Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics

Abstract Controversies over race conceptualizations have been ongoing for centuries and have been shaped, in part, by anthropologists. Objective To assess anthropologists' views on race, genetics, and ancestry. Methods In 2012 a broad national survey of anthropologists examined prevailing views on race, ancestry, and genetics. Results Results demonstrate consensus that there are no human biological races and recognition that race exists as lived social experiences that can have important effects on health. Discussion Racial privilege affects anthropologists' views on race, underscoring the importance that anthropologists be vigilant of biases in the profession and practice. Anthropologists must mitigate racial biases in society wherever they might be lurking and quash any sociopolitical attempts to normalize or promote racist rhetoric, sentiment, and behavior.

reported results from a survey of physical anthropologists' levels of agreement with statements about race drawn from the literature. The nine statements used by Lieberman and Reynolds in their study to classify "lumpers" (i.e., those who do not believe races exist), "splitters" (i.e., those who believe races exist), and "intermediate" lumpers or splitters are shown in Table 1. Regardless of whether lumpers or splitters and notwithstanding varying perspectives on the existence of race, Lieberman and Reynolds noted most physical anthropologists were "equalitarian in orientation and liberal in outlook" (Lieberman & Reynolds, 1978, p. 338). Their results showed (1) anthropologists from privileged sociocultural backgrounds (labeled "overdogs") tended to share the then dominant view on the existence of races and, thus, tended to be splitters and (2) anthropologists from marginalized sociocultural backgrounds (labeled "underdogs") tended to be lumpers, rejecting the existence of human races.
A subsequent survey in 1985 showed belief in race divided physical anthropologists roughly in half (Lieberman & Reynolds, 1996). While scholars have periodically revisited this topic and noted the "growing awareness of the meaninglessness of racial taxonomy" (Cartmill, 1998, p. 659), as recently as 2003 there was not yet sufficient evidence to conclude a "dramatic recent rejection" of race within the subfield (Cartmill & Brown, 2003, p. 115). By 2009, however, general consensus among leading biological anthropologists on a number of areas was reported, including that "[r]ace is not an accurate or productive way to describe human biological variation" (Edgar & Hunley, 2009, p. 2).
Indeed, more nuanced views about race among anthropologists and areas of study have emerged (e.g., Goodman, 2013). In 2012, we decided it appropriate to re-examine views of anthropologists across all subfields to better understand current prevailing views on race, ancestry, and genetics. 1 Here, we present that study to inform broader efforts to move scientists "beyond race" and to encourage-as we articulated elsewhere 2 -anthropology's embrace of a holistic, anti-racist approach.

| Survey design
A 53-item survey focused on race, ancestry, and genetics was designed and administered using SurveyMonkey (Palo Alto, CA). Participants were shown a series of statements and asked to rate levels of agreement or disagreement using a five-point scale. Statements (shown in the left column of Table 2) were organized into five sections covering four themes: statements about science (two sections), statements about medicine, statements about social and societal issues, and common statements about race. Statements previously studied by Lieberman and Reynolds (1978) were used as inspiration for some statements, and four statements were re-examined verbatim (statements #4, 5, 8, and 9 in Table 1). The survey ended with questions regarding the participant's sex, age, ancestry, race and ethnicity as per the U.S. Census, education level, anthropological subfield, employment sector, country of residence and work, and familiarity (i.e., experience or interest) with genetic ancestry tests. Each section enabled participants to provide comments.

| Sampling strategy and recruitment
Anthropologists of all subfields were the target population for this survey. Because the American Anthropological Association (AAA) is the largest organization of anthropologists and includes members from diverse subfields, the sampling strategy focused on individuals connected to the AAA. Researchers used OutWit Hub (OutWit Technologies, www.outwit.com) to digitally capture (or "scrape") email addresses from the member and meeting attendee pages of the AAA website between October 5 and October 12, 2012. Survey invitations were emailed directly to 41,231 scraped email addresses with the presumption that account holders were anthropologists. Responses were collected from March 5 until August 30, 2013.

| Methodological limitations
There are notable limitations to this methodological approach. While the AAA has wide coverage across subfields, the sampled views of AAA members and meeting attendees might not be representative of  Lieberman and Reynolds (1978) 1. "Races are the taxonomic unit below the species level, and if such units are not called race, 'it still has exactly the same taxonomic meaning.'" 2. "Races vary from populations 'differing only in that frequencies of a few genes to those grouping have been totally isolated for tens of thousands of years and are at the least incipient species.'" 3. "Clines (gradations) exist but it is necessary to distinguish clines between subspecific populations and clines within subspecific populations. Interracial clines are found in intermediate populations between subspecific populations or races." 4. "Biological variability exists but 'this variability does not conform to the discrete packages labeled races.'" 5. "So-called racial characteristics are not 'transmitted as complexes.'" 6. "Human differentiation is the result of natural selection forces which operate in ecological zones and such forces and their zones do not coincide with population boundaries. Furthermore, different selective forces may operate in overlapping ecological zones. Thus, 'geographic distributions of more than one trait have no necessary correlation.'" 7. "Races do not exist because isolation of groups has been infrequent; populations have always interbred." 8. "Boundaries between what have been called 'races' are completely arbitrary, depending primarily upon the wishes of the classifier." 9. "No races exist now or ever did."   the views of all anthropologists or those of any specific subfield. Stratified sampling of anthropologists in the main subfields using targeted recruitment of specialized professional organizations or AAA sections would have been preferred for drawing comparisons among the subfields and reducing sampling error. Generalizability is less of a concern for assessment of views of cultural anthropologists, who constitute an overwhelming majority in the AAA and are adequately represented in the surveyed population. 3 However, there are many reasons to expect significant self-selection bias in sampling the AAA membership or meeting attendees to assess views of biological anthropologists on any issue and, specifically, race. For example, the 2010 AAA Executive Board decision to remove references to the word "science" from its long-range plan statement and the perceived marginalization of anthropologists in subfields rooted in science undoubtedly influenced whether-in 2012 when this survey was administered-anthropologists aligned themselves with or distanced themselves from the AAA (e.g., Glenn, 2010;Lende, 2010aLende, , 2010bWood, 2010). While more than 50 years ago Wolf (1964)

| R E S U LTS
A total of 3,286 participants completed the survey. Participant characteristics are summarized in Tables 3 and 4. Eighty-two percent (82%, N 5 1,918) of the respondents were professional anthropologists as opposed to students (N 5 423, 18%). We limit our discussion to perspectives of professionals in order to facilitate a more direct comparison to the previous work by Lieberman and Reynolds (1978). Cultural accepting the existence of biological variation; overlapping trait distributions; the superiority of genetic ancestry over race as a proxy for | 323 genetic relationships between peoples; the importance of understanding the relationship among race, genetics and health; and the need to take genetic ancestry into account when diagnosing and treating certain conditions. Informal analysis of the data did not reveal any noticeable differences in perspectives between subfields.
Comparing our results directly with those of Lieberman and Reynolds (1978), we see a sizable shift in agreement with the statement "No races exist now or ever did." As shown in Table 5, while only a minority of respondents (17%) agreed with that statement in 1978, a majority of respondents (53%) agreed with that statement in 2013. Agreement with this statement is consistent across subfields. Given the academic and public discourses on genetic ancestry testing and concerns about its potential reification of race, a separate analysis was performed to determine whether familiarity with genetic ancestry testing (i.e., a combined testing item that is the sum of the three items-having obtained a genetic ancestry test, interest in getting one, or used genetic ancestry inference in research-with possible scores 0, 1, 2, and 3) was correlated with levels of agreement with the statements about race. Familiarity with genetic ancestry testing was significantly correlated with 43 of the 53 statements (81%), as shown in the right column of Table 2. While a closer examination of perspectives of biological anthropologists not affiliated with AAA or attending AAA meetings is needed, our data (including those shown in Table 6) suggest biological anthropologists and particularly those with familiarity with genetic ancestry testing might be more willing to acknowledge that race-not understood as a biologically-defined category but, rather, as a socially-defined category and as a lived experience of structural and institutional racism-can have important effects on health.
To reexamine Lieberman and Reynolds (1978) analysis of lumpers and splitters within the context of overdogs and underdogs, we examined four privilege groups (white males, white females, non-white males, and non-white females) with regard to their agreement with the four verbatim statements previously noted. Chi-square tests for the four contingency tables yielded two significant results as shown in Tables 7 and 8 (non-significant results are shown in Tables 9 and 10).
There is a significant difference (p 5 .0109) between privilege groups' agreement with the statement that "variability exists but does not conform to discrete categories," with white males and females generally Note. Due to item nonresponse, the number of professional respondents does not always sum to N 5 1,918.   "No races exist now or ever did" 17% 53% 136% "Biological variability exists but this variability does not conform to the discrete packages labeled races" 79% 89% 110% Note. Data drawn from appearing less likely to be splitters than non-white males and females.
There is also a significant difference (p 5 .0199) with the privilege groups' agreement with the statement "no races exist now or ever did," with white males and females-but particularly white males-less likely to be lumpers than non-white males and females.

| DISCUSSION
Our data indicate there has been a "dramatic rejection" of race concepts among professional anthropologists regardless of subfield. We observed consensus that there are no human biological races and    The data also revealed a correlation between familiarity with genetic ancestry testing (gauged as personal or professional experience with or interest in genetic ancestry testing) and perspectives on race; however, causal connections are not decipherable with data available.
In addition, the data confirm the persistence of privilege effects on perspectives of race: while the four varying groups of privilege examined share similar perspectives on the arbitrariness of boundaries and transmission of racial characteristics, perspectives on the existence of human races and variation conforming to discrete categories differ between groups of privilege, with overdogs (here, white males and white females) generally more likely to be splitters rather than lumpers compared to underdogs (here, non-white males and non-white females). This distinction has serious power and equity implications given the distribution of privileged splitter perspectives across the subfields and their influence on the direction of research programs, funding allocations, training, and public understandings of race. These findings reinforce previous calls (e.g., Brodkin, Morgen, & Hutchinson, 2011;McGranahan & Rizvi, 2016;Yelvington et al., 2015) for anthropology to be more cognizant of the privileged spaces within its study and practice, to be vigilant in its efforts to eliminate racial biases, to become more inclusive, and to promote solidarity within the discipline as well as outside of it.
While here we used quantitative analysis to revisit the framework of elite splitters and marginalized lumpers, we have elsewhere proposed a more nuanced interpretation of anthropologists' current views on race. 5 Based on our studies, anthropologists are more aptly describable as "squatters" (i.e., those who maintain race is not biologically meaningful), "shifters" (i.e., those who maintain race is not biologically meaningful but is a social reality), and "straddlers" (i.e., those who recognize the significance and relevance of both biologically informed and sociocultural conceptualizations of race). Because of anthropology's influence on concepts and understanding of race and its position as "the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences," anthropologists have an opportunity and moral responsibility to take aggressive steps to mitigate racial biases in society wherever they might be lurking and quash any sociopolitical attempts to normalize or promote racist rhetoric, sentiment, and behavior. Accordingly, anthropologists should critically examine how squatters, shifters, and straddlers affect ways in which research on human variation is conducted and communicated as well as the impact these views have on popular views of race and effectiveness at alleviating experiences of racism. For example, a laudable effort to improve public understanding of race and the "new anthropological synthesis on race" as recognized by Yolanda Moses is the "Race: Are we so different?" project (AAA).
Yet even those behind the project recognized early on the limitations of "whiteness" (e.g., core museum staffs continue to be dominated by white males) (Garfinkle & Goodman, 2007).
Racial inequalities persist in and out of the academy and are "deeply woven into the fabric of our social institutions" such that racism is found in individual and collective biases and prejudices as well as in the organizational behaviors that continue "to index race and promote racially unequal outcomes" (Brodkin et al., 2011, p. 547). New mechanisms to combat disparate impacts are gaining support, underscoring the urgency with which anthropologists must take stronger public stances on race and racism in its modern forms. One of these is the recently issued Final Rule (DHHS, 2016) for Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which has an overarching goal to eliminate racial (and other) disparities in health programs and activities and provides, for the first time, a private right of action for not only intentional discrimination but also actions with discriminatory effects. Because (1) the Final Rule, which took effect July 18, 2016, contains a new and broad definition of "national origin" and (2) the Final Rule is intended to apply to research as well as delivery of healthcare (DHHS, 2016; at 31385), it is incumbent upon anthropologists to be leaders in a better public understanding of race, in the robust ascertainment of the sources of these disparate impacts, and in the deliberative design of appropriate remedial actions to correct them.
In addition, as ancestry and other concepts are increasingly used to frame human differences, anthropologists should revise official position statements on race-e.g., the most recent statements by the AAA (AAA, 1998) and American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA, 1996) from which "ancestry" is wholly absent-to ensure their continued relevance and preempt the public's dismissal of terminological shifts as simply semantics or "political correctness."