Recently, in the main N-AM group someone asked this question:

“Is race “real”, or a social construct? What does science and biology show? If real then are the White Nationalists correct in their views? If a social construct then are the Anti-racist SJW types correct?”

This was my response:

“In a social context, I’d say race is like religion. It’s a real as you want to make it. Definitely a social construct in that sense. From a purely scientific perspective, “race” is a continuum that contains many variables, not absolute or easily quantifed categories. The real question that makes race controverisal from a scientific perspective involves claimed differences in intelligence. That’s really what the argument is about. Do differences in intelligence exist, and if so are they genetic or environmental or both? Some IQ testing seems to indicate such differences, althought there is also evidence that IQ is elastic for both individuals and populations and impacted by social factors such as malnutrition. Also, high IQ does not equal high functioning. Therefore, racial/IQ determinism like many race realists promote misses the mark, I think (it’s like the Marxist view that all of history is economic categories fighting for power, or the vulgar economism of many neoliberal and libertarian economists). For instance, in the USA Nigerians have basically achieved the same model minority status as East Asians even though according to race realist theory they’re not supposed to. Also, I consider transracialism to be a legitimate personal identity. There is plenty of historical precedent for members of different tribes being adopted by other tribes and subsequently adopting the norms, appearance, and practices of their new tribe. In early American history, there were whites adopted by American Indian tribes, for example (and vice versa).”