Talk:Race/Archive 1
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[edit] Where is the discussion
I made some edits here and have been blocked as a vandal. Where is the discussion? 110.11.234.96 (talk) 04:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Maybe start it right here describing why you think your edits should be kept. Sam Tally-ho! 04:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- What Sam said. However be advised that this discussion has been had ooh, ten thousand times. Feel free to scan back through the archives. Consensus here is that "Race" has no meaning as anything other than a social construct. I read your additions and IMO they represent the same, tired, racist stuff we've seen many times before and which we have rejected as being "irrational". Please feel free to shout "But I thought this was supposed the be "Rational" Wiki!" VOXHUMANA 04:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- The burden is on the remover to explain the problem. The material in the edits speaks for itself. How is it false? NB. I can only edit every 30 mins as I have been assigned "vandal" status (somewhat ironically). 110.11.234.96 (talk) 04:55, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Here are my edits:
- This simple classification system failed in one significant area, however. Darker-skinned Europeans from southern Italy and southern Spain, Indians, and significantly Dravidic Indians clearly were not "Caucasian", but they were also not "Negroid". To the "American", these peoples, who increasingly emigrated to the United States in the early 20th century, were clearly "not like us", but were also "more like us than primitive Blacks". Depending on the needs of the day, they would be tossed in with the "Negroid", or tossed in with "Caucasian". Jews, Arabs and Indians (from India, not Native Americans - they were just "savages") fell into this strange place of not belonging to any race. The US Supreme Court even ruled in U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) that Caucasian Indians were not "white" within the meaning immigration law, as, despite anthropologists classifying them with "white" Europeans, they were not considered that in the view of the "common man" which is apparently what counted. This not only led to Caucasian Indians now being ineligible for naturalized citizenship, but denaturalization of some immigrants already made citizens. Congress did not lift this restriction until 1946, when India was on the verge of becoming an independent country. (ref>Not All Caucasians Are White: The Supreme Court Rejects Citizenship for Asian Indians(/ref>
- An alternative history is that Blumenbach developed the classification after noticing commonalities in an analysis of various skulls and hypothesizing shared ancestry based on this. He defined "Caucasian" as including South Asians, West Asians, Europeans (whites) and North Africans, "Mongoloid" as East Asian, and "Negroid" as sub-Saharan African. This classification based on shared ancestry has been verified by modern genetic studies.
- ==Race vs species==
- As there is only one human species, each human is genetically and physically capable of breeding with a fellow human (of opposite sex, obviously). Therefore some find it difficult to see, from a scientific taxonomical view, how humanity can be conclusively and objectively sub-divided into "races" based on the varying definitions that different societies have applied over time. Of course sub-species can freely breed and if they could not they would be separate species.
- Essentially the term "race" is no more than social invention, one which changes depending on the society and over time. Most people in the west will recognize "Chinese" as a race, but in China you will find Hui, Han, Miao, Zhuang, and almost countless other "races" which are — to the Chinese — just as distinguishable as black and white is in America and Europe. Others argue that lower categories do not invalidate higher categories, eg. the existence of "Polar Bears" doesn't invalidate the category "Bears".
- Typically race is only used by more powerful groups in an attempt to provide some legitimacy for denigrating, controlling or exploiting others. It would be more difficult to start an effective slave trade, for example, if there wasn't a way of distinguishing people (however arbitrarily) in a way to legitimise it. Others argue that this is an example of the moralistic fallacy, and that although race classification may be abused, it is still a fact of human diversity.
- What more can I say? "I think this is correct"? What is false about my logic and history? The blocking admin said my addition was "boring" (rational?) and the the article was "established". Do you think you have the perfect article here? So explain why my additions are incorrect. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 04:55, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Handwaving. "Others say..." is another way of saying "racists disagree". We know that. "Verified by modern genetic studies" - really? Cite them please. VOXHUMANA 05:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Basically, if your edits go against the overall, established tone of the article we want you to really explain well why you think it should be kept. You need to do a little bit better than just complaining and copying your edit to the talk page. I'll unbin you so you can provide a better explanation here. Sam Tally-ho! 05:11, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Well, thank you for removing my vandal status. I am not a vandal, but trying to improve the article.
- Genetic studies: "Although this study does not disprove a two-wave model of migration, the evidence from our autosomal data and the accompanying simulation studies (figs. S29 and S30) point toward a history that unites the Negrito and non-Negrito populations of Southeast and East Asia via a single primary wave of entry of humans into the continent.", "most of the Indian populations showed evidence of shared ancestry with European populations."[1]
- That Blumenbach invented the term "Caucasian" and included South and West Asians based on skull data is a historical fact.
- That a species can interbreed does not invalidate sub-species division: do I need to explain that? Is that not obvious? EO Wilson: "Biologists rightly speak of the Florida population in a way that calls attention to its genetic distinctness, using one sharp phrase: the Florida subspecies (or race, meaning the same thing) of Felis concolor." [2]
- The moralistic fallacy should be obvious. If short people have been discriminated against, does that in itself mean height does not exist?
- And of course subdivisions do not invalidate higher divisions. Why do I need to explain this? The "Chinese" (a national term) do divide into ethnic groups. East Asians divide into Japanese, Koreans, Han Chinese, Hmong, Tai (not Thai), etc. Does that invalidate East Asians? The Panther has a number of subspecies which subdivide themselves.[3] For example the Florida Panther is a sub-race or sub-species of the North American Panther, which itself is a sub-species of the Cougar, all of which are inter-fertile.
- As for the "that's racist" line, you have defined "racist" to include accepting biological sub classification in humans, then assumed "all racism is wrong", then derived "therefore accepting biological sub classification in humans is wrong". This is some incredibly shoddy logic. It seems to be some combination of guilt by association and moralistic fallacy. If "racists think that", and you have defined "racists" as "people who think things I don't like", then so what? Maybe you are the "racist". It's just empty name calling. Instead of "others say" I could use "however", since the point is logically sound. You appear to have no trouble stating your preferred views without attribution, why can't I? 110.11.234.96 (talk) 05:53, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Your logic is invalid on multiple levels.
- Firstly you are using definitions of "ethnicity" and "biological race" interchangeably, and they are not. Ethnicity can be acquired (as it is heavily delineated by cultural and language traits), genetic makeup cannot.
- The concept of "biological race" has no meaning because when you strip out behavioral/linguistic elements, "race" differentiation must thus choose some arbitrary set of phenotypes as a marker. What should that be? Skin colour? Skull shape? Limb length? Meissner cell structure? Red blood cell morphology? Whichever arbitrary marker (or set of) you choose, the "race" produced will be different.
- As a worked example - using red blood cell morphology as the marker, a healthy number of Northern Europeans belong to the same "race" as west Africans. Why is that any less valid than a classification than one based on skin colour - red blood cell morphology is far more relevant to life expectancy.
- If you insist it must be conducted on a geographical basis, then when do you stop subdividing? Any arbitrary group of people will have genetic similarities and genetic differences. Either you draw some arbitrary line in the sand, or go to the logical extreme and declare each offspring to be its own race.
- Finally, science operates free of morality. If there was valid knowledge to be gained from racial classification, it would be employed. Many people are offended by stem cell research, yet science persists because there is perceived value to be had. "Biological race" is not dismissed on moral or political grounds, it is dismissed for being inherently useless. Thus the only people perpetuating this idea are those who have an ideological position. These people get labelled as "racists" because they are perpetuating a useless concept. VOXHUMANA 06:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- I am using ethnicity in the purely ancestral sense. For example "The majority of Koreans in Japan are Zainichi Koreans, also often known as Zainichi (在日) for short, who are the permanent ethnic Korean residents of Japan."
- You use multiple traits at the same time. The classification is based on trait correlations. This can be thousands of SNPs from the genome, or 20-30 metric and non-metric skull traits (which you can also detect less reliably from looking at someone's face). Using a large number of traits results in reliable classification, and matches ancestry patterns determined from DNA evidence. These categories are then informative (not deterministic) for all of the traits which correlate with them. This is why race classification is used all the time in medical diagnostics (eg. East Asians don't get sickle cell, so test for other forms of anemia first), saving lives. Using "skin color" is of course pointless and uninformative, this is highly locally adapted and uncorrelated to race, which is why it always used as a ridiculous strawman. Nobody assigns race on "skin color" alone.
- You don't necessarily stop subdividing. The ultimate boundary is at the family and individual level, any identifiable categories between this and species are valid. You are again ignoring hierarchical categories, the same fallacy could be applied to invalidate all taxonomy. Race classification is not in fact conducted on geographic basis but on ancestral basis. "Korean race" happens to correlate with "Korea", as you might expect. Language is a major cause of endogamy and a barrier to gene flow. This is why Koreans are genetically distinct. Races are not arbitrary but in fact defined by having more genetic similarity through shared ancestry.
- I have shown that race classification is not useless (eg. medical diagnostics), therefore the ideologue to whom a label should be applied is in fact you. Please feel free to choose a label, or I can think of one if you wish. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 06:53, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- If you are a Korean, as a fellow Korean, I will remind you that the idea of Koreans as of 'pure blood' (like Malfoy!) is woo, which is why it is no longer in the morality textbooks. So the 'Korean race' only exists as a mixture of eight different ethnicities, as more recent prototypes of the human settlement of Korea shows. Race does not exist, and the human subspecies is just Homo sapiens sapiens. (other subspecies, like H.s.idalte, are extinct). Be rational, or you'll get something like this.--Seonookim (talk) 07:12, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Your logic is invalid on multiple levels.
- Basically, if your edits go against the overall, established tone of the article we want you to really explain well why you think it should be kept. You need to do a little bit better than just complaining and copying your edit to the talk page. I'll unbin you so you can provide a better explanation here. Sam Tally-ho! 05:11, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Handwaving. "Others say..." is another way of saying "racists disagree". We know that. "Verified by modern genetic studies" - really? Cite them please. VOXHUMANA 05:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I have shown that race classification is not useless (eg. medical diagnostics) - Snort. Run away little racist boy. I'm medically trained, so I know what utter bollocks this is. Diagnostically we sometimes use geographical origin as a heuristic, but not as a indicator. Sometimes this tells us useful things, but so do many phenotypic features. To try to assert that medicine uses "biological race" is extrapolating the use of heuristics to absurdity. As far as the rest of your nonsense, I just can't be bothered dealing with horrid little ideologues. Feel free to believe you are right, but quit polluting RW with your insanity. VOXHUMANA 07:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Seonookim: No, I am not Korean, I just used it as an example. Koreans may indeed subdivide, in fact I would expect that. Can you reference that, just out of interest, I don't doubt it's true. Of course, as I have been saying, subdivisions don't invalidate the higher categories. Koreans are distinct from Japanese and Chinese, whether or not they subdivide. Please tell me you understand that? And I know there is no "pure blood", this is known as the "essentialist strawman", the categories are better thought of as slightly fuzzy blobs on a continuum. Nevertheless, they exist, and are useful. However, races are actually quite distinct, a Korean living near the Chinese border will be more similar to a Korean near Japan than a Chinaman just over the border. Humans may be classified as one top level subspecies, but this subspecies can further subdivide, and in fact does. The same is done with other animal species all the time.
- Vox: "Geographical origin" is not used. Your geographical origin could be the USA, which tells you nothing. Race is used, and it saves lives. Please stop being so offensive. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 07:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Oh yeah, I'm just an ignorant doctor, what do I know? LOL. I'm done with this clown. VOXHUMANA 07:29, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- So tell us, what are the "Geographical origin" categories you use in medicine? A rose by any other name... 110.11.234.96 (talk) 07:35, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Come back when you know what a heuristic is. A category in medicine is reliable - blood types form categories. Race is not. VOXHUMANA 07:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Hey, I already knew what a heuristic was, so I never left. So "race" (such as "black race") is uninformative, but "geographical origin" (such as "sub-Saharan African geographical origin") is informative. Am I going to have to put two and two together for you now? 110.11.234.96 (talk) 08:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- And like magic, you prove you have no idea what you are saying. As you clearly have no idea what a heuristic is, or how they employed in medical diagnostics, there is no point continuing this discussion. VOXHUMANA 08:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- So your argument now is "u r ignorant"? Simply asserting "your description is wrong" is meaningless unless you give us the right description. I know you can't because I know I am not off the mark (since I also have been involved in medical research in Imperial College London where the exact term "black race" is used rather than the euphemistic synonym "sub-Saharan African geographical population"). Thanks for playing! 110.11.234.96 (talk) 09:12, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- And like magic, you prove you have no idea what you are saying. As you clearly have no idea what a heuristic is, or how they employed in medical diagnostics, there is no point continuing this discussion. VOXHUMANA 08:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Hey, I already knew what a heuristic was, so I never left. So "race" (such as "black race") is uninformative, but "geographical origin" (such as "sub-Saharan African geographical origin") is informative. Am I going to have to put two and two together for you now? 110.11.234.96 (talk) 08:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Come back when you know what a heuristic is. A category in medicine is reliable - blood types form categories. Race is not. VOXHUMANA 07:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- So tell us, what are the "Geographical origin" categories you use in medicine? A rose by any other name... 110.11.234.96 (talk) 07:35, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Oh yeah, I'm just an ignorant doctor, what do I know? LOL. I'm done with this clown. VOXHUMANA 07:29, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
You are ignorant. There I said it. Run away troll :) VOXHUMANA 09:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- You've really nailed the "kindergarten" debate style. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 09:32, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans (by alphabetical order) are different - only culturally. Biologically, they are the same. If 'race' exists, they would be cultural - in other words, anthropogenic and thus interchangeable. But anyways, the argument has diverted from the original subject, which was your controversial edit. Give us refs to prove your claim, and then we can talk about those refs. The debate is supposed to be about the edit, not the ref.--Seonookim (talk) 07:36, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Also, create an account.--Seonookim (talk) 07:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Here's some data that contradicts your (somewhat bizarre) assertion.[4] Feel free to counter with other data if you can. You are a Korean and you cannot recognize Koreans vis a vis Japanese and Chinese? Even I can.
- Nobody has addressed my edits, and the pointless explanations of the obvious I added, they are just spewing nonsense about skin color and thinking calling race by different names makes it go away. I can only assume you can't address my edits because they are obviously correct and you simply don't like it because it causes cognitive dissonance with your false politically fashionable belief. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 07:46, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- How nice: some blog as your evidence. Nothing noteworthy like an article to a reputable scientific journal. Nope, instead we'll trust some crap somebody posted on blogspot. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 07:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Hey, it's better than no evidence at all. My opponent is welcome to raise the standard, at which point I will too. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 07:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Off the top of my head.... *cough*here's one *cough* and another *cough* Do you want to keep playing? I can come up with more. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 07:56, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- cough* Another good one. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 07:58, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- The point under discussion is whether Koreans are biologically distinct from Japanese and Chinese. Simply listing papers whose authors agree with your general position is not an argument. I could say "books X, Y and Z agree with me and you have not read them so you are ignorant". Feel free to extract the main points in your own words (if you can), my guess is that they will be variations on all of the issues I have already addressed. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 08:07, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, your second article from Brace is simply asserting that variation is continuous (without data). I am showing it is not. Even he is not stupid enough to say things like "Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are biologically the same". 110.11.234.96 (talk) 08:12, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- That's because, as it says in big, bold words in the article itself "The word 'race' has no coherent biological meaning." Humans have differing characteristics, yes. But all biology has slight variations. This, my friend, is called DNA and genome. There is nothing in the human genome that has ever been shown to be the "Korean" gene or the "Swedish" gene, and anybody who lays claim that there is something as such is utterly lying. What evidence do I have for this? Simple: a lack of any scientifically-backed evidence by those who claim there is. So let me ask you: is there any genetic evidence that differentiates a Korean person from a Japanese person? I would submit to you that there is without a doubt zero evidence that has been scientifically proven. What do we call evidence that hasn't been proven? Hmmmm... Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 08:30, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Furthermore, using subjective characteristics alone to define "race" is comical. It is, essentially, the base argument of the old Nazi eugenics. Everybody get out your calipers and let's measure everyone's nose to ensure that they don't have a case of the Jew in them! Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 08:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, we know you think "the word 'race' has no coherent biological meaning". Why? I have shown it does have a meaning and you can only repeat the same fallacies. I know there is not a "Korean gene". Classification is based on many genes or traits simultaneously. You may be surprised to learn that there are no unique genes for any species. Here is a nice study that genetically differentiates East Asian populations.[5] Figure 1 is nice. And you don't "prove evidence". You use evidence to prove things. Such as the genetic evidence which proves genetic similarity between members of the same race. Again you misunderstand what I am saying. Race classification can be based on multiple metric and non-metric skull traits. These are no more subjective than the traits used to classify other animal subspecies. Of course measuring someone's nose to determine race is comical. It's also a ridiculous strawman argument. Are you familiar with skeletal anthropology? Shall I point you to some undergraduate materials so you can see which traits I am talking about? 110.11.234.96 (talk) 09:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- It's not a strawman argument at all. It's what you are arguing: that we can get out the calipers and measure the eye sockets and fingers of someone from China to see what race they are. I am familiar with skeletal anthropology, but that has dick all to do with defining the difference between someone from China and Sweden and more to do with the unique characteristics any human has (you are NOT as tall as I am, for example). It's what they use in a courtroom, for example, to say that the victim is, indeed, Jane Doe. That, or it used to define the difference between a homo sapien or homo erectus. But these, again, are different species entirely. If the different races are such, then why aren't they different sub-species under biological classification? Answer: because they are not biologically different to such a degree that you can identify a "Korean" species within a defined set of characteristics. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 09:14, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, we know you think "the word 'race' has no coherent biological meaning". Why? I have shown it does have a meaning and you can only repeat the same fallacies. I know there is not a "Korean gene". Classification is based on many genes or traits simultaneously. You may be surprised to learn that there are no unique genes for any species. Here is a nice study that genetically differentiates East Asian populations.[5] Figure 1 is nice. And you don't "prove evidence". You use evidence to prove things. Such as the genetic evidence which proves genetic similarity between members of the same race. Again you misunderstand what I am saying. Race classification can be based on multiple metric and non-metric skull traits. These are no more subjective than the traits used to classify other animal subspecies. Of course measuring someone's nose to determine race is comical. It's also a ridiculous strawman argument. Are you familiar with skeletal anthropology? Shall I point you to some undergraduate materials so you can see which traits I am talking about? 110.11.234.96 (talk) 09:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Furthermore, using subjective characteristics alone to define "race" is comical. It is, essentially, the base argument of the old Nazi eugenics. Everybody get out your calipers and let's measure everyone's nose to ensure that they don't have a case of the Jew in them! Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 08:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- That's because, as it says in big, bold words in the article itself "The word 'race' has no coherent biological meaning." Humans have differing characteristics, yes. But all biology has slight variations. This, my friend, is called DNA and genome. There is nothing in the human genome that has ever been shown to be the "Korean" gene or the "Swedish" gene, and anybody who lays claim that there is something as such is utterly lying. What evidence do I have for this? Simple: a lack of any scientifically-backed evidence by those who claim there is. So let me ask you: is there any genetic evidence that differentiates a Korean person from a Japanese person? I would submit to you that there is without a doubt zero evidence that has been scientifically proven. What do we call evidence that hasn't been proven? Hmmmm... Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 08:30, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Off the top of my head.... *cough*here's one *cough* and another *cough* Do you want to keep playing? I can come up with more. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 07:56, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Hey, it's better than no evidence at all. My opponent is welcome to raise the standard, at which point I will too. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 07:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- How nice: some blog as your evidence. Nothing noteworthy like an article to a reputable scientific journal. Nope, instead we'll trust some crap somebody posted on blogspot. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 07:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- Also, create an account.--Seonookim (talk) 07:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Wrong again. The traits in question are:
TRAIT: CAUCASOID, NEGROID, MONGOLOID
cranial index* "75 to 80, mesocranic", "less than 75, dolichocranic", "greater than 80, brachycranic" sagittal contour* arched, flat with bregmatic or post-bregmatic depression, arched keeling of skull vault* absent present absent total facial index* "greater than 90," "less than 85, " "85 to 90, " narrow to very narrow broad to very broad medium or average facial profile* "orthognathic (straight, flat)" "prognathic (projecting), especially in the alveolar area" intermediate to mostly orthognathic nuchal ridge profile* pinched and prominent, slightly pinched, rounded base chord* long long short suture pattern* simple, simple, complex, metopic suture* present absent absent Wormian bones* absent absent Present eye orbit shape* angular and sloping square or rectangle rounded and non-sloping lower eye border receding receding projecting nasal index* "less than 48, leptorrhinic (narrow)" "greater than 53, platyrrhinic (wide)" "48 to 53, mesorrhinic (intermediate)" nasal cavity shape tear shaped rounded and wide oval shaped nasal bones """tower shaped,"" narrow and parallel from anterior, slightly arched in profile" """Quonset hut shaped,"" wide and expanding from anterior, no arch in profile" """tented,"" narrow and expanding from anterior, arched in profile" nasal overgrowth absent absent present nasal sill or dam present absent absent lower nasal spine large and sharp small small zygomatic arches narrow and retreating, medium to large and retreating, projecting external auditory meati round round oval oval window palate shape triangular rectangular parabolic or horseshoe shaped palate suture irregular irregular straight occlusion* slight overbite slight overbite edge-to-edge or even central incisors* blade shaped, blade shaped, shovel shaped ascending ramus of mandible* pinched at midsection back slanted wide and vertical gonial angle* slightly flared not flared slightly flared chin profile* prominent and projecting rounded slightly projecting
These traits can reliably identify at least the major races. Your repetitive strawman is that race is based on and correlated with one or two traits when actually it is related to thousands and thousands. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 09:23, 19 March 2013 (UTC) Homo Sapiens Sapiens happens to be classified as a sub-species, but this does not mean it cannot be further divided into races, varieties, breeds, ancestral groups, geographic populations: whatever you want to call them. The same is done with other subspecies. Furthermore if you bother to look at the paper I referenced you can see that Koreans cleanly separate from Japanese on genetic PCA plots.110.11.234.96 (talk) 09:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- If it can be divided into other classifications of sub-species, then why hasn't it? That answer is exactly what you keep refusing to answer, instead focusing on my examples over my substance. The point I keep trying to show you, and you keep refusing to address, is simple: if there are truly different sub-species of humanoids, then why aren't they biologically classified into them? Why aren't these traits scientifically broken down even further into the "caucasian" etc. sub-species? The answer, which you keep avoiding discussion of, is simple: there are NO biologically defined characteristics that would seperate homo-sapiens-sapiens down even further. None. Ziltch. This, my friend, is why your argument can be deduced down to glorified eugenics. Yes, we know you can't define anything biologically by one or two traits. That was NEVER my point. My point is that, if you could further define humans by a defined set of traits, you could then re-classify them into different sub-species. This hasn't happened (at least not so far as race is concerned), and the last time it was proposed (via eugenics) it wound up being found to be little more than bullshit. Which is why your arguments hold no scientific water. Conservative Punk (talk) 09:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- The code of Zoological Nomenclature specifies one sub-species classification for official naming. Since Homo sapiens idaltu and neanderthalensis etc. are distinct from existing sapiens sapiens, which are all more similar to each other than idaltu or neanderthalensis, these take the slots. This does not imply that sapiens sapiens cannot be further subdivided (they can and are), just that non-extant subspecies have taken the highest level subspecies designation in the naming scheme. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 09:48, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- If it can be divided into other classifications of sub-species, then why hasn't it? That answer is exactly what you keep refusing to answer, instead focusing on my examples over my substance. The point I keep trying to show you, and you keep refusing to address, is simple: if there are truly different sub-species of humanoids, then why aren't they biologically classified into them? Why aren't these traits scientifically broken down even further into the "caucasian" etc. sub-species? The answer, which you keep avoiding discussion of, is simple: there are NO biologically defined characteristics that would seperate homo-sapiens-sapiens down even further. None. Ziltch. This, my friend, is why your argument can be deduced down to glorified eugenics. Yes, we know you can't define anything biologically by one or two traits. That was NEVER my point. My point is that, if you could further define humans by a defined set of traits, you could then re-classify them into different sub-species. This hasn't happened (at least not so far as race is concerned), and the last time it was proposed (via eugenics) it wound up being found to be little more than bullshit. Which is why your arguments hold no scientific water. Conservative Punk (talk) 09:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
As I said earlier, science is amoralistic. If there was scientific value in racial classification, it would be used. But "biological race" breaks down too easily and has no reliable scientific value. Copying and pasting the alleged "research" of some ideologue doesn't change the fact that it has been thoroughly assessed, and discarded as a scientific hypothesis.
All of your screeds do nothing to change the fact that it has no value. Shouting "IT DOES" is no different to a creationist shouting "but obviously we were designed". Twisting some isolated case to make it seem like it supports your assertion impresses no-one.
We have repeatedly explained to you why it has no scientific value. You obviously won't listen, so you are wasting our time.
So as I said earlier, go away troll. You are not convincing us - if anything you are convincing us even more thoroughly of the contrary. And we obviously cannot convince you as you are motivated by ideology, not rationality. So go away. VOXHUMANA 10:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
- False. Race classification is used in medicine, forensics and population genetics. Now you are just lying. As already stated an East Asian going into ER with anemic symptoms doesn't get tested for sickle cell. It would also be an interesting fact in itself that East Asians, for example, are ancestrally related, even if it was of no use, although it is. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 10:15, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
"In summary, population differences in disease exist that may be attributable to differences in social factors, genetics, environment, lifestyle, comorbidities, and complex interactions among these factors. When population differences are observed, focused studies are warranted to identify the contribution of these factors (including biological, environmental, social, genetic, and lifestyle factors and their interactions) and how best to treat them. Identification and study of population differences may enhance disease treatment in all populations and additionally may provide disparity-reducing benefit for populations with poorer health outcomes."[6]
"There are racial and ethnic differences in the causes, expression, and prevalence of various diseases. The relative importance of bias, culture, socioeconomic status, access to care, and environmental and genetic influences on the development of disease is an empirical question that, in most cases, remains unanswered. Although there are potential social costs associated with linking race or ethnic background with genetics, we believe that these potential costs are outweighed by the benefits in terms of diagnosis and research. Ignoring racial and ethnic differences in medicine and biomedical research will not make them disappear. Rather than ignoring these differences, scientists should continue to use them as starting points for further research. Only by focusing attention on these issues can we hope to understand better the variations among racial and ethnic groups in the prevalence and severity of diseases and in responses to treat- risks entailed by ignoring race in biomedical research and clinical practice conclusions. Such understanding provides the opportunity to develop strategies for the improvement of health outcomes for everyone."[7]
"In the long run, the problem of whether or how to use race as a diagnostic aid and research category requires an international consensus meeting with representatives from all the biomedical fields. Such a meeting should be organized by the US National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and other international health institutes. In the short run, the National Institutes of Health needs to re-examine its race-based research rules, weighing the balance between attempting to include minority populations in our health care system, on the one hand, without forcing us into a misconstrual of race as biology on the other. Medical courses also need to improve the teaching of the complexities of using race in the clinic. The overall goal of such an effort would be to make clear that “For meaningful statements to be made about health disparities, careful consideration must be given to the way in which race and ethnicity are conceptualized, the choice of definition categories, and the way in which individuals are assigned to categories” [66]. Anthropologist Michael Montoya's distinction between using ethnoracial categories in a descriptive mode, to document progress in the health status of populations, but not using basically social categories to produce biological attribution of causes will be an essential part of this effort [7]. In the end we have to be able to answer the patient's question—if all hearts are red then why do we need different drugs for different individuals based on race? To provide the best health care we must be able to say why and when race matters and why and when it doesn't."[8]
"What additional research is needed? The recent National Human Genome R esearch Institute’s “Vision for the Future of Genomics Research” outlined a bold agenda for the future, including a number of com- pelling research opportunities. The meeting at Howard University underscored the importance of additional research in certain crucial areas: (i) Without discounting self-identified race or ethnicity as a variable correlated with health, we must strive to move beyond these weak surrogate relationships and get to the ro ot causes of health and disease, be they genetic, environmental or both."[9]
Note how all of these prominent medics support race as a useful variable, and none of them say it is useless. So, we have the opinion of four published medics, versus that of Rational Wiki editor "VOX HUMANA". Guess who we go with. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 02:41, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
- BON, controversy over race-based medicine is already addressed in the article (if you bothered to read it). All these articles are talking about race as a social construct (i.e., "...but not using basically social categories to produce biological attribution of causes will be an essential part of this effort"), which directly contradicts your own argument. ETA: Even better, that last one by Francis Collins states in the abstract that race and ethnicity are "flawed surrogates" for other genetic and environmental factors. Which is what the article already says, though Collins puts it more eloquently. I'll add it to the article -- even a troll can inadvertently improve an article! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:10, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
- Obviously it's a "social" category, it's created by humans applied to humans. But it's based on biological differences and it correlates with biological differences. Which is why these medics use it to help identify biological and genetic risk factors in different races. The traditional race concept although "social" is not arbitrary (which this word slyly implies) or categories such as "South and South East Asian" would be used. They never are. That's because South East Asians are biologically similar to North East Asians. And I have contradicted VOX HUMANA's lie that race is considered useless in medicine, which was the point. Obviously it's a surrogate for genetic differences, races are not homogenous. It just helps zoom in on the lower level differences. That's why they use it. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 03:21, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
- Also I notice you call me a "troll" while my opponent is brazenly lying. "Troll" has to be the most pathetic term for someone you disagree with. Do you think I am writing here to provoke an emotional response from you? Do you really think I have any interest in you at all? 110.11.234.96 (talk) 04:11, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
The Human "races" are just homo sapiens that are missing some of the genome due to how the tribes migrated. ħuman
03:33, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Metapedia vs rationalwiki
If you read this article [10] you will see that race is still being used in multiple science disciplines all around the world by high percentage of scientists, just not in America due to political correctness. Considering most 99% of rationalwiki editors are American perhaps this explains the problem. What is the reply to this from rationalwiki editors? Ecologist (talk) 03:48, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
- LOL at the difference in quality between Nazi wiki and Fat Liberal Homosexual wiki. 110.11.234.96 (talk) 04:57, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
- Well, I don't know which wiki is which, 110..., but that metapedia piece of crap could use some instructions on how to use commas. ħuman
03:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
- You instruct us in how to use commas (assuming we used them improperly, which we didn't), and we'll instruct you in how to not be a bunch of embarassing pseudo-scientific far-left irrational fucking retards. Deal? 121.67.247.27 (talk) 10:59, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
- Well, I don't know which wiki is which, 110..., but that metapedia piece of crap could use some instructions on how to use commas. ħuman
[edit] One HGP statement from 2000 is all you have to support your bias
And this from population geneticists (not chemists) exposes it for the nonsense it is:
Race denialists usually set up straw man arguments, such as races must be discrete or non-overlapping. "It appears that those who attempt to deconstruct the concept of race by gratuitously burdening it with essentialist connotations (‘‘discrete’’, ‘‘non-overlapping’’, ‘‘discontinuous’’, ‘‘defined by racial markers’’, ‘‘racial genes’’, etc.) are unaware that their criticism has already been addressed by Dobzhansky more than 40 years ago: Professor Fried has correctly pointed out that there is no careful and objective definition of race that would permit delimitation of races as exact, nonoverlapping, discrete entities. Indeed, such criteria do not exist because if they did, we would not have races, we would have distinct species. (Dobzhansky in Mead 1968, 165). In fact, Dobzhansky’s argument should be taken one step further: the essentialist requirement is so unrealistically demanding that, if this criterion were applied, even the species concept would fail to pass muster: ‘‘In practice, the characters that define a species will not be present in all members of that species and absent from all members of other species. Nature is too variable’’ (Ridley 2004, 349)." (Sesardic, 2010)
- No response geniuses? Too busy claiming mountains or colors "don't exist". Oh wait, no feel good factor to make up for your sexual inadequacy. 175.193.212.64 (talk) 11:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Deep thought
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Conservatives just dont get it. Classifying life into race, species, genus, kingdom, etc. is meaningless because all life emerged from the same primordial soup 3.5 billion years ago. Percieved differences between humans and amoebas are really just social constructs. There is no "species gene". We all belong to one class: organisms. WeAreEqual (talk) 11:29, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
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[edit] Accusations of racism
"Innocent Bystander" says "This ignores something I pulled out of my arse to justify my racism - no". What evidence is there for my alleged "racism"? I have already said that I believe that claims of the objective superiority of one a race vis-a-vis another are baseless. What justification therefore remains for your accusation? I love the white race (talk) 09:38, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- This is a talk page for discussion of the article. If you want to discuss a personal quarrel with another user, take it to their user talk page. Щєазєюіδ
Methinks it is a Weasel 09:45, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- It is discussion of the article, for I am quoting his justification for removing one of my additions. Next time, maybe you should read the edit history first? I love the white race (talk) 09:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- Maybe I did, idiot? No, this doesn't look like a discussion about the article. If you want to talk about what the article says or should say, go ahead, but that's not what you did in your comment above. If you want to talk about yourself & whether or not you're a racist, take it somewhere else. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ
Methinks it is a Weasel 09:59, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- Tell me, idiot, why was this removed from the article: "This ignores, however, the possibility of intraspecific taxa beneath the subspecies, such as the sub-subspecies or the sub-sub-subspecies; while the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) does not recognize any such taxonomic ranks at the present time, that it does not do so does not ipso facto imply the invalidity of the notion." Was it removed because it is false? Or was it removed because any questioning of mainstream ideology about race is tantamount to blasphemy? I love the white race (talk) 10:05, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- Because it's pseudoscientific junk, & a non-sequitur . ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ
Methinks it is a Weasel 10:15, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- How? Why? I love the white race (talk) 10:17, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- Because it's pseudoscientific junk, & a non-sequitur . ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ
- Tell me, idiot, why was this removed from the article: "This ignores, however, the possibility of intraspecific taxa beneath the subspecies, such as the sub-subspecies or the sub-sub-subspecies; while the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) does not recognize any such taxonomic ranks at the present time, that it does not do so does not ipso facto imply the invalidity of the notion." Was it removed because it is false? Or was it removed because any questioning of mainstream ideology about race is tantamount to blasphemy? I love the white race (talk) 10:05, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- Maybe I did, idiot? No, this doesn't look like a discussion about the article. If you want to talk about what the article says or should say, go ahead, but that's not what you did in your comment above. If you want to talk about yourself & whether or not you're a racist, take it somewhere else. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ
- It is discussion of the article, for I am quoting his justification for removing one of my additions. Next time, maybe you should read the edit history first? I love the white race (talk) 09:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
[edit] "Innocent bystander" accuses me of "bullshit"
An edit by "I love the white race" claims that taxonomic categories below the single subspecies recorded in the ICZN are valid. This is absolutely correct as any number of scientific papers can demonstrate. "Innocent bystander" reverts me with the summary "bullshit" and further "You're advocating the same scientific exemptions for racism that New Agers argue for alt. med"!. Please explain what that means, and why such blatant scientific illiteracy is tolerated. 61.41.210.52 (talk) 10:24, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, your argument that "just because science doesn't recognize race doesn't mean it is non-existent" is, at its core, the very same argument that New Agers make when they say "just because science doesn't recognize that homeopathy works doesn't mean it doesn't." Science, at its core, strives to be blind to bias so that things that might be important if they were valid (levitation, invisibility, whatever else have you) can be proven as such. That modern science denies bullshit race theory either means that bullshit race theory is bullshit, or that you believe in the grand conspiracy of the scientific community keeping you down. Need I say more? Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 10:29, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- I didn't say science does or doesn't recognize race in humans. I said taxonomic categories below the single subspecies in the ICZN are routinely recognised by biologists and their validity is not under dispute. Do you dispute that? 61.41.210.52 (talk) 10:31, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- The context of that edit was about taxonomic variance in modern humans specifically. Wëäŝëïöïď
Methinks it is a Weasel 10:34, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- (EC) On its face, no. But you are using a strawman in your response to me. That strawman being that the edit I reverted implied that science recognizes taxonomic categories below homosapien-sapiens. In the context you were implying that it applies to, science does not inherently recognize said categories. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 10:36, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- OK, I see the point you are making. However, several scientists do recognise such categories, so to claim otherwise is dishonest. 61.41.210.52 (talk) 10:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- And if we accept that in principle, taxonomic ranks beneath the subspecies are legitimate, why not for homo sapiens sapiens? Maybe there is a need for further scientific research into that topic? I love the white race (talk) 11:05, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- Actually a majority of scientists support taxonomic distinctions within Sapiens Sapiens, such as Louis Agassiz Marston Bates Robert Bennett Bean Don R. Brothwell V. V. Bunak L. H. D. Buxton Bernard Grant Campbell Alexis Carrel Raymond Cattell Carleton Coon C. D. Darlington Raymond A. Dart Charles Galton Darwin Charles B. Davenport Theodosius Dobzhansky Eugen Fischer Ronald Fisher Alain Froment Stanley M. Garn George W. Gill Richard Goldsby Linda Gottfredson Alfred Haddon Henry C. Harpending Gerhard Heberer Ioannis Koumaris Earnest Hooton William W. Howells Frederick S. Hulse G. W. B. Huntingford Julian Huxley H. H. Johnston Philip Kitcher Alfred Kroeber Herman Lundborg K.C. Malhotra John Ranulph Marett Ernst Mayr Frederick A. Milan Kenneth Oakley Roger Pearson Anthony P. Polednak Eugène Pittard J. P. Rushton Zdenek Salzmann William Herbert Sheldon Audrey M. Shuey Grafton Elliot Smith William A. Stini Thomas Griffith Taylor Claude Alvin Villee J. S. Weiner Glayde Whitney Herbert John Fleure Sherwood Washburn William C. Boyd John Napier J. P. Mallory Corrado Gini Fritz Lenz Frank Miele Lloyd Cabot Briggs Geoffrey Ainsworth Harrison William S. Laughlin Ales Hrdlicka Robin O. Andreasen Harry L. Shapiro Derek Frank Roberts Jack Kelso Hans F.K. Günther Marshall T. Newman Kenneth Mather Hermann Bleibtreu Sewall Wright Carl Seltzer W. C. George Sheldon C. Reed Stanislaw Klimek Ellsworth Huntington Eugene Raymond Hall Björn Kurtén Ralph L. Beals Armagan Saatciolu Madison Grant Vincent Sarich Bentley Glass Dhirendra Nath Majumdar Louis Leakey Phillip V. Tobias Henri Victor Vallois Hans Eysenck Edward. M. Miller Donald A. Swan Stanley Porteus Edward E. Hunt Jr. Jerry Coyne Arthur Mourant Ludwig F. Clauss Grahame Clark Ireneusz Michalski L. C. Dunn Tage Kemp H. H. Turney-High Henry Field James V. Neel Gunnar Dahlberg David C. Rife Le Gros Clark John Zachary Young Daniel Brinton F. J. Los Paul T. Baker Anthony James Gregor Richard Lynn Carleton Putnam Peter Frost Ireneusz Michalski Steven Pinker Wanda Steslicka M. Y. Iscan G. V. de Lapouge Biraja Sankar Guha Francis E. Johnston Gordon T. Bowles Stanley Rhine G. G. Simpson William Shockley Ida Mann Arthur Jensen R. Peterson Curt Stern George Montandon Bertil Lundman Karl Pearson James Watson Eugene Giles William M. Bass Sonia Mary Cole Michael Levin Luigi Gedda Ilse Schwidetzky R. Travis Osborne Renato Biasutti Andrzej Wiercinski Douglas L. Oliver Lothrop Stoddard Seymour W. Itzkoff John Baker George M. Morant Edward Adamson Hoebel George Peter Murdock R. R. Gates David de Laubenfels Colin Groves Georg Karl Neumann Melville Jacobs Jean-Pierre Hallet Jon Entine James N. Spuhler Clarence W. Dupertuis Calvin Ira Kephart Frank C. J. McGurk A. A. Abbie Bernard Knight Jan Czekanowski Otmar von Verschuer Wilton M. Krogman Osman Hill Robert Gayre Albert Damon Arthur Keith Harold Sterling Gladwin Thomas Dale Stewart William Ripley Alice M. Brues Samuel George Morton Gabriel Ward Lasker Sasanka Sekher Sarkar Lawrence Angel Egon von Eickstedt Mario Cappieri Heinrich Quiring Joseph B. Birdsell Robert E. Kuttner, every anthropologist/biologist in China etc. etc.
- But the owners of this website are agenda pushers so will never represent science accurately. Don't waste your time. 121.67.247.19 (talk) 04:49, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- So, an unpunctuated copy-paste of names from Metapedia's race realism article, most of whom appear to be anthropologists, psychologists, etc. rather than biologists, & many of them being figures from fifty or a hundred years ago. Hooray for representing science accurately. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ
Methinks it is a Weasel 06:26, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Louis_Agassiz seems like a swell guy. We should definitely defer to the opinions of a guy who was already dead when someone first isolated "nuclein." (That's DNA, you ignoramuses! He was dead when someone first isolated it!) Hipocrite (talk) 13:24, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Not to mention RA Fisher who I massively admire as a statistician but around the same time that he was saying that there are differences in the human races (later fifties/early sixties) he was also opposing Richard Doll's findings that smoking led to lung cancer. Stats yes, scientist, not so much. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:02, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- And let's look at Frank C. J. McGurk - who published his findings in 1951. Another bang up to date source. Indeed, I've been picking names at random and have yet to find anyone still living. Must try harder. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Ah, found a live one - Geoffrey Ainsworth Harrison - however, as he has no Wikipedia page and Metapedia is blocked from work (such oppression) it's very hard to find out anything about him or his views. Still not a great hit rate. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:11, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Jack Kelso??? The only one I can find is a deceased US Marine. Oh, and then I tried Robert Gayre - I'd run as fast as I could from any association with that fraud. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:15, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- So, if we throw darts randomly at that list, we should be able to pull up some interesting findings.
bomination 16:21, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Oh, yes, try Ludwig F. Clauss. He's a fun guy. You'll find him mentioned in the WP article on Scientific Racism under the Nazi Germany section. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:25, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- So, if we throw darts randomly at that list, we should be able to pull up some interesting findings.
- Jack Kelso??? The only one I can find is a deceased US Marine. Oh, and then I tried Robert Gayre - I'd run as fast as I could from any association with that fraud. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:15, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Ah, found a live one - Geoffrey Ainsworth Harrison - however, as he has no Wikipedia page and Metapedia is blocked from work (such oppression) it's very hard to find out anything about him or his views. Still not a great hit rate. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:11, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- And let's look at Frank C. J. McGurk - who published his findings in 1951. Another bang up to date source. Indeed, I've been picking names at random and have yet to find anyone still living. Must try harder. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Not to mention RA Fisher who I massively admire as a statistician but around the same time that he was saying that there are differences in the human races (later fifties/early sixties) he was also opposing Richard Doll's findings that smoking led to lung cancer. Stats yes, scientist, not so much. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:02, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Louis_Agassiz seems like a swell guy. We should definitely defer to the opinions of a guy who was already dead when someone first isolated "nuclein." (That's DNA, you ignoramuses! He was dead when someone first isolated it!) Hipocrite (talk) 13:24, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- So, an unpunctuated copy-paste of names from Metapedia's race realism article, most of whom appear to be anthropologists, psychologists, etc. rather than biologists, & many of them being figures from fifty or a hundred years ago. Hooray for representing science accurately. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ
- And if we accept that in principle, taxonomic ranks beneath the subspecies are legitimate, why not for homo sapiens sapiens? Maybe there is a need for further scientific research into that topic? I love the white race (talk) 11:05, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- OK, I see the point you are making. However, several scientists do recognise such categories, so to claim otherwise is dishonest. 61.41.210.52 (talk) 10:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- (EC) On its face, no. But you are using a strawman in your response to me. That strawman being that the edit I reverted implied that science recognizes taxonomic categories below homosapien-sapiens. In the context you were implying that it applies to, science does not inherently recognize said categories. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 10:36, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
- The context of that edit was about taxonomic variance in modern humans specifically. Wëäŝëïöïď
- I didn't say science does or doesn't recognize race in humans. I said taxonomic categories below the single subspecies in the ICZN are routinely recognised by biologists and their validity is not under dispute. Do you dispute that? 61.41.210.52 (talk) 10:31, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
"Another bang up to date source..." It is, at least in comparison to Samuel George Morton. I'm shocked they left Linnaeus off the list! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:10, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Your source is down
The single "race does not exist" source this article is based on has been removed.[11] What now?— Unsigned, by: 59.5.185.245 / talk / contribs 05:54, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Replaced with a link to an archive copy, as it's cited as the source of a specific quote. I'll leave further updating of the article to its maintainers.--ZooGuard (talk) 08:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
[edit] On the current edit war
"east asians are more alike than they are with africans". the entire point of "race" is there there is no such thing as "east asians". so called racial characteristics are a continum, not a set feature. the "east asians" in western China are a lot more like caucasians than east asians in the philipenes. Prior to modern migrations, take any spot and draw a small circle. the people in that circle will be genetically similar. draw a wider circle. those people will be more varied, but still genetically similar, draw an even bigger circle, and you get more diversity. you can "define' your starting point anywhere and lable them "point 1" instead of "african" or "asian" and you will have a whole new classification of races. NO one is denying that if you are from Tibet, you will have characteristics similar to those people in India and China. No one is denying that people in Chad have genetic traits closer to those in egypt than those in Koln, Germany. but again, it is a continumum. not a hard line. certain people are "one race" cause it was easy to say "they are not us".
Godot The ablity to breath is such an overrated ability 18:24, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- This is false. The correct model is somewhere between discordant clines and "hard lines". It's based on clusters and is how the race concept has always been viewed since Blumenbach.
- This image is from the study "Mapping Human Genetic Diversity in Asia" by a large number of mainly Asian geneticists in 2009. As I think most of us know, races are pretty fuzzy on the edges, but real. Notice the huge discontinuity between Indians and Tai, who actually live just over a border (Bengalis and an ethnic group in Burma). Notice how closely Tai cluster with Altaic (Korean and Japanese), despite the huge geographic distance. There are some "in between" low density populations, (Central Asian Uyghurs, populations in the Himalayas between India and China, Singapore Indians). But the vast majority of people actually fit pretty neatly into a population cluster. Indians cluster closer to Europeans (CEU) than East Asians, despite the fact that the geographic distance is huge. I'd bet that if that if they also sampled all of the populations between India and Europe (they didn't in this study) they'd get a nice smooth clinal cluster which would be the Caucasians, as they did with the East Asians (Mongoloids). Blumenbach, who first systematized racial categories in 1796, was pretty much spot on. Another image in this study shows Negroes clustering a huge distance from everybody else. JohnnyFrostbite (talk) 05:15, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Here's a similar plot for West Eurasia showing the discontinuity between the White and Turk/Semite clusters (Some types of Jews (ASH, AJD, MOJ, SEJ), Cypriots (CYP) and Sicilians (SIS) are mixed populations in the divide between Greeks and Turks. This doesn't necessarily mean they are mixed with Greeks or Turks (Ashkenazi Jews have significant North/East European admixture), just that their genetic distance falls at that point)
- Giving names to these clusters is all race is, and it is informative in many ways. Egalitarian political "correctness" denies it is possible to name genetic clusters to fallaciously undercut observations of differences. Clearly this is nonsense. Even if there were perfectly smooth clines (the usual race denial argument these days is to simply say "there are clines" triumphantly, without any data) we could still divide and name them any way we want to describe them. But there are absolutely not perfectly smooth clines, and further, the discontinuities are more significant than the continuities. This is a complete no-brainer for taxonomy. Sadly, PC ideologues very much rely on people having little brain. JohnnyFrostbite (talk) 05:47, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Here's another good one. Try to map these genetic distances onto geographic distances. Look at Nepal and Kyrgyzstan on a map. A huge genetic discontinuity (containing a mixed population) over a small area. If you know any Nepalese this will make sense. Also note the tight clustering of West Asians and Europeans vs. the more clinal South Asians. This is thought to be the result of an ancient West Asian/European migration or invasion of Paleo-Indian groups. It's also important to note that PC1 accounts for 60% of variation vs. 3% on PC2.
- http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ish7688voT0/TEdgg08HnTI/AAAAAAAACgg/SHVjodGXK8g/s400/eurasian-pca.jpgJohnnyFrostbite (talk) 06:24, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- This is, again, the flawed surrogacy factor. Yes, it is possible to label certain sectors of people according to their genetic cluster. However, in practice that has never been the use of "race," which is instead - historically and still overwhelmingly - used to refer to a cultural phenomenon, not a genetic one. There is utility in using it as a clumsy descriptor of cohorts, and certainly there's enough inertia to perpetuate the practice even in clinical research. But among those of us who live on the actual planet, we find a racial classification schema carries a staggering level of baggage, misfounded notions, and almost universal ignorance of the distinction between "race" as a genetic label and "race" as a cultural one.
- Yes, there is certainly a way you could use "race" to only refer to genetic cohorts. But you could also start referring to all grandmothers as "primates." You'd be just as technically and priggishly accurate, but with the same idiotic mistake.--
talk
18:47, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- So why did Tang (2005) find a near perfect correspondence between self reported race and genetic cluster? Do people still believe the "one drop rule"? I think you may be deploying a strawman of reality. If people really do have a misguided idea of race surely we should guide them with the facts, not tell them they are wrong and to shut up about it.
- I do not understand your grandmother analogy. JohnnyFrostbite (talk) 08:28, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- What is "Tang 2005"? Is that supposed to be a citation? How about the journal, at least? Golly, it's almost like you don't want people to actually look up your references.
- I absolutely and completely believe that you don't understand.--
talk
13:13, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- The fact that you have not read Tang's 2005 paper is clear proof of the supremacy of the Bible. The genetic establishment of superior and inferior races is clear. Deny this and lose all credibility. :-) Ochotona princepsnot a pokémon 16:56, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- For a start, it's "Tang et al" and probably refers to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ --ZooGuard (talk) 17:20, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- The fact that you have not read Tang's 2005 paper is clear proof of the supremacy of the Bible. The genetic establishment of superior and inferior races is clear. Deny this and lose all credibility. :-) Ochotona princepsnot a pokémon 16:56, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oh I'm sorry I thought you were an expert on human genetics and not a catchphrase parroting liberal ideologue.</sarcasm>
- Anyway: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/
- Couldn't you just have googled "Tang 2005 genetics" or something? JohnnyFrostbite (talk) 17:22, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Given that you used it as a source in the article text itself, you should have provided a link or a better citation. Oh, and what it says is "slightly" different than what you claim.--ZooGuard (talk) 21:08, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I googled "Tang 2005," and the first results were something irrelevant. Just don't be a dick next time and include at least a journal name, if not a url.
- Looking through the study, I note that it parsed through American communities and Taiwanese communities, both places where cultural awareness of ancestry is extremely high and where intermixed groups have each emigrated from geographically distinct locations. While the study notes a 10-20% admixture of Caucasian genetic traits in African-Americans, otherwise it seems to suggest an extremely coherent genetic line from distinct areas. That makes sense, given the extraordinarily high levels of pressure against intermarriage among these communities, and the fact that Taiwanese participants had to have four grandparents of the same ethnicity to be eligible. Thus, the paper seems to back up the idea that geographically distinct groups have distinct gene pools, which is essentially what one might expect, and in areas of immigration where cultural pressures encourage those pools to remain distinct - well, they'll remain distinct.
- But as the paper notes, for example, "Hispanics generally represent a differential mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry, with the proportionate mix typically depending on country of origin." So while self-identification serves to differentiate such a group from another, there is what they call "discrete subgrouping but continuous ancestral variation that could lead to stratification bias" as well as the simple problem of "subgrouping" itself. Thus, for example, "African Americans have a continuous range of European ancestry that would not be detected by cluster analysis but could strongly confound genetic case-control studies."
- So anyway, we can see that in certain cases, race and culture do match up strongly - when, that is, culture ensures that result. But that makes it sloppy for rigorous thought, and limits it to certain areas - places that have had phenomena like that "one drop" law you mention ;) --
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21:54, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- It doesn't matter whether culture "ensures" (or has promoted) that the clusters remain distinct, and I agree that it has. What matters is that the clusters are distinct on an objective genetic basis, and that these clusters match common terminology. JohnnyFrostbite (talk) 05:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Among those of us who live on the actual planet, we find a racial classification schema carries a staggering level of baggage, misfounded notions, and almost universal ignorance of the distinction between "race" as a genetic label and "race" as a cultural one. This is particularly exacerbated in those circumstances (highly contentious cultural division leading to coherent genetic division) where both usages of "race" line up together fairly well. Those few cherries become proof the whole tree is ready to eat, when most of the rest of them are actually rotten.--
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13:53, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- So as an encyclopedia we are in the perfect position to explain to "the ignorant public" (I am a little unconvinced by your view) the correct, genetic concept of race versus cultural misconceptions. Can you please go into a little more detail about how the lay conception of race is orthogonal to the gene cluster based concept? You say the concept "happens to match objective clustering in a minority of places" (those being Black, White, East Asian and Hispanic Americans in the USA). So where are all these places where it doesn't? Please give examples. What are the misfounded notions? The most common misfounded notions I know of are that taxonomy is based on single genes, or that within group variation invalidates taxonomies, or that "bright lines" are required. Please explain to us how "the man in the street" gets it so terribly wrong as you assert. And even if you can, let's describe the correct concept. I will agree the the concept carries "baggage". Of course it would be a fallacy (moralistic?) to go on to deny its validity. 210.216.52.22 (talk) 10:26, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- Among those of us who live on the actual planet, we find a racial classification schema carries a staggering level of baggage, misfounded notions, and almost universal ignorance of the distinction between "race" as a genetic label and "race" as a cultural one. This is particularly exacerbated in those circumstances (highly contentious cultural division leading to coherent genetic division) where both usages of "race" line up together fairly well. Those few cherries become proof the whole tree is ready to eat, when most of the rest of them are actually rotten.--
- It doesn't matter whether culture "ensures" (or has promoted) that the clusters remain distinct, and I agree that it has. What matters is that the clusters are distinct on an objective genetic basis, and that these clusters match common terminology. JohnnyFrostbite (talk) 05:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- OK, I'll bite. In Western Europe one could describe two differing genetic groups - races, if you insist - roughly matching the two routes out of the middle east. There are those who went along the northern coast of the Mediterranean and those who went up the Danube.
- These two groups meet in that melting pot that is Britain. However, the "man in the street" describes both those groups as "Anglo Saxon" or, more simply, white.
- This is a classic case where the "man in the street" is using "race" to mean skin colour and getting "race" as genetically definined, "terribly wrong". Innocent Bystander (talk) 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- In fact the origin and make up of the British is far from clear. If our "man in the street" does indeed describe British people as "Anglo-Saxon" he is clearly wrong. What is clear is that major geographic races are not erroneously labelled, common terms match genetic clusters. Cases like this of populations being erroneously labelled are exactly what we should discuss in the article. For example some think Ethiopians are Negroid, when they are around 40% Caucasoid. Why not put in interesting facts like that instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater because it's "too complex to make any sense" and waffling strawman nonsense about "single genes" and "bright lines" that applies to no other species. Why not explain to people that human variation is not just clinal but clinal and significantly clustered and demonstrate that with some nice PCA charts instead of dismissing the whole subject. You do a great disservice to your readers otherwise. 175.193.212.64 (talk) 06:06, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Innocent Bystander: I thought the Angles and the Saxons were not "races", but rather tribal groups?? The fact that a lot of them (and a lot of them didn't) went to the British Isles to settle there and eventually combined to be the Anglo-Saxon people in the face of others (like the Normannic invaders) also barely has anything to do with "race" (whatever you mean by that, it is not quite clear). I'm not quite sure who this "man in the street" is that you are accusing of saying this confusing nonsense. I don't think the person above me quite understood what you were getting at either, although he/she sure is acting like he/she did.
- Speaking of which, the person above me also needs to clarify what exactly he/she means by "race". It is all very well to talk about "clustering of traits" like "similar shades of skin colour and the supposed significance of similar melanin distributions", but when you start throwing around terms like 'race', you really should explain yourself, because it is not at all clear what you mean. Nullahnung (talk) 07:05, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- The race concept is an operational descriptor of human variation. It can be derived from the fact that variation is significantly clustered vis a vis clinal (based on genetic similarity and never "skin color" which is absurd), as for major races, or applied as a continuum operationalization where variation is largely clinal (within clusters), such as "the white race" which represents the end point of a continuum where a line is drawn through a Turk/Greek discontinuity. You can think of it in that case as drawing arbitrary grid squares on a map, or dividing a spectrum into colors, except discontinuties make it non arbitrary in this case. Labelling major race clusters is entirely objective. 175.193.212.64 (talk) 07:20, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- The race concept is inherently informative. A common strawman is to say "well what about a skin color race or a blue eyes race?" or "what about a lactose intolerance and height race?". The problem here is that these would not be informative for anything else beyond the initial criteria. Race is based on correlations between myriad genes, in fact that is how it defined. If you know some of the genes (for example by observing someone's appearance and classifying him as East Asian), you can make predictions about the probabilities of other genes. This information is of proven utility. For example someone of East Asian appearance (I would challenge most people to reliably distinguish the Japanese from the Burmese) going to into E.R. with anaemic symptoms would not be tested for sickle cell as a priority. The concept is most useful when making predictions about groups rather than individuals. 175.193.212.64 (talk) 13:45, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- Of course people in the West are terrified of being "racist", so will happily deny what is obvious to anybody with eyes. 175.193.212.64 (talk) 14:35, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- In fact the origin and make up of the British is far from clear. If our "man in the street" does indeed describe British people as "Anglo-Saxon" he is clearly wrong. What is clear is that major geographic races are not erroneously labelled, common terms match genetic clusters. Cases like this of populations being erroneously labelled are exactly what we should discuss in the article. For example some think Ethiopians are Negroid, when they are around 40% Caucasoid. Why not put in interesting facts like that instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater because it's "too complex to make any sense" and waffling strawman nonsense about "single genes" and "bright lines" that applies to no other species. Why not explain to people that human variation is not just clinal but clinal and significantly clustered and demonstrate that with some nice PCA charts instead of dismissing the whole subject. You do a great disservice to your readers otherwise. 175.193.212.64 (talk) 06:06, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/files/2011/01/800px-Present_distribution_of_wolf_subspecies.gif http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/files/2011/05/wolf4.jpg
There is more variation within than between groups, there is not a single gene unique to any group, there are no bright lines...the Alaskan tundra wolf is a social construct! 175.193.212.64 (talk) 13:02, 12 August 2013 (UTC) African Jackals can breed with Eurasian Wolves. Therefore it is difficult to see why anyone would distinguish them. It must be to justify discrimination. 175.193.212.64 (talk) 13:32, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
- Pules Iritans isn't a """Jackal""" disease as it is found in Wolves. This means there are no differences. Discrimination is based on fur color. All Canids bleed red. There is no gene for Canid. There is just one Canid: the Canid. 175.193.212.64 (talk) 03:20, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
- Basset Hounds are prone to glaucoma. However, other animals can get glaucoma and not all Basset Hounds get glaucoma. This makes the information useless and any mention of dog breeds is a form of malicious prejudice. 175.193.212.64 (talk) 06:49, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Caucasoids
"Europeans began to rely on the idea of "biologically distinct races," including such constructions as "Negroids," "Caucasoid," and "Mongoloids," a classification system which was developed by Blumenbach based on his studies of skull morphology.
This simple classification system failed in one significant area, however. Darker-skinned Europeans from southern Italy and southern Spain, Indians, and significantly Dravidic Indians clearly were not "Caucasian." but they were also not "Negroid.""
They are Caucasoid as Blumenbach defined the term. So this statement is false. 121.67.121.41 (talk) 19:31, 22 July 2014 (UTC)