Den kaukaside race[1] (også europide[2]) er en gruppering af mennesker, der historisk set betragtes som et biologisk takson, der omfatter nogle eller alle folk i Europa, Nordafrika, Afrikas Horn, Vestasien, Centralasien og Sydasien.[3] Begrebet har været benyttet i biologisk antropologi for mange folk i disse regioner, uden nødvendigvis at henvise til hudfarve.[4] Det blev introduceret i den tidlige racemodel og i antropometri, begrebet udgør en af tre betegnelser for primære menneskeracer (kaukasid, mongolid og negrid).[5] Flere samfundsvidenskabsfolk har argumenteret for at sådanne analyser er rodfæstet i sociopolitologiske og historiske processer snarere end i empiriske observationer.[6] Til trods for dette så benyttes kaukasoid fortsat som en biologisk klassifikation i retsantropologi.[7]
En nylig genetisk undersøgelse, der blev offentliggjort i "European Journal of Human Genetics - Nature" i 2019, viste, at populationer som vest-asiater (arabere), europæere, nordafrikanere, syd-asiater (indere) og nogle centrale asiater er tæt knyttet til hinanden. De kan tydeligt adskilles fra afrikanere syd for Sahara eller østasiatiske befolkninger.[8]
This third racial zone stretches from Spain across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco, and thence along the southern Mediterranean shores into Arabia, East Africa, Mesopotamia, and the Persian highlands; and across Afghanistan into India[...] The Mediterranean racial zone stretches unbroken from Spain across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco, and thence eastward to India[...] A branch of it extends far southward on both sides of the Red Sea into southern Arabia, the Ethiopian highlands, and the Horn of Africa.
The [American Anthropological Association] statement is representative of the prevailing view in the contemporary social sciences. Many social scientists have questioned the assumption that race is a scientific or objective reality, contending that it is forged from the discourses of politics, society, and history.
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: CS1-vedligeholdelse: Bruger authors parameter (link)
Race is both a cultural and a biological term. For more than a century, scientists and philosophers have tried to define race and describe races. Some scientists define only three races: caucasoid, mongoloid, and negroid, while other scientists have defined more than 10. In our climate of multi-cultural sensitivity, some scholars, not forensic anthropologists, suggest that race does not exist, or at least it should not be talked about.