Editing Race and genetics (section)

===The concept of race===
{{See also|Race (human categorization)}}
The concept of "race" as a classification system of humans based on visible physical characteristics emerged over the last five centuries, influenced by European colonialism.<ref name='AABAstatement'/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kennedy |first1=Rebecca F.|author-link=Rebecca Futo Kennedy |last2=Roy |first2=C. Sydnor |last3=Goldman |first3=Max L. |date=2013 |title=Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World |location=Indianapolis, Indiana |publisher=Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. |page=xiii |isbn=978-1603849944}}</ref> However, there is widespread evidence of what would be described in modern terms as ''racial consciousness'' throughout the entirety of [[recorded history]]. For example, in [[Ancient Egypt]] there were [[Book of Gates|four broad racial divisions]] of human beings: Egyptians, Asiatics, Libyans, and Nubians.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Race in Ancient Egypt|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/social/race.html|access-date=2021-07-31|website=www.ucl.ac.uk|archive-date=2021-07-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210731060151/https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/social/race.html|url-status=live}}</ref> There was also [[Aristotle]] of [[Ancient Greece]], who once wrote: "The peoples of Asia... lack spirit, so that they are in continuous subjection and slavery."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Aristotle, Politics, Book 7, section 1327b|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0086,035:7:1327b|access-date=2021-07-31|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu|archive-date=2021-07-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210731060150/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0086,035:7:1327b|url-status=live}}</ref> The concept has [[Historical race concepts|manifested in different forms]] based on social conditions of a particular group, often used to justify unequal treatment. Early influential attempts to classify humans into discrete races include 4 races in Carl Linnaeus's ''Systema Naturae'' (''Homo europaeus'', ''asiaticus'', ''americanus'', and ''afer'')<ref>{{cite book |last1=Slotkin |first1=James S. |date=1965 |title=Readings in Early Anthropology |location=London |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780203715215}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| last1=Linnaeus |first1=C. |date=1758 |title=Systema naturae |location=Stockholm |publisher=Laurentii Salvii|page=532}}</ref> and 5 races in Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's ''On the Natural Variety of Mankind''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Blumenbach |first1=J.F. |last2=Bendyshe |first2=T.T. |date=1795 |title=On the natural variety of mankind}}</ref> Notably, over the next centuries, scholars argued for anywhere from 3 to more than 60 race categories.<ref>{{cite book| last1=Darwin |first1=Charles| date=1871| title=The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex}}</ref> Race concepts have changed within a society over time; for example, in the United States social and legal designations of "White" have been inconsistently applied to Native Americans, Arab Americans, and Asian Americans, among other groups (''See main article: [[Definitions of whiteness in the United States]]''). Race categories also vary worldwide; for example, the same person might be perceived as belonging to a different category in the United States versus Brazil.<ref>{{cite book| last1=Daniel |first1=G.R. |date=2006 |title=Race and multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: converging paths? |publisher=Penn State Press}}</ref> Because of the arbitrariness inherent in the concept of race, it is difficult to relate it to biology in a straightforward way.