Racism is baseless

[shuttlt]

I think that’s more on you. The fact remains that race isn’t a meaningful word outside of some cultural contexts. From a biological perspective the historically defined “races” do not exist as meaningful biological groups.

I'm not at all sure that I was claiming there was any great importance within the science of biology to these groups. They exist, sometimes they may be useful to talk about, but most of the time they aren't.

Correlation vs causation. Allele frequency shares causal links with cultural development so it makes sense that you can find some correlation between the two and it often makes for a convenient shorthand to explain to someone they may be at higher risk. This doesn’t mean the biological group has any particular meaning beyond that.

I'm not sure what wider meaning you think I am implying. There is a collection of genetic characteristics that are associated with a particular cultural group. What greater significance or cause would there be? I honestly don't know unless one supposes some kind of separate Biblical creation for each race.

If fact what’s really being looked at is allele frequency and that isn’t a group at all it’s a cline. In fact each individual allele radiates outward normally geographically, roughly centered around where it first occurred and happily crosses so called racial boundaries.

You are clearly more knowledgeable than me, but I don't see what this does to contradict anything I've said.

You should also consider how absurd it is to define “black” when further subdividing homo the modern human subspecies (homo sapiens sapiens). There is very little genetic diversity in our subspecies to begin with, but most of that is within Africa. All the “races” outside Africa came from a single African sub-population and therefore are more closely related to each other and that African or “black” sub-population they came from then many of the various African sub-populations are to each other. More sensible definition of race would have everyone outside Africa as one racial group and a bunch of racial groups within Africa, not the other way around.

The groupings aren't unique, for some purposes that might be sensible. In talking about the genetic differences between the indigenous and non-indigenous Manitoban's, it wouldn't be useful.

They could be if that happened to be how you were carving up “races”. There is no formalized or standardized biological definition for race. This would confuse people because it conflicts with what they think race is and there really is no point or benefit only baggage so scientists generally don’t do it.

Nothing stops us calling stools chairs, but we tend not to do it because that isn't how we happen to have developed the categories.

Caution is certainly advisable whenever you take a categorization system beyond it’s intended purpose, scope or the understanding that it was based on. Consider however the intent, purpose and knowledge of the people who defined what today are colloquially understood to be races. They had no knowledge of genetics or evolution and in many cases their primary intent was to define groups so that they could call their group better or more advanced than the others. Using “race” beyond this is just carrying along unhelpful baggage.

In general terms, I'd say the purpose served by this category system is to divide people up into groups sharing some kind of historic culture or place of origin based on observable physical characteristics. Necessarily for such observable physical characteristics to exist there must have been some kind of genetic isolation, no? I don't see that lack of knowledge about genetics or evolution is a general problem with doing this.

 

[shuttlt]

Race is just another pigeon hole for whatever stereotype people want to use, if they mean culture they should say culture, if they mean a society they should say society, if they mean some sub group they should say so. They should spell it out and stop hiding behind cultural convention. Especially when they use as the basis for discrimination, subjugation and warfare.

I tried to get the OP to clarify what was meant by race within the context of this discussion. It seems pretty clear that it means the genetic features that are associated with particular ethnographic groups. If I understand it correctly, the thing the man in the OP didn't like about indigenous Manitoban's was their anti-social behaviour, and the OP was unhappy about this because he believed this person attributed the anti-social behaviour to genetics. Why either the OP, or the man he mentioned might believe these things hasn't been made clear, so the whole conversation is now circling the drain due to lack of any flesh within the question to chew on.

There is always going to pretty much be more genetic variation within a group than between races.

Isn't this similar to the argument that men aren't taller than women because variation within the groups is greater than variation between the groups? Or men aren't stronger than women because some women are stronger than some men? etc.etc.etc. I've never found this argument convincing. It's always appeared to be sophistry to me. Nobody claimed all men, were taller than all women (did they?). Did anybody claim that variation between groups was greater than variation within groups in the sense you are describing? Maybe somebody has somewhere, but it is a very specific argument you are making to refute a contention that I have never heard anybody make.

People with red hair are not a separate race from humans (including whatever crap people say about neanderthals). I am not a member of the the red haired race despite the fact that two of my grandparents had flaming red hair.

I'm not sure that anybody has claimed that red headed people, or indigenous Manitobans are a separate race from humans. Clearly both groups are humans. It's hard to say though what is being claimed, because the extent that we know the views of the racist mentioned in the OP are one joke about thinning out the numbers of indigenous people in a school.

 

[Dancing David]

I tried to get the OP to clarify what was meant by race within the context of this discussion. It seems pretty clear that it means the genetic features that are associated with particular ethnographic groups. If I understand it correctly, the thing the man in the OP didn't like about indigenous Manitoban's was their anti-social behaviour, and the OP was unhappy about this because he believed this person attributed the anti-social behaviour to genetics. Why either the OP, or the man he mentioned might believe these things hasn't been made clear, so the whole conversation is now circling the drain due to lack of any flesh within the question to chew on.

I would say anti-social ie criminal behavior is associated with marginalization,unemployment and low socio economic status. Frequently associated with eftal alcohol exposure and social conditioning.

Isn't this similar to the argument that men aren't taller than women because variation within the groups is greater than variation between the groups? Or men aren't stronger than women because some women are stronger than some men? etc.etc.etc. I've never found this argument convincing.

No because the effects of testosterone on development are measurable.

It's always appeared to be sophistry to me. Nobody claimed all men, were taller than all women (did they?). Did anybody claim that variation between groups was greater than variation within groups in the sense you are describing? Maybe somebody has somewhere, but it is a very specific argument you are making to refute a contention that I have never heard anybody make.

It sounds like sophistry but when you encounter those who are biological determinists that like to say certain 'races' are inferior. It helps to point out that variation among members of a 'race' are often higher than between races. They also often use social biased tests to make said pronouncement, like 'whites are inherently/biologically smarter than blacks'. I don't know if they are still around the forum.

I'm not sure that anybody has claimed that red headed people, or indigenous Manitobans are a separate race from humans. Clearly both groups are humans. It's hard to say though what is being claimed, because the extent that we know the views of the racist mentioned in the OP are one joke about thinning out the numbers of indigenous people in a school.

Sure I was ranting on the crazy nature of racial definitions

 

[shuttlt]

I would say anti-social ie criminal behavior is associated with marginalization,unemployment and low socio economic status. Frequently associated with eftal alcohol exposure and social conditioning.

I agree, adding only culture. In this case there seems for one thing to be a deep distrust of, amongst other things, schools (for readily understandable historic reasons) for example.

No because the effects of testosterone on development are measurable.

I don't see what has to do with it. There is a characteristic, in this case height, that varies more within group than between. Are you arguing that the we could only legitimately say that men were taller than women after testosterone was discovered and understood? In group variation being greater than between group variation is simply not a good argument that the varying characteristic can't reasonably be described as a property of the group.

It sounds like sophistry but when you encounter those who are biological determinists that like to say certain 'races' are inferior. It helps to point out that variation among members of a 'race' are often higher than between races. They also often use social biased tests to make said pronouncement, like 'whites are inherently/biologically smarter than blacks'. I don't know if they are still around the forum.

But surely very few of those people (I know the JREF pulled in crazed loons in its day) claim that every white person is smarter than every black person, do they? Such a claim would hardly be worth refuting.

 

[Modified]

Isn't this similar to the argument that men aren't taller than women because variation within the groups is greater than variation between the groups?

What does "varies more" mean in this case? Female and male average heights differ by approximately two standard deviations of the heights of either group. To me that definitely says that variation between the groups is greater than within them. If we put a dividing line halfway between the averages and use height alone to guess gender, we'd be right 85% of the time.

 

[Pixel42]

Isn't this similar to the argument that men aren't taller than women because variation within the groups is greater than variation between the groups? Or men aren't stronger than women because some women are stronger than some men? etc.etc.etc. I've never found this argument convincing. It's always appeared to be sophistry to me. Nobody claimed all men, were taller than all women (did they?). Did anybody claim that variation between groups was greater than variation within groups in the sense you are describing? Maybe somebody has somewhere, but it is a very specific argument you are making to refute a contention that I have never heard anybody make.

Such differences are often used to try to justify discrimination against specific groups. For example I once had a long online argument with someone who insisted that gay couples should not be allowed to adopt children because statistics suggest gay relationships do not last as long on average as heterosexual ones.

Many people think that if statistics show that, say, there are more black thieves than white ones, that justifies discriminating against all black people when recruiting for a position of trust. I've actually use the gender height difference to try to explain why this is unfair discrimination: if there is a legitimate minimum height requirement for a job then "no-one under 5' 10" need apply" is fair discrimination; "no women need apply" is unfair discrimination.

 

[lomiller]

The groupings aren't unique, for some purposes that might be sensible. In talking about the genetic differences between the indigenous and non-indigenous Manitoban's, it wouldn't be useful.

But you are not talking about any specific genetic differences, you are setting up your groups and assuming there will be meaningful genetic differences. Both sub-populations come from the same major branch of an overall population that itself doesn’t have a large amount of genetic diversity. For nearly all purposes indigenous and non-indigenous comprise a single group biologically.
Even if we find a specific allele that differs in frequencies between the two groups it doesn’t make indigenous and non-indigenous the groups are of interest. In that case the groups of interest are the group that has that allele and the group that doesn’t. See Pixel42’s example above. If our interest is studying people over 5’10 then the specific groups are “people over 5’10” and “people 5’10” and under” not men vs women or Asians vs Africans.

 

[lomiller]

But surely very few of those people (I know the JREF pulled in crazed loons in its day) claim that every white person is smarter than every black person, do they? Such a claim would hardly be worth refuting.

Saying something like “on average white people are smarter” is equally unsupportable. This doesn’t stop people from suggesting such intelligence differences and not the well documented social and education issues as the reason why black Americans earn less than white Americans.

 

[LSSBB]

I agree, adding only culture. In this case there seems for one thing to be a deep distrust of, amongst other things, schools (for readily understandable historic reasons) for example.


I don't see what has to do with it. There is a characteristic, in this case height, that varies more within group than between. Are you arguing that the we could only legitimately say that men were taller than women after testosterone was discovered and understood? In group variation being greater than between group variation is simply not a good argument that the varying characteristic can't reasonably be described as a property of the group.


But surely very few of those people (I know the JREF pulled in crazed loons in its day) claim that every white person is smarter than every black person, do they? Such a claim would hardly be worth refuting.

The American racial biological determinists also tend to neglect the role that lead in the environment plays in early childhood development. Lead is a pervasive problem in old housing stock and areas that had been subject to air pollution in the past.

 

[deadrose]

Well, that's interesting.

One generally can be fairly accurate when guessing that one is of Asian descent. Maybe not 100% accurate, but certainly more accurate than chance. Now if you would ask me to guess whether someone was Japanese, Korean, Laotion, etc, I'm sure my accuracy would plunge.

First Nations people are of Asian descent, just to throw a wrench into the works. In many of the western coastal peoples that's very evident. As groups moved across the continent, the highly Asian-looking features faded away.

This caused me some embarrassment when I moved to Ontario. As a store checker, I was always taken by surprise when people pulled out their enrollment cards, because to me, they didn't look First Nations at all.

 

[macdoc]

Case in point ....care to speculate where she's from and her genetic heritage

and another

 

[aleCcowaN]

"Racism is baseless" makes little sense as an assertion. It looks designed to serve some sort of Anglospheric political or social purpose.

Racism is an ideological stance, like saving virginity until marriage or losing it at twelve "otherwise there's something wrong in your psyche". As such, it has as a strong base as veganism or conservatism.

Races exist, human races do exist -in spite of redefinitions for political purposes- and they are to be well known and celebrated.

This topic is so contaminated, especially in the United State of Despair, that they think to have a black president (I see a white dude). They even think whom they call """"African-American"""" (there are not enough quotation marks) are most genetically close to people living in Subsaharan Africa. Interesting when you compare RH factors and other trifles.

The whole theme of "racism is baseless" is **** as everything containing the word "racism". Besides, there's the pretension of telling people whom to love and who breed with and whom to love not, maybe the most nefarious invasion of individual autonomy.

 

[macdoc]

Of course you know better than the anthropologists...

Classifying humans into races the biggest mistake in history of science
OPINION
The Conversation By Darren Curnoe
Posted Thu at 4:02pm

PHOTO: The human faces of Asia. First published in the first edition (1876–1899) of Nordisk familjebok. (Supplied: Wikimedia Commons)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-23/the-biggest-mistake-in-the-history-of-science/8142992

snip

Race theory stands alone as biggest mistake

Now, there are some big contenders for this dubious honour. Massive blunders like the invention of nuclear weapons, fossil fuels, CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), leaded petrol and DDT. And tenuous theories and dubious discoveries like luminiferous aether, the expanding earth, vitalism, blank slate theory, phrenology, and Piltown Man, to name just a few.

But race theory stands out among all of them because it has wreaked untold misery and been used to justify barbaric acts of colonialism, slavery and even genocide. Even today it's still used to explain social inequality, and continues to inspire the rise of the far right across the globe.

Take for example the controversy that surrounded Nicholas Wade's 2014 book, A Troublesome Inheritance, if you doubt for a moment the resonance race still has for some people.

The human races were invented by anthropologists like Johann Friedrich Blumenbach back in the 18th century in an attempt to categorise new groups of people being encountered and exploited as part of an ever expanding European colonialism.

From the very beginning, the arbitrary and subjective nature of race categories was widely acknowledged. Most of the time races were justified on the grounds of cultural or language differences between groups of people rather than biological ones.

Their existence was taken as a given right up until the 20th century when anthropologists were busy writing about races as a biological explanation for differences in psychology, including intelligence, and educational and socioeconomic outcomes between groups of people.

Are races still valid?

Yet, there always was a great deal of unease about race and a widely held belief that racial categories were in practice extraordinarily difficult to apply.

One famous critic of racial theory was the American anthropologist Ashley Montagu who wrote in 1941:

"The omelette called 'race' has no existence outside the statistical frying pan in which it has been reduced by the heat of the anthropological imagination."

If race still resonates today publicly and politically, what do scientists think about it? Do anthropologists in particular believe that races are still valid?

A new survey of more than 3,000 anthropologists by Jennifer Wagner of the Geisinger Health System and her team has recently been published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and it offers some valuable insights into their views and beliefs.

The people surveyed were members of the American Anthropological Association, the largest professional body of anthropologists in the world.

They were asked to respond to 53 statements about race covering topics like whether races are real, if they are determined by biology, whether races should play a role in medicine, the role of race and ancestry in commercial genetic testing, and if the term race should continue to be used at all.

Most revealing was the response to the statement, "The human population may be subdivided into biological races", with 86 per cent of respondents strongly disagreeing or disagreeing. To the statement, "Racial categories are determined by biology", 88 per cent strongly disagreed or disagreed. And, "Most anthropologists believe that humans may be subdivided into biological races", 85 per cent of respondents strongly disagreed or disagreed.
We can take from this that there is a clear consensus among anthropologists that races aren't real, that they don't reflect biological reality, and that most anthropologists don't believe there is a place for race categories in science.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-23/the-biggest-mistake-in-the-history-of-science/8142992

 

[aleCcowaN]

As said, ideology permeating science.

macdoc, you as always the champion of googling any known advocacy and ... finding something to pour in, unfiltered and unreasoned, to contaminate everything . That's your raison d'être.

How come something invented in the 18th century was vastly used since the 14th century?

Highlighting the results from surveying members of American Anthropological Association, who I'm sure are all Usaians or US residents and not represent America as a continent, doesn't make those results universal. I'll have to repeat myself: «It looks designed to serve some sort of Anglospheric political or social purpose». And it is!

 

[Jodie]

The police can still differentiate Caucasians from African American, female from male murder victims based on skeletal structure. There are some genetic differences in bone thickness with Asians having the thinnest bones followed by Caucasians, and then Africans with the thickest bones.

That said ignoring physical differences by "race" can lead to medical issues since some races are more prone to genetic diseases than others. The same goes for medical research, one needs to include all races for research regarding disease and treatment to be meaningful. This is true when the sample only contains male patients such as the research with statin drugs, drugs that were never tested on women.

That said, I think the zenophobia started in the Levant when homo sapiens met homo neanderthals. I think Darwin 123 made a valid point to bring up the hybridization event except he got it wrong. The only surviving progeny from the mix came from homo sapien mothers.

One of the most exclusionary cultures happens to be the Jews who have the highest percentage of Neanderthal DNA than anyone else outside of Africa. I think the clash between neanderthals and homo sapiens is at the root of most our major religious beliefs, the wars in the name of God or Allah that have followed, and left a lasting racial memory of a fear of a near extinction event that continues to exist in the form of the type of racism that we continue to experience today.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/03/0305_0307_neandertal.html

 

[Hercules56]

Racism, the idea that you can and should judge people based on their membership in real or imaginary biological-ethnic groups, is ignorant and stupid.

 

[macdoc]

 

[fuelair]

I mean no insult, but I'm honestly puzzled that I need to provide any since I thought this was commonly known and evidence is easy to find via Google. Picking a mental health disorder at random, here is an article from Nature on the genetic basis of schizophrenia:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v511/n7510/full/nature13645.html

Doubtless there are environmental causes a well, but if the above is anything like true, it is presumably theoretically possible to have different predispositions for the condition in different populations.

This particular condition isn't really the point though. Is anybody honestly going to argue that there can be in principle no genetic basis that could cause different rates of particular mental and behavioural issues in different populations?

You are correct. And yes, people whose background is missing things/information will choose to disagree. Non carborundum illegitimi!!!

 

[fuelair]

As to alcoholism and genetics: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-h...-use-disorders/genetics-alcohol-use-disorders

 

[fuelair]

Racism, the idea that you can and should judge people based on their membership in real or imaginary biological-ethnic groups, is ignorant and stupid.

Quite and thoroughly correct!