so what if it’s *easier* how do you draw a line. it’s arbitrary and subjective.

Kambiz, you ask how are people who share a specific genetic composition or a specific range of bi-iliac widths a socially constructed group. My answer is that they are not. Because in each hypothetical case the group is defined internally by the data under consideration – ie. by a “specific” range in that data. My question to you though is this what you are doing with your population of “Finns” or “population A”? I would argue that it is not. Instead what you do is select an arbitrary group of people (classified perhaps by some other measure: national boundaries, language, etc) and compare them to another arbitrary group. You have no idea whether they constitute a bounded breeding population or not. The difference you uncover is Relative, not Absolute – i.e. it is constructed by your comparison. You have sectioned two ends of a cline and compared them to each other. Hence this is not supportive of the concept of Race. It is merely supportive of the notion of human variation. And please note no-one has ever argued that human variation is ’socially constructed’. Be careful not to conflate this with Race.

I will now bow out of this debate, since I don’t seem to be able to make my point clearly to you. Most of the things I have been saying are well reviewed in a Wikipedia article which summarises much of the literature on these issues. It is the page called “Race (classification of human beings)”. I try not to recommend Wikipedia articles to my students, but since this is a blog and the page in question is informative I think it’s OK here.

If you want something peer reviewed please read this article in Nature Genetics by Keita et al “Conceptualizing human variation”: doi:10.1038/ng1455
This quite clearly explains why the population studies you cite are antidotes to racial thinking. With regard to population genetics you might consider the following quote:

“Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA genealogies are especially interesting because they demonstrate the lack of concordance of lineages with morphology[15] and facilitate a phylogenetic analysis. Individuals with the same morphology do not necessarily cluster with each other by lineage, and a given lineage does not include only individuals with the same trait complex (or ‘racial type’). Y-chromosome DNA from Africa alone suffices to make this point. Africa contains populations whose members have a range of external phenotypes. This variation has usually been described in terms of ‘race’ (Caucasoids, Pygmoids, Congoids, Khoisanoids). But the Y-chromosome clade defined by the PN2 transition (PN2/M35, PN2/M2) shatters the boundaries of phenotypically defined races and true breeding populations across a great geographical expanse[21]. African peoples with a range of skin colors, hair forms and physiognomies have substantial percentages of males whose Y chromosomes form closely related clades with each other, but not with others who are phenotypically similar. The individuals in the morphologically or geographically defined ‘races’ are not characterized by ‘private’ distinct lineages restricted to each of them.”

I think we may both agree that Finns are people who speak Finnish, and 90% of people who live in Finland are recognized as being ethnically Finnish. That being said, people who speak a different language and have a different culture are a socially constructed group.

Last month, Razib reviewed a study which also showed that Finns have a distinct genetic population structure that is not observed in neighboring regions. How then are people who have a specific genetic composition a socially constructed group? How then are people who share a specific range in biiliac widths a socially constructed group?

Regardless, I see your point. I should have never called my groups by where they are geographically found. Imagine that I never called my population from Finland as “Finns.” Instead, I called them “Population A.” If I measured the pelvic widths of people from “Population A,” compared them to people from another population, and observed a difference, then that would be quantifiable distinction… A difference between the two populations. Noting the existence of biological differences between groups of people is not an antidote to racial thinking.

Kambiz

I am well aware that if you compare a bunch of Europeans with a bunch of Asians you will see differences – it is blatantly obvious that human variation exists. This kind of comparison is after all exactly what happened during the Colonial period in which the concept of Race was developed – in their travels Europeans encountered people who looked systematically different from themselves. But this in itself tells us nothing about the objective reality or scientific utility of the concept of Race.

The point I have been trying to make seems to be too subtle for you, so lets try a different tack. The kind of population studies you are drawing on to argue for the objective/scientific validity of Races, are actually powerful antidotes to Racial thinking. They treat human variation as a statistical problem of clusters and fuzzy scatters, rather than one of bounded groups. They recognise that no objective boundaries exist in most lines of human variation at a global level. The most we can arrive at is polythetic statistical sets – but these are not by any means equivalent to Races, and cannot be used to argue for the objective validity of that concept.

I acknowledge your argument of defining populations. It has always been rather troublesome to do so, especially nowadays with people of Asian ancestry living in Europe and vice versa. But, I’m comparing women from Finland to women from Japan and Alaska! These are people from different geographic locations.

If we factor in latitude, longitude, and altitude along with pelvic girdle width, I would expect to see some boundaries between populations. But pelvic girdle with is just one marker. Looking at many different morphological markers, we can see that isolated populations more closely resemble each other anatomically than outsiders. One example that comes to mind is the short, stocky barrel-like shape of the thoracic cavity of Andean populations, and others which reside in high altitudes. It is believed that the chest evolved that way as an adaptive response to hypoxic conditions.

Like I mentioned, I don’t have the data right now to answer your last set of questions. I’d venture to say, of course, there will be more gray area (overlap of the distribution and standard deviations) when you try to morphometrically compare Swedes to Russians to Finns. Some Russian measurements may even overlap with Asian ones. But when you compare a population from Europe, to one from Asia, you can see distinct differences.

Kambiz

But even your Inupiat, Japanese, and Finnish populations are your own construct – they are predetermined by variables outside your analysis, rather than revealed by an analysis of worldwide pelvic width data. Are your Finnish pelvii different from Swedish or NW Russian pelviii? If not why are you treating them as a population?

Using the data from the papers I have cited above, I’ve constructed a chart that illustrates the specificity of biiliac width between Inupiat, Japanese, and Finnish women, check it out.

Kambiz