Is race just a social construct?

Ailchu said:
sure but that is not completely the case yet even with europeans. and to some degree this already happened with the whole global population. and you still haven't answered either, what trait that is non superficial clearly seperates one racial group from the other.

also in the case of central asia, some mixtures are already thousands of years old, how long does it have to take until something is a new "race". you guys are just coming up with new defintions but there is never a clear statement about it. it's always fuzzy and that is why "race" will always be a social construct.
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Why would it need to be clearly seperated?
It exists on a spectrum.
 
Jovialis said:
"Lewontin and Levins’s collaboration also led to a series of essays on biology and society from a Marxist perspective, published later as The Dialectical Biologist (1985) and Biology Under the Influence (2007). Like his critiques of sociobiology, many of these essays treated science as politics, arguing against reductionism and determinism that favoured biological explanations of complex biosocial phenomena."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01936-6
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I'm disappointed when anyone, particularly a scientist, regards reductionism as a bad thing. The greatest advances in science are triumphs of reductionism, including quantum mechanics and evolution by natural selection.

Reductionism is mainly just the application of Ockham's Razor. When two theories fit the evidence equally, choose the simpler theory. That's not the same as always choosing the simplest theory, the "fit the evidence equally" proviso is important. If a theory is so simplistic that it doesn't fit the evidence as well as an alternative theory then it should be rejected.

I think Isaac Newton summed up reductionism best when he wrote "Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes".
 
Tamakore said:
I'm disappointed when anyone, particularly a scientist, regards reductionism as a bad thing. The greatest advances in science are triumphs of reductionism, including quantum mechanics and evolution by natural selection.

Reductionism is mainly just the application of Ockham's Razor. When two theories fit the evidence equally, choose the simpler theory. That's not the same as always choosing the simplest theory, the "fit the evidence equally" proviso is important. If a theory is so simplistic that it doesn't fit the evidence as well as an alternative theory then it should be rejected.

I think Isaac Newton summed up reductionism best when he wrote "Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes".
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When you interpret all of human history, all of art, all of science, through the lens of an ideology, as Marxists do, they make massive errors like this. Unfortunately, those taught by Marxists, rarely have the background to see the fallacy, as you just did.
 
Angela said:
When you interpret all of human history, all of art, all of science, through the lens of an ideology, as Marxists do, they make massive errors like this. Unfortunately, those taught by Marxists, rarely have the background to see the fallacy, as you just did.
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the simplest theory to fit the evidence always is best in science
but when more data become available science has to evolve along

Newton's laws are still applicable even though relativity has proven it wrong

Marxism has nothing to do with science, it's an ideology, not unlike a religion
the same goes for art
people should be taught what science is about

unfortunately the influence of pseudo-science is probably much bigger then science
 
kile said:
Why would it need to be clearly seperated?
It exists on a spectrum.
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clear seperation would be needed for racial groupings. otherwise what purpose would they have?

their biological meaning and their predictive power, if you just look at biology, is absolutely minimal. use them if you want to, but i think from a purely scientific point of view, they aren't really useful.
 
Here are some interviews from very prominent geneticists and their political views on race and immigration: Draw your own conclusions whether doing science should be a political activity.



Reich: I think so. I know there are extremists who are interested in genealogy and genetics. But I think those are very marginal people, and there’s, of course, a concern they may impinge on the mainstream.
But if you actually take any serious look at this data, it just confound severy stereotype. It’s revealing that the differences among populations we see today are actually only a few thousand years old at most and that everybody is mixed. I think that if you pay any attention to this world, and have any degree of seriousness, then you can’t come out feeling affirmed in the racist view of the world.You have to be more open to immigration. You have to be more open to the mixing of different peoples. That’s your own history.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-dna-history/554798/

I'm quoting Alichu that has summed up a German Interview of Krause on another thread.

In a recent Interview in a swiss magazine Krause drops some interesting facts. not everything is relevant for this discussion but i'll just sum up the whole interview a bit:

-4.1-4.2 million differences in genome between 2 central europeans, only 4.3-4.4 million differences in genome between central european and person from Peking.

-If we would meet an ancient Hunter Gatherer in european forests we would probably not be able to see a difference between him and modern Sub-Saharan Africans. their skin was very dark. except that they had blue or green eyes.

-migrations were rarely completely peacefull but without migrations europe would not have gotten very far.

-many who try to stop migration nowadays try to secure a success model that never worked without migration.

-to create a replacement like the one from 5000 years ago, 100 million people from india or the near east would have to immigrate into switzerland.
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I found the fully interview here:

Johannes Krause:"Racism created the concept of race in humans in the first place".

From Frankfurter Rundschau - Archaeogeneticist Johannes Krause explains why we humans are much more alike than it may seem on the outside
https://www.shh.mpg.de/1942662/dagnews2021

Plus, the Max Planck Institute made an official declaration on their site to show their support and approval of BLM.
https://www.shh.mpg.de/1794162/anti-racism-statement-mpi-shh

JULY28, 2020
The recent protests against police brutality and racism in the United States of America have galvanised people in anti-racism movements across Germany, Europe and beyond. We at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History want to make it clear that we stand together with the Black Lives Matter movement that is still tirelessly working for justice for the victims of police brutality,marginalisation, and embedded racist social, cultural, and economic structures.
 
He's either not as smart as I thought he was or he's a coward. Probably the latter.

I'm not saying they should man the barricades, but at least keep silent.

Reich exhibited a lot more guts.
 
I'm sure if you asked Russians what they thought of communism before the fall of the USSR, they would overwhelming "support" it. But like wokery, people are just afraid of the consequences. One day, fear isn't going to rule our lives anymore. The wheel keeps on turning, and the people facilitating this intimidation are going to find themselves in an ironic situation.
 
I'm waiting for our Chernobyl-event, a great catastrophe caused by choosing incompetent people for important tasks, just because they fit the ideological mold or from nepotism. But I think in the meantime we are seeing a slow decay, as we go down into the abyss. Ironically, it will be a communist country, China, that will surpass us. Because they are a civilization, not a shopping center.
 
Jovialis said:
I know a lot of academics, personally. They all pay lipservice and cotow to the woke mob. But behind closed doors, some of them are very right-wing. Though some of them do believe in this religion.
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Razib Khan has said the same.

So, you have some cowards and a lot of "true believers", or vice versa; who knows. Like the Communists of the 20s and 30s and the Cultural Revolution Warriors of Mao's China or the Pol Pot monsters, it's all the same, with, of course, the right wing versions like the Nazis as well.

Humanism isn't enough; some people need a fanatical belief system, a religion, as you say, which divides everyone into two groups: the "holy" us and the "evil" them who have to be destroyed to funnel all the rage and aggression from their sorry souls.

Like the Communists of the 30s during the show trials or the fellow travelers in the west in the 50s and even 60s, and the unrepentant Nazis hiding in the shadows, facts, reality, can't touch them, nor logic. That's why discussion with them is useless. What has to be done is to apply to all those who haven't taken sides or who are just going along to save their jobs and social standing and get them to vote all of this into oblivion.

It can start small. My local School Board had an election last year. Three spots were open and all three were filled by people against CRT. There's a new election in May for two spots and there's motivated, grass roots funded people running for the two spots. Then on to state representatives and then federal ones.

This is what has to be done. People also have to vote with their wallets. No money to universities awash in this nonsense. No buying products from companies which have caved this way and on and on. It can be done and can happen just as quickly as the spread of WOKEDOM.
 
real expert said:
Here are some interviews from very prominent geneticists and their political views on race and immigration: Draw your own conclusions whether doing science should be a political activity.




https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-dna-history/554798/

I'm quoting Alichu that has summed up a German Interview of Krause on another thread.


I found the fully interview here:

Johannes Krause:"Racism created the concept of race in humans in the first place".

From Frankfurter Rundschau - Archaeogeneticist Johannes Krause explains why we humans are much more alike than it may seem on the outside
https://www.shh.mpg.de/1942662/dagnews2021

Plus, the Max Planck Institute made an official declaration on their site to show their support and approval of BLM.
https://www.shh.mpg.de/1794162/anti-racism-statement-mpi-shh

JULY28, 2020
The recent protests against police brutality and racism in the United States of America have galvanised people in anti-racism movements across Germany, Europe and beyond. We at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History want to make it clear that we stand together with the Black Lives Matter movement that is still tirelessly working for justice for the victims of police brutality,marginalisation, and embedded racist social, cultural, and economic structures.
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Besides the fact that what they state I can agree with much (not everything) of it. But the main thing is politicizing scientific institutes. I don't think that is sensible.

Especially in Germany with a politicizing of such institutes (see this from Ahnenerbe) before and during ww2 they should imo have known better.....
 
Jovialis;639073[B said:
]I'm waiting for our Chernobyl-event, a great catastrophe [/B]caused by choosing incompetent people for important tasks, just because they fit the ideological mold or from nepotism. But I think in the meantime we are seeing a slow decay, as we go down into the abyss. Ironically, it will be a communist country, China, that will surpass us. Because they are a civilization, not a shopping center.
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You mean: You have to break eggs in order to make an omelet!?

I'm definitely against that type of thinking, it brings mostly misery and in the end 'the incompetent people' are replaced by well 'incompetent people', because I don't know perfect people let alone perfect rulers....

By the way may be despotic China will face some crisis too....
 
Jovialis said:
^^Wheel keeps on turning I guess. The circle of life and all. Though, the Han are too smart and discipline on average, at least at the moment, to decline anytime soon.
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I have long speculated that wokery, especially as an online presence, with fake Twitter and Facebook bots, are a Chinese government initiative to disrupt order in the West. They're utilizing useful idiots abroad to facilitate their agenda to undermine our posterity, and vilify our past. Corporations are under the influence of Chinese wealth too. Lenin was right to say, the capitalists will sell us rope we will hang them with.
 
Jovialis said:
I have long speculated that wokery, especially as an online presence, with fake Twitter and Facebook bots, are a Chinese government initiative to disrupt order in the West. They're utilizing useful idiots abroad to facilitate their agenda to undermine our posterity, and vilify our past. Corporations are under the influence of Chinese wealth too. Lenin was right to say, the capitalists will sell us rope we will hang them with.
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My reasoning for this:

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...0-accounts-linked-to-china-influence-campaign

"Twitter has removed more than 170,000 accounts the social media site says are state-linked influence campaigns from China focusing on Hong Kong protests, Covid-19 and the US protests in relation to George Floyd."
 
Woke individuals are essentially assets of our foreign rivals. Ironically, these people would absolutely be abused in Russia and China. They would be put to death for conducting similar actions in those countries, no doubt.
 
Jovialis said:
Russia is also involved:
"Researchers say social media following the death of George Floyd is similar to a social media campaign from a Russian state group that manipulated the online discourse around the Black Lives Matter movement."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bu...ion-george-floyd-unrest-politifact-2020-6?amp
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Putin uses every way to destabilize Europe and the US. Some "right wing populist" are getting money from them....And although right wing populist play the own nationalistic cards and "defense", they are seldom critical towards Putin, why?

Last week it was detected that some scientist of the University of Amsterdam were paid by the Chinese in fact to "promote other ways of looking at human rights" ahum....end of story, but most probably not end of the attempts from the Chinese side.
 
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Northener said:
Besides the fact that what they state I can agree with much (not everything) of it. But the main thing is politicizing scientific institutes. I don't think that is sensible.

Especially in Germany with a politicizing of such institutes (see this from Ahnenerbe) before and during ww2 they should imo have known better.....
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What exactly do you agree with? Do you think that race isn't real? Do you support BLM, their narrative about white privilege, and that the USA is a white supremacist hell? Do you embrace replacement migration?


I want to be sure about your point in order to respond to your comment.
 
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