Race 'Science'

[Kotatsu]

I'm not sure where I said they were synonyms - phylogeny is a description of relatedness (a family tree, as such) while taxonomy is the system of nomenclature describing the groups. Not synonyms, but the fields are related.

Maybe you didn't, but I sort of got the impression you were at least treating them as more or less synonymous. Also, it was late and I'd just come home from boardgaming (which I sort of lost), and may not have been paying as much attention as I should have.

Morphology is slowly giving way to genetics in understanding phylogeny, and in some fields taxonomic reform has occured as a result. Admittedly, my main field was pathological microbiology, where molecular genetics was causing massive changes in how bacteria were classified.

In phylogeny, yes. I can't think of more than a handful of pure morphologically based phylogenies on the groups that interest me from the 2000s. However, once you've produced your phylogenetic tree and discovered that there is a need for taxonomic change, you would still need to use morphology to describe these new species. As I recall, even Hebert --- the main proponent of DNA barcoding --- even supported his contention (based on a COI phylogeny) that there were more butterflies of a certain group in Costa Rica on morphological differences in the caterpillars.

Also, when giving name to clades of higher ranks (which is also a common result in phylogenetic research), these are usually named after morphological or other non-genetic characters. I don't even know how a taxonomy that isn't based on morphology would look like in this case, but then again, I don't work with microorganisms.

Seriously? I've known of reclassification of wallaby sub-species in north Queensland which was done on genetic analysis alone. That was a few years ago now, admittedly, and it wasn't my field of work but rather a colleague I had worked with.

And this work was both taxonomic and entirely without morphology? Or was it phylogenetic and had implications for taxonomy?

Naturally, there are thousands of examples of molecular work which change the taxonomy in fundamental ways, like moving around genera between families or species among genera. However, these works cannot stand alone. If you find that a certain species previously placed in a certain genus should instead properly be placed in another one based on genetic sequencing, you would still have to --- if you wanted to do it properly --- study the morphology of this new set of species and come up with a new definition of what this genus consists of.

I'd find it odd that a species could be classified as distinct from other morphologically identical populations. However we're not talking about distinctions of species, but rather populations within a species.

Yeah, cryptic species are really bothersome. I have been (and am still) working with them a bit, in annelids, but a recurring theme is that even if we know that a certain complex consists of three genetically different species, we'd still have a thorough look at the morphology and see if they really are identical or not. Often, we can find differences in morphology which we'd never have looked for if we hadn't had the genetic data first. As an example, there is in press now a paper working on a common Tubificid, which is known to contain as many as six or seven genetically distinct cryptic species. This paper divided the genotypes into their respective groups and studied some aspects of the sperm ultrastructure and (I think) the glandularisation of the spermatheca, and found consistent morphological differences which corresponded to genetic groups. In a paper of my own (which is now undergoing some revision prior to resubmitting), we found three cryptic species within a common annelid, and while we have made no attempt to do a morphological study in that paper (and as I've moved on to other groups, I personally most likely never will), we have made some preliminary morpological observations sufficient to have a basis to separate the species on morphology alone. The same goes for all the recent studies of cryptic annelids (me and my former supervisor recently finished a review of this): if not morphological differences, then at least environmental, physiological or developmental ones. But the morphology is at least addressed, if only to say that they are morphologically identical concerning the established characters.

I will have to admit my field is no longer in pathology, but rather in science communication and education. So I'm always happy to defer to expertise from those in the field. However, unless there has been a large counter revolution to work I was familiar with last decade, genetic comparison can indeed be enough to bring into question whether taxonomic descriptions based solely on morphology (and significantly for bacteria, biochemistry) were accurate.

I don't dispute that. I just wouldn't call that a taxonomical work, but a phylogenetic one, which would have to be supplemented by a taxonomical work (a revision or so), and in that work, you'd either have to address morphology, or see your work being dismissed as largely useless. The people on the receiving end of taxonomic work will always want to be able to tell the creatures apart...

 

[Rrose Selavy]

Well let's take the word "caucasian" for example. I was always led to believe by it's general lay person use and in some emergency services descriptions that it meant something like "white", "European" or even "white North American/Canadian etc " - all vague tems that could be off the mark to the truth. Yet I was surprised to find it actually originally referred (correctly or not) to peoples who I would refer to, unscientifically, as Eastern European, eg mostly Georgia and Chechen (formerly Russia/Soviet Union).

I don't agree with wiki here (never infallable of course) that Caucausian , in the UK, is a term a used as above in the original sense, rather than for "looking white" or "european" , as in the States. I can't speak for the US but I don't think most people in the UK know the original sense in which it was used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

 

[athon]

Maybe you didn't, but I sort of got the impression you were at least treating them as more or less synonymous. Also, it was late and I'd just come home from boardgaming (which I sort of lost), and may not have been paying as much attention as I should have.

Kotatsu, thanks for your informative response. As I said before, I'm always willing to defer to somebody who is actually in the field of expertise, and while it's nice to see I'm not completely crazy, I'm more than happy to admit my explanations, and understanding on the topic, weren't as clear as they could be. While even in the light of your response I stand by my assertions that human 'races' aren't synonymous with sub-species, I appreciate being addressed on how I put some parts of it across.

Thanks mate.

Athon

 

[Kotatsu]

Kotatsu, thanks for your informative response. As I said before, I'm always willing to defer to somebody who is actually in the field of expertise, and while it's nice to see I'm not completely crazy, I'm more than happy to admit my explanations, and understanding on the topic, weren't as clear as they could be. While even in the light of your response I stand by my assertions that human 'races' aren't synonymous with sub-species, I appreciate being addressed on how I put some parts of it across.

Thanks mate.

No worries. And I agree with you. I don't know much about human evolution, but I believe the very existence of Neanderthals pretty much shoots the "human race = human sub-species" idea down.

I personally think that what is commonly called "races" among humans would, from a strict taxonomical point of view, would be more like what botanists call "variety" (1). That would, if I understand it correctly, denote a local form which show only slight and superficial differences from other varieties, due to local adaptations --- differences which are not necessarily taxonomically or phylogenetically informative. We don't use that for animals (but I think it is similar to the taxonomical use of "breed"), though.

Under most other circumstances, however, race is synonymous with sub-species.

---
(1) Inasmuch as it is meaningful to force these differences into a taxonomical system at all, that is.

 

[athon]

No worries. And I agree with you. I don't know much about human evolution, but I believe the very existence of Neanderthals pretty much shoots the "human race = human sub-species" idea down.

I personally think that what is commonly called "races" among humans would, from a strict taxonomical point of view, would be more like what botanists call "variety" (1). That would, if I understand it correctly, denote a local form which show only slight and superficial differences from other varieties, due to local adaptations --- differences which are not necessarily taxonomically or phylogenetically informative. We don't use that for animals (but I think it is similar to the taxonomical use of "breed"), though.

Under most other circumstances, however, race is synonymous with sub-species.

---
(1) Inasmuch as it is meaningful to force these differences into a taxonomical system at all, that is.

Nicely said. And 'variety' could well be a good analogy to use.

Athon

 

[Kotatsu]

Nicely said. And 'variety' could well be a good analogy to use.

Thank you.

Perhaps a passing botanist can correct me, but I believe an example of what would be called a "variety" in taxonomic botany would be a local population which, for some reason, has acquired a double set of petals, but is otherwise identical to other regional populations. This seems suitable, but would be a zoo-taxonomical anomaly together with, perhaps, various domesticated animals which show the same degree of morphological differentiation despite comparative genetic homogeneity.

 

[Ysidro]

I'm still waiting for DD to admit all modern humans are the same subspecies and therefore race does not equal subspecies.

We'll work on getting him to admit race is a social construct later on. That'll take a bit more work.

I don't think I'm going to hold my breath though.

 

[bpesta22]

I'm still waiting for DD to admit all modern humans are the same subspecies and therefore race does not equal subspecies.

We'll work on getting him to admit race is a social construct later on. That'll take a bit more work.

I don't think I'm going to hold my breath though.

I don't like the word subspecies as it seems loaded and has precise meaning-- I reckon-- in genetics where I lack expertise.

But, I do think that race has a biological component beyond just determining skin color and other physical / appearance-like traits.

To me, saying that race is a purely social construct is naive. I was looking at the infant perception literature just the other day. IIRC, 3 month old babies distinguish faces on the basis of race. The authors argued this was a learned effect, but I'm skeptical (given the importance of face perception to human evolution, and to disorders like prosopagnosia, which suggest that the brain has a special area reserved just for processing faces).

I think the cognitive differences across races are quantitative versus qualitative (races dont process information differently; some just do it better on average than others) and tied to very specific / basic information processing ability (like speed of processing). I even think I (and others) have data that proves it. Showing that basic information processing completely mediates race differences on paper and pencil IQ tasks, I think, proves it.

My point is that by claiming that race is purely social, you don't get the skeptical highground, nor can you frame the argument with clout or arrogance (i.e., by dismissing those who argue otherwise as racist). It's not like the earned smugness that comes from an evolutionist debating a creationist. The problem here is that about 100 years of science exist on the topic, suggesting the a purely social account of the effects is just wrong.

 

[athon]

I don't like the word subspecies as it seems loaded and has precise meaning-- I reckon-- in genetics where I lack expertise.

But, I do think that race has a biological component beyond just determining skin color and other physical / appearance-like traits.

To me, saying that race is a purely social construct is naive. I was looking at the infant perception literature just the other day. IIRC, 3 month old babies distinguish faces on the basis of race. The authors argued this was a learned effect, but I'm skeptical (given the importance of face perception to human evolution, and to disorders like prosopagnosia, which suggest that the brain has a special area reserved just for processing faces).

I think the cognitive differences across races are quantitative versus qualitative (races dont process information differently; some just do it better on average than others) and tied to very specific / basic information processing ability (like speed of processing). I even think I (and others) have data that proves it. Showing that basic information processing completely mediates race differences on paper and pencil IQ tasks, I think, proves it.

My point is that by claiming that race is purely social, you don't get the skeptical highground, nor can you frame the argument with clout or arrogance (i.e., by dismissing those who argue otherwise as racist). It's not like the earned smugness that comes from an evolutionist debating a creationist. The problem here is that about 100 years of science exist on the topic, suggesting the a purely social account of the effects is just wrong.

But Pesta, it all starts with the premise that racial grouping is an actual biological phenomenom. Such studies commence with the morphological groupings, and then find within each group other characteristics which have some correlation. I'm not suggesting the results are useless, however to remain fixed on the belief that it supports race as an actual biological grouping is circular in the least and wrong at the worst.

If you use my sheep analogy before (hey, I'm getting good mileage from this flock), you take my 50 white and 50 black sheep and find a third characteristic, such as a blood group. You then find that there is a significant bias of that blood group towards black sheep. I don't see how this equates to 'black' morphology for the sheep being a significant racial group; however this is exacgtly what race-based investigation does.

As I said before, you're entitled to state that there is a negative correlation between individuals who qualify themselves as 'negro' and IQ. To take this any further, though, is risking assumptions that have no basis. First of all, not all people share the same definition of the racial groups (even here we're having difficulty). In Australia, for instance, you're entitled to call yourself Aboriginal if you feel you have an association with their culture. It's not genetic at all. Such a study as yours would be flawed from the outset here.

Secondly, if you're assuming a biological basis, you've already imposed a cut-off for where to assume the categorisation. Such of those from African American communities are representative of only certain parts of the total geography that members of the so-called negro race cover. It would be presumptive to state that such populations are representative of all negro populations. If you were to study beyond these groups, where would you draw the line as to who was biologically negro and who was of a neighbouring race? This is significant and could well influence the results.

By no means am I suggesting there is no difference in the cognitive functions between diverse populations. Far from it. I am concerned with understanding this with reference to traditional races.

Athon

 

[dann]

I was looking at the infant perception literature just the other day. IIRC, 3 month old babies distinguish faces on the basis of race.

And this is why they are usually able to tell any other face (the father's, for instance) apart from the mother's, right?

The authors argued this was a learned effect, but I'm skeptical (given the importance of face perception to human evolution, and to disorders like prosopagnosia, which suggest that the brain has a special area reserved just for processing faces).

So because the brain has a special area reserved just for processing faces, it now also has a special area reserved just for processing races! I know that the c and the f keys are very close to one another, but this is probably not a typing error!

(races dont process information differently; some just do it better on average than others)

Well, you have just given us a very good example of how you process information. Very .... differently!
Let me ask you a question and let's see how you process it: What do you think the baby recognizes: Its biological mother's face or the face of the adoptive mother who has been caring for it - even if the adoptive mother's alleged race is different from the baby's? Are we talking about a learned effect (as the authors argued: the baby recognizes the caregiver) or a congenital ability to recognize the biological mother - even if that mother never cared for the baby? In other words: Are babies congenital racists as you seem to think?

 

[dann]

The problem here is that about 100 years of flawed and biassed science exist on the topic, suggesting the a purely social account of the effects is just wrong.

(edited to add flawed and biassed, dann)

 

[CFLarsen]

I'm still waiting for DD to admit all modern humans are the same subspecies and therefore race does not equal subspecies.

We'll work on getting him to admit race is a social construct later on. That'll take a bit more work.

I don't think I'm going to hold my breath though.

It's Christmas Lunch season in Denmark.

 

[Kotatsu]

I'm still waiting for DD to admit all modern humans are the same subspecies and therefore race does not equal subspecies.

It does in all cases except for humans, though...

 

[Rrose Selavy]

I don't like the word subspecies as it seems loaded and has precise meaning-- I reckon-- in genetics where I lack expertise.

But, I do think that race has a biological component beyond just determining skin color and other physical / appearance-like traits.

To me, saying that race is a purely social construct is naive. I was looking at the infant perception literature just the other day. IIRC, 3 month old babies distinguish faces on the basis of race. The authors argued this was a learned effect, but I'm skeptical (given the importance of face perception to human evolution, and to disorders like prosopagnosia, which suggest that the brain has a special area reserved just for processing faces).



My point is that by claiming that race is purely social, you don't get the skeptical highground, nor can you frame the argument with clout or arrogance (i.e., by dismissing those who argue otherwise as racist). It's not like the earned smugness that comes from an evolutionist debating a creationist. The problem here is that about 100 years of science exist on the topic, suggesting the a purely social account of the effects is just wrong.

The conclusion that babies percieve "race" puts the cart before the horse. Firstly who defines race for the study? , the babies don't and neither I suspect, did the adult investigators involved. The study authors also imply it was "learnt" ie likely to be social/enviromental yet you dismiss it.

I have absolutely no problem with race being defined or the concept being explored scientifically - If it exists then so be it .But we have seen no coherent defintions/descriptions here .

Your skepticism surely should tell you that 100 years of "science" on the subject doesn't mean any phenonomena exists as believed. . Ghosts, UFOs, The loch ness monster etc have all been "scientificially" investigated . A history of investigation does not make a phenonomena real as originally perceived,

 

[bpesta22]

The conclusion that babies percieve "race" puts the cart before the horse. Firstly who defines race for the study? , the babies don't and neither I suspect, did the adult investigators involved. The study authors also imply it was "learnt" ie likely to be social/enviromental yet you dismiss it.

I have absolutely no problem with race being defined or the concept being explored scientifically - If it exists then so be it .But we have seen no coherent defintions/descriptions here .

Your skepticism surely should tell you that 100 years of "science" on the subject doesn't mean any phenonomena exists as believed. . Ghosts, UFOs, The loch ness monster etc have all been "scientificially" investigated . A history of investigation does not make a phenonomena real as originally perceived,

It's the 100 years of science that "skeptics" here wont even acknowledge, review, or weigh fairly that bothers me about debates on the jref. Dann's dismissal of 1000s of studies by 100s of different people just by editing my post and claiming it's flawed/biased illustrates my point.

What other area of inquiry lets skeptics do this ? I haven't seen it anywhere else (dismissing a whole field of science because it's biased and because, well, you say so).

I'm going to go back and re-read the infant face study, but for the moment, even though we can't agree on a definition of race here, is it possible that they used color of skin as a proxy for race? If so, I'm comfortable with the conclusion that babies process different colored faces differently.

 

[bpesta22]

I think t/o these debates, I've been willing to admit when I am wrong. I think now I was wrong about using infant differences in face perception to argue that race might be biological (doesn't disprove that race is biological; only that infant face / race perception differences seem best explained by non-bio factors)

Adults are sensitive to the physical differences that define ethnic groups. However, the age at which we become sensitive to ethnic differences is currently unclear. Our study aimed to clarify this by testing newborns and young infants for sensitivity to ethnicity using a visual preference (VP) paradigm. While newborn infants demonstrated no spontaneous preference for faces from either their own- or other-ethnic groups, 3-month-old infants demonstrated a significant preference for faces from their own-ethnic group. These results suggest that preferential selectivity based on ethnic differences is not present in the first days of life, but is learned within the first 3 months of life. The findings imply that adults' perceptions of ethnic differences are learned and derived from differences in exposure to own- versus other-race faces during early development. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2007 APA, all rights reserved) 28 references present. 28 references displayed.



So, I'm basing this on the science, which I just searched. You can call it: face/race differences in babies cannot be used to argue indirectly some biological component of race of which the ability to detect is inborn.

 

[Rrose Selavy]

The findings imply that adults' perceptions of ethnic differences are learned and derived from differences in exposure to own- versus other-race faces during early development.

They're making the assumption that ethnicity (however that might be defined,) is the same as race. But is it?

 

[jimtron]

It's the 100 years of science that "skeptics" here wont even acknowledge, review, or weigh fairly that bothers me about debates on the jref.

Just because something is studied for 100 years doesn't mean that there will be definitive, concrete answers. After a century of studying, has anyone come up with a scientific way to categorize all humans into unique races? In a nutshell, after all this research, what is the scientific definition of race?

 

[latent aaaack]

So your qualm is that data on IQ differences across races for example is unreliable because it uses "black" as a category when in fact one genetically different population group of blacks might have a score of 100 and another a score of 90 and another 80?

The main problem with that arguement is that most racist scientists believe the differences in genetically caused IQ differences are caused by environment and natural selection. The arguement is that alleles for increased intelligence became most prevalent in Europe and north east Asia because of natural selection pressures.

A study comparing a similar sized portion of Europe and another region which shows higher IQ scores in Europe isn't invalid just because there may be small populations caught in them that are genetically different and have a much different IQ than the average.

There's no arguement that conventional racial classifications reflect actual genetic lines and that there's no overlap and similarities.

But Pesta, it all starts with the premise that racial grouping is an actual biological phenomenom. Such studies commence with the morphological groupings, and then find within each group other characteristics which have some correlation. I'm not suggesting the results are useless, however to remain fixed on the belief that it supports race as an actual biological grouping is circular in the least and wrong at the worst.

If you use my sheep analogy before (hey, I'm getting good mileage from this flock), you take my 50 white and 50 black sheep and find a third characteristic, such as a blood group. You then find that there is a significant bias of that blood group towards black sheep. I don't see how this equates to 'black' morphology for the sheep being a significant racial group; however this is exacgtly what race-based investigation does.

As I said before, you're entitled to state that there is a negative correlation between individuals who qualify themselves as 'negro' and IQ. To take this any further, though, is risking assumptions that have no basis. First of all, not all people share the same definition of the racial groups (even here we're having difficulty). In Australia, for instance, you're entitled to call yourself Aboriginal if you feel you have an association with their culture. It's not genetic at all. Such a study as yours would be flawed from the outset here.

Secondly, if you're assuming a biological basis, you've already imposed a cut-off for where to assume the categorisation. Such of those from African American communities are representative of only certain parts of the total geography that members of the so-called negro race cover. It would be presumptive to state that such populations are representative of all negro populations. If you were to study beyond these groups, where would you draw the line as to who was biologically negro and who was of a neighbouring race? This is significant and could well influence the results.

By no means am I suggesting there is no difference in the cognitive functions between diverse populations. Far from it. I am concerned with understanding this with reference to traditional races.

Athon

 

[dann]

The main problem with that arguement is that most racist scientists believe the differences in genetically caused IQ differences are caused by environment and natural selection. The arguement is that alleles for increased intelligence became most prevalent in Europe and north east Asia because of natural selection pressures.

Yes, Denmark's own Helmuth Nyborg hypothesized that the superior IQ of European Jews (or maybe it was just Ashkenazi Jews (a very unfortunate suffix, in my opinion)) was the result of the "natural selection pressure" called Hitler. According to this hypothesis the smart Jews got the hell out of there in time ...
Social science usually says that since Jews weren't allowed to own land in many countries in Europe, they were prone to invest in education instead - and educated people, naturally, tend to have higher IQ's (see also: Flynn effect).
Exit Hitler ...