Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
You can be just as cruel and 'racist' by replacing the term 'race' in those statements with the term 'ethnic group'.

Sure, social scientists downplay the term. They are SOCIAL scientists, more interested in social interactions than in biological development. And in social situations the term 'race' can be construed as derogatory or demeaning, if you think of it that way. Try thinking of it in scientific terms, biological, genetic, what-have-you, rather than in social or psychological terms. Biologically the term is quite well defined and bears no connotations of inferiority
It's really not and that's the problem. There are simply no scientifically credible races of human. There are types, characteristics, genetic strains, but not races. And none of this would matter - I don't care about the terms scientists wish to use per se - but when we in the general population use the term 'race' so casually to mean differences, we are wrongly and dangerously, in my opinion, ascribing cultural differences to biological ones. Cultural - you can do something about, if you have the will. Biological - fixed, it's just the way 'they' are.