The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing humans into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of characteristics.[1] The most widely used human racial categories are based on visible traits (especially skin color, cranial or facial features and hair texture), and self-identification.[1][2]

Conceptions of race, as well as specific ways of grouping races, vary by culture and over time, and are often controversial for scientific as well as social and political reasons. The controversy ultimately revolves around whether or not races are natural types or socially constructed, and the degree to which perceived differences in ability and achievement, categorized on the basis of race, are a product of inherited (i.e. genetic) traits or environmental, social and cultural factors.

Some argue that although race is a valid taxonomic concept in other species, it cannot be applied to humans.[3] Many scientists have argued that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, have many exceptions, have many gradations, and that the numbers of races delineated vary according to the culture making the racial distinctions; thus they reject the notion that any definition of race pertaining to humans can have taxonomic rigour and validity.[4] Today most scientists study human genotypic and phenotypic variation using concepts such as "population" and "clinal gradation". Many contend that while racial categorizations may be marked by phenotypic or genotypic traits, the idea of race itself, and actual divisions of persons into races or racial groups, are social constructs.

Even Wikipedia contains this information.

May I also refer you back to my earlier post about the 'evolution of races'? This was scientific orthodoxy at the time. We know now, not only was it scientifically wrong, it was demeaning. It surely matters the language we use, because behind language lies concepts, attitudes and assumptions that may, even unwittingly, perpetuate injustice.