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David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, recently wrote a piece titled “The Race Delusion” on the Philosophy Talk Community of Thinkers blog.

In his post, Smith challenges the notion that race represents “genuine divisions of the human family,” and suggests, rather, that it is a social construct.

He likens racial categories like “black,” “white,” and “Asian” to the category of “pets,” explaining that distinguishing between pets and non-pet animals requires knowledge about social practices rather than knowledge of biological facts.  He notes, “Strange as it may sound, a person could know all there is to know about human biology and still not know whether two people are members of the same of different races.”