Significant differences in views on race (once a core anthropological concept) occur between scientists from different countries. In light of the ongoing race debate, we present the concept's current status in Europe. On three occasions in 2002-03, we surveyed European anthropologists' opinions toward the biological race concept. The participants were asked whether they agreed that there are biological races within the species Homo sapiens. A dependence was sought between the type of response and several factors. Three of these factors-country of academic education, discipline, and age-were found to be significant in differentiating the replies. Respondents educated in Western Europe, physical anthropologists, and middle-aged persons reject race more frequently than respondents educated in Eastern Europe, people in other branches of science, and those from both younger and older generations. The survey shows that the views of anthropologists on race are sociopolitically (ideologically) influenced and highly dependent on education.
The racial paradigm, which became rooted in physical anthropology at its very beginning, was, for decades, treated as a concept needing no verification. It was only in the mid-20th century that the first attempts were made to question the usefulness of the race concept in describing our species variation. Since then, an ever growing number of anthropologists, particularly in the United States, have rejected the concept (nearly seventy percent in 1999). In Poland, the situation is different-in the 2001 study, the race concept was rejected by only 25 percent; the remaining respondents differing widely as to the accepted meaning of race. Unlike the U.S. anthropologists, Polish anthropologists tend to regard race as a term without taxonomic value, often as a substitute for population. The discrepancy may stem from differences in the traditions of anthropological schools, the differing sociopolitical histories, education, semantics, and possible attitudinal factors. [
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