  This highlights three problems with tertiary sources like these dictionaries: They date quickly, they gloss over details, and they squirrel away related information into separate micro-entries instead of keeping it together, making it easy to miss entries and misunderstand the found ones.  The 8th ed. quotation's only ostensibly salvageable content on the topic is "a non-formal category", which is too vague to integrate, aside from "non-formal" a.k.a. "informal", which we already had, cited to other sources. Well, it could also be used as evidence that as of the early 1990s, it was principally a zoological term when used by itself, but we not have context yet into which to insert such a factoid; as Peter Coxhead (I think) observed, we need material tracking the changes in usage and meaning over time. To the extent we want to keep looking at dictionaries, there are other more recent works, and I'm sure someone will get hold of them eventually if I don't.  I'm skeptical that continuing to pile on summarative tertiary sources is going to be useful past a certain point of clarification and contextualization. We're supposed to be writing a tertiary work (that, unlike most, cites its sources), based mostly on secondary sources, not cannibalizing and regurgitating other tertiary sources, which themselves are just regurgitating other sources they do not identify. (That said, there's no problem using them within WP:CCPOL limits, for the contextualization we need in the interim, until better sources are found.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:21, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I certainly agree: this particular "definition" should not be used. My very best wishes (talk) 22:10, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Forestry / botantical example
Example quote from a botantical/forestry work on the Douglas-fir: "Although the races described above were statistically significantly different, a degree of intergradation was evident. Thus, the northern inland race and coastal race intergrade in central British Columbia, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho as well as in the mountains of central and east central Oregon. The coastal race intergrades with the Sierra Nevada race in coastal and northern California."

Provided by, over at Talk:Race (human categorization). This whole book would probably be useful here. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:19, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2019 and 18 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jajc1128.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:40, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

"prōles, stirps"
What is this "prōles, stirps" thing added to the lead? These don't seem to be terms used in English-language modern botanical literature, and it's not the purpose of a WP article lead to provide translations. The Latin term stirps is used in English (rarely) to mean "a line of descendants of common ancestry; stock", and may have some relevance to domestic animal husbandry but does not appear to be connected to the quasi-taxonomical term race in the sense this article is addressing. Similarly, prōles, which appear to have no regular usage in English sources, has sometimes been borrowed into French to mean "hereditary descendent, and by extension descendant, successor", again not relevant to this article. I'm reverting this addition pending some clear justification for it addition. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:34, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The cited source gives the details. In that original version of what has become the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, the term "proles" was used IN ENGLISH to mean a race. The discussion on page 42 says that the term stirps is also used, but that they are recommending using proles instead. The term was part of recommended scientific practice in the 19th century, and I do not believe that science pretends that earlier centuries are irrelevant. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 00:00, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It should be proles then, not the ancient Latin prōles, I would think, and this can be covered in a history section; it doesn't help in the lead.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:37, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

"Race". Chambers Dictionary of Science and Technology
Does anyone have this source used to make the defintion? What are "genetically distinct phenotypic populations of interbreeding individuals within the same species"? Do you establish the "phenotypic populations" then find the genetically distinct ones later? Or is it the other way around? Are some species not interbreeding? I thought race was a level below subspecies? Does this level interbreed? But if someone put the name of a book no-one has seen after this apparent word salad I guess it must remain. Rupert the Frog (talk) 12:21, 11 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Hmm.. I don't have access to this source. The precise phrase turn up in many places in a Google search, but many may have been derived from Wikipedia, whether acknowledged or not. This web page sources the phrase to Gannett (2013) but she doesn't use this exact phrase – and even if she did, it would be in discussing Dobzhansky's views, so would be better sourced to his publications. I need to go to a library to access the Chambers Dictionary.
 * What Gannett does say is that Dobzhansky at one time defined races as "genetically distinct geographical populations"; she also says"The geographical race concept persisted, in which races are defined as spatially separated subgroups of a species that differ in their phenotypic traits, whether absolutely (presence/absence of a trait) or relatively (frequency of a trait). Geographical races possessing sufficiently pronounced phenotypic differences continued to be given trinomial names and treated as subspecies by taxonomists (e.g., Mayr, 1942)."
 * So in this spirit a better wording for the disputed phrase would be "genetically and phenotypically distinct populations of interbreeding individuals within the same species" (not "subspecies" because these can be what other taxonomists call "races"). However, this is my gloss, and anyway omits the important qualification that Dobzhansky always seems to have included, namely that races exhibit spatial or geographical separation. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:56, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Your wording is pretty good. I agree race can mean subspecies as well as infrasubspecific categories, although the article leads by defining it as just infrasubspecific. The geographical race concept is clearly a bit silly. An Indian elephant in an African zoo is still an Indian elephant. Nevertheless I guess we should cover all defintions, emphasising the current ones.
 * I think I'd define it as "genetically or phenotypically distinct populations within the same species". They would by defintion be interbreeding (at some point) to be distinct. I guess a stolen elephant child in a zoo would still be of the race, despite not interbreeding. Rupert the Frog (talk) 14:04, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, to be really precise you need to be clear that the geographical separation is "natural" and applies to where the potential races are native, not where they have been introduced or moved by humans. But if you don't include the spatial separation element, then you have problems with polymorphic species, like this snail. Shell patterns in snails or wing patterns in butterflies correspond to genetically and phenotypically distinct groups of organisms, but they aren't spatially distinct groups, so wouldn't be called "races". Peter coxhead (talk) 14:28, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  18:23, 11 October 2017 (UTC) PS: I removed "phenotypic" and "interbreeding" to better match the source. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  18:27, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see how including a spatial criterion is informative for anything beyond itself, it seems arbitrary to me. Surely the various polymorphisms are what are of interest, not the location of the individual. If you had a snail with one morph, located next to a snail with another morph, they would be the same race? Is it just used as a mechanism to predict genetic variation incidental to the polymorphism of interest, based on the likelihood of proximal individuals sharing it? That is, you're interested in yellow snails in yellow land, and blue snails in blue land, but all of the other variation is common among both groups. But then why would you be interested in common variation if you focused on variation in a specific trait? It's one or the other right? You focus on overall similarity, or a single trait. And both can be called races, i.e. morphs can be called races, although I think they shouldn't. Rupert the Frog (talk) 14:48, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, one of the ideas behind Dobzhansky's concept of "races" was that they were a step towards the formation of species. Morphs that live alongside one another and freely interbreed aren't such a step. As illustrated nicely by the hooded crow, the boundaries between "races", subspecies and species are a matter of taxonomic judgement rather than purely objective fact, but geographical separation is an important component in such a judgement.
 * Morphs can be called races – can you give an example of this, one where "race" is used in the sense of this article, and not merely a loosely used term for "form" or "variety"? Peter coxhead (talk) 16:51, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Then Dobzhansky had his own definition of the word race, which is different from the Darwinian and I would say the way the word is used among scholars (scholars who aren't hostile to the race concept) today. Race defined by Darwin was entirely defined by ancestry and fitted into his taxonomy which ran from species to subspecies to races to individual differences. According to how you describe it Dobzhansky's use of the word was "more or less likely to result in species due to location" and Darwin's was "more similar due to shared ancestry". I don't see how Dobzhansky contributed anything useful because we already have the word location which can be use in conjuntion with the word race, or not, as you please.
 * People call morphs races all the time. E.g. calling Andamanese "black" or Jared Diamond calling lactose intolerant people a race. It's just based on misunderstanding, sometimes intentional. I could probably dig out examples in the zoology literature too, if I could be bothered. :) Rupert the Frog (talk) 17:35, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * This article is not about the application of race to humans; that's covered at Race (human categorization) in all its inglory.  The Race (biology) concept, a taxonomic matter, hasn't been applied to humans in a long time. "Morphs can be called races" isn't pertinent here; this article isn't about people misstating; it's about a very narrow classificatory use in modern biology by biologists. We could have a "History" section on prior, less strictly (or just differently) defined usage, but we need to be clear on the distinction between "how biologists use the term today" and "what this word meant in to someone in Shropshire in 1874 versus what some guy in Boston meant by it in 1902".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  18:30, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have that one. The entry: "'race (Bot, Zool) A population, within a species, that is genetically distinct in some way, often geographically separate". Also provides a second definition, "a breed of domesticated animals", which isn't relevant here; it's a different usage (and archaic in English, though use of its cognates like Spanish raza remains common in some other languages). The definition ends with "see physiological race". That entry: physiological race (Biol) A group of individuals within the morphological limits of a species but differing from other members of the species in habits (as host, larval food etc), eg the several races of a parasitic fungus each confined to a different host. Also biological form, forma specialis."  Between this and other such works such terms can actually be distinguished a little; e.g., we have an article at Forma specialis which is a taxonomic rank, while race and biological form are not, though form (forma) is.  The usage differs a bit; e.g., an f.sp. name is given in italics, while a race name is not.  Chambers gives biological form as just a syn. of physiological race, and has no separate entry for forma specialis. It actually has no entry for form or forma in the botanical sense, so the work is not super-duper comprehensive, despite its &gt;1300 pages. A truly complete science and tech dictionary would be a dozen volumes. >;-) See also the thread above, about definitional issues in the Penguin dictionary. It has to be kept in mind that dictionaries (including topical ones) are a) tertiary sources, b) obsolete in part by the time they are published, c) not in-depth works, thus glossing over many details, and d) descriptive (in modern works, anyway) of usage whether it's precise/correct or not, rather than prescribing a usage – things like codes of nomenclature produce a completely different kind of definition than a dictionary does. As for the current wording: "genetically distinct phenotypic populations of interbreeding individuals within the same species" – "interbreeding" seems superfluous and may actually be confusing (it can be read as implying interbreeding between not within the population, and "interbreeding within the population" is implied by "population").  "Genetically distinct ... populations of individuals within the same species" is a legit paraphrase of the source's definition.  The issue might be "phenotypic". It is implied by the race definition, and is a restatement of the awkward "within the morphological limits" in the physiological race definition, which Chambers cross-references but doesn't state is strictly synonymous; the fact that it has its own definition suggests it's intended as a subset, but it's unclear how many writers this work had and how well they coordinated; I've seen other overlapping entries in it.  At any rate, the Chambers definition does include geographical separation as one of the factors that can distinguish a race, but not a required factor; whether it "seems arbitrary" or not is irrelevant; it's sourced. Including it in our list of ways that biological races are classified is legitimate.
 * Well I agree with your PS at least, which is exactly what I suggested from the beginning. Do your posts have to be so long? Rupert the Frog (talk) 19:23, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes; when you ask for source details and make multiple arguments about multiple things, then the source will be quoted and the multiple things will be addressed one by one. PS: Being thorough also closes various avenues for further sockpuppet disruption.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  20:19, 11 October 2017 (UTC); revised 23:48, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Remove cleanup tag?
The article is tagged for cleanup for insufficient context since 2015. I don't see specific discussion about this here, although might have missed it. To my eye, it now has enough context and the tag could be removed. Montanawb tagged the article, and SMcCandlish revised the tag, in the past.

OK to remove? LaTeeDa (talk) 17:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ Mgasparin (talk) 23:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)