Isn't that a bit like asking why we might make a distinction between micrometeoroids and blue supergiant stars? Or a very short piece of string and a massive ball of string?
no, it's not like that at all. all those you mentioned are meaningful distinctions that exist for a good, often a very practical reason. what is the point in making a completely arbitrary distinction when there is no dividing line? distinctions are only necessary because they're meaningful, not arbitrary..
We're typing in English so thats the definition of 'race' I used. Now why is it dumb or idiotic? You're just repeating insults. I'll ask again:
Were we a distinct population within our genus and able to breed with our neighbors?
If you want to change 'genus' to species, what made us a different species if we could still interbreed with our neighbors 200,000 years ago? If we could interbreed with our African relatives, we were a race, true?
you're just really pissing me off with your (hopefully feigned) ignorance. the definition of race sure as **** is not "one human race", if that was the case then races (plural) wouldn't exist. do you follow? you either have races, or you have "one human race". obviously the word race is used today to distinguish between humans, not express our togetherness.
200,000 years ago there were no "african relatives" we could breed with, 200,000 ya (if you want to believe in out of Africa) we were all Africans. "we" were modern humans". our "neighbors" were modern humans. so I just have to assume (because you don't explain this at all) that in this context by "neighbor" you mean the neanderthals and denisovan? I already mentioned three times already that we could not interbreed with them without major problems, hence why the ****** distinction between those 3 species was drawn in the first place. homo sapiens + homo sapiens = unproblematic breeding. homo sapiens + neanderthal = problematic breeding. lion + lion = unproblematic breeding. lion + tiger = problematic breeding. by the way, lions and tiger are NOT two different
races, as they are not part of the same
species. (but they share the genus, at least I think they do..)
homo sapiens can be (arbitrarily) divided into a number of races. while those races might appear distinct, they are genetically extremely similiar. now the genetic difference between a homo sapiens and a neanderthal however is vast. it's huge. so huge, in fact, that they constitute a different species. neanderthals themselves you could probably (arbitrarily) divide into races. but neanderthals are not a human race, neither are homo sapiens. I hope that's clear now, because I genuinely cannot reply anymore without punching through my wall. I still will try to give you the most comprehensive answer I can since.. actually, I don't know why.
If we could interbreed with our African relatives, we were a race, true?
since we are talking about 200,000 ya the answer is absolutely no. you genuinely fail to understand that at some point homo sapiens population was so small and so similiar that there were no lines, and indeed no need, to distinguish between them, hence there were no races, there was just one population.
however if you are not talking about 200,000 ya then the answer is yes. because homo sapiens left africa and evolved, in some areas, relatively isolated, time had enough of an effect to significantly alter our genetic makeup, meaning different populations of homo sapiens emerged. these new population could still interbreed with the homo sapiens that remained in Africa, and had enough arbitrary differences, to constitute what we today call a race.
your language is so vague and willy-nilly it makes it excruciatingly hard to debate anything with you. what do you mean by neighbor, what do you mean by relative, why in the lord of god can't you use the appropriate terminology
ever? there is a reason why we talk about haplogroups and mDNA and genus and species and taxonomy instead of "brother, neighbor, caucasoid, negroid, human """"race""""".