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Room for Debate 5

Room for Debate 5

Q Forensic anthropologists are often asked to give a racial assessment of human remains that are recovered. The idea of race is very controversial in anthropology. Cultural anthropologists argue that it is a cultural construct, created as a way to justify poor treatment of specific groups in society. However as anthropologists in the physical anthropology class we know that specific adaptations to the environment lead to variability in the population of a species. Forensic anthropologists understand this, and justify their use of the term race in their work as a tool to help law enforcement. Should forensic anthropologists use the term race help law enforcement or not?

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Forensic anthropologists should use race to help in their casework and research. Forensics know that race is not based on biological features, but on history and culture that assigns meaning to physical traits that occur among different human populations. These categories of races are not only a human creation, but they have changed through the years based on government priorities and social sentiment. Most anthropologists have abandoned the concept of race as a research tool and as a valid representation of human biological diversity. Yet, race identification continues to be one of the central issues for forensic because the use of skeletal specimens is not a vindication of the race concept,