Race is a human/social construct.

[Zelenius]

http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar...r&ei=BskOULeZOMm80QWiw4HAAg&ved=0CEoQgAMoAjAA

The Taxonomic Sub-Committee of British Ornithologists Union Records Committee makes the follow recommendation:



I'm not sure if the "genetic" nature of the research was important to your argument as I haven't put any effort into following it. Hope this helps.

Very good! That is an interesting find, but I am not sure yet if it fits all my criteria. Will need to look into it further and maybe consult an ornithologist. Will need to know more about it's traditional classification. Thanks for taking the challenge seriously at least, I appreciate it.

 

[Delvo]

Woosh...

The only thing flying around here is your goal post. You've shifted it so far I can't even see it anymore: from that there's no such thing as races (which would have to mean the physical traits people have been observing for millennia have been some kind of mass hallucination), through some intermediate steps, to now some gibberish about "picking" one of the many ways people can be described in groups (such as race, height, age, handedness, and blood type) over the rest, which doesn't even make enough sense to be either accurate or inaccurate.

Pick one as in ARBITRARILY pick one.

Pick one (a way of grouping people) for what, though? Why? Is there something you're saying we're supposed to do with the one that gets "picked"? Is there some kind of prize? Will the one we "pick" be crowned King of the Grouping Methods? What does this "picking" craziness have to do with anything, anywhere, in any way, ever?

Or support your assertion it is not arbitrary.

Already done. Just a few groups of hundreds of genes (along with the physical traits that those genes cause) which stick together internally but are nearly mutually exclusive, and are each native to just particular a part of the world but not the rest, are not some arbitrary thing somebody made up. It's just the way reality actually is.

You hinted at geographical distribution. I showed one could just as easily ARBITRARILY pick blood groups using the same rationale, geographical distribution.

Which part of the world are the type A people from, which part are the type B people from, and which part are the type O people from? And even if there were a real answer to that, what effect would that have on the much larger groups of genes above?

With all the available human traits and covariance between these traits the possibilities are incredibly vast. With so many to chose from it seems unlikely that he could not find some that confirmed his presupposed notions of race.

Then why are there no other such groups of mutually correlated genes that don't? Answer: because your prediction is inaccurate; it is NOT possible to just find whatever correlation groups you want. You can only find the ones that are actually there, and those will be the result of real, actual, biological, ancestral groups. See post 136.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm your family doctor and you have high blood pressure. I'm trying to decide the best medicine to prescribe you. I note that you appear black, but this is a crude measure. A much more expensive test would better sort you in terms of which drug is best.

Should I:

1. run the expensive test
2. prescribe factoring in your race
3. ignore it entirely?

You're off topic, bpesta. The medical screening based on race has been answered more than once. It gives us no more useful information to resolve the thread question.

Answer this:

Say you only had the genome sequencing and you knew a little about populations but nothing whatsoever about what individuals looked like, and you made groupings of individuals based on the genomic data.

You imagine the groupings would correlate with races because you read that a researcher looking backward from appearance found correlating clusters of genetic sequences.

However, a biologist looking forward would start with the last common ancestors and work forward to create groups. And when you do that you don't get nearly as close in grouping populations. That is called following the evidence.

If you start with the conclusion and work backward, you end up making the evidence fit by ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your conclusion such as the non-correlating to race but correlating to geographic clustering of blood groups.

That's why in the scientific process one follows the evidence and one doesn't look to make the evidence fit the conclusion.

 

[bpesta22]

You're off topic, bpesta. The medical screening based on race has been answered more than once. It gives us no more useful information to resolve the thread question.

Answer this:

Say you only had the genome sequencing and you knew a little about populations but nothing whatsoever about what individuals looked like, and you made groupings of individuals based on the genomic data.

You imagine the groupings would correlate with races because you read that a researcher looking backward from appearance found correlating clusters of genetic sequences.

However, a biologist looking forward would start with the last common ancestors and work forward to create groups. And when you do that you don't get nearly as close in grouping populations. That is called following the evidence.

If you start with the conclusion and work backward, you end up making the evidence fit by ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your conclusion such as the non-correlating to race but correlating to geographic clustering of blood groups.

That's why in the scientific process one follows the evidence and one doesn't look to make the evidence fit the conclusion.

I tried understanding this, I honestly don't get it. Theory drives data; data drive theory, both are valid. That's all I got, though my feeling is data always trump theory.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... If so, it's a simple matter to test whether a race difference is explained more by the societal or genetic definitions.

You are ignoring the evidence that is already available and looking to prove an unsupported hypothesis that fits your confirmation bias.

...I'm trying to figure out what you mean by forward versus backward looking at the evidence (seems to me like the data are the data, no matter whether x was measured first or last relative to y). Will reply later if I have anything to add.

You are using a scientific fallacy.

If you start with the conclusion and work backward, you end up making the evidence fit by ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your conclusion such as the non-correlating to race but correlating to geographic clustering of blood groups.

That's why in the scientific process one follows the evidence and one doesn't look to make the evidence fit the conclusion.

Take the conclusion: race categories are an empirical (scientific) construct,

not the conclusion: race categories are a social (biologically arbitrary) construct.

Look for evidence that supports the empirical construct. You find evidence that one can find the gene for black skin (etc.). Does that support your hypothesis?

No, because you ignored all kinds of contradictory evidence that did not support the conclusion: race categories are an empirical (scientific) construct.

...It seems though you're imputing some type of bias to my thought process, and perhaps a motive. I've been interested in this topic for about 25 years. I will not achieve wood if indeed it's proven that race is genetically meaningful. I just find the vast majority of counters I've seen are either illusive or disingenuous.

That's not how confirmation bias works. It's more insidious and does not rely at all on motive.

...If you are not convinced by someone else's argument, is that always confirmation bias?

Of course not.

...We seem to be arguing now over whether the genetic basis is meaningful or arbitrary (versus that it exists). This seems like a much more subjective question (especially since I think the proposed experiment above can settle it).

This has been addressed. Arbitrary groupings are chosen by people. Empirical groupings are based on following the empirical genetic evidence.

You didn't clear your mind first. Try again:

Say you only had the genome sequencing and you knew a little about populations but nothing whatsoever about what individuals looked like, and you made groupings of individuals based on the genomic data. What would your groupings be?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I tried understanding this, I honestly don't get it. Theory drives data; data drive theory, both are valid. That's all I got, though my feeling is data always trump theory.

Maybe I can think of a different example to better show you the problem. After dinner.

 

[AlBell]

You are ignoring the evidence that is already available and looking to prove an unsupported hypothesis that fits your confirmation bias.


You are using a scientific fallacy.

If you start with the conclusion and work backward, you end up making the evidence fit by ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your conclusion such as the non-correlating to race but correlating to geographic clustering of blood groups.

That's why in the scientific process one follows the evidence and one doesn't look to make the evidence fit the conclusion.

Take the conclusion: race categories are an empirical (scientific) construct,

not the conclusion: race categories are a social (biologically arbitrary) construct.

Look for evidence that supports the empirical construct. You find evidence that one can find the gene for black skin (etc.). Does that support your hypothesis?

No, because you ignored all kinds of contradictory evidence that did not support the conclusion: race categories are an empirical (scientific) construct.



That's not how confirmation bias works. It's more insidious and does not rely at all on motive.

Of course not.

This has been addressed. Arbitrary groupings are chosen by people. Empirical groupings are based on following the empirical genetic evidence.

You didn't clear your mind first. Try again:

Say you only had the genome sequencing and you knew a little about populations but nothing whatsoever about what individuals looked like, and you made groupings of individuals based on the genomic data. What would your groupings be?

You seem to know the answer. Please tell us. Do you consider the bloodtype distribution 'the answer'? And why do we ignore what individuals look like?

ps. pesta, I suspect she's accusing you (and soon me too) of perpetuating racist, 'the white man's burden', mindset.

 

[mike3]

I tried understanding this, I honestly don't get it. Theory drives data; data drive theory, both are valid. That's all I got, though my feeling is data always trump theory.

It's NOT scientifically valid to cherry-pick evidence to fit theory, or to ignore evidence that doesn't fit with theory. It looks like that's what they're trying to say. And it is true.

 

[Delvo]

Say you only had the genome sequencing and you knew a little about populations but nothing whatsoever about what individuals looked like, and you made groupings of individuals based on the genomic data.

You imagine the groupings would correlate with races

Not imagination. There's no need to imagine what has actually been done, just look at the actual results instead of making stuff up. A search for correlations can't be guided to find only the correlations that somebody likes/wants/expects, but simply finds whatever correlations are actually there to be found. Confirmation bias is a trait of human minds, not computers doing math. And it's easy to get around by things called double-blind procedures (and in this case also by not even recording any description of the racial identities of the participants anyway).

a researcher looking backward from appearance... If you start with the conclusion and work backward, you end up making the evidence fit by ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your conclusion

Even if that were a mathematical or procedural possibility, you'd need to have something to back up that accusation other than the fact that you don't like the results. Without any indication of such egregious and massive (as well as conspiratorial) fraud, your accusation itself is what's really working backward from the desired conclusion here.

And your dancing, globetrotting goalpost strikes again here, too. Now you're back to the claim that there are no genetically identifiable differences between races, after having said nobody was making or defending that claim and the subject was actually something else.

However, a biologist looking forward would start with the last common ancestors and work forward to create groups.

And how would they find out anything about the last common ancestors? By looking at the genes of the living for large groups of correlated genes, which would reveal relatedness because because groups of traits get correlated like that by being inherited together from common ancestors.

It's exactly the same thing that's actually been done in the real world, and gotten results you don't like. At least not right now. You did admit it once before yourself, when saying that races were just large families, but that was when your goalpost was somewhere else, so at the time, you figured it was OK to admit the genetic reality of what races are... as long as you claimed the word somehow meant something else and insisted on substituting in some other word for exactly the same meaning (hilariously right after it was pointed out by someone else that race deniers tend to do exactly that). I can understand why you'd forget about that by now, though. Your goalpost's choreography can't be easy to keep track of.

the non-correlating to race but correlating to geographic clustering of blood groups.

So you've found out what part of the world the As are native to, what part the Bs are native to, and what part the Os are native to?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You seem to know the answer. Please tell us. Do you consider the bloodtype distribution 'the answer'? And why do we ignore what individuals look like?

The 'answer' to what?

ps. pesta, I suspect she's accusing you (and soon me too) of perpetuating racist, 'the white man's burden', mindset.

And you would be wrong.

I don't think the issue has crap to do with racists vs 'whoever'. Delvo certainly has a chip on his shoulder but that's not my issue at all.

I think it's a simple matter of people resisting change, a normal human flaw that perhaps is useful sometimes but not at all times.

History is rife with examples of resisted science: Galileo, plate tectonics, the expanding Universe, H-pylori as the cause of gastric ulcers, the germ theory of disease (see Dr Snow and the London cholera epidemic), and the importance of hand washing in medical care (see Dr Semmelweis).

Genetic science is a classic example of an entire body of scientific knowledge that has shaken up a number of established scientific 'facts' and historically people, including scientists, resist this kind of change in the knowledge base.

 

[bpesta22]

It's NOT scientifically valid to cherry-pick evidence to fit theory, or to ignore evidence that doesn't fit with theory. It looks like that's what they're trying to say. And it is true.

Theory driving data is not the school I align with. In fact, a colleague voted against me for tenure-- in part-- because I argued data should drive theory.

(I've never been concerned with designing experiments based a priori on what some theory predicted. I always thought: get interesting data first, and then see where it fits, theory-wise. I still believe that. My colleague thought it very non-scientific when I claimed that once we found some interesting data, we could retrofit the explanation to some theory in a way that let the contribution pass peer review).

So, I think the clustering *data are very interesting, and I wonder how they possibly fit the *theory that race is wholly social.

Conversely, and perhaps specific to the training I got in grad school, I don't think theory driving data is always or even often cherry picking.

 

[bpesta22]

The 'answer' to what?



Genetic science is a classic example of an entire body of scientific knowledge that has shaken up a number of established scientific 'facts' and historically people, including scientists, resist this kind of change in the knowledge base.

My area too is one that has shaken up a number of established facts [such that] scientists resist this kind of change in the knowledge base. So what? I suspect most people in an area will claim their area is special in this regard (just like I claimed above for my area!). What's the saying: currently accepted scientific principles exist not because scientists are rational, but because scientists holding the older view eventually die.

One thing I'll say about my academic career so far; I am a poop stirrer. I do achieve intellectual wood when I think my contributions / data contradict conventional wisdom. This is partly why I'm interested in the soundness of my current world view that race has some genetic utility. That it does not is the most sacred cow in science.

But, I'd rather facilitate change when the data support change, and resist it otherwise.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Theory driving data is not the school I align with. In fact, a colleague voted against me for tenure-- in part-- because I argued data should drive theory.

(I've never been concerned with designing experiments based a priori on what some theory predicted. I always thought: get interesting data first, and then see where it fits, theory-wise. I still believe that. My colleague thought it very non-scientific when I claimed that once we found some interesting data, we could retrofit the explanation to some theory in a way that let the contribution pass peer review).

So, I think the clustering *data are very interesting, and I wonder how they possibly fit the *theory that race is wholly social.

Conversely, and perhaps specific to the training I got in grad school, I don't think theory driving data is always or even often cherry picking.

You say this all the while ignoring the error in the scientific process you are making that has been clearly described here. You don't even address the error, you simply ignore it and go back to drawing the same flawed conclusion.

I'll repeat the error you are making to try to make it more clear but at this point I'm not convinced you are going to see the error:

In this specific case, you are starting with the conclusion that race exists and working backward. You end up making the evidence fit by ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your conclusion such as the non-correlating-to-race but correlating-to-geographic-clustering of blood groups.


Looking at the problem forward, rather than backward, say you only had the genome sequencing and you knew a little about populations but nothing whatsoever about what individuals looked like, and you made groupings of individuals based on the genomic data, what do you think the groups would look like?

You imagine the groupings would correlate with races because you read that a researcher looking backward from appearance found correlating clusters of genetic sequences. But biologists who look at the genomic sequences first do not divide the groups up into the social construct races, they divide them up into different genome sequence based groups that resulted from migration patterns, not from the natural selection pressures of latitude.

Natural selection pressures from latitude would result in subspecies, BUT the length of isolation needed to make those groups just has not been long enough.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
But, I'd rather facilitate change when the data support change, and resist it otherwise.

...all the while ignoring the GLARING error in the scientific process you are making ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your conclusion such as the non-correlating-to-race but correlating-to-geographic-clustering of blood groups..

 

[bpesta22]

I don't think I'm committing the errors you subscribe to me. But I need til tomorrow to think about what you said here.

I like you, SG, from your reasoned posts in the sexual harassment thread. But, I think you're too quick to dismiss my arguments here as clouded by bias. You have some privilege in this thread (read very sarcastic tone), as you know more more about genetics than I do. I therefore find your counters dismissive, sex based, and misterogynistic.

Yet, sometimes out of field perspectives can spark Kuhnian revolutions. More often than not, they're just ignorant musings, but I'm still trying here.

Unless tomorrow provides clarity, I don't see how working forward (backward) from theory (data) validates (invalidates) scientific conclusions.

 

[bpesta22]

...all the while ignoring the GLARING error in the scientific process you are making ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your conclusion such as the non-correlating-to-race but correlating-to-geographic-clustering of blood groups..

Apologies, but for reasons I mentioned above, I don't see the blood group argument as compelling. Perhaps we need to agree/disagree on this point?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Apologies, but for reasons I mentioned above, I don't see the blood group argument as compelling. Perhaps we need to agree/disagree on this point?...

Compelling or not, it is an error in scientific process to take data and make it fit a conclusion. The blood group is merely a single example. There have been other examples presented in this thread. You keep finding ways to dismiss the examples but you're missing the forest for the trees.

...Unless tomorrow provides clarity, I don't see how working forward (backward) from theory (data) validates (invalidates) scientific conclusions.

See if you can see the forest from the other side: Say you only had the genome sequencing and you knew a little about populations but nothing whatsoever about what individuals looked like, and you made groupings of individuals based on the genomic data, what do you think the groups would look like?

 

[This is The End]

I thought we agreed way back on page 2 to just replace discussions of "race" with discussions of "ethnicity"? That would presumably satisfy all sides.

Here are the wiki's of both:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group

to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(humans)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I thought we agreed way back on page 2 to just replace discussions of "race" with discussions of "ethnicity"? That would presumably satisfy all sides.

Here are the wiki's of both:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group

to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(humans)

Someone raised the thread from the dead.

 

[Croydon Bob]

I thought we agreed way back on page 2 to just replace discussions of "race" with discussions of "ethnicity"? That would presumably satisfy all sides.

But it doesn't satisfy one side. Some people here are determined to carry on using the word "race" despite it having no scientific meaning and lots of "racist" baggage. Then they complain that the other side is implying that they are racist, when it is their obsession with the worthless word "race" that is implying the racism.

It's like the loony on the CT boards who says everything is a Jewish conspiracy and then complains about being called a Nazi. There's no moral high ground in adopting an evidence-free position that you have in common with scumbag racists. If they are determined to keep using the word "race" then they need to explain why the word is so important to them when other words, such as "ethnicity", work just as well or better and without the apartheid and fascist overtones.