Aren't multiracial people superior?

[hapaXL]

I mean, just a little bit?

I fully understand that "race" is a social construction and that the notion of "purity" is ridiculous and that the genetic difference between the "races" is minimal. And I'm not talking about any arena other than health, so please understand that this isn't some controversial statement meant to provoke responses.

But if I am descended from the survivors of the diseases of Southern China (mother) AND Ireland (father), doesn't this give me some sort of immunity advantage over a "monoracial" person whose genes occupied a smaller geographical area? I AM considering the historical movement of people and the fact that the mixing of people has been constant, but that would seem to be a much more gradual and local exchange than the abrupt and continent-crossing one that took place between my parents one hot and heavy night in 1971 Los Angeles.

My knowledge of evolutionary biology is rudimentary, but if evolution favors mating with individuals of different populations, shouldn't an Asian/white coupling be a boon to the genes? With dogs, mutts live longer, right?

Feel free to answer honestly--I never get offended. Just don't bother to mention that we're all attractive people--pretty sure that's documented fact...(smiley face)

[Guinastasia]

Please. You're talking about eugenics, the idea of breeding the perfect race.
Don't go there.

BTW, I'm Irish/German/Polish/Slovak/Hungarian.

[Kyberneticist]

Trying to avoid eugenics, but an interesting theory brought up about the recently uncovered fact that Amerindians share a fairly recent common ancestor. Suggests that this resulted in a smaller gene pool which is why disease ripped through their populations like wildfire.

Granted, Diamond explains this as being due to the lack of domesticated animals.

[falcon2]

Well, I'm German/Irish/Cherokee, and I and all my brothers have spina bifida which I'm told is Ubiquitous in the Cherokee population. So obviously the defects don't get bred out magicly, and lots of them are dominant.

The Great One did an article somewhat on this subject, where he basicly concluded that breeding and evolution is only really effective for defects that result in the inability to produce numerous viable offspring.

[Nen]

Multiracial aren't superior. Yes, race is a social construct; moreover, it has no biological basis. Although individuals from Chinese and Irish ancestries will have different genotypes, the offspring of such individuals is not superior. Such an offspring is the result of gene flow. Gene flow actually lessens diversity within populations. Genetic diversity is precisely that which aids evolution. Consider the fact that nearly eighty percent of asians do not have the enzyme to digest lactase. Given your mother did not possess the gene and your father did, it is possible that you might or might not. Any given alleles in an offspring are arbitrary (although some do exhibit dominance over others). A multiracial individual may not be subject to certain ill ramifications from environmental conditions; however, the ability to produce viable offspring may be hampered under other environmental conditions from an evolutionary perspective.

[scratch1300]

Mongrel dogs are said to have "hybrid vigor". Is this correct, and if so, why not humans? Are we just all so spooked by that thing with Hitler that we can't talk about the subject?

[Guinastasia]

Dogs also lick their own nads-what's your point?

[lolagranola]

I have to admit, I do *feel* superior...

[Lamia]

I have often wondered myself whether people who have diverse ethnic backgrounds might not have better immune systems than people who do not.

I do know that almost all of the multi-ethnic people I have ever met have been better-than-average in the looks department -- I can only think of one who I would consider unnattractive. Of course, this probably says more about my personal preferences than anything else.

[Another County Heard From]

With a fair amount of trepidation, I offer the following facts and speculation:

1) HLA types vary widely in their prevalence in different ethnic groups.

2) HLA types act as templates for all the different antibody types a person will ever be able to make in their lifetime. So, it is conceivable (just) that mixing "libraries" from two disparate sources would create a more diverse composite library, and a stronger immune system. One advantage for mixed heritage individuals.

3) Auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, and most hypothyroidism are associated with certain HLA types, especially when an individual has two copies of the same HLA gene. Being homozygous for an at-risk HLA type is less likely when parents from different ethnic groups with different predominant HLA genes conceive, so the likelihood of auto-immune disease decreases. Advantage #2.

4) Certain recessive traits are common only in certain ethnic groups (Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews, sickle-cell disease in sub-Saharan Africans, cystic fibrosis and Hemophilia A in Europeans), so that individuals of mixed parentage would be at very low risk for inheriting 2 defective copies of the gene. Advantage #3.

5) If a person ever needs a transplant, the fact that they inherited HLA genes from parents of different ethnic groups could work against them, because they would be likely to have a rare combination of HLA antigens, making finding a match much more difficult. African-Americans and Vietnamese already have a harder time finding a good match because they have HLA antigens that are uncommon in the overall pool of US residents. This is why when an African-American child needs a bone marrow transplant, there will aften be huge drives to encourage African-Americans to undergo tissue-typing. If a person has one HLA antigen which is only common in the African-American population, and another which is only common in the Vietnamese-American population, the number of potential African-Vietnamese-American donors is miniscule. Disadvantage #1 (of 1).

I certainly hope no one would ever try to assert something as all-encompassing as "Multiracial people are superior" on this basis.

[Another County Heard From]

With a fair amount of trepidation, I offer the following facts and speculation:

1) HLA types vary widely in their prevalence in different ethnic groups.

2) HLA types act as templates for all the different antibody types a person will ever be able to make in their lifetime. So, it is conceivable (just) that mixing "libraries" from two disparate sources would create a more diverse composite library, and a stronger immune system. One advantage for mixed heritage individuals.

3) Auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, and most hypothyroidism are associated with certain HLA types, especially when an individual has two copies of the same HLA gene. Being homozygous for an at-risk HLA type is less likely when parents from different ethnic groups with different predominant HLA genes conceive, so the likelihood of auto-immune disease decreases. Advantage #2.

4) Certain recessive traits are common only in certain ethnic groups (Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews, sickle-cell disease in sub-Saharan Africans, cystic fibrosis and Hemophilia A in Europeans), so that individuals of mixed parentage would be at very low risk for inheriting 2 defective copies of the gene. Advantage #3.

5) If a person ever needs a transplant, the fact that they inherited HLA genes from parents of different ethnic groups could work against them, because they would be likely to have a rare combination of HLA antigens, making finding a match much more difficult. African-Americans and Vietnamese already have a harder time finding a good match because they have HLA antigens that are uncommon in the overall pool of US residents. This is why when an African-American child needs a bone marrow transplant, there will often be huge drives to encourage African-Americans to undergo tissue-typing. If a person has one HLA antigen which is only common in the African-American population, and another which is only common in the Vietnamese-American population, the number of potential African-Vietnamese-American donors is miniscule. Disadvantage #1 (of 1).

I certainly hope no one would ever try to assert something as all-encompassing as "Multiracial people are superior" on this basis.

[Another County Heard From]

With a fair amount of trepidation, I offer the following facts and speculation:

1) HLA types vary widely in their prevalence in different ethnic groups.

2) HLA types act as templates for all the different antibody types a person will ever be able to make in their lifetime. So, it is conceivable (just) that mixing "libraries" from two disparate sources would create a more diverse composite library, and a stronger immune system. One advantage for mixed heritage individuals.

3) Auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, and most hypothyroidism are associated with certain HLA types, especially when an individual has two copies of the same HLA gene. Being homozygous for an at-risk HLA type is less likely when parents from different ethnic groups with different predominant HLA genes conceive, so the likelihood of auto-immune disease decreases. Advantage #2.

4) Certain recessive traits are common only in certain ethnic groups (Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews, sickle-cell disease in sub-Saharan Africans, cystic fibrosis and Hemophilia A in Europeans), so that individuals of mixed parentage would be at very low risk for inheriting 2 defective copies of the gene. Advantage #3.

5) If a person ever needs a transplant, the fact that they inherited HLA genes from parents of different ethnic groups could work against them, because they would be likely to have a rare combination of HLA antigens, making finding a match much more difficult. African-Americans and Vietnamese already have a harder time finding a good match because they have HLA antigens that are uncommon in the overall pool of US residents. This is why when an African-American child needs a bone marrow transplant, there will often be huge drives to encourage African-Americans to undergo tissue-typing. If a person has one HLA antigen which is only common in the African-American population, and another which is only common in the Vietnamese-American population, the number of potential African-Vietnamese-American donors is miniscule. Disadvantage #1 (of 1).

I certainly hope no one would ever try to assert something as all-encompassing as "Multiracial people are superior" on this basis.

[scratch1300]

Uh...sorry, Another Country, I didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat?

[Another County Heard From]

With a fair amount of trepidation, I offer the following facts and speculation:

1) HLA types vary widely in their prevalence in different ethnic groups.

2) HLA types act as templates for all the different antibody types a person will ever be able to make in their lifetime. So, it is conceivable (just) that mixing "libraries" from two disparate sources would create a more diverse composite library, and a stronger immune system. One advantage for mixed heritage individuals.

3) Auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, and most hypothyroidism are associated with certain HLA types, especially when an individual has two copies of the same HLA gene. Being homozygous for an at-risk HLA type is less likely when parents from different ethnic groups with different predominant HLA genes conceive, so the likelihood of auto-immune disease decreases. Advantage #2.

4) Certain recessive traits are common only in certain ethnic groups (Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews, sickle-cell disease in sub-Saharan Africans, cystic fibrosis and Hemophilia A in Europeans), so that individuals of mixed parentage would be at very low risk for inheriting 2 defective copies of the gene. Advantage #3.

5) If a person ever needs a transplant, the fact that they inherited HLA genes from parents of different ethnic groups could work against them, because they would be likely to have a rare combination of HLA antigens, making finding a match much more difficult. African-Americans and Vietnamese already have a harder time finding a good match because they have HLA antigens that are uncommon in the overall pool of US residents. This is why when an African-American child needs a bone marrow transplant, there will often be huge drives to encourage African-Americans to undergo tissue-typing. If a person has one HLA antigen which is only common in the African-American population, and another which is only common in the Vietnamese-American population, the number of potential African-Vietnamese-American donors is miniscule. Disadvantage #1 (of 1).

I certainly hope no one would ever try to assert something as all-encompassing as "Multiracial people are superior" on this basis.

[scratch1300]

Thanks! ;)

[kunilou]

Ahem. MY children are superior, of course, but I think that's a different issue.

What you're thinking of is diseases like hemophilia, Tay-Sachs, sickle cell anemia, etc. which tend to become dominant in very specific ethnic groups.

However, if you're implying that somehow the offspring of, for example, Korean and English parents would have any specific genetic advantage over the offspring of English and Scandinavian parents who aren't related in any other way, I think that's leaping beyond what the study of genetics is currently prepared to assert.

[Another County Heard From]

Moderators: please delete some of my multiples. I kept getting messages back saying my browser couldn't connect with your server.

The short and simple version, scratch, is that inheriting a variety of HLA genes (more likely with mixed ancestry) is good for most purposes, but not so good if you were to ever need a transplant. Kind of like saying that if inbreeding is bad, then breeding between people with as diverse a genetic background as possible probably is good. But the good is of theoretical value only for the most part, once you exclude known recessive disorders from the equation.

A statement that a multi-racial background makes a person superior cannot be support by this kind of theoretical good.

Here's are some sites that explain about HLA types:
http://www.bmtinfo.org/bmt/topics/htm/type_b.htm
http://www.giftoflife.com/primer.htm

[manhattan]

Sorry, Another. We don't like to delete multiple posts that have been commented upon, for fear of making the thead confusing.

I'm really sorry you had that problem. The board was acting up today. It was completely not your fault -- it was ours. That said, I did get a good giggle out of the post after scratch's, even though I knew it wasn't intentional.

Great post, BTW.

[Derleth]

Well, I'm a genuine mongrel. Austrian/German/Norweigen/English/Scottish/French-Canadian at least. I'm not superior genetically, but that's never stopped me from being superior mentally :D. In answer to your question, no, not really. It matters more what specific genes your specific parents had, not what some 'mass median' for that group is. Race, after all, is not very well-defined. With all the cross-breeding, there are no standards to measure against.

[bibliophage]

There was an interesting study a few years ago that would suggest that bi-racial people have slightly higher IQ scores than would be predicted based on their parents' IQ scores. The benefit is only about 3 or 4 IQ points, IIRC. I think the study came out of Hawaii, and I don't know if it has been replicated.

[DrDoom]

Originally posted by bibliophage
There was an interesting study a few years ago that would suggest that bi-racial people have slightly higher IQ scores than would be predicted based on their parents' IQ scores. The benefit is only about 3 or 4 IQ points, IIRC. I think the study came out of Hawaii, and I don't know if it has been replicated.

May be we should consult with Dr. William Shockley on this?

[Doubleclick]

I don't think these 'special traits' have anything to do with race.

I'm Scottish as far back I can can research, (There is one part Irish in there) and longjevity [sp] runs in my family...not only long life, but healthy to. (My grand mother is 97 and healthy as a horse...Methusilas Children anyone? :) )

I rarely get ill (Cold and flu wise) and I do kinda look young for my age.

Now a lot of this may have something to do with diet, but my family on my fathers side didn't exacly grow up on the 'upper-crust' end of town and a they didn't always get the 'best food', so maybe genetics contributes to this somewhat, but who knows.

But I don't think things like this make someone 'superiour' over anotehr person.

MHO

[peace]

1. Define "superior". It looks to me it's not a biological category. The race IS, by definition, biological:a distinct group of people, the members of which share certain inherited physical characteristics and transmit them ...other meanings...(loosely) political, linguistic or nationalistic. [In my view, it can be used in political matters. There are only three major races - Caucasoid (White), Mongoloid (Yellow) and Negroid (Black). So, I do not think that "linguistic" or "nationalistic" definitions apply. But who am I to argue with the Webster? PC crowd, do not kill me, the colors are given only as historical guides, for ID purposes only.] Races existed before sociology was invented. As geology was invented after stones existed for billennia, in other words, politicians di not invent races, they objectively exist.
If parents come from very different genetic backgrounds, the progeny STATISTICALLY has a better chance to inherit genes, capable of "fightng" various diseases. Its also STATISTICALLY less likely that both parents would possess rare recessive genes. So, the progeny is less likely to have a rare inherited disease. If this makes one "superior", the answer is YES.
2. ACHFrom said more than once, why the race is biological. It becomes a sociological category only in federal ledgers.
3. If you do not believe me, talk to a dog breeder or an animal farmer. Yeah-yeah, I know that we are people and, therefore, superior ...ooops!.. to animals, but all genetics laws were studied in (lower) animals and even plants and the same laws apply to humans. Intellect does not cancel chromosomes, and biracial progeny inherits 50% of theirs from each parent race.
4. Eugenics is, roughly, animal breeding principles applied to humans. It is political, not a biological category. Is there a higher chance for beautiful parents to produce a beautiful child? YES, we see it every day. What about Nobel laureats? Perhaps, I heard that experiments are conducted in California. What about superior people?Define "superior" first.
P.S. I know it does not belong here: Moderators, this BB badly needs a font bar: I, for one, like to use bold, cursive or other features to emphisize things. The only way now is to CAPITALIZE. Some BB have font bars.

[Seraphim]

I'm of VERY mixed pedigree: English/Irish/Scottish/Danish/French-Canadian/German/Cherokee. I don't consider myself superior. Well, not out loud anyway.

[Collounsbury]

Originally posted by Another County Heard From [
4) Certain recessive traits are common only in certain ethnic groups (Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews, sickle-cell disease in sub-Saharan Africans, cystic fibrosis and Hemophilia A in Europeans), so that individuals of mixed parentage would be at very low risk for inheriting 2 defective copies of the gene. Advantage #3.


Tay-Sachs is prevalent among a sub-set of Ashkenazi, sickle-cell is found among various populations with historical exposure to Malaria including some but not all "black" sub-Saharan African groups, Mediterranean populations, and Indian sub-Continent populations.

On American Indian populations:

As far as I know recent evidence points toward a multiple waves of settelment theory from diverse sources, I do not believe that there is any evidence indicating a contstriction in population. Perhaps for some sub-group of American Indians, but not for all. Their lack of resistance to Old World diseases came simply from lack of exposure to diseases which jumped to Homo Sapiens after they left the Old World.

On Multi-Racial Superiority:

Well, given that most variation does not map ontu regional populations, you're not gaining too much but you do reduce your chances of expressing recessive traits --usually bad often indifferent though-- as compared with marrying someone very closely related to you.

On HLA:

Siince no group has exclusive claim to a trait, we're really only talking about odds of distribution. In fact in re the bone marrow, I put even money that the focus on same race donars is inefficient.

[Another County Heard From]

Collounsbury posts:
On HLA:

Siince no group has exclusive claim to a trait, we're really only talking about odds of distribution. In fact in re the bone marrow, I put even money that the focus on same race donars is inefficient.

From U Penn (http://health.upenn.edu/~bioethic/Museum/Degeus/Txp%20Web%20Page/HTML%20Pages/txprace5.html)
One of the difficulties in finding a compatible organ is the fact that HLA varies significantly from person to person, and also from race to race. Therefore, African-American transplant patients would be better matched to an organ coming from a donor of the same race. However, there are significantly less organs that become available from African-American donors as opposed to whites, giving African-Americans less of a chance to find a compatible donor.
Their cite for this is: Kasiske BL, Neylan JF, Riggio RR, et al. The effect of race on access and outcome in transplantation. N Eng J Med. 1991;324:302-307

From http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/880915/880915s5-1.htm
Dr. Cheng-dao Lee, laboratory director of the Tzu Chi Taiwan Marrow Donor Registry, said the case was of great medical significance because generally only bone marrow from people of the same race has matching human leukocyte antigens (HLA), a necessary precondition for successful transplants.

So - how much money we talking here? ;)

[Collounsbury]

Originally posted by Another County Heard From
Collounsbury posts:
On HLA:

Siince no group has exclusive claim to a trait, we're really only talking about odds of distribution. In fact in re the bone marrow, I put even money that the focus on same race donars is inefficient.

From U Penn (http://health.upenn.edu/~bioethic/Museum/Degeus/Txp%20Web%20Page/HTML%20Pages/txprace5.html)
One of the difficulties in finding a compatible organ is the fact that HLA varies significantly from person to person, and also from race to race. Therefore, African-American transplant patients would be better matched to an organ coming from a donor of the same race. However, there are significantly less organs that become available from African-American donors as opposed to whites, giving African-Americans less of a chance to find a compatible donor.
Their cite for this is: Kasiske BL, Neylan JF, Riggio RR, et al. The effect of race on access and outcome in transplantation. N Eng J Med. 1991;324:302-307


Race Response:

Unfortunately I don't have access to that journal and thus that article right now, so I can only respond in a general way.

The first issue is exactely as I suggested above, is race not being used as a short-cut short hand for distribution patterns? That is a proxy for much more complicated patterns of distribution?

The question immediately comes to mind, how do the authors define "race"? What is, if any, their working definition?

What we know from population genetics is there is no coherency at this macro level to trait distribution. Thus the observation that race has no biological reality. What we find, nonetheless, is a good number of researchers outside of genetics who continue to use racial categories, unexamined, which end up being short hand for distributional tendencies (meaning trait X occurs with frequency 2x in one population but only 1/2x in the second popultion, both populations have shared traits. We get into odds then.)

Fine, no doubt African Americans will have similar patterns, where the laziness factor comes in is assuming racial coherency and not looking to non-Af.Am pops for similar distribution patterns who might also provide donor reservoirs.

HLA traits, for example as I understand maps unto environmentally similar conditions --much in the way the sickle cell trait(s) map onto the same. Past history and racial thinking have too often ignored the non-racial nature of these distributions, leading to misleading conclusions. Of course given limited data, few donars and the like, such shortcuts may be more efficient proxies than not, however this does not void our genetic data.

Ergo, I maintain my skepticism in this regard.

So - how much money we talking here? ;)

Well until we know what the underlying definitions are, I'm afraid I can't respect the cited data. There's still lots of folks using race for lack of knowledge or tradition etc.

To Peace: I see you did not follow up my citations from the last discusion we had. In brief, your three great races are nothing but myths in terms of biological reality. There is nothing political about this, that's simply what population genetics has revealed in the past ten to fifteen years. I provide once more the link to the discussion where these issues were thoroughly hashed out:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=39955

[DrDoom]

I'd say Chinese people are the superior race ... hands down! (didn't say they were more advanced) I don't know if the are considered multiracial or not, but they seem to flourish and it appears they will be here till the end.

[Chronos]

Do you know, I think that this is the first time that I've ever seen this topic handled in a sane, rational manner? I'm impressed. Keep up the good work, folks!

[dougie_monty]

A girl I knew in high school had fair-skinned blue-eyed parents. Her mother had black hair; her father was reddish blond. The girl, though a fair-skinned, blue-eyed strawberry blonde (and quite a beauty), has a high forehead and high cheekbones. (I once commented that she could pass as an American Indian with suitable skin toner, brown contact lenses and a black wig. She is multitalented and one of the nicest people I remember from my teenage years. If this is a result of racial mixing, I'm all for it. :)

[Another County Heard From]

Collounsbury, you're missing the point.

1) You seem hung up on the fact that racial divisions are artificial, and to a certain extent, I agree. In my initial post here, I used ethnic background rather than race because that is a better way of describing the non-random distribution of recessive traits and HLA types.

2) You say:
Fine, no doubt African Americans will have similar patterns, where the laziness factor comes in is assuming racial coherency and not looking to non-Af.Am pops for similar distribution patterns who might also provide donor reservoirs.

I sincerely hope you're not suggesting that transplant workers are too lazy to look for potential matches in people of different races. That is not the case at all. The point, though, is that at least for bone marrow transplants where HLA compatibility prevents the transplanted marrow from rejecting the recipient (GVH or Graft vs. Host disease) finding the est possible match is essential. Finding a perfect match in a person from another ethnic background, let alone race, made headlines.

3) As you suggest, while the distribution of HLA types varies widely between ethnic groups, it is not absolute. It is not a case of a certain HLA type being found ONLY in one group, and never in others. It is, however, a case of 80% of people with a certain HLA type might be from this ethnic group. Mutiply that by 12 different HLA antigens per person, and the odds of finding someone who is a perfect outside one's ethnic group can become remote. Newsworthy or headline-making, even.

4) When you mix HLA types from different ethnic groups, you are likely to get some combinations that are not common anywhere, thereby decreasing the probability of finding a match in the event that a transplant is ever needed in the future. Doing targeted recruitment within ethnic groups does 2 things. Any person who undergoes tissue-typing is more likely to match the person in need, AND for sociological reasons, you're more likely to get more volunteers for a same-race person in need.

Since you seem unwilling/unable to look up medical journal articles, here is an abstract from

'Tis better to receive than to give: the relative failure of the African American community to provide organs for transplantation. Rozon-Solomon M; Burrows L Mt Sinai J Med 1999 Sep;66(4):273-6.

There is a serious, continuous and increasing shortfall of organs, especially kidneys, for the purpose of transplantation. This shortfall is especially remarkable in African American populations. Because the incidence of hypertension (HTN) and associated end-stage renal diseases (ESRD) is 17 times greater in African Americans, this minority group, which comprises only 12% of the U.S. population, represents 34% of the dialysis population and 30% of the national kidney waiting list. Furthermore, while black individuals comprise 22-24% of kidney recipients, they comprise only 8-11% of donors. Because of the histocompatibility differences between the races and because tissue matching is part of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) allocation formula, African Americans wait twice as long for kidneys as Caucasians. Also, because they get more poorly matched organs, their kidney transplant graft survival is 10-20% lower than that for other racial groups. The African American community is unaware of the special needs in members of their own race. Steps must be taken to increase minority awareness of the need for well-matched transplant organs and their involvement in the donation process.

If the abstract is to long a quote (although abstracts generally do fall within fair use guidelines, mods) and is deleted here, it can be found by going to http://igm.nlm.nih.gov clicking on MEDline, and entering organ procurement and minority groups as the subjects. MEDline does not allow for direct linking, unfortunately.

[dougie_monty]

The girl I referred to certainly has American Indian ancestry, apparently on both sides, but the only clue to this would have been her mother's black hair and high forehead. (Both parents are now deceased.) she also had a foster brother who, though having the same coloring, is the son of a full-blooded Cherokee. :)

[Zor]

I too have discovered that so called multi-racials tend to look better than mono-racial people. Maybe this is the whole whoever-looks-average-looks-better thing at work here. We observe the people around us, unconsciously recording all the different physical traits we see, then average them out to find the perfect model. I think on an evolutionary perspective, this would be a factor that propels us to make the safest bet reproductively. Now that we're all smarter and armed with the knowledge of genetics and evolution however, this is one innate ability we can afford to lose...

[Collounsbury]

Originally posted by Another County Heard From
Collounsbury, you're missing the point.

1) You seem hung up on the fact that racial divisions are artificial, and to a certain extent, I agree. In my initial post here, I used ethnic background rather than race because that is a better way of describing the non-random distribution of recessive traits and HLA types.


My apologies, I partly misread your argument. I still have issues with some of your points, however

3) As you suggest, while the distribution of HLA types varies widely between ethnic groups, it is not absolute.

This largely captures the issues and to respond to your note


Since you seem unwilling/unable to look up medical journal articles, here is an abstract from


I'm currently flitting about the southern Mediterranean and Middle East on business. As both internet access and library access are, how shall we say, less than ideal, I lack to resources to really get into this. (simply connecting to the board can be a pain!) Since I can't do justice to this right now, I'll just thank you for a good response,and of course my apologies for misreading your position.

[Another County Heard From]

Hey, Collounsbury - I'm sorry if that bit about your being unwilling/unable to access the article came off as being a bit testy; I did think that your earlier post sounded a bit like you were saying that you saw no need to track down references that supported a different point of view from your own, and certainly no need to consider changing your point of view, and was reacting to that. My apologies for seeing arrogance where none existed.

Thank-you for the gracious explanation for why you couldn't look something like that up, and I'm glad that we were able to find some common ground.

[peace]

I like it. Civility makes people superior. This trait is completely absent in animals (no offence intended, animal lovers, they are OK as they are).
A question: would multiracial progeny be more civil than parents? OOOOOps! I forgot, it's cultural.

[Another County Heard From]

peace, I forgot to answer this earlier:
P.S. I know it does not belong here: Moderators, this BB badly needs a font bar: I, for one, like to use bold, cursive or other features to emphisize things. The only way now is to CAPITALIZE. Some BB have font bars.


there is a way to bold or italicize text here

enclose the text you want bolded or italicized in between vB code:

[ b]bolded text[\b] would appear as bolded text if I had omitted the space before the first b and used / instead of \.

[ i]italicized text[\i] [ i]italicized text[\i] would appear as italicized text if I had omitted the space before the first i and used / instead of \.

Cursive & other font changes can only be done through html code, which is not allowed here.

If you go to a reply window, and look above the blue "Post Reply" bar, you'll see a vB code hyperlink which explains all.

[Spoke]

Zor wrote:I too have discovered that so called multi-racials tend to look better than mono-racial people. Maybe this is the whole whoever-looks-average-looks-better thing at work here.

Beat me to it.

There was a study that showed that when you "averaged" the features of a large number of people to come up with one composite face, the composite face was pretty close to our ideal of beauty.

So maybe when people of two races breed, then because the parents have such divergent genetic backgrounds, the children are more likely than most to approach that ideal "average" face.

[Sterra]

Damn, I was going to say that. Oh well Ill just say that because of my multiracial status i am immortal.

[Karellen]

Multi-racial people are superior in one, non-genetic sense:

They are less susceptible to the political myths of race and lies of racism.

A population of multi-racial folk may or may not be healthier, smarter, longer-living or more pretty to look at, but they might get along better. Maybe.

[Collounsbury]

Originally posted by Another County Heard From
Hey, Collounsbury - I'm sorry if that bit about your being unwilling/unable to access the article came off as being a bit testy; I did think that your earlier post sounded a bit like you were saying that you saw no need to track down references that supported a different point of view from your own, and certainly no need to consider changing your point of view, and was reacting to that. My apologies for seeing arrogance where none existed.


Well at least not the kind of arrogance which means I refuse to look at actual literature! No, unfortunately logistics is the issue at the moment. In any case no apologies necessary.


Thank-you for the gracious explanation for why you couldn't look something like that up, and I'm glad that we were able to find some common ground.

Pity, if I was back at home base I would like to delve into the issue more, but since I can't do the subject justice right now its best to let it go, although I continue to feel that 'african american' likely to be a poor proxy for a finer resolution -- but then there is the issue of data.