Race 'Science'

[DanishDynamite]

[Claus]Evidence?[/Claus]

The Masai live in Kenya and northern Tanzania. The Pygmies live in central Africa, Congo for example.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Why don't they? Because they are different races or because they live on different continents? (According to Danes working in Greenland in the 1960s and 1970s, Eskimos had no problem whatsoever with 'racial' interbreeding, by the way.)

Because they live on different continents.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Why don't they? Because they are different races or because they live on different continents? (According to Danes working in Greenland in the 1960s and 1970s, Eskimos had no problem whatsoever with 'racial' interbreeding, by the way.)

Wasn't there a wee problem with disproportionate genital sizes? After all, as Rushton has shown, the higher IQ race males have teeny weenies.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Yes, that's how five-year-olds usually handle the problem.

? I must admit I don't know of many 5-year-olds who are in charge of international surveys.

 

[dann]

Because they live on different continents.

So did Danes and Eskimos/Inuits, usually. I lived in Denmark, my wife lived in Cuba. No problem!

? I must admit I don't know of many 5-year-olds who are in charge of international surveys.

That didn't seem to bother you when you used their alleged ability to distinguish between 'races' as an argument.

 

[DanishDynamite]

"Simple" is the operative word here. Simplistic is another.

Jeff, I really don't understand your negativity. Are you honestly saying you cannot accept the fact that people from the Japanese Islands generally look a certain way, which is different from how people from, for example Iceland, look? Or that a Pygmy looks different from a Masai?

This diversification due to geographical isolation, is pure Darwin, dude!

 

[Jeff Corey]

The Masai live in Kenya and northern Tanzania. The Pygmies live in central Africa, Congo for example.

So they never get to visit?
Schtupping is out of the question? It's not like a Great Dane and Chihuahua, where manual aids or, maybe a stepladder need be involved. People are funny that way.

 

[DanishDynamite]

So did Danes and Eskimos/Inuits, usually. I lived in Denmark, my wife lived in Cuba. No problem!

No problem what?

That didn't seem to bother you when you used their alleged ability to distinguish between 'races' as an argument.

It obviously doesn't.

Sorry, what is your point?

 

[dann]

Wasn't there a wee problem with disproportionate genital sizes? After all, as Rushton has shown, the higher IQ race males have teeny weenies.

I know nothing about average Inuit penis size (I don't even know about average Danish penis size), nor do I know anything about IQ tests of Greenlanders. I guess Danish racism (usually) doesn't work along those lines, but I don't know.

 

[DanishDynamite]

So they never get to visit?
Schtupping is out of the question? It's not like a Great Dane and Chihuahua, where manual aids or, maybe a stepladder need be involved. People are funny that way.

Nope, they didn't. Not until modern means of mass transport.

 

[dann]

So they never get to visit?
Schtupping is out of the question? It's not like a Great Dane and Chihuahua, where manual aids or, maybe a stepladder need be involved. People are funny that way.

Now, I am the one requiring proof, Jeff! Preferably photos!

 

[Jeff Corey]

Jeff, I really don't understand your negativity. Are you honestly saying you cannot accept the fact that people from the Japanese Islands generally look a certain way, which is different from how people from, for example Iceland, look? Or that a Pygmy looks different from a Masai?

This diversification due to geographical isolation, is pure Darwin, dude!

Dude, I am not negative at all. I am positive that science has advanced greatly since the times that the Europeans and their get had scientists proclaiming that:
Different races were closer to monkeys.
Mongolian idiots were throwbacks to the inferior Mongol race.
Women, since they had smaller brains than men, should stay in the kitchen and not vote.

And your pure Darwinism is closer to Social Darwinism than modern science.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Dude, I am not negative at all. I am positive that science has advanced greatly since the times that the Europeans and their get had scientists proclaiming that:
Different races were closer to monkeys.
Mongolian idiots were throwbacks to the inferior Mongol race.
Women, since they had smaller brains than men, should stay in the kitchen and not vote.

And your pure Darwinism is closer to Social Darwinism than modern science.

As I suspected, you cannot differentiate between the concepts of race and racism.

 

[dann]

I think he can!

 

[DanishDynamite]

I think he can!

Then kindly explain in what way.

 

[athon]

As I posted earlier:

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36...ll/ng1435.html



I agree, "genetic category" doesn't get much use, but the differences are real and in the genotype.

Again, maybe you missed my last post in response to yours, but you've missed the point. Looking at morphology and making a distinction based on that, and then seeking the genes corresponding to the morphological distinctions you've established, does not make it a genetic categorisation any more than stating that colour is a function of wavelength rather than a function of the way our eyes and brains work.

Athon

 

[athon]

I seem bent on arguing that subspecies are genetically determined? Where, oh where, have I made this argument here?

I wasn't accusing you of it, but rather asking if you were making that claim. Since you're not, I have no beef.

If "the advent of genetics" manages to redefine a Boxer as a Great Dane or a Masai as an Eskimo, it is time to head for the hills as the End is Near.

I'll go one more time - race is the result of our biased minds seeking categories based on gross morphology over any other phenotype. Genetically, gross morphology is accounted for by only the fewest genes. We see great differences because that's what we are forced to recognize by our selective brains. Hence within racial groups there is greater genetic variation than between them - we simply don't readily recognize these differences.

And here I thought my sheep analogy would clear this up. Poor sheep.

I agree, with reservations. Saying it is not a genetic category is correct, but dilutes the fact of the morphology.

I'm glad we're at least on the same page.

Morphology is significant to us only because we're visual creatures. Genetically it's the tiniest of differences - a single matrix consisting of alleles of only several genes might create drastic morphological variations. However a cluster of genes in a larger matrix might be prominent in variations of immunity across a number of populations. We'd not discern them as different races based on it, though, while we would if it was morphologically evident.

Hence morphology is not a very efficient way of comparing populations or relatedness.

Athon

 

[latent aaaack]

We agree and it is a matter of terminology. Yes, the two island populations should be considered different races as should similarly genetically different sub-saharan African populations. But "ancestral population group" in this context takes into consideration genetic difference, time/distance spent apart from other populations, and environments they adapted to (most obviously UV radiation).

But none of this counters the data that bpesta22 cited that started the arguement.

For one thing, the racist arguement that needs to be rebutted is that different races have different intelligence and behavioral traits because of the environments they were ancestrally in. Using examples of genetically separated sub-saharan Africans and southern Indians doesn't counter this.

Compared to "whites" and north east Asians most "blacks" included in IQ related data are ancestrally from similar environments even south Indians, Watusis, and Masai. I don't see the racist arguement even trying to be rebutted here but rather ignored, which is a shame because they're rightly or wrongly gaining increasing proponents in academia and that's societally important.

...
The term "clade" is often used in biology, and I'll use it here in a rather loose sense. A "clade" is any individual (more likely, small group) and his/her descendants. A ship is wrecked on a deserted island, and five hundred years later, everyone on that island is descended from the ship's company and no one off that island is. Five thousand years later, there may well be enough genetic and morphological differences that we consider the islanders to be a separate race.

The problem comes when you have two ships, two companies, two wrecks, and two islands. Assume the two wrecks are 500 miles apart, and assume further that there is no contact or genetic exchange between the two groups post-shipwreck. Can we meaningfully group the two entirely independent groups of islanders together under one umbrella category, simply because their islands are within 500 miles of each other but not close to anything else?

Looking at "ancestral groups" doesn't help much, either. The two islands undoubtedly do share some "ancestry" in common -- perhaps both of the ships came from London and were carrying a crew of mostly English. But in this case, whatever "ancestral group" you lump the islanders into will also have to involve most of the population of London as well -- or else you're drawing an arbitrary and unsupported line. Either the islanders are "English" despite the obvious genetic differences, or they're a separate "race" -- but they're also separate from each other. What you cannot do is lump them together as one separate "Islander" race.

That's the situation we seem to have in Africa, in particular. The "black" race contains groups that are more genetically separated from each other than they are from the "white" race -- ...

 

[DanishDynamite]

I wasn't accusing you of it, but rather asking if you were making that claim. Since you're not, I have no beef.

Cool.

I'll go one more time - race is the result of our biased minds seeking categories based on gross morphology over any other phenotype.

Uh, no. Race, i.e. subspecies, is a categorization of a sub-group within a species which is distinct from other sub-groups in that species in some way.

Genetically, gross morphology is accounted for by only the fewest genes. We see great differences because that's what we are seeing. Hence within racial groups there is greater genetic variation than between them - we simply don't readily recognize these differences.

A point of no relevance as I have explained many times.

Sad that you made this post, athon, just when we had agreed to an understanding.

And here I thought my sheep analogy would clear this up. Poor sheep.

Your sheep analogy was as relevant as an analogy about a pigmentally challenged Masai.

I'm glad we're at least on the same page.

Me too.

Morphology is significant to us only because we're visual creatures. Genetically it's the tiniest of differences - a single matrix consisting of alleles of only several genes might create drastic morphological variations. However a cluster of genes in a larger matrix might be prominent in variations of immunity across a number of populations. We'd not discern them as different races based on it, though, while we would if it was morphologically evident.

Hence morphology is not a very efficient way of comparing populations or relatedness.

Athon

Morphology is important because it is the basis of taxonomy.

 

[Jeff Corey]

As I suspected, you cannot differentiate between the concepts of race and racism.[/QUOTE
I didn't expect that your English was so poor as to be unable to distinguish between the commonly used term "racism" and the more refined scientific definition that says there are no human races.
Maybe that'swhy I did not use the term racism.