Race is a human/social construct.

This discussion leaves me with one pertinent question: why use the term race when population describes the meaning ascribed by the proponents of race much more clearly and without the need to distance themselves from racist theories?
 
Wuglife said:
It is not irrelevant.

"Sub-species" is a label given to organisms by humans, just like "species" and "genus". It is humans who decided to consider the Bengal tiger and Siberian tiger different subspecies, because they have differences--they do not have differences BECAUSE THEY ARE CONSIDERED SUBSPECIES. You are reversing the cause and effect.

If humans had not given them their labels, the tigers, with their differences, would still exist in objective reality.

I ask again. Do you agree that there are meaningful biological differences between the Siberian tiger and the Bengal tiger? The fact that they are considered separate sub-species is an example of the human species's attempt at classification, but whether they are or are not considered separate sub-species does not affect the morphological differences.
Click to expand...

I accept that there are probably meaningful biological differences between Bengal and Siberian Tigers BECAUSE they are recognized as different sub-species. Since human have no such sub-species I have no reason to accept that comparable differences exist between humans.

You seem to be making a non-sequitur argument to the effect that because we can different tigers into sub-species than similar differences must necessarily exist between humans, but not only is it non-sequitur it’s at odds with the evidence.
 
lomiller said:
I accept that there are probably meaningful biological differences between Bengal and Siberian Tigers BECAUSE they are recognized as different sub-species.
Click to expand...

The Bengal and Siberian tiger are recognized as different subspecies because of their differences.
 
Moss said:
This discussion leaves me with one pertinent question: why use the term race when population describes the meaning ascribed by the proponents of race much more clearly and without the need to distance themselves from racist theories?
Click to expand...

Because populations can include more than one race. Australia has population of people whose ancestors came recently from England, and other populations whose ancestors were there thousands of years ago.

I'm going to happily keep using schmagoogie.
 
Wuglife said:
The Bengal and Siberian tiger are recognized as different subspecies because of their differences.
Click to expand...

and yet we don't have those recognized subspecies in the species Human. how come?
 
also not to forget is the fact, that Tigers have usually more offspring and more often than humans do. and thus have not to be separated that long to form a subspecies as it would be needed for humans.
 
lomiller said:
You seem to be making a non-sequitur argument to the effect that because we can different tigers into sub-species than similar differences must necessarily exist between humans, but not only is it non-sequitur it’s at odds with the evidence.
Click to expand...

Strawman.

There are obvious biological differences between the Bengal and Siberian tiger. Whether they are or are not considered different subspecies by humans does not affect this aspect of objective reality.

There are obvious biological differences between an Australian aborigine and a Swede. Whether these are or are not considered different subspecies by humans does not affect this aspect of objective reality.
 
DC said:
and yet we don't have those recognized subspecies in the species Human. how come?
Click to expand...

There could be multiple reasons for this.

Regardless, at one point there was no recognized subspecies between these two tigers. That does not change the fact that in objective reality, they were biologically different.
 
DC said:
also not to forget is the fact, that Tigers have usually more offspring and more often than humans do. and thus have not to be separated that long to form a subspecies as it would be needed for humans.
Click to expand...

Compared to humans, tigers really, really suck at successful reproduction.
 
Wuglife said:
Strawman.

There are obvious biological differences between the Bengal and Siberian tiger. Whether they are or are not considered different subspecies by humans does not affect this aspect of objective reality.

There are obvious biological differences between an Australian aborigine and a Swede. Whether these are or are not considered different subspecies by humans does not affect this aspect of objective reality.
Click to expand...

Nobody denies that there are differences between humans, the debate is if those differences are enough to put them into different subspecies.
 
DC said:
Nobody denies that there are differences between humans, the debate is if those differences are enough to put them into different subspecies.
Click to expand...

Actually, people DO deny that there are objective biological differences between human schmagoogies.
 
Wuglife said:
Compared to humans, tigers really, really suck at successful reproduction.
Click to expand...

in recent years, yes sure. some are already extinct others are in danger of following.
seems like they are loosing the competition for space against another species.

also they are pretty small populations meanwhile which leads to problems too.
 
Also, the idea of "because the human species has not been formally grouped into subspecies, differences between ancestral groups that are on a comparable level to those between ancestral groups of other species that are considered subspecies do not exist" is an argument from ignorance--a fallacy.
 
Wuglife said:
It's what I now (not being a Nazi) use to refer to race, because "race" to some has associations with Nazi-type ideals of superiority or inferiority. :)
Click to expand...

ah ok lol, well i don't heave a problem with words. i grew up using a now considered racist word for black Africans. I learned it and used it in a non racist way.

but i think nobody is denying that a black person is different from a white person in regard of skin color and maybe also other features. the debate is if it is difference enough to grant the creation of human subspecies.
 
Wuglife said:
Australian aborigines were isolated from all other human populations for thousands and thousands of years. This is only one example.....
Click to expand...
And low and behold after all those years of isolation one still finds the genetic difference between any two A. Aboriginals to be the same % as the difference between any A. Aboriginal and a European settler now on that continent or an American Eskimo whose never left the North.

Here's an example of how new this genetic science is: This is from 2007: BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR - Human Genetic Variation
The unveiling of the human genome almost 7 years ago cast the first faint light on our complete genetic makeup. Since then, each new genome sequenced and each new individual studied has illuminated our genomic landscape in ever more detail. In 2007, researchers came to appreciate the extent to which our genomes differ from person to person and the implications of this variation for deciphering the genetics of complex diseases and personal traits.
Click to expand...

[sidenote] That means Mayr was 95 years old when the first full human genome was sequenced. [/sidenote]

...of the 3 billion DNA bases... There are an estimated 15 million places along our genomes where one base can differ from one person or population to the next.
Click to expand...
(Emphasis mine)

It turns out this average number of differences is consistent between two people from the same town, two people from the same continent and between two people from different continents.


The controversy summarized fairly well in Wiki:
Although the genetic differences among human groups are relatively small, these differences in certain genes such as duffy, ABCC11, SLC24A5, called ancestry-informative markers (AIMs) nevertheless can be used to reliably situate many individuals within broad, geographically based groupings. For example, computer analyses of hundreds of polymorphic loci sampled in globally distributed populations have revealed the existence of genetic clustering that roughly is associated with groups that historically have occupied large continental and subcontinental regions (Rosenberg et al. 2002; Bamshad et al. 2003).

Some commentators have argued that these patterns of variation provide a biological justification for the use of traditional racial categories. They argue that the continental clusterings correspond roughly with the division of human beings into sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans, Western Asians, Central Asians, Southern Asians and Northern Africans; Eastern Asians, Southeast Asians, Polynesians and Native Americans; and other inhabitants of Oceania (Melanesians, Micronesians & Australian Aborigines) (Risch et al. 2002). Other observers disagree, saying that the same data undercut traditional notions of racial groups (King and Motulsky 2002; Calafell 2003; Tishkoff and Kidd 2004[6]). They point out, for example, that major populations considered races or subgroups within races do not necessarily form their own clusters.

Furthermore, because human genetic variation is clinal, many individuals affiliate with two or more continental groups. Thus, the genetically based "biogeographical ancestry" assigned to any given person generally will be broadly distributed and will be accompanied by sizable uncertainties (Pfaff et al. 2004).

In many parts of the world, groups have mixed in such a way that many individuals have relatively recent ancestors from widely separated regions. Although genetic analyses of large numbers of loci can produce estimates of the percentage of a person's ancestors coming from various continental populations (Shriver et al. 2003; Bamshad et al. 2004), these estimates may assume a false distinctiveness of the parental populations, since human groups have exchanged mates from local to continental scales throughout history (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994; Hoerder 2002). Even with large numbers of markers, information for estimating admixture proportions of individuals or groups is limited, and estimates typically will have wide confidence intervals (Pfaff et al. 2004).
Click to expand...
I have highlighted the problem in that populations have not remained isolated, something biologists consider important in defining subspecies in every other animal species. Why except the human species?
Further exploring the arguments, again Wiki has a decent summary:
Kaplan therefore argues that seen in this way both Lewontin and Edwards are right in their arguments. He concludes that while racial groups are characterized by different allele frequencies, this does not mean that racial classification is a natural taxonomy of the human species, because multiple other genetic patterns can be found in human populations that crosscut racial distinctions. In this view racial groupings are social constructions that also have biological reality which is largely an artefact of how the category has been constructed.
Click to expand...

It's not that race divisions do not exist. It's not that there are not genetic sequences that go along with most of our appearance traits. The issue is, are these natural biological divisions such as are typically determined in biology by ISOLATION AND GENETIC DRIFT, or are they simply arbitrary genetically determined categories that are useful but don't define subspecies as the term is used in standard biological taxonomies?

Population groups within the human species (or subspecies as lomiller points out) have just not been isolated in the way biologists consider necessary to divide the groups up into distinct genetic populations. It all comes down to isolation and consistency addressing the human species the same way biologists address other species.
 
DC said:
ah ok lol, well i don't heave a problem with words. i grew up using a now considered racist word for black Africans. I learned it and used it in a non racist way.

but i think nobody is denying that a black person is different from a white person in regard of skin color and maybe also other features. the debate is if it is difference enough to grant the creation of human subspecies.
Click to expand...

Some people deny that there are objective biological differences between schmagoogies (some people do have a problem with the word "race"). Whether the difference is sufficient to label varying human schmagoogies as different subspecies is secondary to this discussion, and is inherently somewhat subjective. There are contentions among scientists already as to whether groups of other organisms constitute subspecies or not, and that matter is not even plagued by sociological controversy.

Also,

Another fallacy used in this thread is the whole subspecies thing distilled basically to this line of circular reasoning:

"There are no objective differences between human schmagoogies because human schmagoogies are not classified as subspecies. Human schmagoogies are not classified as subspecies, therefore there are no objective differences between human schmagoogies".

This to me appears to be the crux of lomiller's argument.
 
Wuglife said:
Strawman.

[snip]

There are obvious biological differences between an Australian aborigine and a Swede. Whether these are or are not considered different subspecies by humans does not affect this aspect of objective reality.
Click to expand...
Yes, you are posting a straw man. ;)

No one is arguing there is not a biological basis for peoples' appearance.

Why not claim blood groups constitute racial divisions rather than appearance?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom