Race as a concept has been around a long time. It exists as an idea.
Exactly.
Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) divided the human species into four main regional and skin-color-based varieties in his work
Systema Naturae: Americanus, Europaeus, and Asiaticus. He paired these physical groups with specific skin tones, behavioral traits, and bodily humours.
Americanus (Americanus rubescens): Red skin, choleric temperament, upright posture; described as stubborn, free, and regulated by custom.
Europaeus (Europaeus albus): White skin, sanguine temperament, muscular build; described as gentle, inventive, and governed by laws.
Asiaticus (Asiaticus fuscus / luridus): Sallow or yellow skin, melancholic temperament, stiff build; described as severe, greedy, and ruled by opinions.
Africanus (Africanus niger): Black skin, phlegmatic temperament, relaxed build; described as crafty, lazy, and governed by caprice.
Thats why we can talk about it even while it has no biological basis in DNA to it.
Exactly.
The previous racial theories
could no longer account for the facts that molecular genetic science revealed.
Facts that as Dawkins put it,
"may be surprising to some people when you consider that races look so different to our eyes."
Facts that are
un-intuitive - facts like that
"Two people from Ethiopia and Namibia will be more different to each other at a genetic level than either one of them is to a white European"!!
Or as even Dawkins attempts to communicate about his science,
"... human populations are not — and never have been — biologically discrete, truly isolated, or fixed. Genetic and phenotypic variants are not distributed across our species in a manner that maps clearly onto socially-recognized racial groups. This is true even for aspects of human variation that we frequently emphasise in discussions of race, such as facial features, skin color and hair type...".
Which is obviously completely counter to the three hundred year old scheme of Linnaeus.
But some people are just unable to disbelieve what their eyes tell them, they are unable to deal with anything at all abstract. They just can't deal with anything like that, in fact this thread evidences that to try and deal with it they simply revert to familiar comforting phrases.