In response to the identification of race through an examination of DNA, it should be noted that race is not determined scientifically but is in fact a cultural construction. It is a composite of many factors such as skin color, hair color, hair texture, geographic location, parentage, and personal opinion. Also, skin color isn't fixed. Testosterone causes skin to darken, which often results in males with darker pigmentation. Tanning can also affect this determination. Therefore any racial profile generated from DNA analysis is highly subjective as it relies on a personal opinion of the suspect's race both visually and genetically.

There's no genetic basis for "race" anyway. Studies have shown that individuals people might group by "race" often have DNA that has more in common with someone on the other side of the world, than with each other. There's more diversity in the genes of Africa's ethnic groups than in all other world groups combined. That alone should tell you something.

Race is simply a socio-cultural construct intended to categorize people by physical characteristics that are often only distantly related.

Sevumar:

There's more diversity in the genes of Africa's ethnic groups than in all other world groups combined. That alone should tell you something.

Yes. It tells me you don’t know what you are talking about. 

My closet has shirts of a dozen different colors. Just look at all that diversity! And yet, every single one of them is a shirt. They come in all sorts of different materials too. But they are still shirts. 

Because even though they have differences, they have enough commonalities that they can be grouped together. Grouping by race is similar. Yes, there are outliers. Yes, the line between one race and another isn’t a bright line. And yes, there is some overlap. The taxonomy of plenty of items is difficult. But no one is going to mistake a Bantu for a Balkan.

I understand that you don’t like that racial groups can be identified by DNA. I understand these facts upset your liberal, “weez all eqwal” sensibilities. But your uninformed opinion doesn’t make it any less true. 

It might not be difficult to spot the visual difference between a Bantu and a Balkan but genetically they are nearly identical. This is the difficulty with identifying a person through a visual representation of their genes, which by the way is a hell of a lot harder than it sounds. These issues aside, crimes are committed most often by members of the community. If the community is in Spain the most likely culprit is a Spanaird, if the community is in New York the most likely culprit is a New Yorker. Within these communities you are less likely to find the "racial extremes", so to speak. The majority of people you will find make up the fuzzy areas where race is so hard to determine. And the reason it's hard to determine is because "race" is an arbitrary grouping of people and not based in scientific principles.

It might not be difficult to spot the visual difference between a Bantu and a Balkan but genetically they are nearly identical.

I agree that race is a social construct and not a biological one. But there couldbe and most probably are genetic markers that could enable one to differentiate between a Bantu and Balkan based on a genetic test.

Its certainly possible for us to in the future be able to take a DNA sample and say that the person's ancestors are 20% from West Africa, 20% Eastern European, 20% Irish, etc. Actually, I'm not so sure that we'd be able to determine the percentages. But certainly the regions of origin.

But who's to say what that person would look like.

Does it matter if it is a social construct? Looking at someone, I can tend to guess who is European or has ancestry from their. I would call them "white." I can likewise do the same regarding people with African ancestry, various Asian types, and Hispanic people. Is it a real biological indicator of their entire background or a comment on their genotype?

Not really. But we aren't looking for a phenotype that exactly matches the suspect. We are looking for enough to attempt to identify people suspected of crimes, an indicator. Knowing someone is considered to be "white" may be kind of vague, but if I can find out the person in question has green eyes and blonde hair? That helps.

Population genetics are real, even if racial ones are not. They are not to be considered to be overly exacting nor does anyone supporting this feel it is the case that they do. A social construct may be artificial, like class or race, but it is no less meaningful for being so.

StudentVet:

It might not be difficult to spot the visual difference between a Bantu and a Balkan but genetically they are nearly identical.

Since 92% of our genetic material is the same as any member of the animal kingdom, that isn't very surprising. There is less than a 10% genetic difference between humans and most mushrooms. There is less than a 2% difference between humans and the great apes. Nearly identical isn't identical. Small differences mean a lot, obviously.

Since 92% of our genetic material is the same as any member of the animal kingdom, that isn't very surprising. There is less than a 10% genetic difference between humans and most mushrooms. There is less than a 2% difference between humans and the great apes. Nearly identical isn't identical. Small differences mean a lot, obviously.

Difference this small do not mean a lot. They are largely cosmetic. Modern humans migrated out of Africa only 60,000 years ago: Humans have not physically evolved in serious ways since then- they would be biologically indistinguishable from a present day human.