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It is sometimes claimed that racism could be the result of a natural instinct, something we overcame due to civilization.

For example, Charles Miller made that claim in 1999 in the Anomalist.

"But my contention that "racism" may also be a human instinct is the one that usually draws a storm of criticism from all corners--probably because we in 20th Century Western Culture prefer to believe that racism is a bad habit or something that we can extinguish with a little social discipline. If we were to accept that racism is a survival instinct--left over, perhaps, from hundreds of thousands of years ago when several different species of human were competing against one another for survival--then we would also have to accept that racism as an instinct may defy the social engineering of one or two generations (thus lending to the angst of many civil rights activists, I can imagine)."

(Taken from the comments)

Richard Dawkins seems to propose the theory that racism could be the result of an evolutionary adaptation. From The God Delusion:

[racism] could be interpreted as an irrational generalization of a kin-selected tendency to identify with individuals physically resembling oneself, and to be nasty to individuals different in appearance

Is there any evidence for racism being a human instinct, as opposed to a learned behaviour.

George Chalhoub
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    do you have any strong indication otherwise? Racism is a natural extension of favouring your own tribe over others, which is indeed a survival instinct. – jwenting Feb 21 '12 at 06:20
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    It's an odd argument (in the Anomalist). In the rest of the article, he ignores the Theory of Evolution, confuses the length of a generation, asserts an anecdote is true without evidence in the face of denials, and most excitingly, claims "reincarnation is a neuro-genetic memory, a survival tool that actually allows us to learn from our collective human past." – Oddthinking Feb 21 '12 at 06:21
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    The main argument suffers from a false dilemma. Couldn't racism (or xenophobia in general), be both natural AND something that can be generally overcome with social conditioning, like murder, rape and spitting in the street? – Oddthinking Feb 21 '12 at 06:24
  • @Oddthinking perhaps focus less on this specific argument and instead focus on the more general claim, which this argument is only one instance of. – Sonny Ordell Feb 21 '12 at 06:31
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    I've seen the argument that in evolutionary history, we didn't really get to see much of other races on a daily basis. As a general rule, our enemies were the neighbouring tribes, of the same race as us. As such, the conditions for a racist instinct to arise in the first place weren't really fulfilled. – Ana Feb 21 '12 at 12:50
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    @Ana I've heard it claimed that we developed an instinct to be hostile to outsiders of the tribe as a defensive measure. If so, could that not influence a racism like instinct? – Sonny Ordell Feb 21 '12 at 23:51
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    The [wiki page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct) on instinct states *"Any behavior is instinctive if it is performed without being based upon prior experience, that is, in the absence of learning and is therefore an expression of innate biological factors"* -- It seems like it would be possible to measure hostility to different races in humans prior to influence from the environment, as an additional indication. – Sonny Ordell Feb 22 '12 at 00:43
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    @SonnyOrdell - I think there's a difference between claiming that there is a natural tendency (instinct) to form in-groups and out-groups (this is very well backed with research), and to claim that there is an instinct for *racism* in particular. From what I've read, the standard claim is that racism relies on this tendency to form in-groups, if a society has segregation to begin with. In other cases, members of a different race can be part of your in-group just as easily. As such, racism is actually not innate. – Ana Feb 22 '12 at 09:43
  • @Ana - That sounds like the most robustly supported answer: in/out group dynamics are strong in humans (and other social primates), and race is an easy line upon which to segregate your groups. I'm not sure that means it's "actually not innate", because the in/out thing is innate, and a different skin color is pretty obvious and therefore a natural trait to use to determine group (or, natural in most historical societies; not in, say, San Francisco). – Rex Kerr Feb 22 '12 at 17:44
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    The claim is based on classical trick of using a word which currently has different meaning and taking just narrow particular meaning. What's called "racism" in the claim is actually a racial bias, while word "racism" in modern, common usage meaning implies discrimination and superiority of one race over other. – vartec Feb 24 '12 at 11:22
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    I think that would depend on your definition of "racism", but let's look at some other instinctive behaviors, like stealing: children will absolutely take from each other if they're not taught not to. And violence: children, without being taught, will push or hit when angry, until taught not to. My point? Instinct != good. Just because a behavior might be natural or instinctive doesn't make it acceptable or good. Racism is not just politically incorrect (to use a term favored by the so called alt right), it's wrong. – ReasonablySkeptical Feb 09 '17 at 21:55

1 Answers1

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A preference for one's own ethnic group is not present at birth, but learned during the first few months of life.

(Source - Three-month-olds, but not newborns, prefer own-race faces)

Newborn and 3-month old babies were shown pairs of photos of faces to see if they preferred faces of people from their own ethnic group or faces of people not from their own ethnic group.

While newborn infants demonstrated no spontaneous preference for faces from either their own- or other-ethnic groups, 3-month-old infants demonstrated a significant preference for faces from their own-ethnic group. These results suggest that preferential selectivity based on ethnic differences is not present in the first days of life, but is learned within the first 3 months of life. The findings imply that adults' perceptions of ethnic differences are learned and derived from differences in exposure to own- versus other-race faces during early development.

Tom77
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    "The findings imply that adults' perceptions of ethnic differences are learned and derived from differences in exposure to own- versus other-race faces during early development." -- therefore, there is no necessary preference for own-race faces, only for what the babies are used to. – Sklivvz Feb 23 '12 at 14:33
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    'Preference' in this study actually means: 'they spent more time looking at'. Even if there was no confound of babies spending more time with their own race, would this really imply racism? Also, it might be the case that babies of other races also prefer to look at Caucasian faces. It hasn't been researched here, so we don't know. – Ana Feb 23 '12 at 15:36
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    This is very good example of pseudo-science. 3 months is about when babies start recognizing faces at all. Until then, newborn recognizes people mainly by voice. – vartec Feb 23 '12 at 16:35
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    @vartec - reference? – Sklivvz Feb 23 '12 at 16:39
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    @vartec from the introduction of the article I linked to - "In the first few days of life, newborn infants demonstrate a visual preference for faces, a preference for their mother's face over a stranger's face, and the ability to discriminate between faces from their own-ethnic group. Also, newborns demonstrate a preference for attractive over unattractive faces" – Tom77 Feb 23 '12 at 16:47
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    http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/senses/sense13m.html *"Newborns can only see blurry shapes because they are very nearsighted (...)As babies grow, vision improves so that by the end of 3 months they can recognize familiar faces even at a distance."* – vartec Feb 24 '12 at 09:51
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    http://www.babycenter.com/408_when-will-my-baby-recognize-me_1368483.bc *"At first a baby's vision is quite blurry, and he can only see things about a foot away — the distance between his eyes and yours when you're feeding him. "By about 3 months you'll notice that your baby is able look directly at you and can even track an object that you move from side to side in front of him," says Reinstein (a pediatrician in Encino, California and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics)* – vartec Feb 24 '12 at 09:51
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    -1 because IMO "newborn infants" have scarcely learned to see at all. – ChrisW Jun 14 '15 at 14:27
  • This study means bollocks. Newborns have barely started their brains. They are pretty much unable to show preference for anything. – T. Sar Feb 09 '17 at 19:52
  • I'll observe what many others have observed: The child of a bearded father will tend to trust men with beards and fear those without, while a child of a clean-shaven father will fear bearded men and trust clean-shaven ones. This is observed as soon as the child begins recognizing people. I suspect it's a sort of "tribal" recognition. – Daniel R Hicks Feb 09 '17 at 23:38