Racism, facists, and seperatist movements.

sabro said:
As a science, racial theory seems to me a lot like divination, astrology, palmistry or most like phrenology.
Other than these, race can be scientifically determined, though.

I think it has more to do with our limited tribal instinct than with empirical science
That would be racism. You have to differentiate race as a biological concept & race as a sociological concept. Sociological differentiation in races doesn't make much sense, IMO.

How is race a scientific concept? What is it about? Maybe some history? It wasn't ever developed by biologists, was it? In what branch of science does it belong? (I keep leaning toward sociology- where they study the development and application of race usually as it applies to racism in society.)
Sociology? Sorry, I only argue from a biological basis. Sociology is too much interwoven with psychology, too wide open to interpretation, not enough facts & too much philosophy.

Since you already looked at Wikipedia, I suppose, I don't need to answer this one thoroughly. Just one thing: When I looked at the English version I had to notice that they seem to focus the entire article on the human subdivision into races. While the German version actually (although being rather PC as well) explains it as it is:

"Taxonomic Mayr (1969) : "An aggregate of phenotypically similar populations of a species, inhabiting a geographic subdivision of the range of a species, and differing taxonomically from other populations of the species."
Population Dobzhansky (1970) : "Races are genetically distinct Mendelian populations. They are neither individuals nor particular genotypes, they consist of individuals who differ genetically among themselves.""
(This is copied from the English version, but although they quote it, they don't apply it beyond humans).

Can't we use the similarity between humans and chimps
Sorry, maybe I'm too tired, I don't really get your point in this paragraph.

Perhaps I misunderstand: Are humans actually different breeds?
Yes, I think, you misunderstand. Breed (for my limited understanding of English) is usually restricted to usage related to domesticated animals. Unless you find some occasions where slaves were actually bred by their slaveholders or consider the rather idiotic (& short-lived) attempt of the Nazis to produce a blonde super race you won't find human breeds.

The implication for humanity if we are indeed different breeds is that there may be racial differences in intelligence, character, and temperment
Actually, in intelligence & temperament there are statistical differences, but they are marginal & therefore negligible, AFAIK.

and that some races are more suitable to certain types of work than others.
That's where you're mistaken. Differences as described above are only statistical, they don't constitute a reason for any collectivist social differentiation. As you already said somewhere else, variation inside a race is great.

So are races equivalent to breeds?
Yes, breeds are races of domesticated (bred) animals.

That is why I used variety initially, thinking it was the equivalent term for sub species,
Variety is used for plants only, the taxonomy is ...- species - subspecies - variety - ..., for animals (incl. humans) it is ...- species - subspecies - race -... . There are other approaches which equate subspecies & race (although that makes the inclusion of eg. Neanderthals a bit harder, IMO).

just that I don't believe biologist divide any species into "races."
They do, only nowadays it has become un-PC to use the term race. Even Cavalli-Sforza tends to avoid it, instead he uses population & cline. Simply a difference in terminology, not really in concept.

Or does it have some predictive value?
It has predictive value, but only on a statistical basis. Eg. can be said that there is a greater probability for mongoloids than for caucasoids to be unable to digest milk products.

I thought the point of science was at some level application
That is the popular (more popular in the US than in Europe, I think) concept of science. But as the name says, science strives for gaining knowledge. Applying that knowledge is not necessarily business of scientists.

do they all have differences that are not race based that are far more important?
Yep!

Then you have made my point. There is no real scientific basis for race.
Wrong, what you described was the racist approach, just going for outer appearance. Race is a differentiation of human populations according to combination of physical characteristics. Outer appearance being only a minor part (I think, I said that before. Please don't try to push me into the corner of those who only see the outside). EG. bone build, protein production have greater significance.

I think it is probably more important to look at language and culture than "race."
Important? What for?

Haven't most human populations been in nearly constant states of contact and migration? With rare exceptions- aren't most human populations in historically frequent contact with others through trade, travel, warfare, and migration?
There may have been only 2000 human beings some 60,000 years ago. It's rather easy to get separated from the rest of the world - say - if you are a tribe of maybe 40 people & follow a new path into the North.

Isn't the most isolated population of humans separated by less than (I guess) about 10,000 or 20,000 years?
Most isolated? Anyway, if you are a rather small inbreeding population, 5000 years may be enough.

We do keep stats in the US based upon race. (Most of which is self selected.) In this way we can look for patterns, or trends- especially those that betray some kind of racially based discrimination.
IMO, the US administrative system has not much in common with a scientific definition of race. It's simply a sociological classification for bureaucratic convenience.

Lastly do you have a reference for Cavalli-Sforza?
Will come back later with that & the rest of my post.
 
Thank you Bossel, I didn't think we were actually in disagreement on most points- I just needed clarification. I looked at the wikipedia article, and at the debate on a PBS website about a NOVA program about this very discussion. (I lost the link.) I seem to agree with the anthopological/sociological basis rather than the biological basis for race (although I don't really know what the heck the physical anthropologist was trying to say.) Most of the biologists don't see a value in subdividing the human species. I still feel very confident saying that there is no biological foundation for race, it is a sociological construct.

The chimp thing was in response to saying that there was no value in knowing our close relationship. I was trying to point out some application of this knowlege. (Chimps are actually a different genus, but are still very similar.)
 
sabro said:
I seem to agree with the anthopological/sociological basis rather than the biological basis for race
Then we are in disagreement, for I have a distinct problem with the anthropological view, which IMO is too philosophical. It seems, many if not most anthropologists see the human species still as something special, as non-animals. The sociological basis for race is (if I'm not mistaken; sociology is a quite weak point in my interests) the least valid.

Most of the biologists don't see a value in subdividing the human species. I still feel very confident saying that there is no biological foundation for race, it is a sociological construct.
Perhaps you misunderstood the Wikipedia article?
The question was "how many disagree with the following proposition: "There are biological races in the species Homo sapiens."
* biologists 16%"
Hence 84% of the asked biologists either agree with the fact of human races or have no opinion. I couldn't find this survey anywhere, though, therefore it's hard to say how valid the result is. Who was asked, in which country, position etc.?

But the result is not surprising, actually. Biologists have a broader perspective than the rather narrow view of anthropologists.
I suppose, the result in favour of no race would be even higher today, because PC has only really got hold of the whole discussion in the last 2 decades.
As I said before, though, even those biologists who succumbed to PC still use the concept of race, only with a different terminology.

The chimp thing was in response to saying that there was no value in knowing our close relationship. I was trying to point out some application of this knowlege.
I see. I think, in that regard, race actually is used as some sort of probability indicator. Like, 90% of mongoloids have that protein which makes that active component useless, therefore in China we use a different component for our medicine. IIRC, just recently there was a drug introduced in the US solely for negroids. I wonder how that works, though, since most US blacks are caucasoid/negroid hybrids. Perhaps there is dominant negroid gene which is the reason for this, but I haven't heard very much about it, just a short report on TV.

(Chimps are actually a different genus, but are still very similar.)
That can be disputed, as I said above. I consider them too close to humans to be a different genus. Only a minority of biologists agree with me on this, though.

Cavalli-Sforza :
The History and Geography of Human Genes
is his major work. It's huge, though, & not for the general public. Luckily it's at the genetical institute of my university, unluckily I'm only allowed to read it there.

Genes, Peoples, and Languages
is his most popular work, I think, & his most PC. Easy readable, yet informative.
 
Thanks, I don't believe I skipped that whole "disagree" thing in the stat. It does seem to indicate that more biologists than anthropologists believe the whole race thing.

Again, as I stated before, I am out of my depth here. Smarter people than me have debated this issue, and right now I feel confident in my opinion. (I'm an English Major by education. Ask me about dead British writers.) I'm still not certain why you think race is scientific, or what the "scientific concept" is all about. I'm still without a history of how the "scientific" concept of race developed, or why if the theory of race is valid is racism wrong. After all doesn't the concept validate the differential treatment of subspecies? To me, race and racism is still connected.

Race as a scientific theory isn't as solid as lets say the atomic theory or gravity or even evolution. There doesn't seem to be a good consensus among real scientists who actually know something about this. I quickly scanned over the following articles to get me familiar with both sides of the argument. I also looked over the Cavalli-Sforza stuff, but much of this is pretty esoteric and I am going to have to re-read most of this when I am less tired. To me race still seems a lot more like phrenology than science, and in spite of your statements to the contrary, seems to be based on superficial physical characteristics.

These give both sides of the debate. And I keep coming back to my original opinion. (After all if race is a valid subdivision of a species, than why is it not used in any other species?) I have more articles, but haven't even glanced at them yet...

http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1331319,00.html : "THE popular notion that skin colour can indicate physical or mental differences between groups of people has been demolished by a new analysis of the human genome, which declares race to be a biologically meaningless concept."

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00055DC8-3BAA-1FA8-BBAA83414B7F0000
 
The scary thing about reading the articles is that I can go right past terms like polymorphisms, alus, allele, short tandem repeats, taxonomic validity, monotypic and cline and feel like I might understand what I am reading.

The arguments seems to center around whether there are substantial differences that merit the creation of sub-species categories, or merely minor superficial differences. Right away I can latch onto the guys that agree with my more "politically correct" POV. (That's not real science, but it feels good to know that a large number of PhD's share my perspective.) However, an almost equally large number disagree. Can you imagine scientists being so divided about the basic laws of genetics, thermodynamics, or physics? If race is a valid scientific concept, it certainly needs some work. I'm back where I started. Race does not seem to me to be scientific or valid as a concept.

Individuals from different populations are, on average, just slightly more different from one another than are individuals from the same population. If you walk from the Great Rift valley, north all the way to Sweden, and then turned East and went to Japan you would see that all the people you run into are pretty similar to the people of the neighboring population. The shift in physical characteristics (and probably the more hidden genomic aspecs) is so gradual that identifying a hard line as to where on group ends and the other begins would be arbitrary. There would seem a lack of the kind of hard lines necessary to form a valid system of classification. Throw into the mix modern transportation methods and the mass migrations of the past 300 years that brought people from different continents into contact with each other and suddenly the whole race thing has lost all meaning.

My Japanese-English-Mexican-Creole sons defy all definition of race. Any allele, cline, or gene you find in their blood could have originated on any one of four continents. What valid purpose would you have in identifying and categorizing them? (Unless they robbed a liquor store, then you could use race as a quick way of identifying suspects.)
 
sabro said:
My Japanese-English-Mexican-Creole sons defy all definition of race. Any allele, cline, or gene you find in their blood could have originated on any one of four continents. What valid purpose would you have in identifying and categorizing them? (Unless they robbed a liquor store, then you could use race as a quick way of identifying suspects.)

If I'm not mistaken we can't tell if a person is a certain race by analyzing his DNA, at least I think that's what I read.
 
Someone (Bashmad) in one of those Scientific America articles (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ch...AA-1FA8-BBAA83414B7F0000&pageNumber=2&catID=2 ) compared 556 from europe, asia, and africa and was able to identify using 60 alus four distinct population groups (Two in Africa, One in Europe, one in Asia) with over 80% accuracy. Which I guess means not yet, and the DNA may one day indicate something that geography and skin color does not. Other scientist have used polymorphisms to successfully identify the geographic points of origin of genetic samples, but this may not actually prove anything more than people of a geographic llocation are genetically related and look like one another. It becomes problematic when you look at East Indians and try to break them up into their self identified ethnic catagories, or at white and African Americans. (Some 20 or 30% of these polymorphism seem to have crossed the color line.)

So if you find a drop of blood on the street in Houston, right now, no good scientist in the world could tell what the "race" of the donor was.
 
sabro said:
I'm still not certain why you think race is scientific, or what the "scientific concept" is all about.
If you still can't see it, after all what you have read any attempt by me to explain it further is probably futile. Here is a widely accepted model from 1990:
"members of a subspecies [IE race] would share a unique, geographic locale, a set of phylogenetically concordant phenotypic characters, and a unique natural history relative to other subdivisions of the species. Although subspecies are not reproductively isolated, they will normally be allopatric and exhibit recognizable phylogenetic partitioning"

I'm still without a history of how the "scientific" concept of race developed
You wanna tease me? It's in the Wikipedia article.

why if the theory of race is valid is racism wrong. After all doesn't the concept validate the differential treatment of subspecies? To me, race and racism is still connected.
Of course are race & racism connected. But the one is no necessary reason for the other.
Would you deny the differences between men & women (although there is no clear borderline, science still makes this distinction)?

Differential treatment is not necessarily racist, it can even be required, eg. in certain medical conditions or when serving alcoholic or lactic products.

Race as a scientific theory isn't as solid as lets say the atomic theory or gravity or even evolution.
Atomic theory is not rock solid, either. We still don't know everything. Don't get me started on gravity, essentially we only know that it exists. Evolution theory is pretty similar to race theory, IMO.

There doesn't seem to be a good consensus among real scientists who actually know something about this.
Ever met a bunch of linguists? Oh, I forgot, an English major. Then you probably did. Linguistics is a science, yet if you talk to 10 linguists you may get 20 opinions (depending on the linguistic theory you talk about, obviously).

I also looked over the Cavalli-Sforza stuff, but much of this is pretty esoteric and I am going to have to re-read most of this when I am less tired.
Esoteric? C-S? He's a bit too PC in his statements, but his research is OK.

To me race still seems a lot more like phrenology than science, and in spite of your statements to the contrary, seems to be based on superficial physical characteristics.
Superficial? Could you define that further?

After all if race is a valid subdivision of a species, than why is it not used in any other species?
What makes you think so? I already told you that this is not the case, race is used as a subdivision in other species, only the terminology might differ a bit (eg. variety for plants, breed for domesticated animals, subspecies). It seems a distinct phenomenon of English that the term race is more or less limited to humans.
Chimpanzees are subdivided into at least 4 subspecies, Eastern Gorillas into 2-3, the Long-tailed Macaque into at least 10, you can go on...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1331319,00.html : "THE popular notion that skin colour can indicate physical or mental differences between groups of people has been demolished by a new analysis of the human genome, which declares race to be a biologically meaningless concept."
IMO, this leading statement already disqualifies the article. There is no "popular notion that skin colour can indicate physical or mental differences between groups of people" in biology. This sounds like pure propaganda to discredit the scientists who work in the field.


sabro said:
If you walk from the Great Rift valley, north all the way to Sweden, and then turned East and went to Japan you would see that all the people you run into are pretty similar to the people of the neighboring population.
Just like in the case of dialects. But would you say that dialects don't exist?

The shift in physical characteristics (and probably the more hidden genomic aspecs) is so gradual that identifying a hard line as to where on group ends and the other begins would be arbitrary.
Because there is no hard line. Why does there need to be one?

suddenly the whole race thing has lost all meaning.
You shouldn't search for meaning in science, it's just about knowledge (Latin scientia = knowledge). If you need meaning, there is a number of religions who could provide that.


sabro said:
compared 556 from europe, asia, and africa and was able to identify using 60 alus four distinct population groups (Two in Africa, One in Europe, one in Asia) with over 80% accuracy. Which I guess means not yet,
You should have read further (BTW, I've read a very similar article in German, but from a different author, interesting. Plagiarism?):
"We found that we needed 60 Alu polymorphisms to assign individuals to their continent of origin with 90 percent accuracy. To achieve nearly 100 percent accuracy, however, we needed to use about 100 Alus.
[...]
assayed approximately 375 polymorphisms called short tandem repeats in more than 1,000 people from 52 ethnic groups in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. By looking at the varying frequencies of these polymorphisms, they were able to distinguish five different groups of people whose ancestors were typically isolated by oceans, deserts or mountains: sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans and Asians west of the Himalayas; East Asians; inhabitants of New Guinea and Melanesia; and Native Americans. They were also able to identify subgroups within each region that usually corresponded with each member's self-reported ethnicity."

Thanks for SSRC link, BTW. I didn't have that one!
 
Bossel,

If a large number of scientist reject race as a valid concept, I have no problem as a layman finding it unscientific. (Not that it should matter to the scientific community what I think.) You may find debate about other scientific theories, but scientists are not divided as to whether gravity is a valid concept or not.

(My only disagreement with your last post is that I think there is a clear distinction between genders that can be defined scientifically.)

We do as humans constantly divide the subspecies for all kinds of purposes. We tabulate data, collect stats, self segregate, discriminate, pick, choose, classify, certify and who knows what else for what reason. If you mention a race or an ethnicity, I will have a fairly clear list of physical features that I would expect to see. If you ask me to describe a person, I may use race as a shorthand for the physical appearences. I do not doubt that negroids come from the african continent, cacasoids from europe and mongoloids from asia. So it is perfectly human to divide us up by race. I would still after all this argue that the division is not scientific and serves little useful scientific purpose. It adds nothing to our base of knowlege, and is nothing in the way of applicable or useful knowlege in and of itself. I don't think you have explained at all what race is really "about," except to inform me that it is not about racism. Through the whole wikipedia article, much of which refutes the concept, there is little mention of scientist initially developing race as a concept, only that it was already widely accepted by the 18th century, and that it was used to justify colonialism and the exploitation of "darker races."
 
Don't have time today, just in short.

sabro said:
If a large number of scientist reject race as a valid concept, I have no problem as a layman finding it unscientific. (Not that it should matter to the scientific community what I think.) You may find debate about other scientific theories, but scientists are not divided as to whether gravity is a valid concept or not.
You will find a number of linguists rejecting UG as a valid concept, but it's still a scientific theory/hypothesis.


(My only disagreement with your last post is that I think there is a clear distinction between genders that can be defined scientifically.
AFAIK, there is no clear borderline, hermaphrodites actually do exist.

It adds nothing to our base of knowlege
It does, eg. that human beings largely derived from isolated population clusters.

I don't think you have explained at all what race is really "about,"
What should it be about, if not about race? As I said, if you're looking for meaning, don't look at science.
 
I would invite comments from someone other than me. I am neither a biologist nor am I an anthropologist. Bossel and I have exhausted every angle of this argument and I am quickly loosing interest. I have read several articles by scientists that say that race is not a scientific concept and that say it has no value. It seems that some people feel the necessity to subdivde the species into categories, and feel that this is scientific and increases our knowlege. You can sort your clothes anyway you want, but that doesn't make it scientific nor does it denote knowledge.

That hermaphrodites exists does not blurr the borderline between genders. Sociologically and psychologically some people may be confused about gender, but scientists need only to perform a simple examination (with on rare occasion- a look at a person's chromosomes) to determine gender.

I would also argue (without much purpose or any sources) that humans don't derive from isolated population clusters. We derive from some isolated, some in constant contact, some migratory stock. We all share common ancestors, many of them recent. From what I read... You can't fit 6 billion people into three categories, or four, or six or sixty. By the time you get to 60 the categories have become meaningless.
 
sabro said:
I have read several articles by scientists that say that race is not a scientific concept and that say it has no value.
& other articles say that it has value. (maybe they use other terms than race, but that doesn't change the underlying concept very much)

That hermaphrodites exists does not blurr the borderline between genders. Sociologically and psychologically some people may be confused about gender, but scientists need only to perform a simple examination (with on rare occasion- a look at a person's chromosomes) to determine gender.
& that simple examination would be? A person's chromosomes are not decisive either (you can have "males" with XX & "females" with XY). IIRC, an athlete banned from participating as a female in the Olympics for having XY-chromosomes later carried out a child.
If hermaphrodites don't represent a blurried borderline, what are they?

By the time you get to 60 the categories have become meaningless.
& again you come back to meaning. Why does there have to be meaning?
 
bossel said:
& again you come back to meaning. Why does there have to be meaning?

Why would we need a catorgorization that is meaningless?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Duo
sabro said:
Why would we need a catorgorization that is meaningless?
Ah, that brings me to a question: which meaning does the categorisation into male & female have?
Or: Which meaning would you see in categorising language?
"By the time you get to 60 the categories have become meaningless." Would that mean that for a language with 60 dialects, the categorisation has no meaning, while below 60 it has? Where would you draw the line?

I thought, by "meaning" you were hinting at something else than actual knowledge. Sorry if I misunderstood that.
 
Prejudice in general is a human trait. We were born, and raised with it as our companion. It is what helps us makes decisions, friends, and social skills. Idealists who say a world without prejudice would be a good world are fools. Without prejudice there would be no social structure.
 
Ok, I only skimmed this long thread and read some of the last posts, but here is a fault I find in some responses here:

I have read several articles by scientists that say that race is not a scientific concept and that say it has no value.

& other articles say that it has value. (maybe they use other terms than race, but that doesn't change the underlying concept very much)

Where are these articles that are mentioned? I see that some articles have been posted, but from the breif synopsis given (and the excerpts) they don't seem to pertain to these arguments.

As far the definition of race as scientific or social distinction, it really depends where you look. Here are some examples of definitions I have found:

-A subjective term used to distinguish groups of people but not necessarily to denote biological or physical differences (Institute for Rural Health Research)

-subspecies: (biology) a taxonomic group that is a division of a species; usually arises as a consequence of geographical isolation within a species (Cognitive Science Dept., Princeton)

-The concept of race, as used by the Census Bureau, does not denote any clear-cut scientific definition of biological stock. The data for race represent self-classification by people according to the race with which they most closely identify. Furthermore, it is recognized that the categories of the race item include both racial and national origin or socio-cultural groups (locationxpert.com)

-1 a : an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species; also : a taxonomic category (as a subspecies) representing such a group b : BREED
2 : one of the three, four, or five divisions based on inherited physical characteristics into which human beings are usually divided (Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary)

-A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.
+A genealogical line; a lineage.
+Humans considered as a group.
Biology.
+An interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms differing from other populations of the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits. A race that has been given formal taxonomic recognition is known as a subspecies.
+A breed or strain, as of domestic animals (all of the above: American Hertiage Dictionary)

A note from AHDict.: "The notion of race is nearly as problematic from a scientific point of view as it is from a social one. European physical anthropologists of the 17th and 18th centuries proposed various systems of racial classifications based on such observable characteristics as skin color, hair type, body proportions, and skull measurements, essentially codifying the perceived differences among broad geographic populations of humans...The biological aspect of race is described today not in observable physical features but rather in such genetic characteristics as blood groups and metabolic processes, and the groupings indicated by these factors seldom coincide very neatly with those put forward by earlier physical anthropologists. Citing this and other pointssuch as the fact that a person who is considered black in one society might be nonblack in anothermany cultural anthropologists now consider race to be more a social or mental construct than an objective biological fact."

As you can see, race is either defined by biology or sociology, though there seems to be more emphasis on the social aspect than the biological. Therefore, it appears that race can be one of those concepts that can only be defined by the individual and therefore 'racism' differs from person to person. However, one thing is certain that race does inherently imply a group. Therefore, semantically speaking, RockLee's definition of racism is not accurate (being racist for hating one person of a certain ethnicity/race - this is my understanding of your definition).

Perhaps to reconcile differences in opinion of the definition of race it is best to use "ethnicism" than racism. However, this still presents a problem. Ethnicity is not based on biology, it is based on cultural background. A simple case that proves the difficulty with this is my friend: half-taiwanese, half-swiss, born and raised in Japan. What is his ethnicity? If we had to come up with a specific way of defining race and ethnicity, I would almost say ethnicity is the purely social aspect of race (the other side being biology). Therefore, by turning to ethnicity only, we no longer run into the difficulty of science (as was mentioned with hermaphrodites, XY-XX chromosomes, and the definition of gender). As soon as we through a social aspect into a definition, all possibility of a concrete be-all end-all definition is lost. This does not mean that there is no meaning - far from it. The meaning becomes greater as this social aspect is discussed. I can say that my insight into the definition of race has been furthered through this thread (I shall have to go back and read more though).
 
lonesoullost3- Great reply.

I think what gets confusing is the shift from the old paradigm of 3 races to new science of human genome variation. We're arguing about labels and if there is enough biological differences to warrant a categorization into subspecies and just what that categorzation might mean. The very term "race" seems to muddle it up. One article I read, and somewhat understood: http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1435.html seemed to explain the argument quite well.

What I have come to think based on this research is that the three "old world" race classifications are unscientific. That race, thus defined, is "biologically meaningless" (RS Scwhartz, NEJM 344, 1392-1392 (2001) and "not based on scientific evidence," SB Haga & JC Venter Science 301, 466 (2003). A guy named Templeton wrote that "humans fail the test for biological races." (1998) But the fact remains that humans vary in visible/measurable traits by geographic region, and that eventually we will be able to see this by testing genetic material. The questions remain however about the validity, necessity, and values of a classification of humans below species. There are doubts even in the medical field, that "race...is a weak surrogate for various genetic and non-genetic factors in correlation with health status." Chramaine DM Royal & Georgia M Dunston (2003). So the old definition of Race is, in my thinking, a sociological construct not based on science at all. (Unless you consider our innate, instinctive ability to group, cluster, and classify things scientific.)

Bossel is probably more familiar with the scientific aspects of this argument, including the efforts of the Genographic project. He considers race a valid subdivision of species.(https://www5.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/about.html) He could better explain the scientific validity of race and genomic research. We could through these efforts have a better understanding of human variation and form a reliable and verifiable definition for "race" based on science.

A lot of what I am saying came from that Wikipedia article and the links it has.

Here are some references to the articles the quotes came from:

http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/12/6/844
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/301/5632/466?view=summary (fee may be required)
http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/13/7/1607
http://www.asanet.org/media/race.html
 
Last edited:
lonesoullost3 said:
Where are these articles that are mentioned?
I think, you summed up the argument pretty well. For the articles, well, since most of the stuff I read is German & the only one I read who is (what I know of) published in English is Cavalli-Sforza (member of the PC faction & acc. to Sabro quite "esoteric"), it's hard to find English sources. But I've tried to come up with some stuff (see below).

As far the definition of race as scientific or social distinction, it really depends where you look.
[...]
As you can see, race is either defined by biology or sociology, though there seems to be more emphasis on the social aspect than the biological.
IMO this emphasis is only in the public discussion. As long as they are not buggered by some journalists who want them to take a stance most scientists just go along with their research. It may get problematic when the institution which finances research is infected with the PC virus, though. Then the researchers could have to change terminology & camouflage their area of research.

A social distinction of race is not very useful IMO. One of the problems I have with members of the PC faction is the fact that they often base their criticism on the superficial social distinction rather than what is really going on in science.

Perhaps to reconcile differences in opinion of the definition of race it is best to use "ethnicism" than racism.
[...]Therefore, by turning to ethnicity only, we no longer run into the difficulty of science
I don't think, changing terminology is very useful. As can be seen in case of "race" it only seems to confuse people even more than was the case before. I'd prefer education over re-definition or PC.


Some articles I found:

The Biological Meaning of "Race"
Quote:
" In short, we must, as Cavalli-Sforza advises (but fails to heed), examine all the existing evidence, and realize that it is the unique ensemble of all the aforementioned characteristics--gene freqencies, and physical and geographical characteristics--which differentiate races, not just a few arbitrary chosen traits."

Cavalli-Sforza II: Seven Dumb Ideas about Race
Quote:
"Race is a topic of such enormous importance that it's essential to think clearly about it. Yet much of the intelligentsia now attempts to deal with the problem by defining race as merely a mass hallucination afflicting the entire human race - other than we few members of the Great and the Good"

From the same author:
Race Flat-Earthers Dangerous To Everyone?fs Health
Quote:
"Some of the Race Has No Biological Reality ideologues are so fanatical that, rather than be proven wrong about the reality of race, they'd apparently prefer to see members of their own race die"

related article:
FDA Approves First Racially Targeted Drug
Quote:
"Two earlier trials of the drug on the general population of heart failure patients found no benefit, the FDA said, but they did suggest that BiDil helped the few blacks participating."

THIRTY YEARS OF RESEARCH ON RACE (pdf)
Quote:
"Denial of any genetic component in human variation,
including between groups, is not only poor science, it is likely to be injurious both to unique individuals and to the complex structure of societies."

specifically for Sabro, who thinks you can't see race in the DNA:
Molecular eyewitness: DNA gets a human face
Quote:
"Of the 8,000 DNA samples they have tested by this method in the course of their research and work, 95 per cent of people turn out to be of significant mixed heritage, said Zach Gaskin, a technical co-ordinator of forensics at the company.
Still, Mr. Gaskin said, once a DNA sample suggests that at least 30 per cent of a person's heritage belongs to a particular racial group, a person starts "to exhibit features consistent with that population.""

Not too closely related to the issue of race:
Genomics refutes an exclusively African origin of humans
Quote:
"Numerical simulations of this process replicate many of the seemingly contradictory features of the genetic data, and suggest that as much as 80% of nuclear loci have assimilated genetic material from non-African archaic humans."


BTW, Sabro, you didn't answer my questions!
 

This thread has been viewed 111601 times.

Back
Top