Racism is baseless

[Darwin123]

There are great genetic benefits to hybrid vigorish heritages, Although I don't think that's why
My ancestors played around with Neanderthal's.

Speaking as a Cro-magnon, I have to say that Neanderthal women make the best wives. A Cr-magnon male can lay with A Neanderthal woman dozens of times without making them pregnant. So less female infanticide is necessary. They have extra strong teeth, useful for softening leather and cracking nuts. They don't talk as much as Cro-magnon women, though they do wave their hands around a great deal. They stand up to cold weather better than Cro-magnons.

When they do get pregnant, their offspring are very tough. They resist diseases better, both Cro-magnon and Neanderthal.

The percentage of still births in a cross are slightly higher than the percentage of still births in a purebred line. However, who notices such things. The percentage of still births is high anyway.

Neanderthalls have lighter skins than Cro-magnon, maybe. We Cromagnons moved out of Africa later than the Neanderthal, so we have retained our equatorial adaptations. So this means Neanderthals, and their children, have fewer cases of scurvy (vitamin D deficiency). Very important in these Northern climates that we Cro-magnon moved into.

The Neanderthal women like Cro-magnon men because Cro-magnons don't suffer from vitamin B deficiency as much as Neanderthal. Sunlight destroys vitamin B. Vitamin B deficiency damages the nervous system. So it is true that Neanderthals generally aren't as sharp as Cro-magnon in their mountain homes. However, there is less sunlight in the valleys. So Neanderthal women get a little sharper when they have lived with us for some time. They get a little dangerous. More on that later.

You may find the economics interesting. We Cromagon, who live at the base of the mountains, regularly trade with Neanderthal who live at the top. This geographic division, based on climate preferences, minimizes the competition. However, the Neanderthals like use practice female infanticide. However, Cro-magnon like Neanderthal women.

So the Neanderthal often keep their female infants just to trade with us. We give them high tech spears and they give us Neanderthal women. Neither of us don't trade male offspring, though. We mostly euthanize the females of our own tribe.

So future generations may get the false impression that Cro-mangons wiped out the Neanderthal men and rapped the women. Nothing can be farther from the truth! The fact is only that the males are not traded. Female infanticide has enriched the mitochondrial DNA of the hybrids.

The main disadvantage is that Neanderthals have more upper body strength than Cromagnon. So it is rather hazardous to beat Neanderthal babes. We Cromagnons run faster than Neanderthal, though. The Neanderthal women get smarter. They pick up some of the high tech we Cro-magnon have.

So when we get a Neanderthal woman angry, we generally go hunting for a few days. However, we are welcomed back with great warmth.

The hybrids generally prefer to hand out in the middle altitudes of our mountain range. There is strangely less genetic variation among the hybrids than among either purebred group. Many recessive dominant exclusive to the purebred groups are hidden by the dominant alleles. Essentially, they all look like Michal Jackson. They sing like him too. Their top hit is 'Lets party like it is 100 KYA.'

I worry that the half breeds may replace both purebred groups. I guess that would be okay, except it favors Neanderthal genes. By Haldane's Law, they are more fertile crossing with their mothers than with their fathers. So a hybrid is more likely to have children with purebred Neanderthal mothers than purebred Cromagnon mothers. However, I I think there will always be a market for red heads. So Cromagnon with Neanderthal genes isn't THAT horrifying.

I recommend Neanderthal chicks for all your marital needs. I bought two, and I have never been sorry!

 

[shuttlt]

I live just east of the Man./Ont. border, so conditions here are basically the same.
The first time a black kid was in any school I was in was in High School. The only adult was the Latin teacher at the other high school in town.
I lived less than a mile from Cecelia Jaffrey Residential School and recall when one boy, Chanie Wenjack, ran away and was found dead of exposure a few days later. It was the first time I ever thought about it. I was 10 at the time.

This reminds me of the tales of Catholic schools and institutions in Ireland, which in turn got me thinking..... where I live, the nearest equivalent to the experience of the indigenous community would probably be Irish Travellers. There you have a group that is seen pretty negatively and has some of the same problems - 70% don't have a high school education for example. As I understand it, they also have a traditional way of life which from the 19th Century onwards has become increasingly untenable, or at least at odds with the expectations of everybody else. The thing is, I don't recall anybody claiming they are genetically incapable of living like the rest of the population, the whole difficulty is culture.

My point is:
1. Is the OP sure that the basis of the person in his story's feelings are some view of the genetic origins of poverty and lack of education? My experience has been much more of people caring about the symptoms and not really caring about whether the causes are cultural or genetic... or acknowledging the cultural issues. Speaking purely about myself, if a school had 30% of its intake from a community with the issues detailed in this thread, I would need a lot of fears allaying before sending my kids there. I'm not sure that I wouldn't be more troubled if I was convinced the cause for the lack of education, for example, was principally a cultural issue.

2. Would things be significantly better if the person in the OP had all the same negative views of indigenous people, but blamed culture and history? That is essentially the position of travellers in the UK.

 

[caveman1917]

The writer of your article has an agenda that might coincide with the bonobos but certainly does not coincide with chimps or hunter gatherers where warfare was endemic...both symbolic and real violence.

It seems to me that you're the one with an agenda. You just keep repeating your claim that early humans were like chimps, with "endemic warfare", "hierarchy", "territorial", ...

10,000-year-old massacre suggests hunter-gatherers went to war

Your point being? Just because some hunter-gatherers practiced warfare doesn't mean much. Besides, your own source even admits that this is an unusual and unexpected find: "The problem? Many anthropologists believe that prehistoric hunter-gatherers didn’t engage in the kind of systematic warfare on display at Nataruk, because they didn’t have land or stores of food to fight over."

The New Guinea highland tribes practiced cannibalism well into modern times.

And? We were talking about early hunter-gatherers, not post-neolithic agricultural societies.

We are closer to chimps in many ways than bonobos ( more is the pity ) as we are murderous and violent as opposed to bonobos who settle disputes sexually.

Argument by repetition?

This is a good over view.
http://hraf.yale.edu/ehc/summaries/hunter-gatherers

It also doesn't support your claims, on the contrary.

Bonobos are not genetically pre-disposed to violence, humans and chimps are.

Again, this is outright false.

 

[caveman1917]

Seriously, this entire logic of simply substituting chimps for early human hunter-gatherers is complete ********. Their social organization couldn't be more different.

 

[lomiller]

All I'm trying to show here is that if one is going to positively assert that there is no genetic component to particular population issue, then one has to at least make an argument.

This is a BS argument style. The burden of proof does not transfer to the other person just because you refuse to make positive assertions of your own. The bane of modern skepticism is that too many people think they can just be Waldorf and Statler sitting in the balcony commenting on everyone else without ever discussing things in a meaningful way.

Given everything we know about human genetics the burden of proof here is on the side of those claiming genetic components. The genetic differences between individuals is vastly larger than the genetic difference between human groups and all humans regardless of where their ancestors came from are capable of adopting any cultural and social behaviors. Even where genetic factors may legitimately play a role in social issues like susceptibility to alcoholism it’s unclear how much genetic predisposition and how comes from upbringing because people with that genetic disposition can and do avoid the problem if they grow up in different environments.

It is simply not reasonable to look at an individual and say they have social problem X because they are part of a group, nor is it reasonable to suspect a person of that social problem simply due to the group they are members of. This is true even where the grouping have some genetic basis, which generally they do not.

You should also recognise that looking at a groups predisposition to certain traits is inherently circular reasoning. The only true connection these traits have is that they are part of the collection of traits you are using to define that group to begin with. Yes this grouping occurs because those traits were more prominent in the small group of people that formed the groups common ancestors, but this is far from a perfect mapping and there is no causal link between having Cree (for example) facial features and a predisposition to alcoholim.

Lets take the example of the OP. There are indigenous people and non-indigenous people in Manitoba. I suspect the OP can tell which group somebody falls into with a high degree of accuracy by sight. Doubtless not with 100% accuracy, but having Googled it, I reckon I could do significantly better than chance at such a test.

Maybe from things like style of dress. In terms of facial features I kind of doubt it because that would imply an understanding of facial features that most people don’t have. Swampy Cree and Ojibwa have different facial features, and there is differences in features inside each group based on what part of the province they came from. There are also Métis descending from each group and intermingling between the two.

In the absence of dress style or hair style most people probably don’t get much farther than “not European or African” and maybe not even that far in the case of Métis.

 

[lomiller]

My wife is part Cree, earning her a (apparently only Canadian term) designation of Metis. This only added to my outrage.

Métis is a little more involved than that, but it gets used as a fallback. True Métis descended from European fur traders who married Native women before the influx of European Settlers in the late 1800’s. By 1900 they had lived in distinctive communities for up to 200 years and were displaced from their lifestyles, often by force, in much the same way first nations cultures were with the influx of agriculture and industrialization. As such they have some special status afforded like subsistence hunting and fishing rights. There is also a tendency to use it as a catch all for people who likely should have full first nation status, but the genealogy doesn’t exist to get it or who don’t quite fit the rules.

I've googled around without too much success, so I wanna explore the science behind why racism is based on false premises.

Race is pretty much meaningless as a biological term, however Anthropologies generally accept it as something that can describe ethno-cultural groups. The social and economic problems of first nation’s people in Winnipeg and Manitoba generally mirror what you may see in black or Latino populations in some US cities. If you wander around some parts of downtown Winnipeg for a few hours there is a good chance you will be approached by a drunk native person asking for money.

Some people are sensitive to even discussing this or saying it will happen, but it is reality. IMO It doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t be considered racism to discuss this, but there can be and often is racism when you get into attribution. Suggesting this is just something that is inherent and to be expected first nations people is obviously racist. It gets more involved when get into the cultural aspects. Children growing up in a home where parents drink a lot and don’t work are likely to do the same when they grow up. Technically this is culture and occurs many first nation homes, but it is not something that was traditionally part of Cree or Ojibwe culture.

There is also a big poverty component, but much of this comes from non-participation in the economic systems that actually produce wealth. At least some of that falls at the feet of first nations leaders trying to maintain distinct cultural separation instead of trying to figure out how to adapt that culture into a larger economic an social framework. The overall situation is one where federal/provincial/local governments are blamed for the social issues, but can do little to address the underlying causes of those issues. We are probably looking at least one more lost generation before any real progress can happen.

 

[shuttlt]

This is a BS argument style. The burden of proof does not transfer to the other person just because you refuse to make positive assertions of your own. The bane of modern skepticism is that too many people think they can just be Waldorf and Statler sitting in the balcony commenting on everyone else without ever discussing things in a meaningful way.

The OP put a positive assertion into the thread title that "Racism was Baseless" and was looking for a general argument that would positively refute the racists racism. In as much as I have a positive position to defend, it is that I do not think such a general arguement exists. Hence my recommendation to the OP to argue that the the racist had no firm foundation for their belief in this case, rather than that they were explicitly wrong.

Given everything we know about human genetics the burden of proof here is on the side of those claiming genetic components. The genetic differences between individuals is vastly larger than the genetic difference between human groups and all humans regardless of where their ancestors came from are capable of adopting any cultural and social behaviors. Even where genetic factors may legitimately play a role in social issues like susceptibility to alcoholism it’s unclear how much genetic predisposition and how comes from upbringing because people with that genetic disposition can and do avoid the problem if they grow up in different environments.

I agree with you, however, I think it is a fools errand to positively assert that there is no genetic component in things, when one clearly doesn't know. All one is doing is demonstrating that one is arguing from a moral position rather than a rational one.

It is simply not reasonable to look at an individual and say they have social problem X because they are part of a group, nor is it reasonable to suspect a person of that social problem simply due to the group they are members of. This is true even where the grouping have some genetic basis, which generally they do not.

Something like 70% of adults didn't graduate high school. The problems with this group appear to impact the majority of the population. The OP has stated that having a negative view of the population is entirely justified, his issue is that he believes some people believe this is caused by genetics. In any case, the only specific example we have is somebody making a joke based on 30% of the school intake being from this community, so we aren't talking about individuals, and the details of the beliefs of the subject of the OP are unclear. You may be arguing something here that he already knows.

You should also recognise that looking at a groups predisposition to certain traits is inherently circular reasoning. The only true connection these traits have is that they are part of the collection of traits you are using to define that group to begin with. Yes this grouping occurs because those traits were more prominent in the small group of people that formed the groups common ancestors, but this is far from a perfect mapping and there is no causal link between having Cree (for example) facial features and a predisposition to alcoholim.

Obviously. Does anybody believe that the genes for skin colour, say are the same as those for alcohol tolerence? I guess it's possible, but it seems wildly unlikely. Equally, the same processes that mean genes for facial features are associated with different races is going to make some semi random collection of other features associated with them as well.

Maybe from things like style of dress. In terms of facial features I kind of doubt it because that would imply an understanding of facial features that most people don’t have. Swampy Cree and Ojibwa have different facial features, and there is differences in features inside each group based on what part of the province they came from. There are also Métis descending from each group and intermingling between the two.

I don't understand your point here. For one thing it isn't clear to me that the person in the OP was making such a differentiation. For another, there are many different ways of choosing the boundaries in any category system. The only point is that such genetic clustering exists, and it is often closely correlated to cultural groups. This seems uncontroversial to me.

In the absence of dress style or hair style most people probably don’t get much farther than “not European or African” and maybe not even that far in the case of Métis.

The point isn't whether I can tell a Cree from a Mexican. The point is that there is clearly and manifestly clustering of genetically caused traits in the population. It seemed to me when I made the point that that was being denied, which seemed to me to be bizarre.

I still don't understand why the OP believes the racist in the OP believes the issues with the indigenous population are principally genetic rather than cultural given that he clearly wasn't aware of it before the joke, and that information isn't in the account of the joke.

 

[shuttlt]

Race is pretty much meaningless as a biological term, however Anthropologies generally accept it as something that can describe ethno-cultural groups.

The issue I have with this is that it is a card that is often over played. There is clearly genetic clustering in these ethocultural groups, and it is not a practical task to tease any genetic causes from cultural causes in the overwhelming majority of cases. I'm much happier arguing that no racist has any reasonable basis for claiming that such and such situation has a genetic cause, than I am arguing that they are flat wrong.

The social and economic problems of first nation’s people in Winnipeg and Manitoba generally mirror what you may see in black or Latino populations in some US cities. If you wander around some parts of downtown Winnipeg for a few hours there is a good chance you will be approached by a drunk native person asking for money.

Some people are sensitive to even discussing this or saying it will happen, but it is reality. IMO It doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t be considered racism to discuss this, but there can be and often is racism when you get into attribution. Suggesting this is just something that is inherent and to be expected first nations people is obviously racist. It gets more involved when get into the cultural aspects. Children growing up in a home where parents drink a lot and don’t work are likely to do the same when they grow up. Technically this is culture and occurs many first nation homes, but it is not something that was traditionally part of Cree or Ojibwe culture.

There is also a big poverty component, but much of this comes from non-participation in the economic systems that actually produce wealth. At least some of that falls at the feet of first nations leaders trying to maintain distinct cultural separation instead of trying to figure out how to adapt that culture into a larger economic an social framework. The overall situation is one where federal/provincial/local governments are blamed for the social issues, but can do little to address the underlying causes of those issues. We are probably looking at least one more lost generation before any real progress can happen.

This all seems completely reasonable to me. I'm still not clear what the person in the OP did that was making a genetic rather than a cultural claim of the sort you just made.

 

[macdoc]

I'm just wondering what you read that in anyway has anything to do with what you just claimed...he doesn't mention genetics at all....

At breakfast Friday morning, a co-worker of mine made some 'joking' remark about how soon 1/3 of school children in Manitoba would be indigenous.
He said "we gotta find a way to thin that out". I called him a *********** racist. Then I asked him what part of my wife should be thinned out. He pulled a Trump-esque "just joking" but the damage was done.

So, to add a little context.

Manitoba Canada.

A large population of indigenous/aboriginal/first nations. I'm trying to use a non-offensive term. Basically Cree, Dene, Mowhawk, etc. What those in the states might call native-americans.

Those folks were hoarded into reservations by English and French colonists and generally treated rather poorly.
Add to that the mess of residential schools - basically we'll take your kids and "make them more white".

There is a disproportionate amount of crime, poverty and addiction among those of first nations descent, not too surprising when you consider their history.

My wife is part Cree, earning her a (apparently only Canadian term) designation of Metis. This only added to my outrage.

I've googled around without too much success, so I wanna explore the science behind why racism is based on false premises.
It is so easy for the uneducated to say, "you see so many drunk indians" "indians are all drunks".
I wanna be able to tell more of these folks to **** off, but in an intelligent well argued way.

 

[Dancing David]

Pretty much the same actually ....perhaps you should read a little further instead of trying to assert your view into the article.

The writer of your article has an agenda that might coincide with the bonobos but certainly does not coincide with chimps or hunter gatherers where warfare was endemic...both symbolic and real violence.

Symbolic violence is very different from actual warfare, when the new guinea tribes used to have 'war' they would bounce around, dance and shout at each other , the very few brave ones would run forward and toss a spear and get some tossed back at them. Considering the hundreds of people gathers often only a few were injured, compared to 'warfare' which came about with the rise of agriculture. Now most of the new guinea peoples practiced horticulture and limited agriculture, they were not actually H-G groups.

the evidence either way for H-G groups is very limited, there should be great caution made in making statements about them, often the stories we have are biased (like the Yanomamo) , or they are tales from agricultural societies that were engaged in active competition and frequent warfare with eh H-G societies.

There are only a limited number of historical accounts of actual H-G groups the Khoi-San, the northern groups similar to the Inuit , the 'Pygmies' and some of the plains tribes of north america. And they are influenced by the extreme environments where they were living, so they may be more peaceful than other wise

 

[shuttlt]

I'm just wondering what you read that in anyway has anything to do with what you just claimed...he doesn't mention genetics at all....

Is that directed at me?

In the OPs second post:

Thanks all. I think what I specifically find most objectionable is the "idea" that having a darker skin, higher cheekbones, broader torso, somehow means you are of a defective character. That being first nations means there is a genetic (and therefore irreparable) trait that makes you behave badly or at least substandardy.
And yes, I think this person, and frankly many in my city, wish there were less or ideally no first nations folks around.

That was 5 minutes after a post in which I was asking the OP to clarify the details of what he found problematic in the interaction. So, the main thing he finds objectionable is that he believes the racist in the OP attributes the cause of the indigenous peoples problems to genetics.

He then went on to answer some more questions of mine in which he explained that the racist in the OP was entirely correct and proportionate about his negative judgement of the indigenous people:

It is not disproportionate. The statistics are quite plain.
I understand and am firmly convinced this is due to social and environmental issues, not genetics.

Again, his issue is not that the man thinks that the indigenous population has all of these negative characteristics in stunning concentration (because they do), or that he made a joke about it, but that he believes the racist thinks the cause is genetics. Why he attributes this belief to him hasn't been made clear.

 

[The Sparrow]

Métis is a little more involved than that, but it gets used as a fallback. True Métis descended from European fur traders who married Native women before the influx of European Settlers in the late 1800’s. By 1900 they had lived in distinctive communities for up to 200 years and were displaced from their lifestyles, often by force, in much the same way first nations cultures were with the influx of agriculture and industrialization. As such they have some special status afforded like subsistence hunting and fishing rights. There is also a tendency to use it as a catch all for people who likely should have full first nation status, but the genealogy doesn’t exist to get it or who don’t quite fit the rules.



Race is pretty much meaningless as a biological term, however Anthropologies generally accept it as something that can describe ethno-cultural groups. The social and economic problems of first nation’s people in Winnipeg and Manitoba generally mirror what you may see in black or Latino populations in some US cities. If you wander around some parts of downtown Winnipeg for a few hours there is a good chance you will be approached by a drunk native person asking for money.

Some people are sensitive to even discussing this or saying it will happen, but it is reality. IMO It doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t be considered racism to discuss this, but there can be and often is racism when you get into attribution. Suggesting this is just something that is inherent and to be expected first nations people is obviously racist. It gets more involved when get into the cultural aspects. Children growing up in a home where parents drink a lot and don’t work are likely to do the same when they grow up. Technically this is culture and occurs many first nation homes, but it is not something that was traditionally part of Cree or Ojibwe culture.

There is also a big poverty component, but much of this comes from non-participation in the economic systems that actually produce wealth. At least some of that falls at the feet of first nations leaders trying to maintain distinct cultural separation instead of trying to figure out how to adapt that culture into a larger economic an social framework. The overall situation is one where federal/provincial/local governments are blamed for the social issues, but can do little to address the underlying causes of those issues. We are probably looking at least one more lost generation before any real progress can happen.

I appreciate the comments. This is the kind of thing I was looking for.

 

[macdoc]

Race is pretty much meaningless as a biological term, however Anthropologies generally accept it as something that can describe ethno-cultural groups.

Here is the major problem ...the minute you mention "race" you immediately imply a genetic component and the skin colour bigots jump all over it no matter how neutral the article might be.

By continuing a meme that has no basis in science you provide a soapbox for it. Regardless of "colloquial use"......it is damaging and using the term simply perpetuates the meme.

 

[shuttlt]

Here is the major problem ...the minute you mention "race" you immediately imply a genetic component and the skin colour bigots jump all over it no matter how neutral the article might be.

By continuing a meme that has to basis in science you provide a soapbox for it. Regardless of "colloquial use"......it is damaging and using the term simply perpetuates the meme.

But there is a genetic component to races, unless we are going to claim that skin colour for example isn't caused by genetics. The same effects that cause clustering of cultural traits cause clustering of genetic ones around the same groups of people. I'm onboard with a moral argument that this is unfortunate, often over emphasised and that for the most part such genetic clustering is probably pretty unimportant, but talking about race in this context is clearly talking about a real thing that exists in the world.

 

[lomiller]

The OP put a positive assertion into the thread title that "Racism was Baseless" and was looking for a general argument that would positively refute the racists racism. In as much as I have a positive position to defend, it is that I do not think such a general arguement exists. Hence my recommendation to the OP to argue that the the racist had no firm foundation for their belief in this case, rather than that they were explicitly wrong.

The OP stated an opinion, and a fairly uncontroversial one if you go strictly by the science. Race is an ill-defined concept that has no formal scientific meaning. It essentially means “a group of people whose membership you can define in any way you want”. It should be fairly obvious that such a group would be useless outside the specific purpose it was defined for.
You seem to want to take the opposite view without explicitly stating it for fear of being asked to provide a positive argument of your own to support the position you are taking.

I agree with you, however, I think it is a fools errand to positively assert that there is no genetic component in things, when one clearly doesn't know. All one is doing is demonstrating that one is arguing from a moral position rather than a rational one.

Strawman. No one has asserted that genetic clusters don’t mean anything at all. Wrt to race though, they are meaningful only in the trivial sense that you could define markers that have higher relative frequencies in some groups of people and call these groups “races” but it would be equally valid to call these groups “freds” because they exist below the level at which biological groups are formally defined so you can call them whatever you want. Calling them something other than “race” is much less confusing because race has baggage where people think they know what it means so most reputable scientists who deal in genetics avoid the term unless they are dealing with a case the more colloquial, mainly cultural, groupings apply.

Something like 70% of adults didn't graduate high school. The problems with this group appear to impact the majority of the population.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of individual alleles that each have a tiny impact on academic attainment. The distribution of most if not all of these isn’t mapped but with so many there is no reason to think they would be weighted towards or away any particular group. Furthermore well cultural and economic issues around academic attainment explain the results so no additional genetic explanation is required

Obviously. Does anybody believe that the genes for skin colour, say are the same as those for alcohol tolerence? I guess it's possible, but it seems wildly unlikely.

Correct, but this is what “genetic clustering” studies that attempt to establish a genetic basis for race are actually doing. They take unrelated marker genes (not even ones that are meaningful) and look at their frequency within a group to establish a set of otherwise unrelated markers that they believe define that group.
The problem is the group they have actually built doesn’t have any meaning beyond the markers they used to build it. The entire exercise isn’t much different than datamining stock market performance for correlations to things like the color of dress Vanna White wore that day.

I don't understand your point here.

What’s to understand? You suggested you could determine first nations people by appearance, and I explained why that’s unlikely outside of cultural aspects like style of dress.

 

[The Sparrow]

....
What’s to understand? You suggested you could determine first nations people by appearance, and I explained why that’s unlikely outside of cultural aspects like style of dress.

Well, that's interesting.

One generally can be fairly accurate when guessing that one is of Asian descent. Maybe not 100% accurate, but certainly more accurate than chance. Now if you would ask me to guess whether someone was Japanese, Korean, Laotion, etc, I'm sure my accuracy would plunge.

My wife is an interesting mix. Her skin tone is as caucasian as can be, but I do recognize some typically Cree features in her and her mother.

I would imagine though that I could do better than 'chance' in identifying first nations folks vs europeans if shown random photos.

But, as you correctly indicated, imagining cheekbones or skin colour could have a relationship with predisposition to alcohol addiction is kinda silly.

All that being said, and not to indulge in steering the thread away from its intent, I just don't hear my fellow city dwellers complaining about the poor, or the out of towners, or the french speakers, or the Irish. In fact, fairly recently my friends father in law, when challenged about his immigration resistance, and reminded that his Ukranian ancestors were also immigrants, he responded with "at least they were white".


I don't really understand the sidebar diversion that the racists I encounter are in fact concerned about 'culture' rather than 'genetics', and frankly there is most likely no answer I could give to satisfy it anyway. I've seen this for 50 years. But I'm sure the point won't be dropped.

 

[Dancing David]

The OP stated an opinion, and a fairly uncontroversial one if you go strictly by the science. Race is an ill-defined concept that has no formal scientific meaning. It essentially means “a group of people whose membership you can define in any way you want”. It should be fairly obvious that such a group would be useless outside the specific purpose it was defined for.

Truth and total agreement.

Race is just another pigeon hole for whatever stereotype people want to use, if they mean culture they should say culture, if they mean a society they should say society, if they mean some sub group they should say so. They should spell it out and stop hiding behind cultural convention. Especially when they use as the basis for discrimination, subjugation and warfare. There is always going to pretty much be more genetic variation within a group than between races. People with red hair are not a separate race from humans (including whatever crap people say about neanderthals). I am not a member of the the red haired race despite the fact that two of my grandparents had flaming red hair.

 

[shuttlt]

The OP stated an opinion, and a fairly uncontroversial one if you go strictly by the science.

People mean a lot of woolly things by such words. Many times people are accused of being racist, when it's clearly the ethnographic group that they have negative views on. I agree that racism in the sense being intended here is largely baseless, but the OP was looking for a good argument to support that and got told things like "there is no such thing as race", which struck me like a spectacularly poor way to convince anybody.

Race is an ill-defined concept that has no formal scientific meaning.

I generally agree. Clearly though it is useful when looking at genetic illnesses to focus on particular identifiable populations that exhibit a higher incidence of a genetic trait, say when prostatecanceruk.org says that "black men have a higher incidence of prostate cancer".

It essentially means “a group of people whose membership you can define in any way you want”

I wouldn't say that. Priests aren't a race, left handed people aren't a race, tennis players aren't a race, ginger people aren't a race, the superset of indiginous Manitobans and East Africans aren't a race, or are they? I've never heard them described that way in any serious way.

It should be fairly obvious that such a group would be useless outside the specific purpose it was defined for.

Isn't that a feature of all categorisation systems? We find a cluster of characteristics that for some purpose we find it useful to stick a label on.

You seem to want to take the opposite view without explicitly stating it for fear of being asked to provide a positive argument of your own to support the position you are taking.

Could you state the view that you think I hold? I promise to explicitly say to what extent you are correct (though possibly not limited to a yes/no).

Strawman. No one has asserted that genetic clusters don’t mean anything at all. Wrt to race though, they are meaningful only in the trivial sense that you could define markers that have higher relative frequencies in some groups of people and call these groups “races” but it would be equally valid to call these groups “freds” because they exist below the level at which biological groups are formally defined so you can call them whatever you want.

Yes, that is what is normally called race when one is talking about "issues of race". I really don't care about the label. I assume we are talking about the meaning the word is attached to rather than the word itself. We could implicitly assume that I am talking about "freds" from here on in and that the OP is talking about "fredism".

Calling them something other than “race” is much less confusing because race has baggage where people think they know what it means so most reputable scientists who deal in genetics avoid the term unless they are dealing with a case the more colloquial, mainly cultural, groupings apply.

Fine. I have no objection to this. They can do what ever is convenient and makes sense to them.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of individual alleles that each have a tiny impact on academic attainment. The distribution of most if not all of these isn’t mapped but with so many there is no reason to think they would be weighted towards or away any particular group. Furthermore well cultural and economic issues around academic attainment explain the results so no additional genetic explanation is required.

I'm not seeking a particular, or any, genetic explanation. I agree with you that there is no reason why they would be "weighted towards or away any particular group". What was being argued surely was that they were not weighted towards or away from any group? That's what one would need to be the case to be able to be able to support the assertions made up thread. My advice to the OP was much as yours. Argue that there is no convincing evidence that any genetic issues are at the root of this particular case, and stress the clear influence of culture and environment.

Correct, but this is what “genetic clustering” studies that attempt to establish a genetic basis for race are actually doing. They take unrelated marker genes (not even ones that are meaningful) and look at their frequency within a group to establish a set of otherwise unrelated markers that they believe define that group.
The problem is the group they have actually built doesn’t have any meaning beyond the markers they used to build it. The entire exercise isn’t much different than datamining stock market performance for correlations to things like the color of dress Vanna White wore that day.

I don't understand your argument. Surely there is a real and acknowledged process where long periods of genetic isolation lead to populations being genetically distinguishable from other populations. You seem to be arguing that genetic clusters are just artifacts of data mining?

What’s to understand? You suggested you could determine first nations people by appearance, and I explained why that’s unlikely outside of cultural aspects like style of dress.

I assume you have misunderstood what I was saying. I was responding to people who said in absolutist terms without qualification or explanation that there was no such thing as race. If you put a mixed sample of First Nations people and, say, people with Celtic ancestry in front of me I'm confident I could separate them into the correct groups better than chance. I was trying to illustrate why it was foolish to put the argument that there is "no such thing as race" to the racist in the OP. He can see perfectly well that there is. What the OP should do is argue that there is no strong reason to believe it is in and of itself very important to the question at hand.

 

[lomiller]

but the OP was looking for a good argument to support that and got told things like "there is no such thing as race", which struck me like a spectacularly poor way to convince anybody.

I think that’s more on you. The fact remains that race isn’t a meaningful word outside of some cultural contexts. From a biological perspective the historically defined “races” do not exist as meaningful biological groups.

Clearly though it is useful when looking at genetic illnesses to focus on particular identifiable populations that exhibit a higher incidence of a genetic trait, say when prostatecanceruk.org says that "black men have a higher incidence of prostate cancer".

Correlation vs causation. Allele frequency shares causal links with cultural development so it makes sense that you can find some correlation between the two and it often makes for a convenient shorthand to explain to someone they may be at higher risk. This doesn’t mean the biological group has any particular meaning beyond that.

If fact what’s really being looked at is allele frequency and that isn’t a group at all it’s a cline. In fact each individual allele radiates outward normally geographically, roughly centered around where it first occurred and happily crosses so called racial boundaries.

You should also consider how absurd it is to define “black” when further subdividing homo the modern human subspecies (homo sapiens sapiens). There is very little genetic diversity in our subspecies to begin with, but most of that is within Africa. All the “races” outside Africa came from a single African sub-population and therefore are more closely related to each other and that African or “black” sub-population they came from then many of the various African sub-populations are to each other. More sensible definition of race would have everyone outside Africa as one racial group and a bunch of racial groups within Africa, not the other way around.

ginger people aren't a race, the superset of indiginous Manitobans and East Africans aren't a race, or are they? I've never heard them described that way in any serious way.

They could be if that happened to be how you were carving up “races”. There is no formalized or standardized biological definition for race. This would confuse people because it conflicts with what they think race is and there really is no point or benefit only baggage so scientists generally don’t do it.
Caution is certainly advisable whenever you take a categorization system beyond it’s intended purpose, scope or the understanding that it was based on. Consider however the intent, purpose and knowledge of the people who defined what today are colloquially understood to be races. They had no knowledge of genetics or evolution and in many cases their primary intent was to define groups so that they could call their group better or more advanced than the others. Using “race” beyond this is just carrying along unhelpful baggage.

 

[macdoc]

Excellent. except I'd change "unhelpful" to "damaging" baggage