Racism is baseless

[macdoc]

You use the correct term which is subpopulation of which there are hundreds for homo sapiens.

But have they never existed in the past?

If you followed the thread you'll see one anthropologist argue that Neanderthal and Denosovians qualify despite some caveats ( they did interbreed ) but as to current it only ever existed in the notions of imperialists and supremacists ( hey the Japanese and Koreans are a case in point ) so it wasn't just whitey.

Race as a meme needs tossing if only for it's corrosive nature.
It is of no use in modern science and a destructive force in society.

 

[Delvo]

The concept of "purity" in animal breeding is not based on the breed's genetic distinctness from other members of the species. It's based on humans' decision to exclude reproduction outside the breed. Thus, a new purebred line is purebred the instant it produces at least one new generation since its human managers declared their intention to maintain the line without outside interbreeding, regardless of whether there is any genetic distinction at all. (Those can come along later.)

As an argument against the reality of human races, bringing up the idea of "purity" is a straw herring because the word has never been used in a way that required a lack of mixing. It's an only minutely different flavor of the argument that pretends that human races were ever supposed to be species. If the race deniers' case is true, then why do none of them ever produce an argument for it that isn't a lie?

 

[macdoc]

You mean one that you don't choose to comprehend.

Perhaps you can explain why you are so enamoured of a meme that sits along side phrenology in discredited notions and is proven to be so societally damaging.

You are clinging to this like a stuck limpet that can't move on... Why?

 

[shuttlt]

In returning to the OP, I am not sure if the person being considered racist would argue that they are not racist and simply arguing natives have certain cultural traits that predispose them to certain negative behaviors. However, I am always deeply suspicious of this argument. People who will in one conversation state that Jews are cheap and love money. Then when pressed, they will make an argument that it is a Jewish cultural tradition to be cheap and that they are not racist because they understand this.

Wouldn't this being racist depend on Jews being cheap and loving money being false? It is the contention of the OP that the racist he describes is entirely correct and justified in the negative characteristics he attributes to the indigenous people. As a group they are uneducated, underemployed, poor and tend towards substance abuse. It's equivalent to the situation where one had actually demonstrated that the Jews were overwhelmingly cheap and money loving, said so, and was accused of being racist on the basis of the unexplained assumption that they viewed those negative characteristics as being genetic in origin.

The OPs definition of racism essentially agrees with your racists definition of racism.

 

[shuttlt]

You use the correct term which is subpopulation of which there are hundreds for homo sapiens.



If you followed the thread you'll see one anthropologist argue that Neanderthal and Denosovians qualify despite some caveats ( they did interbreed ) but as to current it only ever existed in the notions of imperialists and supremacists ( hey the Japanese and Koreans are a case in point ) so it wasn't just whitey.

Race as a meme needs tossing if only for it's corrosive nature.
It is of no use in modern science and a destructive force in society.

It sounds to me like you are arguing that some people mean "subpopulation" by "race" and you feel some other people mean something more like species, or perhaps a Biblical "kind" if they are coming from a religious angle. Is that correct?

 

[shuttlt]

The problem with defining race is the definition varies from culture to culture and from historical period. I have read articles on the concept of race over the years from the Journal of American History and some anthropological sources to support this. There is a fairly comprehensive article in the American History Oxford Research Encyclopedias on concepts of race in the United States throughout US history. Race in the US has been defined differently depending on the time period and region. Because it varies depending on the culture and and historical period, this implies the concept is cultural, social, and political and not scientific. This is not to say scientists have not tried to create scientific definitions and justifications for those definitions, it just means that there is no clear and succinct definition. Every definition I have seen is entirely dependent on either pseudo science from the 19th century or other cultural, political and social norms.

Most of the utility is cultural, political, and social... hence the boundaries and number of categories that are being used to talk about real differences varies with time. It would be the same if we merged the categories of chairs and stools over the next hundred years, or excluded three legged chairs from the category of chairs and invented a new word for them. Observing that the details of the categories are somewhat arbitrary, or culturally/temporary specific isn't an argument that they don't refer to real and valid distinctions.... which seems to me to be the argument that people want to make.

 

[lomiller]

http://physanth.org/about/position-statements/biological-aspects-race/



That pretty much fits with what I said. Everything is too much in flux today among humans for a race to be identified.

They specifically say race is not and cannot be considered equivalent to breeds in domesticated animals. This is the exact opposite of what you posted.

I mean race. It would be more equivalent to

Genus: Canis
Species: lupus
Subspecies: familiaris
Race/Breed: greyhound (or beagle, or german shepherd, etc.)

Key conclusion from the statement I linked

Such populations do not correspond to breeds of domestic animals

Again it literally says the exact opposite of what you suggested.

I'm curious about that. I've bolded today, because I agree with that. But have they never existed in the past? Animals obviously reproduce much faster than people, but I've read of "purebred" cows produced within a human lifetime in the 19th cenutry, which is what I've researched

No. See macdocs posts.

http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/denisovans-neandertals-human-races/

"So, let us accept Neandertals, Denisovans, and other so-called archaics as members of the human species, perhaps as a true sub-species or race. "

What they are allowing for is that Neandertals and Denisovans and other archaic may be legitimate subdivisions of the human species or that human populations from >50K – 100K years ago may constitute a distinctly separate subspecies. Eg Homo sapiens idaltu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu

For that matter, what are the qualifications for a German Shepherd or greyhound?

Here are the breed standards for the German Shepherd and Greyhound
https://www.germanshepherddog.com/about/german-shepherd-dogs/breed-standards/
http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/services/public/breed/standard.aspx?id=1019

In other words, unless there's a widely-agreed-on definition of how many isolated generations form a race, I doubt that one can say humans have or have never formed a race.

If one wants to prove that humans don't have races, then you set the parameters higher to prove that humans are an even mixture of traits.

There is no formal biological definition of race, period. None.
It exists in humans only in the most trivial sense that because it has no formal meaning people can interpret it any way they like and invent their own “races” based on their own interpretation of what “race” means. Obviously they can’t just substitute for well defined terms like “Species”, “subspecies or even “breed” as I showed above.

You may as well be trying to argue that nenuerhqe could mean anything therefore you can’t prove it doesn’t exist!

 

[lomiller]

It sounds to me like you are arguing that some people mean "subpopulation" by "race" and you feel some other people mean something more like species, or perhaps a Biblical "kind" if they are coming from a religious angle. Is that correct?

The reason why scientific papers avoid the term is that it's ill defined and therefor misleading because people think it means different things. What most anthropologists understand by it is "ethnic group" where people self identify with a specific group even though there is no set biological definition for that group. There can still be identifiable genetic markers for such cultural groups because people tend to reproduce with others of their own cultural and language and therefor are subject to some level of things like founder effect and genetic drift. Such groups arise and disappear on their own throughout history.

However since they have a term that means the same thing and is much more clearly understood they used the term that is clear instead of the one that is muddled.


People One these very forums I’ve seen people convinced “Race” is synonymous with :
Species (clearly wrong)
Sub-species (it isn’t)
Breed (it isn’t)
Something else below subspecies (you could use it that way, but only if you define what that something is)



I’ve seen others suggest that the traditionally defined racial groupings “are” or “could be” different sub-species and that the scientific community is wrong to say there is only one.

Still others, when presented with evidence that “black” isn’t a single distinct human group (in fact it’s more accurate to say the opposite) insist that “maybe there are other groupings that can be subspecies and we can call these races instead”

Both even go on to say that “maybe this explains differing economic success between people of African and European decent” even they were just shown that these groupings don’t make sense.

(the last is a common refrain from Libertarians and others who feel free markets are infallible when completely unregulated and left to their own devices. They have to choose “Race is meaningful” because the alternative is “free markets can fail” and they reject the latter. FWIW both suppositions are rejected by the mainstream of their respective fields. Mainstream economics says market failures are a real thing, mainstream biology and anthropology rejects historically defined biological race as a meaningful/useful concept.)

 

[seayakin]

Wouldn't this being racist depend on Jews being cheap and loving money being false? It is the contention of the OP that the racist he describes is entirely correct and justified in the negative characteristics he attributes to the indigenous people. As a group they are uneducated, underemployed, poor and tend towards substance abuse. It's equivalent to the situation where one had actually demonstrated that the Jews were overwhelmingly cheap and money loving, said so, and was accused of being racist on the basis of the unexplained assumption that they viewed those negative characteristics as being genetic in origin.

The OPs definition of racism essentially agrees with your racists definition of racism.

Some of this gets into more into the definition of racism and the characteristics of a racist.

OED Definition of Racism

Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior:
‘a programme to combat racism’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.1 The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races:
‘theories of racism’

OED Racist Definition

NOUN: A person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another:
‘I had a fear of being called a racist’

ADJECTIVE: Showing or feeling discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or believing that a particular race is superior to another:
‘we are investigating complaints about racist abuse at a newsagents’

The definitions used by the OED define racists and racism by the intent of the individual or the action of an individual (or group of individuals). Therefore, whether or not a set of traits is generally applicable to a population is not the question. It is understanding the intent of the individual. Now, I obviously cannot know the motivations of the individual accused of being a racist in the OP. However, regardless of whether or not the individuals comments about a set of behaviors are accurate or not, if the intent is to indicate that the Cree and other natives are inferior, then this is racist using the OED definition. (Personally, having worked with and lived around native peoples, I have seen my fair share of racist behavior with some of it being quite extreme from those of European descent.)

 

[macdoc]

Bigotry can cut both ways and also within cultural or ethnic groups. Look at the caste system in India. The supremacists want a biological basis....every time you mention race you proselytize their destructive meme.

Use the terms bigotry and bigots for those that discriminate on appearance or culture and subpopulations for biological differentiations, culture or ethnicity for socially derived demarkation lines.

Lose the the race meme....it's destructive.

 

[shuttlt]

The definitions used by the OED define racists and racism by the intent of the individual or the action of an individual (or group of individuals). Therefore, whether or not a set of traits is generally applicable to a population is not the question. It is understanding the intent of the individual. Now, I obviously cannot know the motivations of the individual accused of being a racist in the OP. However, regardless of whether or not the individuals comments about a set of behaviors are accurate or not, if the intent is to indicate that the Cree and other natives are inferior, then this is racist using the OED definition. (Personally, having worked with and lived around native peoples, I have seen my fair share of racist behavior with some of it being quite extreme from those of European descent.)

This seems to open up the possibility of a racist being factually correct in their racism, which blows the thread title out of the water.

 

[shuttlt]

The reason why scientific papers avoid the term is that it's ill defined and therefor misleading because people think it means different things.

A search on pubmed reveals it being used in 245122 abstracts.

What most anthropologists understand by it is "ethnic group" where people self identify with a specific group even though there is no set biological definition for that group. There can still be identifiable genetic markers for such cultural groups because people tend to reproduce with others of their own cultural and language and therefor are subject to some level of things like founder effect and genetic drift. Such groups arise and disappear on their own throughout history.

Anthropologists generally study human cultures. I am not surprised they are very much more focused on cultural groups than genetic groups. My knowledge of biological anthropology is pretty limited. I don't know whether the sub discipline mentioned in wikipedia on population genetics might be what we a talking about here. That is a sub-discipline of a sub-discipline, so I'm not surprised it isn't the focus of anthropology.

However since they have a term that means the same thing and is much more clearly understood they used the term that is clear instead of the one that is muddled.

It doesn't mean the same thing. The guy in the Jerk identifies as black, or African American, or what ever more specific racial group his adoptive parents are from. Culturally, he is correct. Racially he isn't. The two things aren't the same.

You then summarise some opinions which on the whole look incorrect to me.

 

[aleCcowaN]

aleCcowaN-

As long as you continue to use "race" in a way that it is clear that no one else in the threads is using our, you are equivocating--especially since the examples of allele frequency differences within the Basque ethnic group are not what define the Basque ethnic group.

No, you aren’t.

Yes I am, and I'm surprised about both of you saying the contrary. You both seem to think that race is a meaningless concept within anthropology yet when I use the term race to encompass the Basque peoples -there are several ethnic groups there- you don't find it a confirmation of your own position but a problem with my lexicon . It seems you just don't want to discuss it by understanding the way others think.

That shouldn't surprise me that much, as it's part of that Anglospheric treat I always criticize.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I wonder why posters here like to take my words and place them adjacently to theirs for inexplicable purposes.

The most likely reason appears to be you are not actually saying what you want to say. If you were trying to say something different I still don’t know what that would be, what you wrote however is wrong and looks to represent a fundamental misunderstanding of how humans adapt to their environment. Our adaptation to new/changing environments is primarily cultural, evolutionary adaptation happens at a MUCH slower pace.

That's not the case. I replied to you as simple as I could along the lines of genetic variability kept in reserve just to allow adaptation after many generations have passed. You said "NO" and then followed with a photograph of the genetic map of a species today. That was a huge non sequitur, because you could know where I was aiming to just by reading my previous messages.

It's sad, because in the AGW, I know you would agree with me instantly: a shockingly fast environmental change doesn't give time for genetic information to be hid in passive roles nor to be dug out in time, the same way wild populations can't move fast enough to the geographic zone where their right climate is now.

You, many, have simply told that a lot of much needed variability is the evidence of race-not and not what it really is. And that is one of my points.

In the end it all boils down to a lot of people playing here sheltered in reproductive isolation: it is obvious that if you let all dogs astray they'll **** the way instinct tell them and you'll have after a few generations some amalgamated kind of dog. Those are here medium size and yellowish hair, the best dogs I've had, but that's not evidence dog races don't exist.. The same with cows, the same with rice -which is a dangerous weed-, while other species, like wheat or lemon trees would go soon extinct. Humans have selected the wished qualities and created breeds and varieties and almost new species.

The same way, environmental and historic pressures have created human variabilities -where the term "race" falls- and there are humans that think those characteristics to be important and they want to cherish them. There's nothing wrong with it, and if any of you think the contrary let's start to discuss it and don't use "race" as an excuse because "race" is the flavour of the season and the new chosen battleground of the demon of political correctness.

 

[shuttlt]

It seems there was quite a bit of political infighting at the AAPA (American Association of Physical Anthropologists) in the mid 90's around the topic of race. There was a push to get a position statement agreed. Looking into that, I found some research on the opinions of physical anthropologists from the late 90's/early 2000's from Lieberman. In 1999 he found 181/365 physical anthropologists answered "yes" to the question "there are biological races within the species Homo Sapiens. 148/365 answered "No".

I found a description of this paper here:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q8PKv8xoPQEC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=aapa+%22statement+on+biological+aspects+of+race%22+rejected&source=bl&ots=W-zrIdUIb3&sig=D1n4TOLyaR96kg6p7Mpw6gYm7pw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiK8-L_5JzRAhVIM1AKHarjAdYQ6AEIMjAD#v=onepage&q=aapa%20%22statement%20on%20biological%20aspects%20of%20race%22%20rejected&f=false
I couldn't find the paper itself.

This is the follow up paper with some more detail on other questions:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.629.8479&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Based on this, it isn't at all clear to me that anthropologists are in agreement that the commonly understood concept of race is a biologically meaningless way of classification system. Have things changed so much in 15 years? Does somebody have similar evidence demonstrating that race being a meaningful term is in fact a fringe belief in physical anthropology?

 

[Delvo]

it isn't at all clear to me that anthropologists are in agreement that the commonly understood concept of race is a biologically meaningless way of classification system.

Just another of the race deniers' unbroken stream of lies. Claim to have everyone on your side, and they magically must be.

Have things changed so much in 15 years?

Yes. The race deniers have gotten pushier and more hostile and bombastic, and more proof that they are indisputably lying has accumulated.

 

[Hercules56]

Just another of the race deniers' unbroken stream of lies. Claim to have everyone on your side, and they magically must be.

Yes. The race deniers have gotten pushier and more hostile and bombastic, and more proof that they are indisputably lying has accumulated.

You do understand that the concept of the white, yellow, black race is purely a social construct and has very little basis in scientific reality, right?

 

[macdoc]

Apparently not since he has this entire library of links devoted to continuing this discredited meme ....one wonders what the basis of that devotion or perhaps addiction is.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Just another of the race deniers' unbroken stream of lies. Claim to have everyone on your side, and they magically must be.

Who is in denial, when all you do here is toss out a graph that names no differences of anything other than superficial import, and maybe some late-breaking news, like lactose tolerance? Great deepity! Now, how in the dickens is that at all related to sociopolitical issues, such as the racism that continues to factually create an uneven playing field? Remember, the real phenom of CV rejection rates - in the 21st century - is out there with its hard data, waiting for deniers of racism to deal with.

 

[shuttlt]

Who is in denial, when all you do here is toss out a graph that names no differences of anything other than superficial import, and maybe some late-breaking news, like lactose tolerance? Great deepity!

Why do the differences have to be any greater than is being claimed here for the concept of race to have validity?

Now, how in the dickens is that at all related to sociopolitical issues, such as the racism that continues to factually create an uneven playing field? Remember, the real phenom of CV rejection rates - in the 21st century - is out there with its hard data, waiting for deniers of racism to deal with.

Surely the two things are related in this thread by the argument that racism is baseless because there is no such thing as race being presented repeatedly?