374 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 194 5 



There is nothing magical about the shape of the head. Sometimes, 

 along with other characters, it is useful in racial classification. The 

 point which should be stressed is that head form is not good or bad in 

 an absolute sense, but useful or not useful, in a particular situation. 

 Without knowing the situation, one cannot judge. 



The pragmatic point of view is essential both in judging single 

 characters and whole classifications. For example, it has been said 

 that racial classifications mean very little because the races intergrade 

 so that all people cannot be classified. From the practical point of 

 view, the question is whether enough people can be easily classified so 

 that racial classification is useful. 



GENETICS, PHENOTYPICAL AND GENOTYPICAL CLASSIFICATIONS 



Geneticists and others have suggested that the classification of man 

 should be based on the primary units, the genes. The classifications 

 we have now are based almost entirely on phenotypes, that is, adult 

 structure. 



It should be remembered that, as mentioned previously, the classi- 

 fication of adults is now useful to anatomists and many other people. 

 The obstetrician cannot wait until the genetics of pelvic type is known 

 before making a delivery. 



Since at the present time there is no genetic classification of man, 

 the main question seems to be whether future knowledge of gene- 

 frequency distributions will substantiate present classifications. My 

 belief is that it will, as far as the major groups are concerned, but that 

 subraces which do not breed true and are found only in mixed popula- 

 tions will never be reconciled with genetic theory. The blood groups 

 are the only traits whose mode of inheritance is known and which have 

 been studied extensively in many parts of the world. The distribution 

 of the blood groups shows marked regional differences. For example, 

 group O is very frequent among American Indians, and group B 

 among the Chinese. That the same genes are present in all races but 

 in different frequencies seems probable. Only the future will tell, and 

 the sooner the genetic information is available, the better for all. 



THE MEANING OF THE WORDS "RACE" AND "SPECIES" 



Some writers have tried to settle racial problems by substituting 

 another word or words. This represents the opposite pole from that 

 stressed in this paper. We have already seen that "primitive" may 

 have a variety of meanings. After all, words are only symbols, and 

 it is ends and methods which are the framework of science. If people 

 want to use other words instead of "race," of course they have a right 

 to do so. The danger is that changing words may appear to solve 

 problems, when it only obscures the fact that we are doing the same 

 things as before. The word "race" has as many different meanings 



