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######How different are they? They can certainly breed with one another. I doubt that a Persian cat and a Siamese cat would see each other as different types of cat.######

If Persian and Siamese cats aren't different, then there's no reason why a male Persian cat couldn't mate with a female Persian cat and produce a Siamese offspring. A race is a subgroup of a larger species which, through genetic isolation, develops traits sufficiently different from other subgroups as to be genetically defined. Keep your Persian cats away from other breeds and they will absolutely never produce anything other than Persian offspring. Likewise, geographic isolation over the millennia explains why two Icelanders don't marry and give birth to a baby with the physical characteristics of, say, a Hottentot, and vice-versa.

It's not to assert that one is better than the other, just that they are genetically distinct. That's simply a fact.

######Similarly, if an alien looked at human beings without all of the cultural baggage we attach to one another, I doubt they would see any real differences.######

The entirety of human history says otherwise, and no better proof exists of that than the fact that the very people pushing the idea that race doesn't exist are, in fact, obsessed with race. Not to mention that cultural baggage, as you call it, has racial origins. If the Japanese had settled England, it would today have an Oriental culture.

######But that's simply a matter of how we define race. We look at skin color and say- black guy, white woman, whatever. However, those definitions have little to do with underlying biology. There are black people with lighter skin tones than certain white people. How about Indians? Or Iranians? What race do they belong to?######

######You start getting into South African or old South definitions of what constitutes a white person, black person etc. These definitons, by their very nature, are going to have arbitrary cut-offs that have nothing to do with biology.######

Well, races can mix, to be sure. But if they don't mix, they get further apart. If race was an illusion, that wouldn't happen. The great variety of races and ethnicities on earth is due to genetics and genetic isolation. I don't see why that simple fact frightens people so much. I appreciate other races and cultures. I love Japan and the Japanese people, for example. Race simply is. I see no reason to pervert science to pretend it isn't.

#####I'm being dense, I think. I don't get it.######

If genetic diseases can be transferred, then so can other genetic characteristics! :-)

If Persian and Siamese cats aren't different, then there's no reason why a male Persian cat couldn't mate with a female Persian cat and produce a Siamese offspring.

But, as with humans, we have decided to classify Persians and Siamese as different breeds of cat. It's a purely arbitrary distinction based on certain cosmetic expressions of genetics. The cats don't actually see the distinction, which leads to the conclusion that there is no real difference. Though, a house cat certainly would see a difference between itself and a lynx.

It's not to assert that one is better than the other, just that they are genetically distinct. That's simply a fact.

They're genetically distinct in some superficial ways, granted. However, I'm brown-haired, brown-eyed while my fiance is red-haired, blue-eyed. She has a very fair compexion while I'm more Mediterranean. There's certainly a lot of genetic distinction there. All we have in common, cosmetically speaking, is skin-color that is arbitrarily considered "white."

If the Japanese had settled England, it would today have an Oriental culture.

Even if everyone else in Europe had remained white?