How many races are in the world?

Question:And could you explain to me what is caucasoid, negroid, melanoid and mongoloid?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: And could you explain to me what is caucasoid, negroid, melanoid and mongoloid?

I agree One....Human Race. I think of the terminology of Caucasoid for whites, negroid for blacks, melanoid for non-whites not of European descent, and mongoloid for Asians to be a way to socially, genetically, classify a group of people, which in my opinion does not hold to truth in today's 21st century world. I'm sure a lot of people have maybe 2 or all 4 of "their race" in them. So which one are you if you have 3 or all 4? Your human. Now Ethnicity is a different thing. It is a word to define the culture, language, and commonality of a people.

Do you not own a dictionary? The answers are simple, and simply there.

Actually this isn't a simple question because "race" is rather arbitrarily defined and really changes all the time depending on the usage.

In many cases, "race" is used when the word "population" should be used. It just refers to (in humans) grouping on the basis of various characteristics about a common ancestry. It is actually quite controversial in the scientific community just because it is often very imprecise (often based on some visual characteristics like skin color, facial features, etc.) thus it is quite arbitrary. And there are many different definitions of race, from the first essentialist definition from Hooton back in the 1920 to the latest lineage definition from Templeton in the late 1990s.

As far as the specific "races" you mentions, caucasoid in it's broadest definition really means white Europeans, Western Asians, Indians and North Africans. But it is also common defined as people from the Caucasus regions OR who speak the Caucaus languages (see how arbitrary it becomes in the selection of criteria!)

Negroid actually refers to a PRESUMED race of people from Sub saharan africa. Again, what traits define this "race" is arbitrary (other than dark skin which is a very common, almost universal trait that is used).

Never heard of melanoid but my guess would be it is probably a variant of negroid but possibly more commonly applied to lighter skined but non-white "populations". But that's just a guess -- it is arbitrary you know.

Mongoloid usually refers to people with physical features most commonly found in East Asia. Which features??? Arbitrary.

So there is really no answer to your question as to how many because at a scientific level, it really is just an arbitrary grouping based on some trait so the number could fluctuate and even a specific tagged grouping could change.

Just look at the "races" used in the US (or UK) census over time. In the UK, you can have a race of "Black Carribean", "Asian-Pakistani", etc. In the US you can have "black", "white", "mulatto", etc.

It is arbitrary.

One.
The human race.

Only one: The Human Race.