Talk:Racialism/Archive4

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HBD/race realism movement = paedos and perverts

There seems to be a link between paedophilia and other sexual perversions and the HBD/race realism movement.

If someone says HBD/race realism the most recognisable names are: Chris Brand, J. P. Rushton, Richard Lynn.

Chris Brand is a depraved paedophile-apologist who says sex with children is harmless. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/lecturer-sacked-for-saying-child-sex-harmless-1244412.html

J. P. Rushton had an unhealthy obsession with genitalia; he paid 100 people at a shopping mall to tell him how long their penises are erect, and how far they can ejaculate. He also promoted the "big black dick" hoax.

Richard Lynn, has continued to support Rushton's bizarre pseudo-scientific penis research, writing many more papers on it.

The HBDer Emil O. W. Kirkegaard is another paedophilia-apologist who defends child porn, further according to Kirkegaard there is no harm if an adult rapes a child in his/her sleep - "Perhaps a compromise is having sex with a sleeping child without them knowing it (so, using sleeping medicine). If they dont notice it is difficult to see how they cud be harmed, even if it is rape." http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=3229

Note that the other HBDers like John Fuerst who are associated with Kirkeggard and his HBD pseudo-journals have never posted they have a problem with his views about having sex with children. Fuerst even co-authors papers in Kirkegggards fake academic journal.

Further googling Fuerst's email shows his email is blacklisted on websites for penis-enlargement spam. That's mentioned somewhere on his talk before. Schizophrenic (talk) 18:44, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Far be it from me to accuse you of nutpicking against a movement that is comprised of nuts, but... isn't trying to take anecdotal examples of people being completely terrible in an unrelated way and extrapolate them to an entire movement that has it's own implicit failings kinda red herringish? ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 18:49, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

I think — assuming that what Schizophrenic is reporting here is correct — these findings sound highly notable for inclusion in the article. Part of what we do is to be alert to any overlaps of thought in various fringe groups that may be relevant to synthesizing an understanding of their overall "coordinates" (relative to other movements) in the spectrum of the modern zeitgeist. And if there's a noteworthy overlap between pedophiliac apology (which is missional) and HBD/racialism (which is missional), then all the more missional. Again; assuming it's true. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 19:04, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Well even if it is true, we need good sources for it. another Jewish conspiracy by (((Laurogeita Hamabost))) (talk) 20:10, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely. Claims are true by virtue of how well sourced they are. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 20:33, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Truth is independent of sources. But should we get sued and it turn out we were wrong having credible sources to point to that made the same mistake is gonna make our chances a lot better. another Jewish conspiracy by (((Laurogeita Hamabost))) (talk) 20:43, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Well... No, it kinda isn't. That would be the truth of the gaps or something. But yeah, of course. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 21:22, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

The truth is true whether we believe or know it or not. Of course if a truth is unknowable, is it really relevant? another Jewish conspiracy by (((Laurogeita Hamabost))) (talk) 21:44, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

And so, we approach one of the core puzzles of epistemology (one of my areas of relative expertise!). But for all intents and purposes on this site — it could be conceded that things are true by virtue of how well sourced they are. Also known as "justification" in epistemology, for the record. All the best, Reverend Black Percy (talk) 21:48, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

The pedophilia claim is Argumentum_ad_hominem. And if Rushton's data on penises are wrong, where are yours correct data? Alliumnsk (talk) 09:28, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

The true data are a lot more boring: There is no indication for any correlation between "race" (whatever you define it to mean) or skin color and penis size. There is however some correlation between biological sex and penis size. I am not the Ombud's man 09:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

So where are your 'true data', preferably with a good sample size? Alliumnsk (talk) 11:12, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Another reddit comment chain

But I think this one is relevant -- both the racialist and the antiracialist both cite scientific studies at length. We should consider incorporating the racialist's material and responses to it in-article. The FCP Foundation (talk/stalk) 19:20, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

There is not nothing to be gained from reddit. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:23, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

All absolute statements are wrong. I am not the Ombud's man 19:54, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Except that reddit is a cesspit a waste of human culture, and a source only for plagues and human suffering. It's an important exception. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 20:24, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I thought there were AMAs that are not entirely interesting I am not the Ombud's man 21:08, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

We should add the claims and refutations, absolutely. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 21:09, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Start with this

Good idea. Start with this.

"The idea of large clusters of people that are principally homogeneous within and heterogeneous in-between in terms of genetic similarity — the latter being necessary to speak of distinct "races" — has no scientific basis and in fact there is evidence against it, as Witherspoon et al. concluded in their 2007 paper "Genetic Similarities Within and Between Human Populations""

This is known as Lewontin's fallacy. There is more genetic variation within chimps and humans than between them. They are not "homogeneous" within. Fsts down to below 5% were considered significant by Wright, the inventor of F statistics. Subspecies Fst goes down to 1%. Any differentiation satisfies taxa. Witherspoon doesn't discuss this. Richard Chepstow (talk) 04:48, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

"We should consider incorporating the racialist's material and responses to it in-article. Sir ℱ℧ℤℤϒℂᗩℑᑭƠℑᗩℑƠ (talk/stalk) 19:20, 23 September"

So much for that. Looks like you'll just strawman your opponent and ignore the response. Richard Chepstow (talk) 06:34, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Mikemikev back in action repeats the same lie over and over. "Any differentiation satisfies taxa" is false. He sets up this straw man so he can then turn around and say any biological difference = race [of course no scientist denies biological variation exists; no two individuals are genetically identical]. As far as a taxon, including subspecies (race) is concerned it must meet the following criteria:

“”Accordingly, a taxon of organisms may be said to have an objective independent biological existence in Darwinian classification if either of the following two conditions obtains: (1) It constitutes a phylognetic clade by comprising all, but only all, the descendants of its originating biological common ancestor (Templeton, 1998, 2013; Schuh and Brower, 2009; Claridge, 2010; Mishler, 2010; Maglo, 2011; Wiley and Lieberman, 2011); and/or (2) It has reached a degree of genetic differentiation deemed taxonomically meaningful in system biology (Mayr and Bock, 2002; Keita et al., 2004; Graves, 2011). Thus, it follows from these evolutionary theoretical constraints that races must be evolutionary distinct human subpopulations by virtue of (1) or (2) or some combination of both in order to be a valid biological category." Maglo et al. 2016

Human races do not meet either criteria as the article discusses in detail:

• 1. There is only minimal genetic differentiation between continental populations: "the Fst-value of 0.043, measuring the genetic difference between continental clusters (Rosenberg et al., 2002), unambiguously lies in the interval of no to little degree of differentiation on Wright's guideline. Continental subpopulations are also very similar and do not reach, any meaningful degree of differentiation in Darwinian classification. These results suggest that human races, understood as continental clusters, have no taxonomic meaning that warrants granting them an objective biological existence."
• 2. There are no continental population ancestor-descendant sequences (clades) because of historical gene flow: "human populations show crisscrossing lineages to the extent that: “A classification that takes into account evolutionary relationships and the nested pattern of diversity would require that Sub-Saharan Africans are not a race because the most exclusive group that includes all Sub-Saharan African populations also includes every non-Sub-Saharan African population…” (Long et al., 2009; Templeton, 2013)."

Note Mikemikev never addresses these points, but clings to a false definition of race where any biological difference, not matter how trivial = race. Subspecies Fst does not go down to 1%. Race realists link to a chart with subspecies with Fst 1%, but don't point out these have all been removed or challenged in taxonomic literature. Goosebumps (talk) 11:33, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

An exception to the above is if a low Fst population recently became allopatric (comprising all, but only all, the descendants of its originating biological common ancestor when it became reproductively isolated). I remember looking at the chart Mike posts, and there are rare subspecies of birds who while have low Fst (under 5%) are nonetheless clades because they are allopatric. Under this definition there are human races, but they don't match Mikemikev's:

"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. Thus, the concept of race must be eliminated due to its logical incoherence (Mallon 2006, 526, 533)." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/

Amish people ad other reproductively isolated ethno-religious sects like the Samaritans might be a race, but this obviously isn't what Mike has in mind. Goosebumps (talk) 12:27, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

And what is (one) characteristic of groups that could conceivably called "races"? A high susceptibility to heritable diseases due to centuries of inbreeding... Keep your race pure, fuck your cousin! I am not the Ombud's man 16:59, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Goosebumps' source (a philosopher) is full of it. So Fst >5% is significant and Fst <5% is of no significance? This is not what Wright said. Race Fst is 10-15% anyway. Can you find one example in non-human biology of taxa with a low Fst being discarded? This is a made up ad hoc race denial strawman. Richard Chepstow (talk) 20:40, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

“We will take F = 0.25 as an arbitrary value above which there is very great differentiation, the range of 0.15 to 0.25 as indicating moderately great differentiation. Differentiation is by no means negligible if F is as small as 0.05 or even less as bought out in the preceding chapter” (Wright 1978, p. 85). Richard Chepstow (talk) 21:11, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

At best you could argue that different races used to be subspecies of Homo sapiens, though even then biologists would argue about what constituted a "race". A subspecies is a population of a species with distinct phenotypes, but are physically separated from the others. If they don't breed with the rest of the species when presented with the opportunity, they are a different species. Given that humans have been more than willing to mate with each other successfully regardless of race, by definition we are the same species. So 10,000 years ago, when humans were unlikely to travel more than 100 miles from their birthplace and someone from the Americas had virtually no chance of breeding with someone from Mesopotamia, yeah you could declare the different populations humans made up various subspecies, but today since virtually no group is isolated we no longer have subspecies.StickySock (talk) 20:58, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

This is absolutely false and hybrids do not impugn species let alone subspecies. In fact the "75% rule" does not refer to Fst but correct phenetic classification of hybrids of subspecies in contact zones. Presumably you are unaware of ring species. Can you reference your assertions to the biology literature? Thought not. Richard Chepstow (talk) 21:11, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Racialism

Hi. I noticed some problems with your "Racialism" article. The main problem I would note is that you rely on defintions of race from those that are hostile to the race concept. Ie. strawman definitions. Would it not be a good idea to look at the original definitions rather than take the word of it from a hostile secondary source? As you know, as editors of rationalwiki, the motto of the Royal Society is "take nobody's word for it". Why are you taking somebody's word for it? 193.61.21.186 (talk) 15:57, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

It is the general opinion of the mob that racialism is a generally flawed concept. While i do appreciate your willingness to talk about the issue, i doubt that most editors would want to change the article considerably. ^{— Unsigned, by: Bubba41102 / talk / contribs}

"Why are you taking somebody's word for it" Reverend Black Percy (talk) 18:19, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

So come on, give me a definition of "race" that a) makes sense b) gives more than one human race c) does not define groups like Amish or Samaritans as "races" d) holds up to genetic scrutiny. Spoiler alert: Ya can't. I am not the Ombud's man 19:42, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

What "original definitions"? Beyond this, the article conclusively establishes that no definition of race can simultaneously be large (eg, black skin) and specific (eg, requiring less than 10,000 loci, etc.). Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 21:41, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

The person to whom I made this challenge has posted to my talk page. I am not the Ombud's man 21:50, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Little dude says:

The definition of race has changed. Kant through Darwin defined race by ancestry. All noted admixture at boudaries. Mayr noted a potential theoretical disconnect between similarity of phenotype and ancestry and race has since been defined as a "genetically differentiated population". There is no limit on the quantity of differentiation, race is a scalable concept.

The question then becomes, what the fucking hell is "race"? If there were an infinite series of genders between male and female (assuming you also believe in a gender binary), then would "gender" be "a scalable concept"? oʇɐʇoԀʇɐϽʎzznℲ (talk/stalk) 21:58, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

"So come on, give me a definition of "race" that..."

Shared ancestry. 217.34.35.74 (talk) 06:50, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Every living creature shares ancestry. Are we all one big race? If so, you've proved my point. Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 11:52, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

LMAO. You're joking right? You don't understand cladistics or phylogenetics? Organisms are classified by degree of shared ancestry, not whether they share any ancestry at all. 52.67.142.31 (talk) 15:48, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

No read the article. Racists define race by skin color or single randomly selected genes. It says that in our article. And defining race that way is completely stupid. 149.56.141.122 (talk) 09:54, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Strawman fallacy because 'our article' is 'completely stupid'. See how 23andMe defines ancestry, for example.Alliumnsk (talk) 09:52, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

A proper response to Alliumnsk's JAQing off

. "If you don't pony up cited scientific rebuttals to my racist assumptions right now, my racist assumptions win". oʇɐʇoԀʇɐϽʎzznℲ (talk/stalk) 12:00, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I am not the Ombud's man 21:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I think there's a difference between not memorising every detail and understanding nothing. 193.61.28.157 (talk) 09:04, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

"Understanding nothing" -- as in, about 90 cited scientific sources that directly rebut your presumptions? 32℉uzzy; 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 13:08, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Boasian pseudo-anthropology does put out a lot of material. This is irrelevant to your demonstrable failure right here on this page. The simple definition of race as shared ancestry a la Darwin is refuted by none of your fallacy spewing politically motivated sources. 193.61.28.101 (talk) 13:21, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Darwin never defined "race" as ancestry. No matter how many times you repeat this lie, Mikemikev, doesn't make it true. Even if we use your false definition - it isn't applicable. This is because all putative races are mixed. Someone who identifies as "white" can have "black" ancestry, and vice-versa. "Race" as ancestry only makes sense if populations are reproductively isolated because they would be clades/separate lineages. HamiticRenaissance (talk) 16:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Nice image

http://www.scs.illinois.edu/~mcdonald/PCA84pops.html Notice any clustering? Although I imagine data is anathemic to your sophistic race denial fallacies. 193.61.28.101 (talk) 13:34, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

If you pause it at just the right moment it looks like a chemtrail coming out of a Jewish spaceship. 90.209.239.57 (talk) 15:12, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

OH MY GOD yes thank you I've been looking for this forever! Now where did I leave that rebuttal... Sir ℱ℧ℤℤϒℂᗩℑᑭƠℑᗩℑƠ (talk/stalk) 16:00, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

This image has been refuted countless times. Note how Mikemikev cherry-picks a global data set using as few populations as possible. Why are there less than 10 African populations? Those spaces fill when you include more, for example Tishkoff et al 2009 sampled over 100 African populations and you see a smooth genetic gradient. http://www.molecularecologist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Tishkoff2009_fig02.png HamiticRenaissance (talk) 16:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Why can't you reference these strawmen? Are you admitting your article is full of lies?

Alternative: the statements were already cited, and you have to disprove them. Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 15:04, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Racialist BON: The irony

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon Bar.

More sources to mine

• http://www.newsweek.com/there-no-such-thing-race-283123?rx=us

• http://www.livescience.com/47627-race-is-not-a-science-concept.html

• http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-9-most-influential-works-of-scientific-racism-rank-1575543279

32℉uzzy; 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 22:02, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Good call using sources that would be laughed out of biological peer review. I wonder if actual scientists look at this website for comic relief. 94.118.150.47 (talk) 06:08, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh look, BON questions the veracity of peer-reviewed studies. Surely BON has a well-thought-out critique of such studies, rather than merely a disagreement with their results. Cømяade FυzzчCαтPøтαтø (talk/stalk) 13:07, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

You're linking to popular magazine articles. I'm not sure you're a person that should go around using the phrase "well-thought-out", judging by your understanding of evolution. Specifically which claims in your magazine articles do you find most compelling? BTW I have personally debated Sussman and the guy is a complete washout. All I see is "it's 2016" and single trait clines. That's compelling? What definition of race is he even refuting? Sussman: "Genetic traits usually do not correlate with one another [wrong] and are not distributed in the same place or in the same way over time. [strawman. nobody says all genes must have exactly "the same" distribution]" 193.61.28.101 (talk) 13:14, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Popular magazine articles... which reference scientific studies... which was the purpose of posting them here. Keep at it, maybe you'll find bullshit in here eventually. Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 16:11, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The one shitty section

Short, doesn't explain what Fst is or why it's important. Can anyone with background expand it? 01:40, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

They are yet to explain why humans in some areas would evolve to be smarter than others

That's actually SAME as asking How_come_there_are_still_monkeys? Alliumnsk (talk) 09:52, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

The article doesn't claim everyone is of the same intelligence. Please stop with the straw man arguments.Schizophrenic (talk) 16:42, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Oops, you're the one who made straw man argument, because I only quoted text from the article and didn't claim what you wanted to. So, back to the original question, RW mocks YECs for asking how would two population of same species could diverge in what later came as an ape and a human (obviously differing by intelligence and growth speed) and yet asks the same question about what they don't like. Alliumnsk (talk) 09:49, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Clearly in the habitats humans inhabit, intelligence is beneficial. What makes you think certain human habitats are so fundamentally different that intelligence is less beneficial or even harmful there? I am not the Ombud's man 09:53, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Humans inhabit different habitats. Intelligence, just as big teeth or strong muscles, doesn't have same value everywhere for everyone. In sea, habitat differences are even less than on land -- yet how come sharks are much less intelligent than dolphins? Remember, they shared common ancestor sometime in Paleozoic. Why didn't every species develop intelligence if it was beneficial? Alliumnsk (talk) 10:44, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Your understanding of evolution is laughable. That's ok, we know you get to edit here by being an SJW rather than a scientist.

"Trait is good therefore trait develops uniformly everywhere."

Selection is not uniform everywhere. Genes have polytypic effects. Eg the same gene may increase IQ but reduce disease resistance. Also, selection for a trait is balanced as a trade off with other traits. For instance increasing brain size has heat retention effects and energy draws, increased parental care, hip size, etc. etc. etc. Further, dense populations evolve faster. Isolated populations evolve slower. And genes tend to spread within races before between them see eg. Coop 2009. 193.61.28.157 (talk) 08:55, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:12, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

How incredibly childish. I guess if you have to call yourselves rational, you probably aren't. 193.61.28.101 (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Albania IQ: 83, Bosnia 84: (Rindermann, 2007). The so-called "white race" has countries with low 80s IQ scores, while Richard Lynn admits Sierra Leone are considerably higher (91): [1], which Rindermann, 2007 puts over 100 on cognitive ability. This debunks Aliumnsk's and Mikemikev's false claim above all "black" countries have lower IQ scores than "white". What you actually find is low and high IQ scores in each putative race and this heterogeneity is why race makes no sense.HamiticRenaissance (talk) 13:21, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Strawman. Even accepting your dubious figures nobody claimed races are homogeneous on any trait. Obviously they aren't. What a silly argument. 193.61.28.101 (talk) 13:25, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Quack. So what predictive power does race have in intelligence if there is huge variation in each putative race? Why should English with an IQ of 101 be clustered with Albanians 82? HamiticRenaissance (talk) 16:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

The link you posted itself gives a map where Sierra Leone is painted deep red (IQ<=65), obviously 91 is copy-and-paste error. If you check the book itself, it gives estimate=64 for Sierra Leone. No overlap. Alliumnsk (talk) 15:13, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Informativeness

In Dawkins' words: Informative means something quite precise. An informative statement is one that tells you something you didn't know before. The information content of a statement is measured as reduction in prior uncertainty. Reduction in prior uncertainty, in turn, is measured as a change in probabilities. This provides a way to make the information content of a message mathematically precise, but we don't need to bother with that .... Now to the question of race. What if I tell you Suzy is Chinese, how much is your prior uncertainty reduced? You now are pretty certain that her hair is straight and black (or was black), that her eyes have an epicanthic fold, and one or two other things about her. If I tell you Colin is 'black' this does not, as we have seen, tell you he is black. Nevertheless, it is clearly not uninformative. The high inter-observer correlation suggests that there is a constellation of characteristics that most people recognise, such that the statement 'Colin is black' really does reduce prior uncertainty about Colin. It works the other way around to some extent. If I tell you Carl is an Olympic sprinting champion, your prior uncertainty about his 'race' is, as a matter of statistical fact, reduced. Indeed, you can have a fairly confident bet that he is 'black'.* Alliumnsk (talk) 15:13, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Yet all of these are trivial differences. If I told you that someone had black hair, what would it matter? Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 15:26, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

There are other differences too. eg http://oi68.tinypic.com/o045rm.jpg 193.61.28.47 (talk) 09:22, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Let's pretend that child development has 0% impact on IQ (it does), that IQ is a 100% perfect measure of intelligence (it isn't), and that this chart is 100% accurate (doubtful) and 100% peer-reviewed science (doubtful). If we accept all of these premises, your "world distribution of the intelligence of indigenous peoples" map is meaningful. Now please prove premises 1-4. Put up or shut up. FU22YC47P07470 (talk/stalk) 13:30, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

"If I tell you Carl is an Olympic sprinting champion, your prior uncertainty about his 'race' is, as a matter of statistical fact, reduced. Indeed, you can have a fairly confident bet that he is 'black'" - And most Oscar winners are white. Indeed most of the recent winners of the Best Actress Oscar have fair hair (especially if I semi-arbitrarily define red hair as fair, just as Alliumnsk doubtless define mixed-race Olympic sprint medalists as black). What does this tell you about hair colour? Does it make classifying people by hair colour useful? Should we be educating brunettes differently? Should acting as a profession be restricted to blondes? Annquin (talk) 14:47, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Straw men again. Rushton estimates sub-Saharan blacks IQ as ~67 and says they would be ~80 if living standards were on par to USA.Alliumnsk (talk) 15:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Relevant additional maps: https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/iq-by-region-maps/ αδελφός ΓυζζγςατΡοτατο (talk/stalk) 13:30, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Why do you cite Liberal Race Realist? He admits that races do differs, after all.Alliumnsk (talk) 15:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Posting more shit to debunk later = cite. Yep. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 15:26, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Depending on a group which this someone drawn from, having black hair might correlate with high IQ (group has both Europeans+East Asians) or low IQ (Europeans+blacks). In one isolated for long time population, genetic recombination will shuffle genes so there be no correlation for individuals. Alliumnsk (talk) 15:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

You are shifting the criteria of informativeness. Hair colour or intelligence is irrelevant to taxonomy/cladistics. The criteria of informativeness is if a population constitutes a phylognetic clade. Human populations are not clades because they are crisscrossing lineages. i.e. gene flow between them. A descendant of a "Caucasoid" could be "Mongoloid" or "Negroid", so from a taxonomic perspective race is not informative whatsoever. Arcticos (talk) 15:57, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

It does not have to be taxonomy to contain information. If blue-eyed man sees his blue-eyed wife gave born to brown-eyed baby, he might be sure he is a cuckold. If you are told that a person has name Judith, you might reasonably assume they have XX genotype and not XY, despite name picking is arbitrary. There is constant gene flow between Corvus cornix and Corvus corone, they are not isolated by geography as human races were before recent, yet they are even different species, not races. Moreover clade vs. cline issue has nothing to do with nurture vs. nature issue whatsoever -- even if you had perfectly uniform clines (and you don't), it does not change how genes work. If even you take two populations of same size and forcefully mix them, resultant IQ will be about average of IQs before. If descendant of "Caucasoid" can be "Negroid", then why Rachel Dolezal is white and not black?Alliumnsk (talk) 16:47, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

[Re: FuzzyCatPotato:] You're an utter fool. The only 0% is your understanding of scientific measurement and heritabilty. 193.61.28.90 (talk) 20:13, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Wow, zinger. That definitely explains why you can't find even one citation for your very scientific graph. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 20:18, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Anarchist on /r/DebateFascism discusses racialism (among other things); this RW page is jumping-off point

These are the viewpoints of some modern-day fascists (literally) and Confederates (literally) on race:

"Science" was once a ardent supporter of eugenics and racialist theory, what changed was politics, not science unfortunately. We are very different, ask any crime-forensics student, they can distinguish us by our skeletal structure alone.

That does not mean that people are bad inherently because they are different by any means, but rather people who claim there are no differences who claim to also know what is best for us.

Well, it does exist, because on the very base level there are obvious physical differences between Asians, Europeans, Africans, etc. An anthropologist can tell the race of a skeleton just by looking at it. There's certainly a lot more to it, but just based on physical differences race does exist.

All non sub-Saharan Africans have a between 1-5% neanthrathal DNA. I believe East Asians also have denisovan DNA as well. Races not existing isn't science it's (((sociology))).

First of all, RationalWiki is hardly unbiased, being a left wing/feminist answer to Conservapedia.

Second, there are differences between races, in the sense that if a scientist examined the skeletons of Americans (for example), with some of them being of African, Asian or South American ancestry, there would be enough differences to tell them apart. The difference is that differences between races are very small, and races don't posses innate traits due to their race

In regards to your question on Racialism, it's a long disregarded scientific theory. There exists some small biological differences between the races, but they are very, very small. Every person on the planet is genetically very closely related. So it is nonsense.

If I can reliably assign people to population groups based on a relatively small amount of genetic information and these groups strongly correlate with certain characteristics (physical appearance and disease susceptibility, without going into more controversial areas) then these things have predictive and explanatory power and are thus useful in science

I have never met any "race realists" that think intelligence or whatever else is determined exclusively by genetics.

Note that it's believed that intelligence is more heritable than it is environmental: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

Ah good old "pseudo-scientific", the favorite trump card of progressives.

As my partner in crime u/Kyras_Edelweiss mentioned, it's mainly political.

Modern science declares that the demarcation point for race is whether or not viable offspring can be produced. Viable being the key word there, as the offspring cannot be infertile to be considered part of the same race.

Given how race is a lightning rod issue, it's worth asking why, of all metrics scientists could use, they chose the viable offspring metric?

I actually don't have that much of an issue with the viable offspring metric but I cannot help but notice that modern science conveniently lacks any meaningful way to discuss the branches of the human race i.e., Caucasianoids, Asianoids, Africanoids, etc.

Which rigs the debate in favor of individuals who's agenda includes downplaying distinct racial identity.

Many appear to think that racialism is considered pseudoscience for political reasons. While we do have a section in the intro about this, would it be worth including a larger section later in the article to conclusively debunk these types of claims? The FCP Foundation (talk/stalk) 13:14, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Debunking the claims is always useful in the long run. Like we do with Creationists, for example. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:15, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, RW does have a pretty comprehensive coverage against creationist claims, but not to "racist" claims. No data to disprove Rushton's research on penis size -- maybe because Rushton is right? And RW have their own, mini-creationism on race? Let see -- creationists say "if you can't explain, it's because God(s) did it". Liberal creationists say "if my favorite minority does worse on any statistics, it must be due to racism. Church teaches Primordial Sin. RW teaches White Privilege. YECs say "Dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible". RW says "Darwin debunked racism". "Disadvantaged" groups are still behind because some bad people did not believe in equality deep enough. And no evidence could ever prove liberal creationists wrong (Hi Karl Popper).Alliumnsk (talk) 15:30, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Your ramblings. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 16:53, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

If these are indeed straw men, then could you please show which potential observation could make you reconsider your theory. Precambrian rabbits could falsify evolution, as we know. But your views on race and IQ can't be, because it's not a theory, it is politically motivated pseudoscience which speculates about its opponents' motives rather than producing more knowledge.Alliumnsk (talk) 12:06, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

BON's "definitions" section from 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." Ernst Mayr —

The race concept arose in the context of Linnaen taxonomy, which was based on phenotypic resemblance, to describe intraspecific lineages defined genealogically, or by descent.

Kant: "What is a race? The word is not to be found in any systematic description of nature [Linnaen taxonomy], so presumably the thing itself is nowhere to be found in nature. The concept which this expression designates is, however, surely well established in the reason of every observer of nature who supposes a self-peculiar feature in different animals produced from interbreeding, that is to say, a union of cause that does not lie in the concept of its species but was certainly placed originally in the lineal stem stock of the species itself. The fact that the word race does not appear in the description of nature (but instead, in its place, the word variety) cannot keep an observer of nature from finding it necessary from the viewpoint of natural history." (On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy)

Darwin: "Grant all races of man descended from one race; grant that all structure of each race of man were perfectly known – grant that a perfect table of descent of each race was perfectly known – grant all this, & then do you not think that most would prefer as the best classification, a genealogical one, even if it did occasionally put one race not quite so near to another, as it would have stood, if allocated by structure alone. Generally, we may safely presume, that the resemblance of races & their pedigrees would go together." (Darwin, letter 204)

However, descent based phylogenetics was subsumed in the 20th century due to concerns that it was possible for organisms with different descent to be genetically more similar, rendering descent based classification less informative.

Mayr: "In phylogeny, where thousands and millions of generations are involved, thousands and millions of occasions for a change in gene frequencies owing to mutation, recombination, and selection, it is no longer legitimate to express relationship in terms of genealogy. The amount of genotypic similarity now becomes the dominant consideration for a biologist … When a biologist speaks of phylogenetic relationship, he means relationship in gene content rather than cladistic genealogy."

Modern biological definitions of race thus tend to use overall genetic similarity as the criterion:

Hulse (1962): “Races are breeding populations which can be readily distinguished from one another on genetic grounds alone. They are not types, as are a few of the so-called races within the European population, such as Nordics and Alpines. It is the breeding population into which one was born which determines one’s race, not one’s personal characteristics.”

Dobzhansky (1970): “A race is a Mendelian population, not a single genotype; it consists of individuals who differ genetically among themselves … This is not to deny that a racial classification should ideally take cognizance of all genetically variable traits, oligogenic as well as polygenic."

Hartl and Clark (1997): "In population genetics, a race is a group of organisms in a species that are genetically more similar to each other than they are to the members of other such groups. Populations that have undergone some degree of genetic differentiation as measured by, for example, Fst, therefore qualify as races."

Dawkins (2004): "But that doesn’t mean that race is of “virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance.” This is Edwards’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance."

Leroi (2005): "Populations that share by descent a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else."

Coyne (2014). “To a biologist, races are simply genetically differentiated populations, and human populations are genetically differentiated. Although it’s a subjective exercise to say how many races there are, human genetic differentiation seems to cluster largely by continent, as you’d expect if that differentiation evolved in allopatry (geographic isolation).”

^{— Unsigned, by: 193.61.28.33 / talk / contribs} αδελφός ΓυζζγςατΡοτατο (talk/stalk) 14:57, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Confused

"Indian Indians Though geographically close to China, they are genetically closest to Caucasians and Arabs, as evidenced by the similarities in language and mythology."

But I thought your article defined race by skin color? So racially they are Negroes? And most people think this? 193.61.28.33 (talk) 13:13, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Having now read the article I share your coufusion about what it is trying to say in general.--Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 13:35, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure who wrote it, but the level of nonsense reaches what we could call insane.

Look at this

"Caucasian is a classification term for describing a race of humans that are not black, Asian, Native American, or Pacific Islander. It is generally used to describe white people—that is, humans of western European descent—however, this is a bit of misclassification as the biological differences that set Caucasians apart from the rest of humankind are shared among Aryan (e.g., European and Southwest Asian peoples such as Indians, Turks and Afghans), Semitic (Israelis and others of Jewish decent), and Hamitic (northeast Africa, southern Arabia) peoples, running a gamut of skin tones/hair shades/melanin levels. "

Huh? Western-Europeans are not White because Caucasians (including West Eurasians) share biological differences? What else? Are cats not pussy-cats because mammals share differences? It seems like a deliberate attempt to confuse the issue, probably for virtue-signalling reasons ("hey guys, I'm like so totally not racist"). Would be OK on some sophomoric low-functioning-undergraduate political activism website. Not so much on a mature science website. 193.61.28.33 (talk) 14:35, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

LOL. Now it seems genetic similarity among humans is no longer a concept...according to "RationalWiki". LMAO. 193.61.28.33 (talk) 16:44, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

tfw your best argument for racialism is a strawman FuzzyCatPotato of the Clammy Volvos (talk/stalk) 20:42, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

The only strawman is your unreferenced claim that race is defined by "skin color", in the face of multiple biologists defining it by genetic similarity. You really are a disgusting liar. I truly hope that one day you are identified and prosecuted for misleading the public. 193.61.28.33 (talk) 22:10, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

I am curious about those "multiple biologists", can you please identify them so I can see how representative they are in the scientific community, otherwise you are using weasel words that really don't hold up very well in arguments. —チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 22:29, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Here's a copy paste of some definitions I found.

"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." Ernst Mayr

The race concept arose in the context of Linnaen taxonomy, which was based on phenotypic resemblance, to describe intraspecific lineages defined genealogically, or by descent.

Kant: "What is a race? The word is not to be found in any systematic description of nature [Linnaen taxonomy], so presumably the thing itself is nowhere to be found in nature. The concept which this expression designates is, however, surely well established in the reason of every observer of nature who supposes a self-peculiar feature in different animals produced from interbreeding, that is to say, a union of cause that does not lie in the concept of its species but was certainly placed originally in the lineal stem stock of the species itself. The fact that the word race does not appear in the description of nature (but instead, in its place, the word variety) cannot keep an observer of nature from finding it necessary from the viewpoint of natural history." (On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy)

Darwin: "Grant all races of man descended from one race; grant that all structure of each race of man were perfectly known – grant that a perfect table of descent of each race was perfectly known – grant all this, & then do you not think that most would prefer as the best classification, a genealogical one, even if it did occasionally put one race not quite so near to another, as it would have stood, if allocated by structure alone. Generally, we may safely presume, that the resemblance of races & their pedigrees would go together." (Darwin, letter 204)

However, descent based phylogenetics was subsumed in the 20th century due to concerns that it was possible for organisms with different descent to be genetically more similar, rendering descent based classification less informative.

Mayr: "In phylogeny, where thousands and millions of generations are involved, thousands and millions of occasions for a change in gene frequencies owing to mutation, recombination, and selection, it is no longer legitimate to express relationship in terms of genealogy. The amount of genotypic similarity now becomes the dominant consideration for a biologist … When a biologist speaks of phylogenetic relationship, he means relationship in gene content rather than cladistic genealogy."

Modern biological definitions of race thus tend to use overall genetic similarity as the criterion:

Hulse (1962): “Races are breeding populations which can be readily distinguished from one another on genetic grounds alone. They are not types, as are a few of the so-called races within the European population, such as Nordics and Alpines. It is the breeding population into which one was born which determines one’s race, not one’s personal characteristics.”

Dobzhansky (1970): “A race is a Mendelian population, not a single genotype; it consists of individuals who differ genetically among themselves … This is not to deny that a racial classification should ideally take cognizance of all genetically variable traits, oligogenic as well as polygenic."

Hartl and Clark (1997): "In population genetics, a race is a group of organisms in a species that are genetically more similar to each other than they are to the members of other such groups. Populations that have undergone some degree of genetic differentiation as measured by, for example, Fst, therefore qualify as races."

Dawkins (2004): "But that doesn’t mean that race is of “virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance.” This is Edwards’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance."

Leroi (2005): "Populations that share by descent a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else."

Coyne (2014). “To a biologist, races are simply genetically differentiated populations, and human populations are genetically differentiated. Although it’s a subjective exercise to say how many races there are, human genetic differentiation seems to cluster largely by continent, as you’d expect if that differentiation evolved in allopatry (geographic isolation).”

The childish SJW liars on this website aren't interested in the truth though.193.61.28.33 (talk) 22:40, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

1. See Lewontin's fallacy.
2. You cannot categorize races by only genetics; this focuses on a single gene. Please consult genomics and stop misusing Darwnin because there is no race gene.
3. Your dismissive identification of me and others is an attack of our character and is not nice.
4. Please indent your posts properly.

—チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 23:05, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Gold

This article could be gold. Things it definitely needs:

• A section on race and crime
• Ref names for the re-used scholarly references (Krom put each in separately even for the same source.)
• Hyperlinks for all of the scholarly references
• 1-2 more modern pro-racialist arguments and debunks. (eg, that one 3D rotating dot chart that ***proves*** that the continents have different races)
• Maybe a summary video?

I think it checks all the other boxes, though. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 12:15, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the above. It could and should be taken to gold level with some work. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 12:19, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

The 3D rotating chart deliberately excludes a lot of population samples, especially from Africa. Here is a PCA, including over 100 from Africa as well as a global data set: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/files/2010/08/3DPCA.png (Tishkoff et al. 2009). See how there is no genetic discontinuity, but a smooth genetic gradient between continents. West Eurasians blend into Saharan Africans and the latter into Sub-Saharan Africans. There's no race in the sense of large continental groupings of populations. Schizophrenic (talk) 16:47, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Do you have a link to the original? Just putting them next to each other would be plenty sufficient to rebut. FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 19:43, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pXPEo9tSTo Possible video? Cømяade FυzzчCαтPøтαтø (talk/stalk) 23:41, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

I have gone through it for missing (hypertext) links. The references are a mess. I'll start work on that next. Bongolian (talk) 04:10, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Cleaned up the sources section. FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 00:04, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I have gone through the references and made them more standardized. Bongolian (talk) 20:22, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Nice work as always, Bongolian. Big kudos! Reverend Black Percy (talk) 21:57, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Before considering gold

I find our Race article to be terribly lacking. Furthermore, the whole point of our Racialism article (starting with the very opening quote, which is a great quote for the record) is that we do not recognize race. How the hell do we square that with even having a Race article? I see four possible solutions to this conundrum:

1. Move the segment on genuine human biological variation to the current Race article, thus making the Racialism article focus only on the pseudoscience, and not even provide a rundown of the actual science of human biological variation. In that case, the problem would remain that we'd have a Race article (separate from the one on Racialism, like now) but which apparently recognizes and educates the readers on the vital "genuine human biological variation" in a context separate from Racialism — why, we'd almost start sounding like the "race realists".
2. Merge what can be scavenged from the current Race article and insert it into the Racialism and Racism articles respectively, rendering the term "Race" into a fork/redirect to the Racialism/Racism articles. Why? Because again, we do not recognize the unusable, pseudoscientific concept of Race, do we? This is the option I would prefer, personally.
3. Just deleting the current Race article and focusing the entire concept into our article on Racialism. Likely the worst option, though Race isn't a great article anyways, and again, there's a logical incoherency in rejecting Racialism while accepting the product of Racialism; Race.
4. Re-writing the Race article to make it clear that it focuses on the cultural aspects and whatever. Again, this almost sounds like the very stuff we're trying to debunk, but I could be mistaken.

This is literally something that needs to be solved before moving for Gold. Thank you. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 21:57, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you. What do you mean arguing for the sake of argument? 00:37, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

I would support option 1 or 2. I agree with you Percy about the current Race page being problematic. It seems a bit difficult to fix by itself without duplicating large parts of the Racialism article. Another problem with the current Race article is why these "races"? Some are ill-defined (Arab: North Africans have varying degrees of Arab ancestry), undefined (Pacific Islander: not a single race even in a historical sense as there were two or more streams of migration in vastly different time frames, whose populations mixed in some areas and not in others), and missing (American Indians, a different migration stream than Inuits, e.g.). Bongolian (talk) 03:11, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a mess allright... Better by far to unify it all under Racialism and be done with it. Basically, I count 3 votes (so far) in favor of option 2, then? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 08:46, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't see what the deep problem is. Race is not a genetic concept, but it's a hugely important social concept. This article is about the genetic concept (the pseudoscience), not about the social concept the pseudoscience attempts to justify. I can't see this as a blocker - David Gerard (talk) 00:14, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

That would be option 4, then. It's important to point out that a lot of that cultural abuse and perpetuation of the race concept belongs in the crucially important article labeled Racism. I suspect, however, that between refuting the cultural/social crankery (under Racism) and the biological crankery (under Racialism), there's not much editorial sense or reader utility in us also parading an actual article on "race". Keeping also in mind that we're not generally encyclopedic, but indeed to focus on the refutations. I say; divide the contents of the Race article up between Racism and Racialism, and make Race a fork between the two? After all, it's like the opening quote to Racialism clearly states: "Race is not an accurate or productive way to describe human biological variation". So let's not do that, like we kinda sorta do now. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 01:05, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with David G. Race is not a purely biological concept & we shouldn't discuss it as if it is. Wëäŝëïöïď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:43, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

That makes three editors for option 2 and two editors for option 4, then (so far). Also, would you agree that we could do with covering all that needs to be said on the social concept of race (which is obviously quite a lot indeed and not something to handwave as a "minor angle") under the Racism article? As in, forking the article Race (while preserving the useful content) between Racialism and Racism? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:31, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I didn't vote for any of your options & it doesn't appear that David Gerard did either. Wēāŝēīōīď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:21, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

It would appear that was what Gerard was describing... Regardless, I certainly don't mean to absorb any of you into my given options. My point was just — counting FCP below — we are now at four editors (to two) who overtly support making changes alongs the lines I suggest. Which means, forking Race into Racism and Racialism. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 19:12, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Also, let me just point out what a bridgehead the Race article talk page is for race cranks, even now. It's a bit like playing on the terms of the race realists for us to even allow the discussion to be on where we draw the lines on race (biologically or culturally). I think an important position for us to take, as debunkers and not general encyclopedists, is to overtly and purposefully fail to acknowledge the concept of race outside of either a social-scientific context (Racism) or a biological-pseudoscientific context (Racialism). Just chillin' along with an article called Race, the contents of which is literally the roughest unusable groupings of human beings ever (see Bongolian's criticism above) is essentially us (!) perpetuating that exact folk perception of race — rolling out a red carpet for Mikemikev, race realists, afrocentrists and the rest to boot. We will be able to get everything we want said without endorsing the language of a general race conception. Repurpose Race, get Racialism and Racism to front page. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:48, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I'd be fine merging or cutting "race" into the other articles. The FCP Foundation (talk/stalk) 18:40, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, that makes four editors. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 19:12, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Cough. Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 19:24, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I fifth that.--The (((Kigel))) (talk) (mail) 16:59, 25 September 2016 (UTC) 16:59, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Everything is a social construct

Every category or classification is a social construct, so saying race is a social construct is pointless:

“”The philosopher Ian Hacking provides a list of almost forty categories that have been recently claimed to be ‘socially constructed’. The prime examples are race, gender, masculinity, nature, facts, reality and the past. But the list has been growing and now includes authorship, AIDS, brotherhood, choice, danger, dementia, illness, Indian forests, inequality, the Landsat satellite system, the medicalized immigrant, the nation-state, quarks, school success, serial homicide, technological systems, white-collar crime, women refugees and Zulu nationalism.

—Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Viking Penguin 2002

Also no biologist denies race as a category captures genetic/biological information. For example most "white people" are lighter skinned than "black people". Saying race is a social construct doesn't mean it denies there is a genetic basis to it. There is a genetic basis to race otherwise most "white people" wouldn't be lighter than "black people". The argument against race is not that there is no genetic basis, but that the genetic information captured by race is trivial. Race as a category captures genetic information, but very little and it is not useful.Schizophrenic (talk) 02:35, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

It is useful in the context of the question "should Europe have massive immigration from people with an average genetic IQ of 70-80". 62.30.200.172 (talk) 20:09, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Yet there are European countries with nearly as low those IQ scores, e.g. Albania: 83, Bosnia: 84 (Rindermann, 2007 ([2]). Most the other Balkan countries are under 90. Why should UK with an average of IQ of 102 be grouped with Albanians, 83? That's why race is nonsensical. You're lumping people together who are heterogeneous.Schizophrenic (talk) 21:07, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Never mind, of course, the fact that framing the (far from scientifically straightforward) issue of the heritability of IQ as a question that should somehow guide a restrictive immigration policy is pure crankery, compounded with the highly spurious nature of IQ itself outside of a narrow context. Back to Stormfront with you, BoN. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 21:22, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

What do you mean arguing for the sake of argument? 21:29, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Why should black bears be grouped with polar bears? That's why genus is nonsensical. Richard Chepstow (talk) 05:40, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Brown bears are actually readily interbreed with polar bears, so they could be considered in some sense same species as well. Alliumnsk (talk) 10:36, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Albania 83? So the lowest scoring white country has IQ higher than the highest scoring black countries. Meanwhile Albanians have much worse living standards than 'disadvantaged' African Americans. Nobody claims environment doesn't matter (and religion, could, too, influence IQ scores). Alliumnsk (talk) 10:36, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

--The (((Kigel))) (talk) (mail) 17:01, 25 September 2016 (UTC) 17:01, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Why should analogies be grouped with attempted analogies? That's why arguing on the Internet is nonsensical. 2.125.245.190 (talk) 18:57, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

-⇂ɔsᴉᗡpuoɯɐᴉᗡ (talk) 22:37, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Race is dead. Can we gold this?

32℉uzzy; 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 19:45, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Fine by me. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 19:51, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

+1 - David Gerard (talk) 12:17, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

I also support this. Bongolian (talk) 05:27, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion

Suggesting this sentence to be added, "Racing events such as NASCAR gathers the biggest racists, and the racists compete in a race to discover who's the biggest racist."—チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 19:00, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Lol. Isn't that racist towards NASCAR fans though? (Reminds me of that one South Park episode.) 142.124.55.236 (talk) 20:48, 5 November 42016 AQD (UTC)

So what you're saying is that the races in the world are:

1. Blacks
2. Whites
3. Asians
4. NASCAR fans

In all seriousness, NASCAR fans are not race in the same sense that Mexicans and Muslims are not a race. My sentence above is not racist, though it's arguable prejudice. In fact, the word “racist” is a commonly confused and misused term. —チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 22:02, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

The real or imagined existence of races and what they would be (you forgot Native Americans, Polynesians and a couple others btw) has no bearing on the possibility to treat a grouping of people, any grouping of people, in a racist manner. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 22:16, 5 November 42016 AQD (UTC)

Native Americans and Polynesians are ethnicities. You are illustrating a great example as to why the word "racist" is often misused —チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk)

I didn't say they had to be races, just that your categorization scheme doesn't seem to take these people into account. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 00:32, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that's deliberate. The current sociology definition defines race and ethnicity as not the same, therefore, making racism only apply to race thus leaving ethnicity to ethnic discrimination and ethnic prejudice. See the other thread to see CorruptUser and I discuss this. —チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 00:41, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Not sure how that's an answer to anything brought up here. Also, if you're gonna assert from the get-go that you're right about everything because your discipline defines things thusly and thusly and you assert that it does so correctly, why even bother starting a discussion about it? Doesn't seem like a fruitful endeavour for anyone involved. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 00:59, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

"Not sure how that's an answer to anything brought up here." That's because it's not. I'm not going to assert that I'm always right because "I'm a researcher lol", but I do think that the word "racist" is a a)buzzword that has to stop being one and b)needs to be used academically. Am I a stickler about this? Yes I am. Was this whole conversation unnecessary and served to assert my opinion? Yes, yes it was. —チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 01:13, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

LMAO! So now I can be "racist" against cricket players, by...treating them in a "racist" manner? *facepalm* Are you on LSD? "Race" has no meaning, yet all behaviors or criticism are "racist"? I mean I understand that your entire political and intellectual worldview is based on shouting "THATS RACIST!!!1!!" whenever a White person (and only a White person) uses the race concept (except to benefit non-Whites), as if you are contradicting something rather than making a meaningless noise, and that being called the meaningless name "racist" is the height of horror to your sheltered ignorant life, but isn't this "everything's racist" too retarded even for this website? 193.61.28.33 (talk) 22:40, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

I thought it was pretty obvious I was mostly kidding, but apparently not to everyone. >.> 141.134.75.236 (talk) 01:07, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Ask yourself: have you honestly read through the literature of political opponents and considered it open-mindedly? If not, then you're probably strawmanning. 32℉uzzy; 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 22:58, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

• If you hate someone for whatever their ethnic background is, you are racist
• If you hate someone for their gender, you are sexist
• If you hate someone for their level of wealth, you are classist
• If you hate someone for their non-binary identity, you are transphobic
• If you hate someone for their attraction to people of the same gender, you are homophobic
• If you hate someone for their religion, there is no specific "ist" word but you are still a bigot
• If you hate someone for their choice in entertainment, again we don't have a word for this beyond bigot
• All of the above are forms of bigotry
• This is list is inclusive, not exclusive; there are other forms of bigotry
• If you go out of your way to try and find some technicality in this list, in all likelihood you are a bigot and should instead think about how awful you are

Is this really so hard to understand? CorruptUser (talk) 22:55, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I understand you completely. Therefore, I still stand by my point because of reasons above.—チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 23:10, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure glad I started a hideous discussion lol. In any case, @CorruptUser a quote from wikipedia:

While race and ethnicity are considered to be separate in contemporary social science, the two terms have a long history of equivalence in popular usage and older social science literature. "Ethnicity" is often used in a sense close to one traditionally attributed to "race": the division of human groups based on qualities assumed to be essential or innate to the group (e.g. shared ancestry or shared behavior).

Racism being a prejudice of race and not ethnicity is a common contemporary sociology definition.—チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 23:29, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ What exactly was your point? CorruptUser (talk) 23:38, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

That racism is racial prejudice. Ethnic discrimination is another equally bad thing but not the same as racism by definition. Both are prejudice.—チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 23:43, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

If you read the quote you quoted, you'd see the "long history of equivalence". You are being unnecessarily pedantic. CorruptUser (talk) 00:05, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I read that part. My point point is nitty-gritty because I've studied race and sociology. Most of the merged usage of race and ethnicity is in a)common vernacular and b)past sociology. Past sociology is outdated and common vernacular includes people that haven't studied racial history and/or sociology. I use the definition of racism meaning only racial prejudice because ethnicity and race are not the same. —チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 00:34, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I'm still going to lump bigotry regarding ethnicity as "racism". CorruptUser (talk) 04:24, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

In which a BON who hasn't provided any reliable scientific sources calls us slandering, invalid censorers

One is "racist" if one is a) White and b) says something about race somebody doesn't like. The form of the word is intentionally vague, the natural construction of "ist" words refers to anybody using an object or concept eg. cellist. It's nothing to do with "hate". If you used the word "hate" when somebody brought up IQ variation you'd sound ridiculous, so you say "racist". People are called "racist" for stating a scientific opinion about cognitive variation. You paint that as "hate" because you can't contradict logic. You are a slanderer. "Phobia" is another laughable subjective question begging usage. And "bigotry": who is it that doesn't tolerate opposing views? Who censors material? Your side. Because you are wrong. "Wrong" isn't a word you get to accuse people of much is it? Just "racist", "phobic, "bigot", "hate". Pathetic. Rational Wiki my ass.

"Ask yourself: have you honestly read through the literature of political opponents and considered it open-mindedly? If not, then you're probably strawmanning." So you don't know if I've read the literature, and if I haven't I might be strawmanning? What a stupid pointless comment. What I have done is look at the idiocy from people like you, whether or not I've read "the literature". 193.61.28.33 (talk) 23:18, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Re: RacistIfWhite: RationalWiki literally shits all over the prejudice+power definition and argues that anyone can be racist. So get off your fucking high horse.

Re: NothingToDoWithHate: Racism is prejudice against a "race" of people. Racialism is the argument that "races" are substantially different. Is this so hard to understand? Claiming IQ differs by skin color inherently is racialism; using that to spam "WE WUZ KANGS" memes is racism.

Re: CensorshipOfOpposingMaterial: Yep, right. Look at all the scientific sources that you provided that we wantonly cens -- oh wait nope you haven't done jack shit. And you act as if right-wing racist nationalists are rational, open-minded appraisers of all information -- rather than the kind that creates false data to distort the public perception. Poor, poor racists -- so maligned, so censored.

Re: "[Y]ou don't know if I've read the literature": How could I possibly. Gah.

Re: "[I]f I haven't I might be strawmanning": Yeah, no, you can't just say "I looked at your article and you guys are misrepresenting science without fucking reading the science. Your comments are duplicitous and vapid. As Trump would say: OUT OUT! Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 17:02, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

To back FuzzyCatPotato up, I've stated before that there's no race gene. Most studies used to support racialism utilize genetic arguements and not genomics. Genetics focus on one gene while genomics look at all the genes of the human genome and how genes are turned on and off. Studies that look at genetics, such as Mendel's, focus on heredity of species that are extremely simplistic to study, humans are relatively complex compared to a pea plant when it comes to heredity. One's appearance is determined by how genes are turned on and off that have NO relationship with intelligence. —チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 17:22, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Someone asked /r/AltRight for problems with this page.

Thread link.

These are the sources they linked back:

1: http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/306-the-genetic-map-of-europe

This suggests that non-Finn Europeans are highly genetically related -- which doesn't prove much.

2: Genetic structure, self-identified race/ethnicity, and confounding in case-control association studies.

Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity--as opposed to current residence--is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population.

Context in current article:

It should be noted that all human classifications used in medicine are considered probabilistic [[heuristic]]s and not perfectly [[deterministic]]. While research has shown that many people are extremely effective at classifying themselves based on ethnic origin<ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ "Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies"] by Hua Tang, et al. ''Am. J. Hum. Genet.'' 2005 Feb; 76(2): 268–275.</ref> and so researchers may find "race" to be a convenient label, it fails as a source of attribution: "[R]ace as a social construct may result in differences in treatment that affect health outcomes, but such descriptive use does not imply that "race" can be used as a proxy for biological difference."<ref>[http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040288 "Defining Human Differences in Biomedicine"] by Maggie Brown ''PLoS Medicine.'' 2007. 4(9): e228. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040288.</ref>

Our reference appears to support racialism far more strongly than does our article itself -- the article suggests that self-reported race is highly related to genetic difference, at least in the United States.

3: Genetic variation, classification and 'race'.

New genetic data has enabled scientists to re-examine the relationship between human genetic variation and 'race'. We review the results of genetic analyses that show that human genetic variation is geographically structured, in accord with historical patterns of gene flow and genetic drift. Analysis of many loci now yields reasonably accurate estimates of genetic similarity among individuals, rather than populations. Clustering of individuals is correlated with geographic origin or ancestry. These clusters are also correlated with some traditional concepts of race, but the correlations are imperfect because genetic variation tends to be distributed in a continuous, overlapping fashion among populations. Therefore, ancestry, or even race, may in some cases prove useful in the biomedical setting, but direct assessment of disease-related genetic variation will ultimately yield more accurate and beneficial information.

Context in current article:

*Lynn B. Jorde and Stephen P. Wooding. [http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1435.html Genetic variation, classification and 'race'.] ''Nature Genetics'' 36, S28 - S33 (2004)

This one isn't nearly so dissonant with what our article claims; I don't see a problem here.

As such:

1. Is source 2 correct?
2. If source 2 is correct, does it offer evidence against racialism? Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 21:40, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Two friends sent racist memes to each other; linked both here

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-diD6QnmRq5c/VvgsDuMREBI/AAAAAAAAE1M/uT9QaVUwwCAHP1Yki-axOXrdeiuO-PoWA/s1600/European%2BDiversity.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5tyw9e4D61k/TuwqIRUHe6I/AAAAAAAAAj0/v9THtuQCUAw/s1600/african_diversity_egypt_beautiful_girls_mostdiversity.jpg

Herr FuzzyKatzenPotato (talk/stalk) 22:10, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Also relevant:

https://twitter.com/DrDavidDuke/status/793612039457419264

FuzzyCatPotato of the Dazzling Exhaust pipes (talk/stalk) 03:14, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

The Chart redux: Race and "Accomplishment"

Oh god, it's so beautiful. FuzzyCatPotato!™ (talk/stalk) 10:36, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Removed text

*Caucasoid: The "Caucasoid" was said to include all native peoples from [[Europe]], Northernmost [[Africa]] (Maghreb), West [[Asia]], South [[Asia]] and Central [[Asia]].<ref>Coon, Carleton Stevens (1939). ''The Races of Europe''. New York: The Macmillan Company. 400-401</ref> There was never agreement regarding the easternmost periphery of the "Caucasoid" geographical belt, i.e. the [[India]]n subcontinent was disputed. *Mongoloid: The "Mongoloid" was said to include all native peoples from Southeast to Northeast [[Asia]]. *Negroid: The "Negroid" was said to include all native peoples from sub-Saharan [[Africa]].

I don't see an early-racialist citation for this. Any ideas? FU22YC47P07470 (talk/stalk) 07:12, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Leave nothing uncited in the article. That being said, I have a few good sources I've yet to mine for the article. If anything shows up, I'll add it. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 09:10, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I think this WP page (Caucasian race) can be used as a basis for what the popular and scientific belief was starting in the 1800s. There's a useful map that is out of copyright and could be copied, and some citations. Bongolian (talk) 18:17, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Very useful. It also shows the changing nature of racialist thought. oʇɐʇoԀʇɐϽʎzznℲ (talk/stalk) 01:13, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Formatting problem

This file, "File:Systema Naturae on Homos.png" in footnote number 10 does not format very well because it is wide and doesn't resize itself with the window size. In Firefox, it collides with the right-side column and in Chrome and Safari, the right side of the image gets cropped. It would be better to just put the plain text of the quote. Bongolian (talk) 18:09, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Map problems

Some problem with the maps:

1. Current political lines being shown for historical maps. Not too awful a problem, particularly if it's noted somewhere.
2. The first map:
   • "File:1684Bernier.svg", notes "less colored than Egyptians" but Egypt itself is this color.
   • Iraq is inexplicably lighter than the surrounding areas.
   • "Finns" would better be described as "Finno-Ugric Peoples" by today's terminology, but Finnic area (blue) extend into the Caucasus?
   • Lapps (Sámi) are not Finns (see Sámi.
   • The pink area ("Both Species 1 and Species 3") extends only as far as the western part of the island of New Guinea: this is an artifact of current political divisions, not perceived racial divisions. At the time, the whole island would have been thought similar to indigenous Australians to the south, not Indonesians to the west. The other maps show one color for the whole island.
3. For the subsequent maps, New Guinea should be the same color as Australia, I would think.

Bongolian (talk) 22:28, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

All fair points. I just wanted some approximations to show that the racialist system has changed over time.

I modified the Bernier description to "equally or less colored than Egyptians".

Updated New Guinea and Australia; updated Lapps for Bernier. Here's Bernier, Linnaeus, Blumenbach. Thoughts? Mʀ. Wʜɪsᴋᴇʀs, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 01:11, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

OK, it looks better. Species 3 now includes Indonesia in column 3 but not on the map. Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam are now Species 3 on the map, correct? Did Bernier not distinguish between Lapps & Finns? Bongolian (talk) 03:47, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Column 3 specifically states that Species 1 and Species 3 share Indonesia -- hence "Indonesia (with Species 3)" etc. Is this unclear?

Bernier states: "France, Spain, England, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and generally all Europe, except a part of Muscovy". I presumed that he specifically didn't mention Finland to include them with the Lapps -- but I could be wrong. This English map of the world, circa 1689, has Lappia as a country separate from Finland. I'm not sure if this was Bernier's view -- in general, he's not specific. Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 04:06, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it's unclear because other areas are also in the "both" category, but not mentioned: Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Burma and parts of west Asia. So, why is only Indonesia mentioned there? The footnote explains it, but still it seems odd. It might be better to add a "Both 1 and 3" category for column 3 with the footnote placed there. Bongolian (talk) 04:12, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Look at this beaut

https://i.imgur.com/Hs33ARi.gif FU22YC47P07470 (talk/stalk) 13:44, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

TO DO:

Boaz [3], E. A. Hooton (Committee Negro); William Howells

America: (Lieberman et al., 1989; Lieberman and Reynolds, 1996; Lieberman et al., 2003, Lieberman and Kirk, 2002;) (Cartmill, 1998; Cartmill and Brown, 2003) [4]

Europe: (Fuentes, 2000; Štrkalj, 2000a,) (Kaszycka and Strzalko, 2002; Kaszycka and Strzalko, 2003; Lieberman et al., 2004)

China: (Wang et al., 2002, 2003)

Racialist: [5]

Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 01:19, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Definitions of race

I don't think the article covers enough on the definition of race. The taxonomic definition of race is covered by Templeton (1999, 2013) in two cited peer-reviewed papers. Human races as subspecies in taxonomy don't exist, but there are other areas of science that now use different concepts and definitions of race (not as a taxon/subspecies); modern racialists adopt these more trivialised definitions. For example in population genetics, some geneticists now use race as a synonym for a breeding population (also known as a gamodeme, deme, mating circle, panmictic group etc.). No one denies these exist in the human species, but are they races? Its a semantic dispute. There's no contradiction between being a "race realist" and "race denialist" since it depends on the definition of race; I accept human races (as subspecies) don't exist as defined by taxonomy, but they exist in population genetics as breeding populations. However one could argue against using the terminology "race" for breeding population (demes) because it creates confusion. I should point out the Rationalwiki article does not deny the existence of demes. 86.14.2.77 (talk) 17:28, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

That section of the page is definitely a work in progress. Currently, I'm working on expanding the historical/modern racialist definitions of race, so that they can be more easily contrasted with modern scientific consensus position(s). If you'd like to edit the article to elaborate on the various definitions of race, that would be quite helpful. Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 17:36, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I know that 18th to early 20th century scientific definitions of race were based on broad/continental groupings of populations only (this is very different to modern racialism that tries to extend race to local populations as small as the Amish.) For example Earnest Hooton's definition of race was: "A race is a great division of mankind [...]" (Hooton, 1926) and although he had "sub-races", the latter were still concentrated in large regions; they were not local populations. It would be helpful if there was a chart with the original race definitions as strictly large continental groups because this is something modern racialists deny since they've changed the definition (I noted racialist pseudo-scientists like John Fuerst do this.)86.14.2.77 (talk) 17:59, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I see Mike was blocked replying to me. I won't waste time with him, but he made a blunder so I'll post it so people can see how much an idiot he is - He defines race as "genetic similarity of any scale with no threshold" but then links to Leroi (2005) who states that "genetic variants" in a population must be "collectively rare in everyone else" (emphasis on rare) to be considered a race. This is a threshold criteria. 86.14.2.77 (talk) 19:13, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I mean a between group variation threshold. Like when you repeatedly and falsely assert there is "not enough" between race variation relative to other subspecies. If you take "threshold" to mean collective genomic similarity versus other races then yes human races obviously pass this threshold. Aren't you embarrassed that the only place your garbage is published is on this Orwellian named Marxist blog? 195.191.67.226 (talk) 10:30, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

> Claims to understand biological thresholds better than the relevant scientists

> Also fails to understand the threshold between "kinda liberal" and "Marxist blog"

32℉uzzy; 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 13:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Here's 2 modern definitions of subspecies:

• "A recognizably distinct population, or group of populations, that occupies a different geographic area from other populations of the same species; populations of a species that are distinguishable by one or more characteristics and are given subspecific names." (Futuyma, 2005)
• "A subspecies is a distinct population, or group of populations, that occupies a different breeding range from other populations of the same species." (Remsen, 2010)

Note emphasis on "different breeding range" and "different geographic area". Subspecies are allopatric and have non-overlapping geographical boundaries, or as mentioned on the article subspecies have to be "geographically circumscribed" (Templeton, 1999). Human populations today do not have non-overlapping geographical boundaries and every country (even North Korea) has ethnic minorities.86.14.2.77 (talk) 19:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Strawman definitions. If you put an Indian Elephant in Africa do African Elephants then not exist? Taxa aren't defined by location. You're a moron. John 82 (talk) 14:28, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

As usual you're wrong.

"It is critical to note that genetic differentiation alone is insufficient to define a subspecies or race under either of these definitions of race. Both definitions require that genetic differentiation exists across sharp boundaries and not as gradual changes, with the boundaries reflecting the historical splits." (Templeton, 2013)

Also Templeton points out as I noted above that demes (local breeding populations) are not races:

"If every genetically distinguishable population were elevated to the status of race, then most species would have hundreds to tens of thousands of races, thereby making race nothing more than a synonym for a deme or local population. A race or subspecies requires a degree of genetic differentiation that is well above the level of genetic differences that exist among local populations."86.14.2.77 (talk) 16:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

You keep reporting the strawman definition from the race denialist Templeton. Most of this article is based on Templeton. Everything Templeton says is wrong. John 82 (talk) 18:01, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Skeptoid on Racialism

Give it a spin! Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:48, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

It's a good read, and I largely agree with it, but what is YOUR say on it? It's good forum etiquette to contribute yourself if you want a discussion to take place rather than to throw out a simple link and go "commence!" 171.33.193.245 (talk) 17:23, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

That's true. Sadly, I'm fighting what could be influenza right now, so my current abilities max out at "useful link pasting". Reverend Black Percy (talk) 19:13, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that, buddy. One of my other friends in Europe also has the flu now. Did you get a flu shot this year? Bongolian (talk) 19:24, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the concern. No flu shot, though a lot of other useful shots. But I'm hoping it's not actually the flu. I think hope I'll be fine (knock on wood) — though, you recall that I'm an evidence-based supplement nerd? My everyday regime includes:

• 1200mgs of Aged Garlic Extract (only works as a preventative; the dose remains unchanged regardless of symptoms)
• 37mgs of Zinc (raised to 112mg as long as symptoms of illness persist)
• 1000mgs of Vitamin C (as long as symptoms of illness persist).

These three are — add or take — the only three things that do jack shit when it comes to fighting illness (as far as supplements are concerned). Now, don't get me started on all the countless, senseless flu/cold supplements out there... I haven't the strength right now. But these three do work, because science works. Boo-yah. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 20:18, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Hmmm. The US RDA for vitamin C is only 120 mg/d. Seems like taking 10X the RDA isn't evidence-supported,[6] though probably not harmful. Similarly, the USDA for adults is only 11-12 mg/day, with the upper limit at 40 mg.[7] I think I remember that there was a US study about a decade ago that reanalyzed vitamin and nutrient RDAs as well as recommended maxima. Maybe this would be worthwhile to dig up for adding more detail to the vitamin supplement page. Bongolian (talk) 23:50, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Actually, as pertains to Zinc, its TUL (Tolerable Upper Limit) is at 40mg's, but the only persistent risk factor to zinc supplementation (assuming you stay below the TUL) is failing to balance your zinc intake against your copper intake (just like with magnesium and calcium). See here. Also, quoting Examine:

Superloading zinc by taking up to 100mg zinc a day is confirmed to be safe in the short term (2-4 months), but because this dose is higher than the 40mg Tolerable Upper Limit (TUL) of zinc, prolonged superloading is not advised.

Notice, again, that I stay below the 40mg TUL (I actually take 37mgs normally, out of which only 25mg's have significant bioavailability) and I ensure non-competitive copper intake. And as long as your intake of zinc follows the above considerations, there's not much harm — but the proven benefits in young, healthy adults are indeed substantial.

Regarding vitamin C, there's certainly no risk in taking Vitamin C at 1-2000mg a day — though there's no benefit in going as high as 2000mg unless you are an athlete. Notice that expressly passing the RDA has proven health effects — not surprising, partly due to how serum vitamin C operates, but also since the RDA is set mainly at the point where scurvy is eliminated (i.e. the dose which eliminates a state of deficiency, not the "optimal" dose). Worth noting is also that all cases of oxalate nephrotoxicity resulting from the supplementation of Vitamin C involve massive doses, often administered via injection. And note that the above just pertains to the lack of danger in proper use of these two supplements. There's the equivalent of a front page article that's citable on the proven benefits of the supplementation of these two micronutrients (though especially zinc). Reverend Black Percy (talk) 01:03, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't say they were going to be dangerous at those levels, but is there any evidence of effectiveness at those levels beyond the RDA? Bongolian (talk) 01:31, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, citing from the relevant link above:

While scurvy is the clinical deficiency state (and is true 'Vitamin C deficiency'), there are various states associated with excessive oxidation which serum vitamin C tends to reduce (or at least the REDOX balanced altered suggesting a prooxidative state) relative to healthy cohorts. This includes fever and viral infections, stress, alcoholism,[7] smoking,[29][30] type II diabetes[31][32] despite consuming adequate vitamin C,[33] and in persons who have very recently suffered a myocardial infarction[34][35] or acute pancreatitis (these last two normalizing after some time).[36][37]

More specifically, on vitamin C and illness, the "How to take" portion reads:

The Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) of vitamin C is 100-200mg. This is easily attained through the diet, so supplementation of such low doses is usually unnecessary. Higher doses of vitamin C, up to 2,000mg, are used to support the immune system (for athletes) or reduce the duration of the common cold.

But there's several other case-specific instances (you gotta know what you're supplementing for!) where doses of around 1 gram are useful, which I don't have time to cite right now. I'd recommend reading through the article, especially the human studies! Reverend Black Percy (talk) 02:02, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

The two studies that they cite which are actually pertinent to reducing cold during are this one[8] and this one[9].

The 1st is a meta-analysis and the 2nd a prospective study of 2349 people. The 1st study was primarily of people "exposed to brief periods of severe physical exercise", not general population samples. It also stated, "Regular supplementation trials have shown that vitamin C reduces the duration of colds, but this was not replicated in the few therapeutic trials that have been carried out."

I may be reading the abstract wrong but the 2nd study did not seem to measure duration, but rather severity and frequency. There was also no dose-related effect, which means the evidence was not very strong.

I'm not convinced by the Examine.com article. Bongolian (talk) 02:40, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Sadly, my fever is just as bad today as yesterday. :C

So, like yesterday, sadly I'll have to cut some corners in compiling my reply to you (my bad, Gov!).

In a nutshell: Vitamin C is by far the least interesting supplement out of the three I listed, the other two being garlic (655 studies reviewed) and zinc (325 studies reviewed). Notice that the qualifier I gave was, "supplements that do jack shit" for the common cold. That's the standard of evidence for Vitamin C use I'm looking to meet here, in other words (nothing more).

Now then, to quote from the University of Maryland Medical Center:

Despite the popular belief that vitamin C can cure the common cold, scientific evidence doesn't support that theory. Taking vitamin C supplements regularly (not just at the beginning of a cold) produces only a small reduction in the duration of a cold (about 1 day). The only other piece of evidence supporting vitamin C for preventing colds comes from studies examining people exercising in extreme environments (athletes, such as skiers and marathon runners, and soldiers in the Arctic). In these studies, vitamin C did seem to reduce the risk of getting a cold.

As you know, I haven't made any woo-laden claims in regards to "the power of Vitamin C" (nor has the Examine article, afaik). What the above UMMC quote says is:

• Taking vitamin C supplements regularly (not just at the beginning of a cold) does indeed produce a small reduction in the duration of a cold (about 1 day).
• For athletes, Vitamin C does indeed seem to reduce the risk of getting a cold.

I mention the thing about the athletes above, as does Examine (and Examine is clear on it only applying to athletes).

Now, what's my point? Do I advocate megadosing Vitamin C? Of course not. I'm all too aware of the autumn years' nuttery of Linus Pauling (See QuackWatch on Pauling).

Recommended reading on vitamin C includes this, this, this — and of course this. Also, Oregon State University has a page on Vitamin C related to the Linus Pauling institute (see here). I'll let you be the judge of that one, though I'm sure it's not crank (Pauling is long dead).

Also, please keep in mind that I'm taking Vitamin C confounded with Zinc (this available here), not just plain Vitamin C on its own (also studied — though heavily confounded — here). And while I don't take Zinc primarily for its effects on the common cold, it certainly has a better scientific status than does Vitamin C, even on the topic of the common cold. Examine states:

High dose zinc in response to the common cold (not taken preventatively, but only at the onset of sickness) appears to be effective in reducing the duration and severity of sickness.

And:

Supplementation of zinc daily as a preventative appears to reduce the rate of getting colds.

Indeed, see here, here, here and here. Also, Wikipedia comes to similar conclusions.

And just as one has to watch out for the likes of Pauling's research, zinc supplementation in relation to the common cold is likewise an area that has been troubled by some shoddy research. See Retraction Watch here on two major zinc-and-the-common-cold studies, here and here. But zinc is a bit of an aside to all this, as I'm taking it for completely different reasons than its effects on immunology.

At this point, my brain is boiling (fever suuucks) and I no longer have the ability to gain an overview of what I have even written. Still, I hope that the above comes across not as some deranged Gish Gallop, but as some kind of useful contribution to our discussion. Read it all with charity in mind (in other words; I'm really not Linus Pauling Jr, I promise ).

Thanks for reading, and naturally I appreciate a skeptical eye on all of this from you. I always say, "You can learn a lot from your mistakes when you're not busy denying them". Worth noting is that I'm not interested in "defending" any particular supplement, nor site (naturally ).

Also — just for trivia purposes — I haven't actually been taking Vitamin C for that long at all, and besides, I don't plan to keep taking it after my cold/flu/whatever subsides (for various reasons, including the fact that I already get my RDA from a multivitamin — and more importantly, because Vitamin C lowers kidney PH in a way that halves the half-life of my ADHD medication). Reverend Black Percy (talk) 19:10, 27 January 2017 (UTC)