Talk:Racialism/Archive3
Stupidly One-sided[edit]
So stupidly one-sided. This page is a complete joke. Clearly written by a "race denying" crackpot.— Unsigned, by: 202.171.168.146 / talk / contribs
- Couldn't agree more. Races are a biological reality. The "crackpots" are the race denialists. Ernst Mayr (2002) on racial reality: Let me begin with race. There is a widespread feeling that the word "race" indicates something undesirable and that it should be left out of all discussions. This leads to such statements as "there are no human races." Those who subscribe to this opinion are obviously ignorant of modern biology. Races are not something specifically human; races occur in a large percentage of species of animals. You can read in every textbook on evolution that geographic races of animals, when isolated from other races of their species, may in due time become new species. The terms "subspecies" and "geographic race" are used interchangeably in this taxonomic literature." [emphasis added] [1] Boglin (talk) 21:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
- We need experts please. My two cents: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cerd.htm. RandonGeneration (talk) 00:59, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Looks like we've raised the hackles of the Stormfront set. This discussion (insofar as it might be called that) is more apropos to the main race page. You fellows might want to take up your complaints of "race denial" with the HGP. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 01:19, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- We need experts please. My two cents: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cerd.htm. RandonGeneration (talk) 00:59, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
External Links[edit]
Might be worth mentioning that Tim Wise, the author of one of the articles linked to here, is something of a raging Moonbat with ties to Afrocentrism who has made a number of outrageous claims (his shtick is basically to blame nearly every problem in America or even the world on white people/racism) and does not appear to be taken seriously outside of hard-left groups, the most heavily politicized regions of academia, and of course the far-right cranks and racists with whom he so enjoys butting heads. This does appear to be one of his better articles though, sticking mostly to the facts and making coherent arguments without anything too inflammatory, insane or manipulative thrown in there (albeit for the purpose of exhaustively rebutting a political philosophy that is hardly taken seriously within intellectual circles and not exactly difficult to argue against). I'll leave it up to the judgment of users here whether to keep the link or trade it in for an article by someone who's more scholar than activist. 74.8.89.90 (talk) 08:01, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
This Article is a Joke[edit]
There's so much bias in here. Fringe Elements, LibertarianRealist2, HeyRuka, and Blackacidlizzard on YouTube all destroyed the bullshit egalitarian arguments made in this article. I bet that butthurt dickhead loser gaytheist Coughlan616 wrote this horseshit article and you idiots have fallen for the anti-racist schtick when you know deep down that anti-racist is a code word for anti-White. Tell me one country that has Black rule that has ever been economically successful or grown into an economically developed country! NONE. Because there has been a historically proven Black White IQ gap.
You're all a bunch of Marxists! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KlsIBxRTJU. 24.241.56.96 (talk) 05:31, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- The epic straw man arguments made in this article are horrendous too. The organizations who promote anti-racism are the equivalents of far left cultural Marxist institutions. Wake up! 24.241.56.96 (talk) 05:34, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- I think you spend too much time on Youtube--"Shut up, Brx." 06:38, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- YouTube has given rise to a reactionary movement of White nationalists and racial realists who question the egalitarian media propaganda and White guilt. I will give you that. Some people that I have come across used to be egalitarian libertarians until they actually looked into the race realist and WN arguments and became convinced at their validity. 24.241.56.96 (talk) 07:49, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- People get their moral philosophy from Youtube?--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 08:14, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- It can be an influence. I used to be a left wing egalitarian myself who bought into such political correctness but the reality is that certain races are more innately and genetically prone to crime and rape. See Blacks and Mestizo statistics in the United States and elsewhere around the world. I don't see anything wrong with pointing out the obvious. I also learned of the possibility that there is a massive Jewish liberal elite/proletariat trying to execute White genocide ideas with multicultural and pro-Israel policies. Now I'm ideally an anti-statist tribalist, who just who doesn't give a flying damn about anyone as long as Whites get their own land. If the Jews want to circumcise themselves, then they should do it on their own lands or if Negroes want to keep killing each other for no reason, be my guest. A Jeffersonian Republic, like I was writing about in the other article, would be the second best thing for everyone. 24.241.56.96 (talk) 17:59, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- Wow! Youtube can make people think that? I always knew it was a weird place.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 21:07, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- It can be an influence. I used to be a left wing egalitarian myself who bought into such political correctness but the reality is that certain races are more innately and genetically prone to crime and rape. See Blacks and Mestizo statistics in the United States and elsewhere around the world. I don't see anything wrong with pointing out the obvious. I also learned of the possibility that there is a massive Jewish liberal elite/proletariat trying to execute White genocide ideas with multicultural and pro-Israel policies. Now I'm ideally an anti-statist tribalist, who just who doesn't give a flying damn about anyone as long as Whites get their own land. If the Jews want to circumcise themselves, then they should do it on their own lands or if Negroes want to keep killing each other for no reason, be my guest. A Jeffersonian Republic, like I was writing about in the other article, would be the second best thing for everyone. 24.241.56.96 (talk) 17:59, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- People get their moral philosophy from Youtube?--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 08:14, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- YouTube has given rise to a reactionary movement of White nationalists and racial realists who question the egalitarian media propaganda and White guilt. I will give you that. Some people that I have come across used to be egalitarian libertarians until they actually looked into the race realist and WN arguments and became convinced at their validity. 24.241.56.96 (talk) 07:49, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
- I think you spend too much time on Youtube--"Shut up, Brx." 06:38, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
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Can we remove some nonsense?[edit][2] Racial groups have never been defined by anybody based on a single gene. Race is defined by considering multiple genes simultaeneously, such as through ancestry or genetic similarity tests, or through multiple phenotypic traits. Haven't we had enough of this tired and embarassing strawman? Mikemikev (talk) 09:27, 6 April 2013 (UTC) I agree. Race exists and the above is just a strawman against racialists.--70.31.156.138 (talk) 23:56, 20 June 2013 (UTC) |
Ironic title[edit]
The irony of the name "racial realism" is delicious. The position that "races exist, they aren't just made up" actually should be called "racial realism" in philosophical nomenclature, "realism" here meaning "ascribing existence." But those who prefer the term betray their crankiness by referring to their opponents as "race deniers"; the appropriate counterpart term would be "racial idealism" (because race is here just an "idea"). Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 22:16, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
What a stupid talk page[edit]
You guys are just racists attempting to justify prejudice. Like it or not, your concept of race is inaccurate and you're the actual denialists.
- Cool Story, Bro --Revolverman (talk) 23:47, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Not here too![edit]
I thought that the sacred halls of rationalwiki would be safe from the scourge of racial realists that has swept throughout the interwebs, but it appears this wiki is yet another among the fallen. One would think that a pseudoscience based on a limited, eurocentric knowledge of history, folk prejudices and confounding correlation for causation would not fool the minds of so many otherwise rational folk, especially considering that they use the word "liberal" as a snarl world in the style of Schlafly, but they must be a particularly insidious foe.— Unsigned, by: 24.245.14.163 / talk / contribs 01:51, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
The reality of race[edit]
Races (subspecies) are found in many other species, even in vegetables to flies. As the zoologist Ernst Mayr (2002) remarks:
"Races are not something specifically human; races occur in a large percentage of species of animals. You can read in every textbook on evolution that geographic races of animals, when isolated from other races of their species, may in due time become new species. The terms "subspecies" and "geographic race" are used interchangeably in this taxonomic literature."—
Zoologists who objectively study animals, do not apply different rules to humans through emotional or political bias. In other words, races or varieties, like in many other species, have also to exist in humans by the same principles, "It has long been recognized that most species have several varieties or what in humans are called races" (Lynn, 2006).
As Hamilton (2008) notes in his article "Taxonomic Approaches to Races":
"Although controversy exists among biologists over individual subspecific designations, denial of the category’s existence is not the scientific or cultural norm. Endangered species acts of many nations, and international treaties such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), recognize and protect subspecific taxa. The US Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) protects not only subspecies of plants and animals, but, among vertebrates, subunits called “distinct population segments” (DPSs)." [3]—
Cavalli-Sforza and Walter Bodmer in 1976 wrote that "races could be called sub-species if we adopted for man a criterion from systematic zoology. The criterion is that two or more groups become sub-species when 75 percent or more of all individuals constituting the groups can be unequivocally classified as belonging to a particular group." They further stated that for major human races it is possible to identify the race for many more humans than 75%. Mikemikev1 (talk) 18:02, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
A 2006 study found that the extent of genetic differentiation among subspecies of chimpanzees and orangutans is comparable to that seen among human populations.Fischer A, Pollack J, Thalmann O, Nickel B, Pääbo S. Demographic history and genetic differentiation in apes. Curr Biol. 2006;16;(11)1133-8. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16753568
A 2002 study found that the human fixation index value means that "kinship between two individuals of the same human population is equivalent to kinship between grandparent and grandchild or between half siblings."Henry Harpending. Kinship and Population Subdivision . Population and Environment, Volume 24, Number 2, November 2002 , pp. 141-147(7). http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/poen/2002/00000024/00000002/00451023 Mikemikev1 (talk) 18:09, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
Is human race or any taxonomy defined by anybody by a 'single gene'?[edit]
As this article states. Or is this a lie? 27.1.214.45 (talk) 06:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
- Biologically, a sub-species or 'race' is defined as a population of a species which has traits which are not found in other populations. This is a thing which somethings happens in nature and has been documented. It has not happened to homo sapiens--or if it did happen, any possible effects were lost a thousand years and more ago. I wrote the gene example because the racists try to cite some gene's frequency in Europeans vs. its frequency in Africans or Asians as examples of racial differences. But by science's own actual definition of sub-species/race, then you'd have to divide races along the presence, absence, or variation of that gene. Which would lead to one 'race' being spread all over the world and including a bunch of black, brown, and tan people in there with the sparkly-clean white people the racists hope for. --74.182.83.96 (talk) 21:42, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
- Except 'racists' define race by gene combinations and not by 'a single gene'. Subspecies is not defined by 'a single gene'. This is just a lame pseudoscentific strawman. Rationalwiki is a Marxist egalitarian pseudoscience website. Calling this website 'rationalwiki' is like North Korea calling itself a 'democratic republic'. 123.140.240.40 (talk) 00:37, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
To the OP -> How can you call people 'racists' when you admit it that this word has no exact definition? — Unsigned, by: Kevin / talk / contribs 12:16, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
Turns out Mikemikev is an editor from Metapedia...[edit]
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mikemikev
Why don't you do us a favor and stay there? And good job posting about things you have literally no clue about. Real good job..— Unsigned, by: Starrage / talk / contribs
- Old and uninteresting news. Guy's been coming around for years. You'll catch up. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
22:13, 24 November 2013 (UTC) - He's also from wikipedia and the "Egyptsearch" forum where he has countless socks -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mikemikev/Archive http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=004282 http://stumbleinn.net/forum/showthread.php?t=30679&page=3
He's been banned on more than 100 sockpuppets on wiki and across the internet (Mikemikev aka Mathsci, Goaheadpunk, Facts, Abaza, Pyramidologist, Superfacts, FrankDickman and other stupid names) and countless IP's (mostly fake south korean). His edits only troll race topics. Note that he was recently banned from Metapedia even, and racist sites even block him for trolling with obscene comments like this: "But you wouldn't, that's the point. They chloroformed you and handcuffed you and took you to a deserted farmhouse. You have to choose gangrape from one group of ten minorities or it's all of them" [4] Even white nationalists don't want anything to do with him lol. Torch (talk) 03:04, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- Mathsci is not Mikemikev - he submitted evidence as to Mikemikev's sockpuppeting - David Gerard (talk) 11:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- Mike impersonated the real Mathsci across the internet for over a year and posted his details at Stormfront. So there is a Mike sockpuppet of that name. The real Mathsci in response tracked down Mikemikev and posted his photo and details exposing his identity. See this first link,page 3, and you get a photo: [5] [6] He's also impersonated other people, including at Egyptsearch and thephora forum. He has countless sock accounts, 61 confirmed on Wikipedia and 63 suspected. Mike's reply to this is: "Yeah, it's one of my hobbies, it's a lot of fun and I often slip under the radar." [7] He basically admits he is a troll. He's been banned everywhere. On the subject of race, he's not even a genuine "race realist". A lot of his sock accounts pretend/pose as liberals or race deniers like Mathsci. He was also banned at Metapedia.Torch (talk) 14:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- No I'm not a 'troll'. I am correct. I never impersonated anybody, this is just lies. 61.32.91.71 (talk) 12:21, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
- Is there any reason whatsoever that we should give a rats arse (or any other type of arse for that matter) about the doings of some pathetic racist on other websites. Even here we give him far too much energy. As long as we feed this troll he will be back. Revert and ignore and either he'll give up and go away or he'll simply be wasting his time making edits that never last. Either of those outcomes are good enough for me. Innocent Bystander (talk) 13:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
- No I'm not a 'troll'. I am correct. I never impersonated anybody, this is just lies. 61.32.91.71 (talk) 12:21, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
- Mike impersonated the real Mathsci across the internet for over a year and posted his details at Stormfront. So there is a Mike sockpuppet of that name. The real Mathsci in response tracked down Mikemikev and posted his photo and details exposing his identity. See this first link,page 3, and you get a photo: [5] [6] He's also impersonated other people, including at Egyptsearch and thephora forum. He has countless sock accounts, 61 confirmed on Wikipedia and 63 suspected. Mike's reply to this is: "Yeah, it's one of my hobbies, it's a lot of fun and I often slip under the radar." [7] He basically admits he is a troll. He's been banned everywhere. On the subject of race, he's not even a genuine "race realist". A lot of his sock accounts pretend/pose as liberals or race deniers like Mathsci. He was also banned at Metapedia.Torch (talk) 14:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- I never impersonated anybody. 211.168.4.8 (talk) 13:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
Mikemikev not a troll? Just read: [8] [9]. There's also an entry that records his extensive sockpuppetry and trolling [10]. A few of his sock names: "GasTheKikes", " Anti White Kikes say No Thanks" about says it all. Note that Mikemikev is now trying to present himself as a "moderate race realist" on forums. All his earlier posts have been logged and have perm discredited him as a Neo-nazi who denies the Holocaust etc. A crank basically. Torch (talk) 22:47, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
- er m8, I don't think this "Mikemikev" chap represents the online HBD community. There are respectable scientists or people online who take the "race are real" position, but Mike isn't 1 of them. Taking a look at those posts, shows just a white supremacist. He looks like a poe or something anyway his comments aren't to be taken serious. Anyway, if that photo is him at Edramatica he looks mixed. Very wide negroid looking nose and strange lips?Boglin (talk) 01:58, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Do liberals have any other arguments than ad hominems and character assassinations? — Unsigned, by: Kevin / talk / contribs 12:19, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
Merge this into racialism?[edit]
See Talk:Racialism#Merge_race_realism_into_this_one.3F (to centralise discussion) - David Gerard (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Dobzhansky on the single gene strawman[edit]
"It would be. . . fallacious to define a race as a group of individuals having a given gene allele or a given chromosomal structure in common. Since in most species there are many variable genes and chromosome structures, and since different genes and chromosome structures are capable of forming a variety of combinations, an individual or a population might belong to one ‘race’ as far as the gene A is concerned, to a different ‘race’ with respect to the gene B, to a still different ‘race’ with respect to C, etc. (Dobzhansky, 1944a, p. 138)
"If the entire ideal field of possible gene combinations is graded with respect to the adaptive value, we may find numerous ‘adaptive peaks’ separated by ‘valleys’. The ‘peaks’ are the groups of related gene combinations that make their carriers fit for survival in a given environment; the ‘valleys’ are the more or less unfavorable combinations. Each living species or race may be thought of as occupying one of the available peaks in the field of gene combinations." (Dobzhansky, 1937a, p. 187) 123.140.240.40 (talk) 00:29, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- Do you have a point here? TeenageWasteland (talk) 00:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- Yes the 'single gene' definition of race attacked in the article is a pathetic strawman. Race is defined by overall genetic similarity. 123.140.240.40 (talk) 00:49, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- Hmmm. Well, I guess, since nobody has done any real research into human genetics in the 70-75 years since Dobzhansky wrote this, we'll have to go with that, then. Seeing as it's pretty much the state of the field and all. TeenageWasteland (talk) 00:52, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- You are trying to claim that 'research in genetics' has redefined race to be based on a single gene? Edwards, Dawkins and so called 'racists' all define race by gene correlations. The only people who define race by 'a single gene' are Marxist egalitarian pseudoscientists posing as 'rational' looking for a cheap strawman to destroy to confuse and befuddle the masses. 123.140.240.40 (talk) 00:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- I'm not trying to argue anything. Go ahead and change the article, and use Dobzhansky (1937;1944) as your source. I'm curious as to how that will go for you. TeenageWasteland (talk) 01:12, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- I can't as the article is protected. Can you do it? You can also add Dawkins (see discussion of Lewontin's fallacy in The Ancestor's Tale) as a source if the simple facts of Dobzhansky are 'too old' or something. 123.140.240.40 (talk) 01:37, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- I'm not trying to argue anything. Go ahead and change the article, and use Dobzhansky (1937;1944) as your source. I'm curious as to how that will go for you. TeenageWasteland (talk) 01:12, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- You are trying to claim that 'research in genetics' has redefined race to be based on a single gene? Edwards, Dawkins and so called 'racists' all define race by gene correlations. The only people who define race by 'a single gene' are Marxist egalitarian pseudoscientists posing as 'rational' looking for a cheap strawman to destroy to confuse and befuddle the masses. 123.140.240.40 (talk) 00:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- Hmmm. Well, I guess, since nobody has done any real research into human genetics in the 70-75 years since Dobzhansky wrote this, we'll have to go with that, then. Seeing as it's pretty much the state of the field and all. TeenageWasteland (talk) 00:52, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- Yes the 'single gene' definition of race attacked in the article is a pathetic strawman. Race is defined by overall genetic similarity. 123.140.240.40 (talk) 00:49, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
"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) 123.140.240.40 (talk) 02:08, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
- Then what is even the point in having "races" as a categorization if you're not going to try to differentiate them as discrete entities? It would be pretty difficult to use as a descriptor. Nullahnung (talk) 11:21, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
- 123.140.240.40 is troll Mikemikev. He's been on this page for years. Skeptic Jon (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Just cut the "Flawed genetic theory" section, please. It's poorly written, hard to follow, begs the question, doesn't make any sense and doesn't cite any examples of the kind of theory it purports to be refuting. Wėąṣėḷőįď
Methinks it is a Weasel 19:34, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
- Did it myself. Wěǎšěǐǒǐď
Methinks it is a Weasel 07:26, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
- I think it does a useful thing. Will have a hack at fixing it - David Gerard (talk) 12:22, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
- What differentiates the two populations mentioned, if it isn't a gene (since it's present in different concentrations in both populations) or a physical characteristic (since both look identical to each other on the whole)? WèàšèìòìďMethinks it is a Weasel 12:38, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
- The frequency of the gene. Also, the populations may or may not look identical. Basically, it's something they bring up to assert a "you can't prove it's not true" - that there could be differences in $WORTHWHILE_CHARACTERISTIC that match their particular construction of race. The section could do with examples of this variety of weaseling - David Gerard (talk) 13:13, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
- What differentiates the two populations mentioned, if it isn't a gene (since it's present in different concentrations in both populations) or a physical characteristic (since both look identical to each other on the whole)? Wèàšèìòìď
- I think it does a useful thing. Will have a hack at fixing it - David Gerard (talk) 12:22, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
In which someone fails to understand how genetic clustering research works[edit]
- I am not a troll and I am absolutely sincere. 'u r a troll' is pretty lame yet sadly common slander from those with no counter points. In fact there definitely are genes which are distributed along racial lines, and futhermore these genes show evidence of recent selection. This in itself validates race as a useful taxonomy, further from the fact that it's a valid taxonomy due to the simple fact that people can be reliably classified. Naturally the utility of race depends on which genes correlate, and what they are doing, and as you may know this is largely unsettled science. Some here claim things which vary by race are "superficial". Needless to say they have no evidence of that (evidence coming in is looking like brain genes vary by race, and I for one would be massively surprised if they didn't), and are making stuff up based on wishful thinking. However clearly some important genes correlate with race, since the classification can usefully predict the effectiveness of medical treatments, and at various levels (sub race classification is also valid) all kinds of things from lactose tolerance to sprinting ability. Nodody is saying "race tells you everything you need to know with 100% certainty" but race is absolutely an informative taxonomy. And the argument that race is invalid because not everybody in 'race Y' has 'gene X' is an utter joke. Please replace your species article with that if you think it is valid, because it applies. 123.140.240.40 (talk) 02:49, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Further race defined by genetic similarity results in discrete sets. 175.119.187.235 (talk) 06:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Race is a geographic phenotypical classification, if it be anything at all, and thus is very broad and imprecise. Yes, it is possible to statistically correlate clusters of physical traits with individual geographic ancestry. However, that alone does not validate the use of such arbitrary classifications as 'race'. It does not in fact appear to be possible to usefully single out discrete sets on the basis of genetic similarity. If you've found someone who can, go ahead and post it here. Nullahnung (talk) 08:06, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Can you define 'geographic phenotypical classification' and explain why it is very broad and imprecise? The point is that physical traits and genes are correlated with each other. That's where the information is, and that's where the validity and utility is. Geography only comes in to help explain why they are correlated (in addition to cultural barriers), it's really an irrelevant point. It is by definition possible to create discrete sets based on genetic or phenotypic similarity. How could anybody except an ignoramus or a sophist not see that? Individuals will either be more or less genetically or phenotypically similar, whatever method is used and clusters centred on local maxima and demarcated at local minima will form, which will be discrete. And the various methods used, such as multiple phenotypic traits, large numbers of autosomal SNPs, etc., tend to produce very similar cluster patterns, which also match theorised (with a high degree of confidence), shared ancestry. These clusters are quite widely separated in genetic space (ie. not 'clines') and highly informative (read probalistically predictive) for a large number of genes and traits. You don't seem to know what you are talking about and are just asserting things like 'not possible' 'arbitrary' 'imprecise' with absolutely no qualification, quantification, or data. In fact it's not at all above base name calling. 211.60.236.7 (talk) 09:48, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Most people who set up categories of 'race' are going to associate those categories with geographic information (apparently the concept of race from seemingly everyone's point of view needs some priori concept of ethnicity which always has a geographic component), which is why I included that adjective. Geographic information is not irrelevant to this discussion, as studies that examine genetic clusters majorly demarcate their sample populations in terms of geography first before doing the analysis. As you should probably know, studies that seek to find genetic clusters are only as informative as the populations they sample.
- The definition of race seems quite arbitrary to me, as everyone says it's something different, you see. If you had clearly defined it from your point of view in the first place, we would have less discussion work to do now.
- Also, we don't seem to have started out with a precise idea of what 'discrete' means. I thought it implied 'non-overlapping', but apparently not. I'm glad we got that out of the way too.
- Talking about genetic similarity, let's get another thing out of the way while we're at it: "two random individuals from any one group are almost as different [genetically] as any two random individuals from the entire world." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1893020/
- Now that that's (hopefully) out of the way, are you suggesting that 'clusters' (I'm going to guess that the clusters you mean are derived from the data referred to in here: http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.0010070 ... right?) correspond to 'races' one to one? As in, each cluster is a race? Nullahnung (talk) 12:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Can you define 'geographic phenotypical classification' and explain why it is very broad and imprecise? The point is that physical traits and genes are correlated with each other. That's where the information is, and that's where the validity and utility is. Geography only comes in to help explain why they are correlated (in addition to cultural barriers), it's really an irrelevant point. It is by definition possible to create discrete sets based on genetic or phenotypic similarity. How could anybody except an ignoramus or a sophist not see that? Individuals will either be more or less genetically or phenotypically similar, whatever method is used and clusters centred on local maxima and demarcated at local minima will form, which will be discrete. And the various methods used, such as multiple phenotypic traits, large numbers of autosomal SNPs, etc., tend to produce very similar cluster patterns, which also match theorised (with a high degree of confidence), shared ancestry. These clusters are quite widely separated in genetic space (ie. not 'clines') and highly informative (read probalistically predictive) for a large number of genes and traits. You don't seem to know what you are talking about and are just asserting things like 'not possible' 'arbitrary' 'imprecise' with absolutely no qualification, quantification, or data. In fact it's not at all above base name calling. 211.60.236.7 (talk) 09:48, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Race is a geographic phenotypical classification, if it be anything at all, and thus is very broad and imprecise. Yes, it is possible to statistically correlate clusters of physical traits with individual geographic ancestry. However, that alone does not validate the use of such arbitrary classifications as 'race'. It does not in fact appear to be possible to usefully single out discrete sets on the basis of genetic similarity. If you've found someone who can, go ahead and post it here. Nullahnung (talk) 08:06, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Further race defined by genetic similarity results in discrete sets. 175.119.187.235 (talk) 06:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Well when you say 'most people need geography' you're just attacking a strawman. I don't really know or care whether "most people" think a correct definition of race involves geographic information what *I* am saying absolutely doesn't. So maybe you could address that rather your imaginary "most people". The studies I have referenced demarcate nothing and sample from a range of points, not areas. This is why we see things like individuals from the Japan samples showing up in the Korean cluster: it's a Korean in Japan. So it should be clear they are not sampling 'populations' (whatever that means in this context), they are sample at points, and nothing is demarcated. Discrete of course means non-overlapping and similarity based clusters will necessarily be non-overlapping on either sides of local minima. I can explain this to you with some simple examples if you want. Two individuals may indeed be 'almost as similar' considering we all share about 99% of genes, and 98% if we include chimps in 'we', and why not. However you'll find, interestingly, it's never actually the same, and that's the point. There is some variation that is distinct, and that's what we are talking about. So you seem to be bringing up some irrelevant sophistry that could be used to argue that there is no meaningful distinction between chimps and humans. Hopefully that fact will show it up for that fallacious irrelevant sophistry it is. "..are you suggesting that 'clusters' correspond to 'races' one to one? As in, each cluster is a race?" Yes exactly. 118.128.157.166 (talk) 13:02, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- I think you are not approaching that quote correctly, as the criteria for genetic similarity used when comparing chimps and humans are different to the ones I referred to about comparing humans to humans, but whatever, let's get on with the main parts of the discussion.
- http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5959/1541.full - This appears to be one of the studies you referenced (would you mind linking the other one/ones?).
- It is sampling from individuals and classifying them within priori populations which they set up with linguistic, ethnic and geographic criteria. For each individual the same algorithm (the same one as the Rosenberg reference I gave earlier, which is STRUCTURE) is run between assumed possible number of options of ancestral populations 2 to 14.
- As I've already mentioned, this is one specific methodology of assuming specific populations. If they had used a different methodology with different assumptions, but within the same scale they would have gotten different clusters. You said (somewhere on this talk page) if everyone in the entire world was analysed with the same methodology then we would have that universal set of clusters and subclusters. The problem is, how do you get a universal methodology that everyone can agree on, when integral parts of said methodology are making assumptions beforehand about things like linguistic or ethnic ancestral populations? These things are ever-changing and subjective and therefore constructs, which you would first have to agree on.
- Also, how can you think that you could set up non-overlapping categories in the first place? The American Anthropological Association has stated the opposite:
- "With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species. Physical variations in any given trait tend to occur gradually rather than abruptly over geographic areas. And because physical traits are inherited independently of one another, knowing the range of one trait does not predict the presence of others. For example, skin color varies largely from light in the temperate areas in the north to dark in the tropical areas in the south; its intensity is not related to nose shape or hair texture. Dark skin may be associated with frizzy or kinky hair or curly or wavy or straight hair, all of which are found among different indigenous peoples in tropical regions. These facts render any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations both arbitrary and subjective." - http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm
- Conclusion: The clusters mentioned above are derived not only from genetic similarity, but also derived from pre-assumed ancestral populations you first have to set with subjective criteria. From a purely biological point of view, having discrete (as in non-overlapping) 'races' is nonsense. Nullahnung (talk) 15:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- All methods of calculating genetic similarity produce almost exactly the same clusters. That's an empirical fact so you are imagining things. The reason for this is that in reality members of a race a more similar to each other than to members of other races. It's really trivial. Of course it's possible to imagine that isn't the case.
- If you get a good sample of various peoples in the world you'll get the same clusters. Simply sampling people living at a evenly spaced and large number of points across the world you'll get Caucaoid, Mongoloid and Negroid clusters. There is no pre-assumption. No 'assumption' will group South East Asian samples with South Asian samples versus North East Asian samples. You are just making stuff up. And an individual will be on one side of a minima or the other. They will be closer to one of the maxima than another. Thus the clusters are clearly demarcated.
- The American Anthroplogical Association may 'state the opposite' till they are blue in the face. They are wrong. And of course the American Anthroplogical Association stated no such thing. These people did: Audrey Smedley, Yolanda Moses, Michael Blakey, Faye Harrison - Black; Alan Goodman, Jonathan Marks - Jew; C. Loring Brace - well known race denialist, Carol Mukhopadhyay - married to an Indian, George Armelagos
- 'The Statement on "Race" is a 1998 race denialist statement by the American Anthropological Association. It was adopted by the Executive Board without any membership voting. It can be seen as a response to The Bell Curve debate.
- The statement opens with Lewontin's Fallacy, continues to the clinal nature of locally adapted phenotypic skin color, and takes this as a refutation of biological race. The race concept is then attributed as a "fabrication" of European colonialists in order to justify "hierarchies", while in fact it was developed by the apolitical scientist Blumenbach based on skull analysis, and has been corroborated by recent genetic findings. The "logical end" of racial classification is defined as the "the Holocaust". Finally the authors state that "all normal human beings have the capacity to learn any cultural behavior", a patent falsehood, and conclude that "present-day inequalities between so-called "racial" groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances", with no evidence or reasoning.'
- Why did you leave out the disclaimer at the top?
- 'The following statement was adopted by the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, acting on a draft prepared by a committee of representative American anthropologists. It does not reflect a consensus of all members of the AAA, as individuals vary in their approaches to the study of "race." We believe that it represents generally the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists.'
- Why did you leave out the disclaimer at the top?
- 211.60.236.23 (talk) 14:45, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- Before you state that I am apparently imagining things, I suggest you read the paper you yourself referenced (this one: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5959/1541.full) very carefully, as you don't seem to understand what's written in it or how the methodology works.
- Here's a picture in that same study: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5959/1541/F1.large.jpg
- Here you can see the classification based on subjective criteria as in 'ethnicity' and 'language', which is required for the clustering analysis to even begin. I suggest you read up on how gene clustering research is done in more detail than you seem to have until now.
- If you can grasp the mechanics of how genetic information propagates and the methodology behind gene clustering research, then soon you will start to see how impossibly difficult it is to usefully separate out 'races'.
- As for the AAA statement supposedly being from a bunch of race denialists, would you characterise the HGP as race denialists as well?: http://web.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/minorities.shtml Nullahnung (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- No that's the ethnicity of the people who live at that point. That incidental piece of information is not what causes East Asians to cluster together versus Caucasoids.
- Look at this chart. You can see an individual sampled in Japan appears in the Korean cluster, obviously a Korean living in Japan. Thus cluster association is dependent on genetic similarity and not on sample point. 211.60.236.23 (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- I don't seem to have explained it to you very well, let me try again.
- You seem to think that individuals are clustered together purely based on genetic similarity, and then after that their other information, such as ethnicity and linguistics, is considered. That is not true, read the paper again.
- What you actually need to do is set up a framework of categories FIRST (which is what I mean by priori) consisting of populations that have been determined based upon variable and subjective criteria (eg. linguistics, ethnicity, geographics) and related to known SNPs using maximum likelihood. Then what they did is posit each individual to derive from any of a number (K=2-14 in this case) of those populations and run the STRUCTURE algorithm through all of the genetic data. Having this framework first is the very first step and it was, partially but essentially, made using subjective criteria. That is the gist of it. Nullahnung (talk) 16:07, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- You are repeating yourself and ignoring what I wrote. If indivduals are selected based on 'ethnicity' why would an individual sampled in Japan appear in the Korean cluster? Why does nobody fall between the clusters? Why is there a huge gap between the clusters? Because the Japanese are all more genetically similar to each other than any Korean. Which 'ethnicity' could you 'pre select' to fill up the huge genetic space between the several billion people living in East Asia and the billion people living in India? None. There is a huge gap in genetic space between those populations. There are minor Central Asian admixed populations, but the vast, vast majority of people fall into one of the major clusters. If you sampled everybody in the world with no 'ethnicity' information, using PCA to assess similarity rather than STRUCTURE so no preset numbers are used, there would still be a huge gap in genetic space between the people sampled in India and China which would correspond to shared ancestry on either side of the Himalayas. The vast majority of the people living in India would still be more similar to Europeans than people living in East Asia, despite far greater geographic distance. The same would be true for SS Africans versus Caucasoids. The same pattern of racial clusters would be evident if you sampled only the genetics and no other information of everybody in the world. Therefore, race is a real phenomenon. 211.60.236.23 (talk) 20:04, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- *Sigh* Care to link to any papers which you supposedly understood to make this conclusion that the world is divided into clearly fixed and non-overlapping genetic clusters?
- Also, just to stop you from continuing to spout irrelevant things, you wrote: "If indivduals are selected based on 'ethnicity' why would an individual sampled in Japan appear in the Korean cluster?"
- First of all, individuals are NOT selected based on ethnicity, that's not what I said, I don't know how to explain this to you any clearer. Individuals are just sampled in some country, which is irrelevant for the framework I was talking about. You need to identify priori populations based on information like ethnicity etc. and construct the framework out of that, then run the algorithm on the data, which holds the information from the individuals. It is entirely possible for individuals in a population associated with one area (like Korea) to be from another area (like Japan). There. Nullahnung (talk) 20:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- You are repeating yourself and ignoring what I wrote. If indivduals are selected based on 'ethnicity' why would an individual sampled in Japan appear in the Korean cluster? Why does nobody fall between the clusters? Why is there a huge gap between the clusters? Because the Japanese are all more genetically similar to each other than any Korean. Which 'ethnicity' could you 'pre select' to fill up the huge genetic space between the several billion people living in East Asia and the billion people living in India? None. There is a huge gap in genetic space between those populations. There are minor Central Asian admixed populations, but the vast, vast majority of people fall into one of the major clusters. If you sampled everybody in the world with no 'ethnicity' information, using PCA to assess similarity rather than STRUCTURE so no preset numbers are used, there would still be a huge gap in genetic space between the people sampled in India and China which would correspond to shared ancestry on either side of the Himalayas. The vast majority of the people living in India would still be more similar to Europeans than people living in East Asia, despite far greater geographic distance. The same would be true for SS Africans versus Caucasoids. The same pattern of racial clusters would be evident if you sampled only the genetics and no other information of everybody in the world. Therefore, race is a real phenomenon. 211.60.236.23 (talk) 20:04, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- 211.60.236.23 (talk) 14:45, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- No this is false. The samples are grouped by geographic sample point alone. That is the 'framework'. You can even see samples from different points with the same ethnicity. Ethnicity is secondary information, not used to 'run the algorithm'. And you are just ignoring my point about sampling everybody. You are repeating the same false statement.
- Populations defined by genetic similarity will necessarily form non-overlapping clusters if you draw lines through minima. That's a trivial fact, not requiring 'authority' to be correct. People will either be closer to one maxima or another, or possibly exactly between. They can never be closer to two at the same time. Therefore there is no 'overlap'. 175.119.187.235 (talk) 01:38, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
- And you are just repeating your points as well. I've already explained to you how it is possible to have samples from different points, but with the same ethnicity. I've also tried to explain to you how the methodology works that is described in the paper. If you don't believe me and cannot be bothered to carefully read the paper and try to understand the methodology, then there's nothing more I can do. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on how the research was conducted.
- As for your simplified view on there supposedly being "populations defined by genetic similarity", I am much more inclined to trust the Human Genome Project and the executive board of the American Anthropological Association than you, just on the basis that they have the technical expertise while you apparently don't. Nullahnung (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
- So we're reduced to gratuitous assertions 'I just don't understand' and blind faith in 'authorities' after I have explained why they are wrong.
- Racial egalitarianism: the new religion. 175.119.187.235 (talk) 02:08, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
- Gratuitous assertions indeed. Nullahnung (talk) 02:13, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
- "The framework" constructed from ethnicity you keep going on about exists only in your head and it is absolutely you that doesn't understand. Genetic clustering operates on genetic data alone and clusters form, which are races. 175.119.187.235 (talk) 03:01, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
- You're just repeating yourself again, like that I'm apparently imagining things, when I actually took the time to go through what was written and explain it to you. There's no reason to continue this. Nullahnung (talk) 03:17, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
- "The framework" constructed from ethnicity you keep going on about exists only in your head and it is absolutely you that doesn't understand. Genetic clustering operates on genetic data alone and clusters form, which are races. 175.119.187.235 (talk) 03:01, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
- Gratuitous assertions indeed. Nullahnung (talk) 02:13, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
You didn't 'explain' anything, you just made a number of false assertions. 220.95.244.40 (talk) 03:53, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
- No you. Nullahnung (talk) 09:41, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
- So explain to us how ethnicity data fits into the genetic clustering algorithm. 183.98.22.248 (talk) 14:51, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
- Oh, must I repeat myself, I already did explain. Here, have a copy paste:
- "What you actually need to do is set up a framework of categories FIRST (which is what I mean by priori) consisting of populations that have been determined based upon variable and subjective criteria (eg. linguistics, ethnicity, geographics) and related to known SNPs using maximum likelihood. Then what they did is posit each individual to derive from any of a number (K=2-14 in this case) of those populations and run the STRUCTURE algorithm through all of the genetic data. Having this framework first is the very first step and it was, partially but essentially, made using subjective criteria. That is the gist of it."
- Now, if you don't believe me, then how about you go and read the paper yourself? Just a suggestion. Nullahnung (talk) 18:28, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
- And here is the response you decided to ignore and call me 'ignorant' instead.
- "You are repeating yourself and ignoring what I wrote. If indivduals are selected based on 'ethnicity' why would an individual sampled in Japan appear in the Korean cluster? Why does nobody fall between the clusters? Why is there a huge gap between the clusters? Because the Japanese are all more genetically similar to each other than any Korean. Which 'ethnicity' could you 'pre select' to fill up the huge genetic space between the several billion people living in East Asia and the billion people living in India? None. There is a huge gap in genetic space between those populations. There are minor Central Asian admixed populations, but the vast, vast majority of people fall into one of the major clusters. If you sampled everybody in the world with no 'ethnicity' information, using PCA to assess similarity rather than STRUCTURE so no preset numbers are used, there would still be a huge gap in genetic space between the people sampled in India and China which would correspond to shared ancestry on either side of the Himalayas. The vast majority of the people living in India would still be more similar to Europeans than people living in East Asia, despite far greater geographic distance. The same would be true for SS Africans versus Caucasoids. The same pattern of racial clusters would be evident if you sampled only the genetics and no other information of everybody in the world. Therefore, race is a real phenomenon."
- Please respond and pay special attention to the use of PCA rather than STRUCTURE. Thanks. 211.168.4.60 (talk) 03:36, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
- First of all, I haven't ignored that, second of all, most of these things are either just assertions that you haven't backed up (with actual links to papers) or things I've already addressed.
- Also, rather than just shouting PCA into the room, which is just a form of eigen-vector based analysis which you don't seem to understand, it would be much more useful if you actually linked papers that describe its use specifically in genetic clustering research. That would make this discussion less of a waste of time, imagine that! Nullahnung (talk) 04:01, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
- {Insert pointless hypocritical self aggrandizing abuse} "You just don't understand PCA! 'Eigen-vectors', 'big-words intended to impress', etc."
- With that out of the way, and with the counter point that I absolutely do understand PCA including how to apply it mathematically, did you not notice that I have referenced two papers which use PCA to gauge genetic similarity and discuss its evidential status for shared ancestry? Further, it's a trivial truism that falling within a similar cluster in a PCA chart necessarily means that those individuals will tend to share multiple genetic variants, ie. that those variants are correlated for those indivduals, which in itself establishes race as an informative taxonomy. Is it a coincidence that genetic PCA clusters correspond to traditional races? Clearly they both represent the main fractures of population distinctive correlated variation. The simple fact that knowing some portion of that variation, for example the appearance traits that SS Africans or East Asians tend to share, allows one to probablistically infer other variants which may not be immediately visible, validates race as an informative taxonomy. I don't need to link to papers explaining PCA, I thought you understood it? PCA by defintion identifies the most distinctive correlated variation, and that is race. Again, is it a coincidence that PCA applied to genome data (with no 'subjective ethnicity information' note carefully) matches traditional races? Of course not, that's because those groups have mixed more and tend to share genetic variants. It's an absolute no brainer. But the modern Lysenkoist will nevertheless try to insist black is white with endless babble, ad hominem, and just plain lies. 211.168.4.60 (talk) 04:49, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
- Apparently 'eigen-vectors' is a big word now... or so says the guy who claims to "understand PCA including how to apply it mathematically". And apart from that you keep repeating what you said earlier and emphasizing that it's all trivially true. And also, you refuse to comply with the most basic of requests from a discussion partner. Nullahnung (talk) 10:42, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
- Oh right, I don't conform to norms of discussion as you completely ignore what I write and spew out some lame variation on 'u r ignorant'. You do this because you are unable to respond to what I saying, and that's because it is correct. I have stated that race classification captures the main portion of correlated variation, and that this is corroborated by PCA (which does the same by default) matching the traditional groups. Further any groupings which capture high corelations between some genes (especially between appearance and non-visible genes) will be valid, informative, and useful. Have you countered this? Not at all. Therefore we can only conclude that you agree. 59.10.99.247 (talk) 01:38, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
- Apparently 'eigen-vectors' is a big word now... or so says the guy who claims to "understand PCA including how to apply it mathematically". And apart from that you keep repeating what you said earlier and emphasizing that it's all trivially true. And also, you refuse to comply with the most basic of requests from a discussion partner. Nullahnung (talk) 10:42, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
- And here is the response you decided to ignore and call me 'ignorant' instead.
- So explain to us how ethnicity data fits into the genetic clustering algorithm. 183.98.22.248 (talk) 14:51, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Provide proof or admit it[edit]
Why don't you provide some scientific proof that there are no differences between races? Or if you cannot why don't you admit it that there are? Wouldn't be that the objective and honest way to treat an issue since you are pretending that you are "rational"? — Unsigned, by: Kevin / talk / contribs 12:12, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
- See Negative proof Scream!! (talk) 12:19, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
- It's not the same because we are providing proof that race exists. But you don't. For such an extended topic you only provide a few ad hominems.
You call that 'rational'?— Unsigned, by: Kevin / talk / contribs 12:29, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
What is your problem? You are posting me an article that criticizing Rationalwiki and then you are attacking me for doing the same?— Unsigned, by: Kevin / talk / contribs 12:40, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
- Oops! sorry I didn't realise that I was conversing with someone who's first language wasn't English. Would you like to rephrase that line? On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button:
on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. Scream!! (talk) 12:44, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
- Drink! *Burp!* Anyway, the differences are so minute that it's not worth talking about. We're all children of Africa anyway. Why bother trying to divide us into races? Zero (talk) 13:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
- You are making this up. It is unsettled whether racial IQ differences are genetically based. We are all children of pond slime, why bother having species? What a lame slogan based response. 123.140.240.40 (talk) 02:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Drink! *Burp!* Anyway, the differences are so minute that it's not worth talking about. We're all children of Africa anyway. Why bother trying to divide us into races? Zero (talk) 13:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
World Map of Y-DNA Haplogroups[edit]
"What human genetic groupings actually look like." No, that's what the distribution of Y-DNA Haplogroups actually looks like. Do you have anything other than a single gene strawman? Do you understand that variation is correlated and that autosomal DNA (the vast majority) blends into much smoother patterns? Note also how your pretty and distinct colors don't actually represent entirely distinct things, and that individuals in racial groups share related haplogroups.
This is what human genetic groupings actually look like when looking at more than one gene.
The real question is whether you are trolling or actually this retarded? 123.140.240.40 (talk) 03:24, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Did you know that Y-DNA Haplogroups (along with mtDNA) are recognised as the non-recombining portions of our DNA? That means these are the genes that don't just form different combinations resulting in novel sets of genetic information everytime a human is made. That means these are the genes that you would want to look at if you were interested in human genetic diversity at all, nevermind if you were interested in race categorization. What do you say to that?
- As for your linked picture, let me just give you a quote: "Genetic analysis enables us to determine the geographic ancestry of a person pinpointing the migrational history of a person's ancestors with a high degree of accuracy, and by inference the probable racial category into which they will be classified in a given society. In that way there is a distinct statistical correlation between gene frequencies and racial categories. However, because all populations are genetically diverse, and because there is a complex relation between ancestry, genetic makeup and phenotype, and because racial categories are based on subjective evaluations of the traits, it is not the case that there are any specific genes, that can be used to determine a person's race." - from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics
- It appears that Wikipedia is actually better at debunking racial realism than RationalWiki... Nullahnung (talk) 08:25, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Your first paragraph is a non sequitur. 'Y-DNA doesn't recombine - that's what you should look at if you are interested in diversity'. So we should ignore the autosome? Needless to say you are completely incorrect and the autosome is much more informative for ancestry patterns (which is not what we are talking about) because Y-DNA ignores female contributions (ie. half of the story) and more important for taxonomy (which is what we are talking about) simply because it forms the majority of DNA, contains the most variation (which is what we are talking about), and has the greatest effect on the phenotype.
- Your quote seems to be some combination of irrelevance and the single gene strawman (again). 211.60.236.7 (talk) 09:56, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Grouping humans genetically, you need to have some sort of criteria for grouping them together. From your point of view this criterium might be exclusively the current genetic similarity between... (between what? Clusters, right? As mentioned above on the talk page, studies typically demarcate their sample populations geographically first before determining any clusters. Depending on your methodology you might end up with 2, 3, 20, or any number of clusters, really. So who knows exactly between which ones we should be examining current genetic similarity?), as discussed further above on this talk page, but for others the criterium might be genetic ancestry, especially if they want to classify race biologically in terms of ethnicities. Grouping humans via Y-chromosome haplogroups or mtDNA is one of the ways to group them genetically, which may be different to how you choose to group them, but it's also a way of grouping them, see. Nullahnung (talk) 13:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- No they are simply sampled from points and theoretically you could sample every human on Earth, which would result in clusters, which would be races. You of course get clusters within clusters, such as three top level Caucasoid/Negroid/Mongoloid, and subdivisions such as Japanese cluster etc., so demanding an 'overall number' is another fallacy. None of these clusters depend on sampling. For example sometimes individuals sampled in Japan appear in the Korean cluster, because they are racially Korean. There is no overlap. I can explain this in more detail if you don't get it. 118.128.157.166 (talk) 13:16, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- This discussion continues (above) in a previous section of the talk page. Nullahnung (talk) 15:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- No they are simply sampled from points and theoretically you could sample every human on Earth, which would result in clusters, which would be races. You of course get clusters within clusters, such as three top level Caucasoid/Negroid/Mongoloid, and subdivisions such as Japanese cluster etc., so demanding an 'overall number' is another fallacy. None of these clusters depend on sampling. For example sometimes individuals sampled in Japan appear in the Korean cluster, because they are racially Korean. There is no overlap. I can explain this in more detail if you don't get it. 118.128.157.166 (talk) 13:16, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Grouping humans genetically, you need to have some sort of criteria for grouping them together. From your point of view this criterium might be exclusively the current genetic similarity between... (between what? Clusters, right? As mentioned above on the talk page, studies typically demarcate their sample populations geographically first before determining any clusters. Depending on your methodology you might end up with 2, 3, 20, or any number of clusters, really. So who knows exactly between which ones we should be examining current genetic similarity?), as discussed further above on this talk page, but for others the criterium might be genetic ancestry, especially if they want to classify race biologically in terms of ethnicities. Grouping humans via Y-chromosome haplogroups or mtDNA is one of the ways to group them genetically, which may be different to how you choose to group them, but it's also a way of grouping them, see. Nullahnung (talk) 13:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Mikemikev 10 sock accounts on this page, why are people responding to him?[edit]
All 8 IP's on this page are Mikemikev who posts from Seoul, South Korea. He lists his location on his main sock he posts on Stormfront: [11] Yes, the guy is a neo-Nazi. Just google the IP's and they come up the same location and ISP:
- 123.140.240.40 [12]
- 211.60.236 [13]
- 118.128.157.166 [14]
- 175.119.187.235 [15]
- 183.98.22.248 [16]
- 27.1.214.45 [17]
- 61.32.91.71 [18]
- 211.168.4.8 [19]
His other two accounts (excluding his main sock Mikemikev) on this page are Kevin and Mikemikev1. He's been trolling topics surrounding race for years on most online encyclopedia projects:
It doesn't look like he will ever stop. His last block entry at Wikipedia on the race classification page was only a week ago:
"Typical Mikemikev claims that other editors are lying Marxist pinkos from an account that is less than 24 hrs. old. From today, "you are lying because you have a Western Marxist POV."—
82.1.154.153 (talk) 16:12, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
And now another one:
- 121.166.142.101 [20]
Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:08, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
Looks like another:
- 123.140.61.172 [21]
Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 16:47, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Putting the basic claim in the intro[edit]
I hammer home the variation of African genetics because the primary claim is pretty much always "black Americans are just stupid". Is the article's basic point reasonably clear?
I think this is a tad short, but is bronzeworthy. Any objections? - David Gerard (talk) 14:49, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
- Instead of the paraphrased version of the claim, are there any decent pithy quotes from a primary source in which it's clear what the argument is? The article would be more effective if it hanged the perpetrators with their own rope as opposed to asking the reader to take our word that that's what the advocates of the position claim. Father Vivian O'Blivion (talk) 15:07, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
- I agree with above point that a direct quote or two by representative race realists in either text form or reference/link form would make this article stronger. Aside from that: If the basic point is that the concept of "race" does not make sense biologically, then yes. No objections. Nullahnung (talk) 15:09, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
- In other words you have an a priori politcally motivated position. That isn't science. 121.166.142.101 (talk) 16:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
- Where do you see anything being politically motivated here with regards to our article? Nullahnung (talk) 16:40, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
- Flaming antisemitic BoN is blocked for posting multiple threats. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 16:44, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
- Where do you see anything being politically motivated here with regards to our article? Nullahnung (talk) 16:40, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
- In other words you have an a priori politcally motivated position. That isn't science. 121.166.142.101 (talk) 16:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
- I agree with above point that a direct quote or two by representative race realists in either text form or reference/link form would make this article stronger. Aside from that: If the basic point is that the concept of "race" does not make sense biologically, then yes. No objections. Nullahnung (talk) 15:09, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
"This is what race realists think lol they are stupid"[edit]
"Human genetics don't work like the race realists wish they did.
Race realists spend a great deal of time and effort trying to cite the occurrences of a gene (call it X) in population 1, while X is found an order of magnitude less often in population 2, and call that evidence of different races."
Can you back that up with a single example? 175.119.187.235 (talk) 05:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- I've seen it before, tried to find the actual source without much luck. Some crackpot on YouTube tried to cite a study about the prevalence of the genes for lactose-tolerance among caucasians as opposed to other ethnicities and call that proof of races, and then followed that up with sickle-cell anemia. I'll keep trying to find the right source video, but there's a few hundred of these jackoffs and it was a couple of years ago. Finding one specific crackpot video on a crackpot channel when you can't remember said crackpot's name is a pain. 74.182.83.96 (talk) 05:09, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
- So in other words you can't find a single academic race realist (surveys by eg. Goran Strkalj show race realism to be the majority academic position) or even a single amateur race realist on the internet making this argument. And then you write:
- "Race realists spend a great deal of time and effort trying to cite the occurrences of a gene (call it X) in population 1, while X is found an order of magnitude less often in population 2, and call that evidence of different races."
- So you are basically admitting that this silly article is just a lame dishonest strawman? 211.104.152.31 (talk) 13:06, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- "In Edwards's words, "most of the information that distinguishes populations is hidden in the correlation structure of the data." These relationships can be extracted using commonly used ordination and cluster analysis techniques. Edwards argued that, even if the probability of misclassifying an individual based on the frequency of alleles at a single locus is as high as 30 percent (as Lewontin reported in 1972), the misclassification probability becomes close to zero if enough loci are studied.[9]
- So in other words you can't find a single academic race realist (surveys by eg. Goran Strkalj show race realism to be the majority academic position) or even a single amateur race realist on the internet making this argument. And then you write:
- Edwards's paper stated that the underlying logic was discussed in the early years of the 20th century. Edwards wrote that he and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza had presented a contrasting analysis to Lewontin's, using very similar data, already at the 1963 International Congress of Genetics. Lewontin participated in the conference but did not refer to this in his later paper. Edwards argued that Lewontin used his analysis to attack human classification in science for social reasons.[9]
- Response to Edwards[edit]
- Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins agreed with Edwards' view and summarized it as "However small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlate with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance." Dawkins also wrote of Lewontin that he is "known for the strength of his political convictions and his weakness for dragging them into science at every possible opportunity."[4] Neven Sesardic has argued that, unbeknownst to Edwards, Jeffry B. Mitton already made the same argument about Lewontin's claim in two articles published in The American Naturalist in the late 1970s.[10][11][12]"
211.104.152.31 (talk) 13:55, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- This is delicious copypasta. You should try some. Zero (talk) 14:04, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- You should try explaining why you have to resort to a strawman to attack the valid race concept. Oh, you can't because you are just a PC liar. 210.98.240.6 (talk) 15:03, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Telling the world all you did was copy of a Wikipedia page is a straw man? Please. Zero (talk) 15:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- No. Don't be so stupid. 'RationalWiki'? LMAO. Lying PC asshole disgrace to science wiki. 210.98.240.6 (talk) 15:14, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Drink! Zero (talk) 15:22, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Great response. Are you a trained scientist or some mindless internet dickhead? 210.98.240.6 (talk) 15:24, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Since you're asking, yes. Zero (talk)
- That isn't a yes or no question shit for brains. 210.98.240.6 (talk) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Since you're asking, yes. Zero (talk)
- Great response. Are you a trained scientist or some mindless internet dickhead? 210.98.240.6 (talk) 15:24, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Drink! Zero (talk) 15:22, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- No. Don't be so stupid. 'RationalWiki'? LMAO. Lying PC asshole disgrace to science wiki. 210.98.240.6 (talk) 15:14, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Telling the world all you did was copy of a Wikipedia page is a straw man? Please. Zero (talk) 15:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- You should try explaining why you have to resort to a strawman to attack the valid race concept. Oh, you can't because you are just a PC liar. 210.98.240.6 (talk) 15:03, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
Sure is. I'm a trained scientist and internet person. Zero (talk) 15:49, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Ok so can you address the point rather than babbling the stupid memes on your website? 210.98.240.6 (talk) 15:54, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Addressed. I put a [Who?] tag in. I'll let the major authors (I'm not one of them) put the citation in. Zero (talk) 15:59, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- See the section below (re: mikemikev), IP is the same. Scream!! (talk) 16:19, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Try addressing the point rather than parroting slander. If you can. Oh, no obviously you can't. 210.98.240.6 (talk) 16:27, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- True dat! Racists are all despicable no matter what they say. Go away, why don't you? Scream!! (talk) 16:45, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- No. Scientific facts are 'racist' if they point out the fact we are not 'the same'. That's your lame mentality in a nutshell. Way to publicly fail. Rationalwiki my ass. 210.98.240.6 (talk) 17:04, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- True dat! Racists are all despicable no matter what they say. Go away, why don't you? Scream!! (talk) 16:45, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Try addressing the point rather than parroting slander. If you can. Oh, no obviously you can't. 210.98.240.6 (talk) 16:27, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- See the section below (re: mikemikev), IP is the same. Scream!! (talk) 16:19, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- Addressed. I put a [Who?] tag in. I'll let the major authors (I'm not one of them) put the citation in. Zero (talk) 15:59, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- More sockpuppeter south korean IPs from the legendary troll Mikemikev I see. Wonderful. Calling people "PC liars" or "anti-racists" when you post interracial pornography into chat rooms and forums (all your posts on forums are traceable) and you admitted you have dated Korean girls (in your own words) so you have done interracial in real life, this explains why you have been banned from various white nationalist websites they want nothing to do with you. The white supremacists banned you from their websites so now you troll anywhere you can. You are seriously messed up in the head dude arguing about race all day for years when deep down you clearly are not about preserving your "race". You have no pride just deep insecurities. Are you actually a parody? You do a good job of it. Everyone laughs at you pal, keep it up :) Saxton (talk) 23:58, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
- This is completely irrelevant to whether the race concept has biological validity, whether any of it is true or not, which most of it isn't. 121.128.42.168 (talk) 14:38, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
- More sockpuppeter south korean IPs from the legendary troll Mikemikev I see. Wonderful. Calling people "PC liars" or "anti-racists" when you post interracial pornography into chat rooms and forums (all your posts on forums are traceable) and you admitted you have dated Korean girls (in your own words) so you have done interracial in real life, this explains why you have been banned from various white nationalist websites they want nothing to do with you. The white supremacists banned you from their websites so now you troll anywhere you can. You are seriously messed up in the head dude arguing about race all day for years when deep down you clearly are not about preserving your "race". You have no pride just deep insecurities. Are you actually a parody? You do a good job of it. Everyone laughs at you pal, keep it up :) Saxton (talk) 23:58, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
Similarly, biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks agrees with Edwards that correlations between geographical areas and genetics obviously exist in human populations, but goes on to note that "What is unclear is what this has to do with 'race' as that term has been used through much in the twentieth century - the mere fact that we can find groups to be different and can reliably allot people to them is trivial. Again, the point of the theory of race was to discover large clusters of people that are principally homogeneous within and heterogeneous between, contrasting groups. Lewontin's analysis shows that such groups do not exist in the human species, and Edwards' critique does not contradict that interpretation."[6]
The view that while geographic clustering of biological traits does exist this does not lend biological validity to racial groups was proposed by several evolutionary anthropologists and geneticists prior to the publication of Edwards critique of Lewontin.[7][16][17][18][19]
In the 2007 paper "Genetic Similarities Within and Between Human Populations",[20] Witherspoon et al. attempt to answer the question, "How often is a pair of individuals from one population genetically more dissimilar than two individuals chosen from two different populations?". The answer depends on the number of polymorphisms used to define that dissimilarity, and the populations being compared. When they analysed three geographically distinct populations (European, African and East Asian) and measured genetic similarity over many thousands of loci, the answer to their question was "never". However, measuring similarity using smaller numbers of loci yielded substantial overlap between these populations. Rates of between-population similarity also increased when geographically intermediate and admixed populations were included in the analysis.[20]
Witherspoon et al. conclude that, "Since an individual's geographic ancestry can often be inferred from his or her genetic makeup, knowledge of one's population of origin should allow some inferences about individual genotypes. To the extent that phenotypically important genetic variation resembles the variation studied here, we may extrapolate from genotypic to phenotypic patterns. [...] However, the typical frequencies of alleles responsible for common complex diseases remain unknown. The fact that, given enough genetic data, individuals can be correctly assigned to their populations of origin is compatible with the observation that most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them. It is also compatible with our finding that, even when the most distinct populations are considered and hundreds of loci are used, individuals are frequently more similar to members of other populations than to members of their own population. Thus, caution should be used when using geographic or genetic ancestry to make inferences about individual phenotypes",[20] and warn that, "A final complication arises when racial classifications are used as proxies for geographic ancestry. Although many concepts of race are correlated with geographic ancestry, the two are not interchangeable, and relying on racial classifications will reduce predictive power still further." Nullahnung (talk) 10:22, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
- So you agree that the 'single gene' claim is a strawman? 121.128.42.168 (talk) 14:40, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
- Sort of... I agree that the article needs to actually find someone who says that stuff about a single gene, if that is what the article is concentrating on.
- And the article should maybe also address the particular variety of racial realism (about genetic similarity detectable through gene clustering research supposedly being categorizable as race) that you exhibit. Nullahnung (talk) 18:56, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
- So you agree that the 'single gene' claim is a strawman? 121.128.42.168 (talk) 14:40, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
Suggested rewrite[edit]
To answer our troll's point I would suggest a rewrite that looks like
- Human genetics don't work like the race realists wish they did.
- Race realists spend a great deal of time and effort pointing out genetic differences between geographically seperated populations and insisting this is evidence for "races".
- However, as Witherspoon and al concluded
- The fact that, given enough genetic data, individuals can be correctly assigned to their populations of origin is compatible with the observation that most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them. It is also compatible with our finding that, even when the most distinct populations are considered and hundreds of loci are used, individuals are frequently more similar to members of other populations than to members of their own population.
- and further Jonatham Marks points out
- What is unclear is what this has to do with 'race' as that term has been used through much in the twentieth century - the mere fact that we can find groups to be different and can reliably allot people to them is trivial. Again, the point of the theory of race was to discover large clusters of people that are principally homogeneous within and heterogeneous between, contrasting groups. Lewontin's analysis shows that such groups do not exist in the human species, and Edwards' critique does not contradict that interpretation.
With, of course, the relevant references added. Any thoughts? Placeholder (talk) 10:50, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
- Seems on the right track, as long as the quotes are properly formatted once they are put in the article. I'd like to make a few changes and add my own understanding of the relevant research (feel free to correct me if unlike me you have the relevant academic expertise). Here's what I propose:
- Human genetics don't work like the race realists wish they did.
- Race realists spend a great deal of time and effort pointing out genetic differences between geographically separated populations in gene clustering research and insisting this is evidence for "races".
- In gene clustering research a set of populations is typically determined via subjective descriptors in ethnicity, language and geographics and people can be reliably identified as members of these groups. However, this way of categorizing people depends fundamentally on the quantity and method used to create the aforementioned framework of ancestral populations. Depending on what you subjectively chose to be aforementioned populations people may or may not end up in the same group. This is completely different from the problem of "races", which presupposes that there is just one objectively and biologically demarcatable set of populations among all humans.
- As Jonathan Marks points out
- What is unclear is what this has to do with 'race' as that term has been used through much in the twentieth century - the mere fact that we can find groups to be different and can reliably allot people to them is trivial. Again, the point of the theory of race was to discover large clusters of people that are principally homogeneous within and heterogeneous between, contrasting groups.
- The idea of large clusters of people that are principally homogeneous within and heterogeneous inbetween in terms of genetic similarity has no scientific basis and in fact there is evidence against it. Witherspoon et al concluded in their 2007 paper "Genetic Similarities Within and Between Human Populations"
- The fact that, given enough genetic data, individuals can be correctly assigned to their populations of origin is compatible with the observation that most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them. It is also compatible with our finding that, even when the most distinct populations are considered and hundreds of loci are used, individuals are frequently more similar to members of other populations than to members of their own population.
- I cut the bit about Lewontin and Edwards in Marks' quote because we haven't explained the context of Edwards critiquing Lewontin anywhere (which we could do, but maybe that's too much detail). Nullahnung (talk) 12:24, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
- That works for me. Nice one, Nullahnung. Placeholder (talk) 12:33, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
- For some reason the link doesn't work in the Marks Cquote template. I need to get back to work before the boss notices so I'll leave it for later/others. Placeholder (talk) 12:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
- Nice.
- I changed linking via cquote to footnotes, if that's alright. Nullahnung (talk) 13:05, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
- For some reason the link doesn't work in the Marks Cquote template. I need to get back to work before the boss notices so I'll leave it for later/others. Placeholder (talk) 12:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
- That works for me. Nice one, Nullahnung. Placeholder (talk) 12:33, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
- Go for it, I'm not wedded to the present text. That chart mapping variants of a gene makes the point pretty well, should stay - David Gerard (talk) 14:30, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Mikemikev was debunked at Wikipedia on this subject way back in 2010. He refuses to listen and in that sense is basically equivalent to a creationist. Like a creationist he also lies about his credentials. For example at Wikipedia he claimed to have studied genetics at the University of Sussex under John Maynard Smith. The reality? He qualified with a crappy 2: 2 bachelor's degree in ICT. He has no background in genetics whatsoever. The guy is a pseudo-intellectual and even other "race realists" are apparently embarrassed by him, hence his extensive banning record from race or biodiversity anthropology sites. Saxton (talk) 03:53, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
- Btw, Mikemikev distorts Strkalj's surveys on race. Strkalj surveyed Polish, Chinese anthropologists etc to find the majority maintain biological races exist within Homo sapiens. However the way "race" is understood to these scientists means virtually no-one would disagree races exist. As Strkalj even cautions, in places like Poland, a "race" is a just synonymous with a population of any size e.g. Londoners, or more commonly understood as a country (Italian, British). Of course, very few people would deny such populations. If you though look at the breakdown for scientists from those regions who believes in traditional/linnaean, subspecies etc., the surveys put those positions as low as 1 - 10%. In other words 9/10 scientists from locations that are not considered politically correct like Poland, still overwhelmingly deny races exist. Mikemikev loves to play word-games and redefine race as broad as he can. Saxton (talk) 04:46, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
- On a final note I will leave you with Bamshad et al. (2004) which debunks race by genetic clustering (with one line!):
"...the inclusion of such [intermediate] samples demonstrates geographic continuity in the distribution of genetic variation and thus undermines traditional concepts of race."—
- Bamshad, Michael J., Wooding, Stephen, Salisbury, Benjamin A., & Stephens, J. Claiborne. 2004. "Deconstructing the relationship between genetics and race". Nature Reviews Genetics, 5,. 598–609.
The simple point made here (which Mikemikev is too dumb to understand, seriously he's failed for 5 or more years...) is that once "intermediate" populations (i.e. populations between two great[er] geographical extremes) are included, you find genetic continuity not discontinuity. Mikemikev normally spams a diagram of seperate "East Asian", "Indian", "European" genetic clusters. However these all exclude "intermediate" populations, e.g. a population living on the edge of East Asia around west Kazakhstan, or an extreme/distant cluster itself may exclude peripheral populations. Sampling and including such populations destroys any illusionary genetic discontinuity - which is only a product of biased sampling (i.e. by only choosing geographical extremes while excluding populations in-between). Saxton (talk) 05:22, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
- That's good enough I added it to the article - David Gerard (talk) 08:27, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
- Of course there are minor admixed populations. The Uyghurs for example fall inside the huge discontinuity between the billions of East Asians and South Asians. Bangladeshis cluster closer to Europeans and Burmese cluster closer to Japanese despite geographic adjacence. The same with Russians and Chinese. There is a huge genetic discontinuity between them. 'Continuity' is just a data ignoring lie. Try looking at a world map. All admixed populations have been included, why are you lying? Kazakhs, Nepalese, Tharu, Uyghurs. These are all very low density populations vis a vis the huge clusters of Caucasoids and Mongoloids. 211.168.4.62 (talk) 09:03, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- The full quote from race denying Jewish supremacist quack Marks:
- "Again, the point of the theory of race was to discover large clusters of people that are principally homogeneous within and heterogeneous between, contrasting groups. Lewontin's analysis shows that such groups do not exist in the human species, and Edwards' critique does not contradict that interpretation."
- In fact there is usually more variation within species than between them after recent speciation. For example:
- "Sewall Wright's population structure statistic, F(ST), measured among samples of world populations is often 15% or less. This would indicate that 85% of genetic variation occurs within groups while only 15% can be attributed to allele frequency differences among groups. In this paper, we show that this low value reflects strong biases that result from violating hidden assumptions that define F(ST). These limitations on F(ST) are demonstrated algebraically and in the context of analyzing dinucleotide repeat allele frequencies for a set of eight loci genotyped in eight human groups and in chimpanzees. In our analyses, estimates of F(ST) fail to identify important variation. For example, when the analysis includes only humans, F(ST) = 0.119, but adding the chimpanzees increases it only a little, F(ST) = 0.183."
- So humans and chimpanzees are not "homogeneous within" either. Is the difference a social construct? 211.168.4.62 (talk) 09:12, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- So your latest quote is saying that F(ST) is an imperfect metric that fails to include some genetic variation, using chimpanzees and humans as an example. Great. Anything else to add that would actually support your assertions about "race"? Because this certainly wasn't enough. Nullahnung (talk) 10:41, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- So you admit that using Fst to throw out the race concept because races are not 'homogeneous' implies we also have to throw out the species concept. This is the point under discussion you just wrote in the article. Please don't change the subject before conceding the transparent fallacy you parrotted from crackpot Jewish racist Marks. 123.254.239.11 (talk) 11:10, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- It appears that this is where you got it from (if you would be so kind as to provide the link yourself next time, thank you): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14655871
- In the rest of said abstract it mentions: "However, none of the race concepts is compatible with the patterns of variation revealed by our analyses", which you conveniently left out. This paper in no way helps your side in proving that 'race' is a useful classification regarding genetics.
- As for your point that we cannot use F(ST) to throw out the race concept as Marks did, I am not well-versed enough regarding F-statistics or their interpretations to dispute you on that, so I will leave this discussion to others. (However, in my personal opinion, if it was good enough for Wikipedia, it should be good enough for RationalWiki, but whatever, I'm leaving this to others more qualified than me.) Nullahnung (talk) 12:48, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- It's really refreshing for you to admit you don't understand whst you are writing in the article. It's bullshit by the way. 123.254.239.11 (talk) 13:30, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks, now if only you could admit that you don't understand the things you keep referencing, that'd be swell. Nullahnung (talk) 13:46, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- It's really refreshing for you to admit you don't understand whst you are writing in the article. It's bullshit by the way. 123.254.239.11 (talk) 13:30, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- So you admit that using Fst to throw out the race concept because races are not 'homogeneous' implies we also have to throw out the species concept. This is the point under discussion you just wrote in the article. Please don't change the subject before conceding the transparent fallacy you parrotted from crackpot Jewish racist Marks. 123.254.239.11 (talk) 11:10, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- So your latest quote is saying that F(ST) is an imperfect metric that fails to include some genetic variation, using chimpanzees and humans as an example. Great. Anything else to add that would actually support your assertions about "race"? Because this certainly wasn't enough. Nullahnung (talk) 10:41, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- The full quote from race denying Jewish supremacist quack Marks:
- Of course there are minor admixed populations. The Uyghurs for example fall inside the huge discontinuity between the billions of East Asians and South Asians. Bangladeshis cluster closer to Europeans and Burmese cluster closer to Japanese despite geographic adjacence. The same with Russians and Chinese. There is a huge genetic discontinuity between them. 'Continuity' is just a data ignoring lie. Try looking at a world map. All admixed populations have been included, why are you lying? Kazakhs, Nepalese, Tharu, Uyghurs. These are all very low density populations vis a vis the huge clusters of Caucasoids and Mongoloids. 211.168.4.62 (talk) 09:03, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Genetic differentiation between populations correlates with the geographic distance separating them, which is clinal. Clusters only appear if you exclude the clinal "intermediate" populations:
"The suspicion that we will find continuity should be piqued by the observation, acknowledged even by died-in-the-wool populationists like Risch and Wade, that there are, at least, “intermediate groups” found at the geographic and genetic boundary between two races, such as Ethiopians and Somalis between those to their north and south or South Asians between East Asians and Europeans, where the lines between the populations are blurred. Suspicion is also warranted by the fact that as geographically intermediate regions are added to the data, the genetic markers used to identify continental clusters become less powerful" - Glasgow, Joshua. (2009). A Theory of Race. Routledge. p. 104
As Handley et al. 2007 point out: "These clines might seem to contrast with work that has described human genetic variation as ‘clustered’" and:">75% of the total variance of pairwise FST can be captured by geographic distance alone. Adding information on genetic clusters to this model captures only an extra 2% of the variance." - Handley, Lori J. Lawson, Manica, Andrea, Goudet, Jérôme, & Balloux, François. 2007. Going the distance: Human population genetics in a clinal world. Trends in Genetics, 23, 432–439. Saxton (talk) 14:17, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- And what races were sampled to make this claim? 211.168.4.27 (talk) 02:41, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
- The relative Fst between India and Europe is 1 and the Fst between India and South East Asia is 5 so this claim is obviously false. Check the data (google other studies). Where is the data? Have you read this paper? Are you just parroting an old study? Many studies reach false conclusions. 121.67.223.160 (talk) 08:31, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
- You cannot even prove the genetic cluster concept of race as not all individuals or populations have been sampled. And what happens if someone clusters as "Mongoloid" or "Caucasoid" by genetic cluster but doesn't phenotypically resemble one? Aren't you a good example of that? Silly billy:
- The relative Fst between India and Europe is 1 and the Fst between India and South East Asia is 5 so this claim is obviously false. Check the data (google other studies). Where is the data? Have you read this paper? Are you just parroting an old study? Many studies reach false conclusions. 121.67.223.160 (talk) 08:31, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
[Wikipedia. Caucasoid] "The physical traits of Caucasoid crania are still recognised as distinct (in contrast to Mongoloid and Negroid races) within modern forensic anthropology. A Caucasoid skull is identified, with an accuracy of up to 95%, by the following features": "Narrow nasal aperture, with a tear-shaped nasal cavity." You fail to pass as Caucasoid. Does this also explain your obsession with genetics but why you don't ever quote physical anthropology in regards to "race"? Physically you don't pass as Caucasoid. Saxton (talk) 16:52, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
- You clearly have serious mental problems. Assuming you had ever seen my 'nasal aperture', which is only visible on a skull, what the fuck relevance does that have? I think you need to increase your meds, a lot. I mean, take the whole bottle. 220.93.124.35 (talk) 13:11, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
- Mikemikev/MU/Saxton and your other sock IPs you are all the same person, you are quite an old guy, do you not get bored of this? You supposed to be settling down you know getting married, having a family that sort of thing like normal people do at your age but you spend your life on the internet arguing even against yourself on sock puppets about a social construct "race". It is clear you have no real interest in your "race" otherwise you wouldn't be dating interracial like you do. It is mentally ill to talk to yourself online pretending to be a racist and then an anti-racist. You need mental help, I have tracked your silly online impersonations for years, and please stop doxing information about people, this is cyber bullying - you wouldn't do it in real life. Can Rationalwiki admins just block this troll? Ty. Jon Donniz (talk) 20:02, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
- Note the above is written by the mentally ill liar Oliver Smith/Atlantid who makes sockpuppets then accuses editors of being his sockpuppets.
- http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/5299104/1/ 121.166.142.101 (talk) 16:00, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
- Just saw this. Linking to a thread of your own lies again Mikemikev? Wow, you are a smart one. Jon Donniz and Saxton are not me. This can easily be confirmed anytime by an IP check by a moderator. Unlike you, I don't have multiple IP's (what are you hiding?). The vast majority of names you claim at that link are also not me, but yours. That is why you were branded mentally ill at Metapedia. You create sock accounts, but then join forums creating threads where you claim they are other people. You're currently posting as "Dave Smythe" at Wikipedia:
- Mikemikev/MU/Saxton and your other sock IPs you are all the same person, you are quite an old guy, do you not get bored of this? You supposed to be settling down you know getting married, having a family that sort of thing like normal people do at your age but you spend your life on the internet arguing even against yourself on sock puppets about a social construct "race". It is clear you have no real interest in your "race" otherwise you wouldn't be dating interracial like you do. It is mentally ill to talk to yourself online pretending to be a racist and then an anti-racist. You need mental help, I have tracked your silly online impersonations for years, and please stop doxing information about people, this is cyber bullying - you wouldn't do it in real life. Can Rationalwiki admins just block this troll? Ty. Jon Donniz (talk) 20:02, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
What's next, will I be Dave? Take some medication. Windir (talk) 17:52, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
Book review of some interest.[edit]
"Stretch Genes," H. Allen Orr -- Review of Nicholas Wade, A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History NYRB, June 5, 2014. Father Vivian O'Blivion (talk) 02:18, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- Yeah, that suggests my statement above is substantially, ah, wrong. Orr knows his stuff and would be quite citable - David Gerard (talk) 08:50, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
The IQ thing[edit]
Need a para on this. Blacks in America do routinely test 15 IQ points below whites ... but you get 15-20 points really easily just by comparing a social in-group to a social out-group even when they're from identical gene pools - go-to examples are Burakumin in Japan, or Catholic vs Protestant in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. I'm not bristling with cites, though. Anyone with good ones? - David Gerard (talk) 09:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
- Ooooh, I love a good challenge. I'll see what I can dredge up. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 10:38, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
- This piece (WARNING: American Conservative) alludes to many such studies, if anyone can be bothered tracking down the originals. East vs West Germany, or Ireland in the 1970s versus Ireland in the 2000s - David Gerard (talk) 08:11, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
- Here's another writeup, though it's just some dude on a web page. Again, better sources needed - David Gerard (talk) 09:45, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
- Whenever IQ comes up, I think of Gould's 1981 The Mismeasure of Man
. Anythng similar, but more recent? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 11:55, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
- Whenever IQ comes up, I think of Gould's 1981 The Mismeasure of Man
- Need the Flynn effect in there too: 10-20 points over a few decades, in the same population, showing you can get that sort of increase without genes being involved - David Gerard (talk) 09:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
| Metapedia spill |
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Cool story bro. Zero (talk - contributions) 13:29, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
http://sandwalk.blogspot.kr/2008/11/maynard-smith-on-stephen-jay-gould.html 'This is not a universally held view. LAM is no doubt familiar with John Maynard Smith's famous remarks about Gould: "Gould occupies a rather curious position, particularly on his side of the Atlantic. Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by non-biologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists. All this would not matter, were it not that he is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory."' http://socialistworker.org/2002-1/410/410_08_StephenJayGould.shtml 'PHIL GASPER describes the contributions of Marxist biologist Stephen Jay Gould... Gould's parents were New York leftists, and he once boasted that he had "learned his Marxism, literally at my daddy's knee."' You are a piece of garbage filling people's minds with lies. You are part of the Jewish criminal gang, wittingly or otherwise. 125.129.211.232 (talk) 14:31, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
125.129.211.232 and 210.92.171.15 are more socks of Mikemikev. He's a parody/troll of a 'race realist' (actual 'race realists' and white nationalists want nothing to do with him and have banned him from their sites, including Metapedia) and he has something like 1000+ socks where he impersonates other people, yet then when questioned tries to blame his sockpuppetry onto others. He's currently pretending to be someone called DaveSmythe at Wikipedia. He is a total nutcase.
Also its pretty daft he accuses virtually everyone online of being 'disgusting' or 'subhuman' when he spends his time harassing females online if they want to be gangraped. His internet history logged at ED reveals him to be a perv. http://stumbleinn.net/forum/showpost.php?s=2dca2f0310965b46b3d147e59bc1649d&p=389840&postcount=24 Windir (talk) 19:45, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Commander - 08-12-09:48 -- mike do you know any cute S. Korean babes?— How many other white nationalist Stormfront members have "K Girls"? lol. This guy has multiple personality disorder. Windir (talk) 20:01, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=80679&page=8 Windir (talk) 11:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
http://johnhawks.net/explainer/laboratory/race-cranium/ Your nose is wide, not narrow. You also have subnasal prognathism. Indeed, your mid-facial/nasal features are very 'negroid'. I guess this is why you claim to be a "DNA fetishist" in regards to race and don't ever discuss race in terms of phenotype, only genotype. Insecurity much?Windir (talk) 12:46, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
Mikemikev denies races as objective categories exist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Race_and_genetics&diff=prev&oldid=584642414 Windir (talk) 14:14, 19 August 2014 (UTC) What he's admitting is that genetic variation is 'sliced' or divided based on however someone chooses. This makes the races as genetic clusters, socially constructed biological groups, not natural. Windir (talk) 14:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
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Could you people be anymore dishonest?[edit]
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"The fact that, given enough genetic data, individuals can be correctly assigned to their populations of origin is compatible with the observation that most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them. It is also compatible with our finding that, even when the most distinct populations are considered and hundreds of loci are used, individuals are frequently more similar to members of other populations than to members of their own population." The full quote is: "The fact that, given enough genetic data, individuals can be correctly assigned to their populations of origin is compatible with the observation that most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them. It is also compatible with our finding that, even when the most distinct populations are considered and hundreds of loci are used, individuals are frequently more similar to members of other populations than to members of their own population. However, if genetic similarity is measured over many thousands of loci, the answer becomes “never” when individuals are sampled from geographically separated populations." 211.168.4.62 (talk) 12:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Let's just let the researchers' own conclusions speak for themselves
That is to say, it's possible to construct race along a genetic line, but constructing any sort of application or generalization along those racial lines is fucking stupid, and not likely to yield any sort of useful insight. And anon, your reading comprehension sucks. It doesn't say that at all. Idiot. Ikanreed (talk) 15:39, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
For those that don't know Mikemikev poses online as some sort of 'moral crusader' opposing porn, drugs etc, yet his own internet history reveals he's a sex pest/perv. I dug up all his posts on his fetish for young Asian girls (when he's nearly 40) and his other sick sexual posts. In the first thread below Mikemikev claims he's against pornography describing it as disgusting: However, the same Mikemikev has been posting in pornographic "asians id like the fuck threads" for years: http://thebeerbarrel.net/threads/asians-id-like-to-fuck-thread.25059/page-2 More of his comments on how he wants to "stick his dick" in Asian women or "play around with them" (who are half his age): When will you admit your a total sicko/creep, liar and a hypocrite Mikemikev? Everyone should remember this is the same guy calling people "anti-white" and who belongs to Stormfront calling himself a 'white preservationist'. How can you be these things if you're a 40 year old or so perv with a fetish for young Asian girls? Windir (talk) 17:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
So aside from being a liar, you're a complete idiot. Two 'white' men can be more genetically similar to an East Asian than to each other, the genetic concept of race is debunked. What's you're response now? its the joooooooz or marxists?lol. You're a joke. As has been told many times, its not clear if you are actually genuine or are making a parody out of race realism. It is impossible to tell especially since you're totally mental. Other 'race realists' on forums are nothing but embarrassed by you and want nothing to do with you. That's why you've been banned on so many race based forums and have thousands of socks.Windir (talk) 18:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC) |
Dear lord, this talk page is hilarious[edit]
Oh man, I'm having so much fun watching all the racists scramble all over each other to say that all nonracists are somehow the real racists. Thanks guys, really, you made me laugh my ass off.
And if you're all trolls like I hope, you are remarkably skilled.— Unsigned, by: 68.49.233.154 / talk / contribs
Nonsense[edit]
This page is an embarrassment even by RationalWiki standards. Race is a biological reality. It isn't based on "one gene that varies in it's distribution by a few percentage points."
- Good job ignoring basic history and genetics. Don't worry, I'm sure it's all a massive conspiracy against your ilk and your ignorant idea of the truth.
"What human genetic groupings actually look like."[edit]
*Posts map of the distribution of a single gene* Fail. 210.101.189.92 (talk) 00:53, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Why are the terms caucasoid, mongoloid, and negroid still used in science?[edit]
People are using this as proof that race is still valid. — Unsigned, by: Prophetofreason / talk / contribs 19:49, 5 November 2014
- Because you touch yourself at night. WẽãšẽĩõĩďMethinks it is a Weasel 19:54, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
- Seriously are you going to help me or not? prophetofreason 20:09, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
- Seriously have you encountered these terms in contemporary science? What was the context? ωεαşεζøίɗMethinks it is a Weasel 20:25, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
- Looking at Special:Contributions/prophetofreason, that person sure likes to ask questions...--ZooGuard (talk) 20:42, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
- Source https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/jspui/bitstream/10593/3408/1/07pudlo.pdf Pg. 60 Analysis of somatic characteristics. Both the term "caucasoid" and "negroid" are used. Why?
- Looking at Special:Contributions/prophetofreason, that person sure likes to ask questions...--ZooGuard (talk) 20:42, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
- Seriously have you encountered these terms in contemporary science? What was the context? ωεαşεζøίɗ
- Seriously are you going to help me or not? prophetofreason 20:09, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
This seemed easier. I have emailed other researchers and I still have not heard from them after a month. prophetofreason 22:01, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
- I just googled "Aleksandra Pudlo, Anthropological Review, 1999". Looks like the only people citing that paper are racists.
Radioactive afikomen Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments. 22:10, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
- Either way, anthropology isn't really 'science' other than in the loosest sense. & It's a study of peoples at a cultural level rather than a genetic level. ωεαşεζøίɗMethinks it is a Weasel 22:17, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
- No -- physical/biological anthropology is a branch of anthropology. Molecular anthropology is a field that studies human genetics. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:29, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
- Either way, anthropology isn't really 'science' other than in the loosest sense. & It's a study of peoples at a cultural level rather than a genetic level. ωεαşεζøίɗ
- I just googled "Aleksandra Pudlo, Anthropological Review, 1999". Looks like the only people citing that paper are racists.
- Because they are valid as abstract categories if they are used to refer to mean statistical frequencies of certain skeletal measurements found in (continental) populations. [22] Forensic science can then predict the geographical ancestry (Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid) with about 70-80% accuracy of a skeleton. None of this however lends support to "race realism" because you can find mean statistical frequencies of traits among populations that don't match putative 'races' of different classifications, or social 'races' in general. Zoobies (talk) 23:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
- Im not a race realist btw. Oh and can you give me an example of these populations that don't match? This will be useful info. prophetofreason 00:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
- They aren't. I've never seen the terms used in any current or recently published research, or in any bio courses. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:33, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
- Just look at the FORDISC population reference bank by skeleton (which uses Howells' cranial data). [23] So we have:
- They aren't. I've never seen the terms used in any current or recently published research, or in any bio courses. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:33, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
- Im not a race realist btw. Oh and can you give me an example of these populations that don't match? This will be useful info. prophetofreason 00:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
- Norse: Northern Europe, Oslo
- Berg: Central Europe, Austria
- Teita: East Africa, Kenya
- Dogon: West Africa, Mali
- Zulu: South Africa
- etc. All these would be separate 'races' which contradicts "race realism" which instead opts to cluster all Europeans together as 'Caucasoid' and all Sub-Saharan Africans together as 'Negroid'. Zoobies (talk) 17:05, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
Genetic cluster "race realism" debunked[edit]
"Given the relatively small numbers and limited locations of human beings who have been genotyped, the distribution of individuals sampled is important for any assessment of population structure. Serre and Pääbo (2004) argued that sampling often concentrates on “the extremes of continental land masses” (p. 1680), maximizing the geographic and therefore genetic distance between individuals presumed to belong to distinct continental clusters. Without “a sampling strategy that maximizes the geographic distribution of samples and keeps similar sample size for each geographical area,” they warned, researchers risked falsely creating “apparent substructures” (Serre and Pääbo 2004:1681). In contrast, when these researchers designed a study that sampled individuals “such that their geographic distribution around the world approximates the distribution of the human population as a whole and includes areas where Africa, Asia, and Europe meet,” the pattern of genetic variation they found was “one of gradients of allele frequencies that extend over the entire world, rather than discrete clusters” (Serre and Pääbo 2004:1679-1680)." Does Genomics Challenge the Social Construction of Race? Sociological Theory. 2014, Vol. 32(3) 189–207. — Unsigned, by: Zoobies / talk / contribs
- Yep. I mean it's not like anyone is arguing that no genetic differences exist in the human species, just that every notion of "race" is spaced arbitrarily to satisfy the needs of whatever idiot is eager to jump to conclusions. Ikanreed (talk) 19:03, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
- True. But even if genetic clusters existed, a "race realist" must then explain what this has to do with race. There are at least 5 other race concepts: cladistic, geographical, ecological, morphological, zoological (subspecies). All of them provide different classifications, this goes back to Diamond 1994: "There are many different, equally valid procedures for defining races, and those different procedures yield very different classifications". No "race realist" has ever been able to solve this. It actually cannot be solved: Ugly duckling theorem. Categorizing (by similarity) involves making certain variables or characteristics more important or salient than others, which is not logical. All of taxonomy is actually arbitrary for this reason. Of course this goes way above the head of any "race realist". There is a deeper philosophical dimension they are too dumb to understand. Zoobies (talk) 17:58, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
- Apply all of these concepts and produce the "very different classifications". Oh, they're the same. 203.226.201.16 (talk) 03:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- True. But even if genetic clusters existed, a "race realist" must then explain what this has to do with race. There are at least 5 other race concepts: cladistic, geographical, ecological, morphological, zoological (subspecies). All of them provide different classifications, this goes back to Diamond 1994: "There are many different, equally valid procedures for defining races, and those different procedures yield very different classifications". No "race realist" has ever been able to solve this. It actually cannot be solved: Ugly duckling theorem. Categorizing (by similarity) involves making certain variables or characteristics more important or salient than others, which is not logical. All of taxonomy is actually arbitrary for this reason. Of course this goes way above the head of any "race realist". There is a deeper philosophical dimension they are too dumb to understand. Zoobies (talk) 17:58, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
No they obviously aren't dummy. Read a book. There is a mismatch objection to race. Here's an example: according to the Cladistic Race Concept, races have to be reproductively isolated: "Cladistic races would, thus, be monophyletic groups of reasonably reproductively isolated breeding populations" and: "The cladistic account requires that races be monophyltetic groups, a population must be reproductively isolated over a significant portion of evolutionary history before it can be designated a cladistic race" (Andreasen, 2007), but this would only produce "groups not typically deemed races" today like the Amish, or an isolated tribe in the Amazon rainforest:
- "Such genetic isolation might refer to the Amish in America (Appiah 1996, 73) or to Irish Protestants (Zack 2002, 69), but they clearly cannot refer to those groupings of people presently subsumed under American racial census categories. Because the concept “race” can only apply to groups not typically deemed races (Amish, Irish Protestants), and because this concept cannot apply to groups typically deemed races (African Americans, Whites, Asians, Native Americans), a mismatch occurs between the concept and its typical referent." - Race (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- "Zack and Appiah offer what we can call mismatch arguments. A mismatch argument holds that the true account of the extension of a term or concept x would be sharply different from what is believed about the extension of x. In this case of race, Appiah and Zack think that the fact of the absence of reproductive isolation among major racial groups (as identified in ordinary discourse) would result in none of them being races (in the sense of being biological populations). Thus, if we allowed that the term ‘race’ does pick out biological populations, it would turn out that none of the groups commonsensically considered races are races. Conversely, other groups that are not thought of as races (e.g., Appiah suggests the Amish, and Zack, Irish Protestants) might count as races." (Mallon, 2006)
- "Beyond what we have already seen, clearly non-racial populations that are reproductively isolated would seemingly have to count as 'races' on unconstrained accounts. That is, economic classes, peasants, the Amish or Ivy Leaguers." (Glasgow, 2009)
- "The Amish, however, might come out as a race on this view, since they are a relatively reproductively isolated local population." (Appiah, 1996)
However even Andreasen (2007) points out that: "It is unlikely that the condition of reasonable reproductive isolation is being met today... human races are most likely on their way out". She is basically agnostic on the existence of cladistic human races. While the Amish might be "reasonably reproductively isolated" today, they have not been isolated for a "significant portion of their evolutionary history". Let's for the moment though just ignore this and say the Amish pass Andreasen's criteria. You now have Amish as a race, while "Whites", "Blacks", "Caucasoids" etc all fail to pass as races. Where is the Amish on your genetic cluster plot? You totally ignore them for your own classification and genetic race concept, which once again shows why race is arbitrary. Zoobies (talk) 14:53, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
Improving the article[edit]
You can counter some of the claims posted on the Metapedia "racial realism" entry as a better template:
"Virtually all anthropologists and biologists from the 18th to the mid-20th century were in agreement that races existed in Homo sapiens biologically or taxonomically.
True, but this predated 'population thinking' and the modern evolutionary synthesis (late 1930's, 40's) such as Huxley's clines. What scientists believed two centuries ago is pretty irrelevant.
"The roots of race denialism can be traced to Boasianism. Outright denial of race however did not appear until as late as the 1960s, influenced by the "Civil Rights" movement, Afrocentricism pseudo-anthropology and political correctness in the West.
These claims are false. I guess what can be called 'race skepticism' emerged as having significant support after the modern evolutionary synthesis, e.g. the 1950 Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on the "Origin and Evolution of Man". Here race typology was abandoned, and those few biologists who attempted to salvage race (Dobzhansky, Mayr etc) had to re-define race entirely in terms of 'population thinking': "Strong genetic influence weakening the race concept is also seen growing out of the concept of clines and supporting data... The concept of cline began to enter anthropological awareness in the 1950s" "The rejection of the race concept by most anthropologists beginning most recently in the 1960s, was based on the genetic evidence reviewed earlier. Conformity to political correctness was not the cause of these changes" - Lieberman et al. 2003 [24] Zoobies (talk) 23:30, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
- Feel free to add this stuff, it's interesting and useful history. This is also further reason to merge this with Scientific racism - they really are the same thing - David Gerard (talk) 11:52, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
The following was removed for some reason.[edit]
Judge for yourself how awfully racist and horrible it is, and how it clearly must be censored for the good of mankind:
"'Adaptation to environments, including social environments, through natural and sexual selection is the linchpin of evolution. Remembering this means knowing why scientific racism is ridiculous. To argue that races or ethnic groups differ innately in intelligence, however defined, is exactly equal to an assertion that intelligence has proven less adaptive for some people than for others. This at minimum requires an explanation, a specifically evolutionary explanation, beyond mere statistical assertion; without that it can be assumed to be cultural bias or noise. Since most human intelligence is in fact social intelligence — the main thing the human mind is built for is networking in human societies — this would require this social evolutionary arms race to have somehow stopped.'
So let me see if I get this straight.
The ultimate refutation of these evil horrible racists who don't know anything about science is that there can't be any genetically influenced mental differences between population groups, because 'intelligence' is always good and different groups could never be under different selection pressures.
Isn't that argument like saying 'If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?!?!'?
Humans and, say, chimpanzees don't have different mental abilities because we decided to climb some metaphysical ladder and place ourselves as the Kings of Evolution, we have different mental abilities because our common ancestor had descendants that lived in different environments. Chimpanzees adapted to one environment, humans to another.
The common ancestor of all modern humans also had descendants that lived, and live, in different environments. And evolution didn't suddently stop because Homo sapiens sapiens entered the scene — the ancestors of humans and chimps belonged to the same species once upon a time, but I don't think it's controversial to assume that the ancestors of modern chimps were less intelligent (as we measure it) than the ancestors of modern humans, even when those two groups were interfertile.
Chimpanzees are social animals, as are humans. Yet we are not identical, mentally or physically. Why is it so self-evident that all human population groups have to be identical when it comes to our neurology?
I'm not an expert on this topic and don't know nearly enough about the available research to feel confident in drawing any conclusions, but this page is simply lazy. Look, I'm a feminist and a vegan and a liberal and an atheist and all those things that should make me like this wiki, but this whole reflexive anti-HBD bias is just silly. Are the authors of this page confident that they don't let their fear of the consequences of belief in genetically influenced mental differences between population groups influence their belief in genetically influenced mental differences between population groups?
Edit: Note that I'm not defending the, to my admittedly untrained eye, rather archaic division of the human species into three or four 'races' based on phenotype. And relatively few of the HBD bloggers that I have read seem to care about these 'races', mainly because they make little genetic sense. (Then again, I only became interested in this subject very recently, so I might not have sufficient data.) Seems kind of like a straw man to me. In any case, that's not what I see as the main problem with this page."
- I removed the section because of Zoobies attack against BlackProg which you can find in the edit history. The way you've structured this makes it seem like you are "just asking questions" to me. Considering you affirm to "not know nearly enough about the available research to feel confident in drawing any conclusions" then why are you posting here in the first place --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 17:00, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- You're right, I should just lie and pretend to be all-knowing, like a normal Internet person. And I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish by insinuating that asking questions is a suspicious act. — Unsigned, by: 213.113.125.113 / talk / contribs
- See RationalWiki's article on JAQing off. Also, please sign your talk page posts with four tildes: ~~~~ which also places a time stamp, so readers may see who said what, and when. Thanks, Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks! I'm not very used to wiki editing, so I don't know a lot about proper etiquette. (Although maybe I should pretend to know more about that than I actually do, too.) The reason I am "just asking questions" is that I genuinelly don't know as much as I would like to about this topic, but I do use what little knowledge I have to point out what I see as problematic arguments. It just bothers me that a community ostensibly dedicated to rationality and to updating one's beliefs in accordance with the best available research would allow such sloppy reasoning to pass just because it happens to "tow the party line", so to speak. I've seen this when it comes to other topics as well. I'm not a very smart person, so I try to make do by listening to people more intelligent and knowledgeable than me, but then it's in my interest to make sure that the public debate is objective and rational, to a reasonable degree. (Yes, I come to the Internet ready and willing to change my mind. I don't know what I'm thinking.) 213.113.125.113 (talk) 17:58, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Protip: your character would be more convincing without the rather laboured self-depreciation. Trolling = SRS BNS. Robledo (talk) 18:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- The word is "self-deprecation". Don't worry, English isn't my first language, either. In any case, from the quality of the responses so far it seems that my gut feeling about the intellectual rigour of the anti-HBD side's arguments was spot on. I guess I have little choice but to become a racist, then. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 18:45, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- I think that is mainly because it is largely considered an argument that is, thankfully, in the past. There isn't any evidence to back up mental differences between races, there is nothing out there substantial enough to bolster these kinds of prejudices. Your notion that evolution is ongoing has some credence. The idea that it happens so fast that it outlasted human migration is notional but you again have no evidence to back it up and evolution happens over vast periods of time. To be honest I think even considering this sort of thing is racist, why would there be mental differences between races? At what stage in evolution is this meant to have occured? How does this stand up to the regular migration that has happened throughout history? --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 18:52, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- "To be honest I think even considering this sort of thing is racist". Are you absolutely certain you're not a parody? Not even being willing to consider things is pretty much the very definition of irrationality. Anyway. There are pretty obviously mental differences between different population groups, that in itself is an indisputable fact. The controversial question is how much of this difference is a result of differences in environment of the individuals' personal history, and how much is the result of differences in the environment of their evolutionary history. I myself don't know (as said, I became interested in this topic recently), but I think convincing arguments could be made for a whole range of potential distributions of the two sources' relative influence.
- Not really, I meant the notion of seriously considering it, of believing that there are distinct mental differences due to the evolutionary history of various races, I think that this is exactly what white supremacists have been trying and failing to prove for hundreds of years. For the record I didn't intend to get involved in this dispute really, I only removed the section in order to try and prevent an argument between editors. My views on this topic are firmly set --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 21:01, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- "My views on this topic are firmly set". Spoken like a true rationalist. I accept your concession. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 21:04, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Sure thing, if you are using the information from HBD blogs or forums as the basis for your arguments, you don't have anything to say that I haven't read before anyway --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 21:09, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- "My views on this topic are firmly set". Spoken like a true rationalist. I accept your concession. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 21:04, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Not really, I meant the notion of seriously considering it, of believing that there are distinct mental differences due to the evolutionary history of various races, I think that this is exactly what white supremacists have been trying and failing to prove for hundreds of years. For the record I didn't intend to get involved in this dispute really, I only removed the section in order to try and prevent an argument between editors. My views on this topic are firmly set --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 21:01, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- "To be honest I think even considering this sort of thing is racist". Are you absolutely certain you're not a parody? Not even being willing to consider things is pretty much the very definition of irrationality. Anyway. There are pretty obviously mental differences between different population groups, that in itself is an indisputable fact. The controversial question is how much of this difference is a result of differences in environment of the individuals' personal history, and how much is the result of differences in the environment of their evolutionary history. I myself don't know (as said, I became interested in this topic recently), but I think convincing arguments could be made for a whole range of potential distributions of the two sources' relative influence.
- The word is "self-deprecation". Don't worry, English isn't my first language, either. In any case, from the quality of the responses so far it seems that my gut feeling about the intellectual rigour of the anti-HBD side's arguments was spot on. I guess I have little choice but to become a racist, then. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 18:45, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Protip: your character would be more convincing without the rather laboured self-depreciation. Trolling = SRS BNS. Robledo (talk) 18:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks! I'm not very used to wiki editing, so I don't know a lot about proper etiquette. (Although maybe I should pretend to know more about that than I actually do, too.) The reason I am "just asking questions" is that I genuinelly don't know as much as I would like to about this topic, but I do use what little knowledge I have to point out what I see as problematic arguments. It just bothers me that a community ostensibly dedicated to rationality and to updating one's beliefs in accordance with the best available research would allow such sloppy reasoning to pass just because it happens to "tow the party line", so to speak. I've seen this when it comes to other topics as well. I'm not a very smart person, so I try to make do by listening to people more intelligent and knowledgeable than me, but then it's in my interest to make sure that the public debate is objective and rational, to a reasonable degree. (Yes, I come to the Internet ready and willing to change my mind. I don't know what I'm thinking.) 213.113.125.113 (talk) 17:58, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- See RationalWiki's article on JAQing off. Also, please sign your talk page posts with four tildes: ~~~~ which also places a time stamp, so readers may see who said what, and when. Thanks, Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- You're right, I should just lie and pretend to be all-knowing, like a normal Internet person. And I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish by insinuating that asking questions is a suspicious act. — Unsigned, by: 213.113.125.113 / talk / contribs
- Can we have a sockpuppet check against this IP please? --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 17:05, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Dissent! Clearly, I'm actually Hitler. I can't recall ever posting anything on RationalWiki before, but you never know. I might actually be The Enemy (tm), which would make whatever I wrote irrelevant. — Unsigned, by: 213.113.125.113 / talk / contribs
- IP check as requested. Easy enough for anyone to do. At first glance, this IP seems reasonable. At least their tone is civil, which I count as a good thing. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks, wanted to make sure it was a new user rather than Mikemikev pretending to be somebody just discovering the topic --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 17:45, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Well, an IP check does reveal that I'm from Skåne, which is pretty much synonymous with being a racist. So I guess you got me there. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 18:06, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- You know that's not what I meant by it --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 18:24, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Nah, it's not that. There's this asshat in South Korea who keeps on making sock accounts. He has a huge hate-boner for Jews and other topics related to racism. He comes around every few months, and got blocked here a couple of days ago, so him trying to circumvent the block would fit his patterns.
- As I understand it, the current scientific evidence against 'racial realism' is just how malleable human development is. I don't know the precise word for the effect, so I'll call it environmental influences. If, when you are young, you get plenty to eat (and the right nutrients) and see a lot of different things, read a lot, etc, you will grow up more intelligent than if you were half-starved, eating only TV dinners, and told to go play in a corner all the time. There was a US study started back in the 80's, to track the development of 'crack babies' (children whose mother used crack cocaine while she was pregnant), who were a big concern at the time. The study, like other good studies, used kids from non-crackhead parents and other segments of society as their controls and for comparisons. They found out that growing up in poverty had a much more hindering effect on the children's development--child and adult IQ scores, crime rates, all that--than did getting a prenatal hit of crack.
- I've also read about how feral children, ones raised by hippopotamuses or severely neglected, if they don't learn language skills by the time they're two or three years old, they just won't learn it because their brain doesn't develop the whole language connections. Like, a part of their brain literally doesn't develop like it should because no one talked to the kid. Environmental influences when you're growing have a huge effect on your final result.
- A lot of the groups assumed to be inferior by your normal racist are the ones who tend to grow up in poverty, or deprivation because someone didn't know you really can't farm a desert, or a war knocked over the crop production, or they got exiled from their homeland and grow up as refugees, or whatever. So every time something comes up to try to show How We Are, it seems to support that the real differences in raw intelligence come from your environmental influences.
- Cultural/political/social beliefs, well, those are tougher to nail. Getting into memes and all that, and it's tough to be sure what's going on there, as of yet. --Maxus (talk) 18:47, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Just wanted to say that I intend to read and respond to this later, but I will probably remain busy with other stuff the rest of the day. Thanks for not just saying "lol racist", though! (Well, unless you said it in the part I haven't read yet.) 213.113.125.113 (talk) 18:58, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Right, let's see if I can write something comprehensible. It seems like this is turning into one of the usual debates about nature versus nurture, and I'm fairly certain that such a discussion could go on for years. In any case, I haven't objected to the idea that environment has an immense influence on one's mental capabilities, and I very much doubt that most HBD people would deny that. What I object to is the dogmatic assertion that there can't be genetically influenced mental differences between population groups, that anyone even suggesting such a thing is a racist and that such differences are self-evidently impossible because of how evolution works. Do you yourself agree with what's said in the section called "Adaptation doesn't work like that"? That section, not whether or not environment influences mental abilities (it obviously does), is what's under discussion. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 20:25, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Well, an IP check does reveal that I'm from Skåne, which is pretty much synonymous with being a racist. So I guess you got me there. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 18:06, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks, wanted to make sure it was a new user rather than Mikemikev pretending to be somebody just discovering the topic --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 17:45, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- IP check as requested. Easy enough for anyone to do. At first glance, this IP seems reasonable. At least their tone is civil, which I count as a good thing. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Dissent! Clearly, I'm actually Hitler. I can't recall ever posting anything on RationalWiki before, but you never know. I might actually be The Enemy (tm), which would make whatever I wrote irrelevant. — Unsigned, by: 213.113.125.113 / talk / contribs
Response: The post the IP quoted is correct, so I don't know why they are trying to challenge it. For example the average Kalahari Bushman in Lynn's books on race and intelligence score in the "mentally retarded" IQ category. Yet Lynn uses a Western/American measure of intelligence: "But peoples of widely different cultures, who generally perform badly on American intelligence tests, nevertheless function with complete competence in their own milieu. In the hash environment of the Kalahari Desert where a Westerner could not survive, the Bushmen feed, shelter, and protect themselves by using the complex body of assimilated and integrated information generated by their culture as a basis for making judgments" (King, James C. [1981]. The Biology of Race. University of California Press. p. 85). If you devised a Kalahari measure of intelligence, Richard Lynn himself would be classified as "mentally retarded" and the Kalahari Bushmen would instead score high. The simple point is that there is no standard measure of intelligence, not that mean differences between populations don't exist. Zoobies (talk) 19:00, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- That's not what the text says. "To argue that races or ethnic groups differ innately in intelligence, however defined, is exactly equal to an assertion that intelligence has proven less adaptive for some people than for others." (My emphasis.) Saying that Khoisan people's neurology have adapted to one environment and Western Europeans' neurology have adapted to another seems to be exactly what the HBD people are claiming. But the wiki page is currently saying that all population groups must be equally intelligent, however you define intelligence. If that is not the intended meaning, the text should be changed to be less misleading. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 20:26, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- I read that sentence as absolute/overall intelligence, not intelligence in regard to, i.e. while populations do not differ (on average) in intelligence, they differ (on average) in intelligence in regards to x (environment, culture whatever). Since intelligence differs by context, there is no unique answer, or way of measuring how one population (on average) is overall more clever or dumber than another. The idea though that all populations on average are equal in intelligence in regard to American/Western IQ data is obviously false. 500+ studies are producing the same average differences. Zoobies (talk) 20:25, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- If I actually agree as much as you seem to think I do with the text I quoted, I wonder why I'm a racist. In any case, isn't it a bit strange to say that populations do not differ in "absolute/overall" intelligence while also saying that there is no way of measuring if one population is more intelligent than another? Aren't we then simply assuming that they do not differ in this unmeasurable "absolute/overall" intelligence, rather than drawing that conclusion based on the available data? Do they differ in measurable forms of intelligence, but just happen to not differ in the unmeasurable forms of intelligence? Such an idea seems more based on ideology than science. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 20:37, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Wait, am I being fooled? Is Zoobies actually a racist? D: 213.113.125.113 (talk) 20:40, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- If I actually agree as much as you seem to think I do with the text I quoted, I wonder why I'm a racist. In any case, isn't it a bit strange to say that populations do not differ in "absolute/overall" intelligence while also saying that there is no way of measuring if one population is more intelligent than another? Aren't we then simply assuming that they do not differ in this unmeasurable "absolute/overall" intelligence, rather than drawing that conclusion based on the available data? Do they differ in measurable forms of intelligence, but just happen to not differ in the unmeasurable forms of intelligence? Such an idea seems more based on ideology than science. 213.113.125.113 (talk) 20:37, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- I read that sentence as absolute/overall intelligence, not intelligence in regard to, i.e. while populations do not differ (on average) in intelligence, they differ (on average) in intelligence in regards to x (environment, culture whatever). Since intelligence differs by context, there is no unique answer, or way of measuring how one population (on average) is overall more clever or dumber than another. The idea though that all populations on average are equal in intelligence in regard to American/Western IQ data is obviously false. 500+ studies are producing the same average differences. Zoobies (talk) 20:25, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
No there's no assumption. Everyone is of equal intelligence since there are no constraints on what constitutes overall intelligence. This means if population x scores higher on average than population y in something, I can find/use something else showing the opposite, and this can be done infinitely for both - so they are equal. You can only show someone is more or less intelligent by introducing in what respects to which is a constraint (I showed this above with environment or culture). Unless you have a constraint you are left with equality. There is even a maths theorem that shows this. Zoobies (talk) 21:23, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Now that's a Pyrrhic victory if I ever saw one. If the only way to say that two populations are of necessity equal in intelligence is to dilute the content of that intelligence to the point where it bears little resemblance to any definition used by either scientists or laymen, it seems that the victory belongs to those HBD racists after all. In the interest of not wasting more of my free time, I'll gladly concede that according to your definition of intelligence, no two human population groups differ in intelligence — and the human species is of equal intelligence to the hedgehog species. RationalWiki indeed. I'm not sure what I'm gaining from even attempting to speak to the contributors here, considering that invectives and nonsense are all you appear capable of.213.113.125.113 (talk) 21:44, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Gould, in The Mismeasure of Man, points out that "intelligence" has no objective existence on its own, usually being no more than a misguided reification "what intelligence tests claim to measure." It is a mistake to think that mental capabilities can be usefully measured in a way that boils down to a single number, or that such a number allows anything more than a tenuous superficial comparison between individuals. Trying to compare populations on any such basis generally says more about the shortcomings of the test than it does about the actual people. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 22:12, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, good response. My point was simply: unless you can quantify or measure to determine variable limits, you are left with infinity or at least something indefinite, and since 'overall intelligence' cannot be measured or computed - every individual is of equal intelligence unless you bring in a constraint (i.e. intelligence in regard to environment etc). A putative hedgehog and human are of equal intelligence. This is not irrational at all. Zoobies (talk) 22:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- I would not go so far as to put humans and hedgehogs on an equal footing w.r.t. intelligence, which I consider to have a big component of flexibility, or ability to learn and adapt. A hedgehog kept as a pet might learn the sounds and smells of food being prepared, and come running, but a human female living traditionally in the Kalahari is expected to learn the location of individual plants sparsely scattered along the route of a yearly migration covering perhaps hundreds of miles, and come back to their edible roots with only withered stems showing amidst the clutter, or hidden completely in it. If she doesn't, her family doesn't eat so well.
- Yes, good response. My point was simply: unless you can quantify or measure to determine variable limits, you are left with infinity or at least something indefinite, and since 'overall intelligence' cannot be measured or computed - every individual is of equal intelligence unless you bring in a constraint (i.e. intelligence in regard to environment etc). A putative hedgehog and human are of equal intelligence. This is not irrational at all. Zoobies (talk) 22:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Gould, in The Mismeasure of Man, points out that "intelligence" has no objective existence on its own, usually being no more than a misguided reification "what intelligence tests claim to measure." It is a mistake to think that mental capabilities can be usefully measured in a way that boils down to a single number, or that such a number allows anything more than a tenuous superficial comparison between individuals. Trying to compare populations on any such basis generally says more about the shortcomings of the test than it does about the actual people. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 22:12, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- That said, I would say equating the intelligence of humans and hedgehogs is a straw man, along the lower reaches of a slippery slope. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 22:44, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- The IQ measurements in things like The Bell Curve could well be correct. <Ducks>
- The racist inferences drawn from them are not. The error is to assume that IQ tests measure anything worth measuring. They don't. They were designed to ensure that the people who designed them would score well on them (which anyone of similar background can do, with training and practice). Someone trained in mental arithmetic as a child has a good chance of finding the arithmetic questions a piece of piss; whereas someone who wasn't has no chance.
- That has everything to do with cultural background and upbringing, and nothing at all to do with intelligence, Mr or Ms BoN. ProblemChimp (talk) 22:47, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- That's not what the consensus modern academic psychology states. It is the consensus among leftist pseudoscientists divorced from facts though. Try reading your IQ article and maybe this. 211.200.178.175 (talk) 07:36, 29 November 2014 (UTC)