Are Race and Genes unrelated??

Factual Questions
21

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
To restate what I said in another way:

The style of a house–Victorian, Modern, Art Deco, etc.–is entirely arbitrary. They can be mixed, substantially different from the way houses of that style used to look, overlap, or entirely fail to look like the style they were meant to be. Never-the-less it’s stupid to say that “a house’s style has nothing to do with its construction.” How else would it have come to look that way?

Yes, “house style” is a rather amoprhous thing, and it may be useless as a classification for houses in the end–but whether it’s a useful classification system is unimportant to the question at hand. Is it related to the construction? Yes.
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I have no idea how that analogy is applicable to the human species.

But let me ask you: How many races are there and what are they?

22

[QUOTE=John Mace]
I have no idea how that analogy is applicable to the human species.

But let me ask you: How many races are there and what are they?
[/QUOTE]

That’s off topic.

The OP’s question was not whether or not race was a meaningful classification of humans. If the sociology professor had said that, I would entirely agree.

But, what the professor did say is that race is unrelated to genes, which is patently false.

So here, to try and give a properly GQ, mathematical answer:

A “relationship” is anything which connects two variables. If there is at least one relationship, those two variables can be said to be related.

A “dependency” is a one-direction link between two variables. That is to say, it is a particular relationship between two variables.

So now if I can say that A is dependent on B and B is dependent on C, then I can say that A is dependent on C. So if I can say that A is dependent on C, then I can say that there is a relationship between A and C.

We will therefore assume that A = “race”, B = “physical appearance”, and C = “genes”.

Is A dependent on B by all definitions of A? Yes.
Is B dependent on C? Yes.

Since both statements are true, and since dependency is transitive, we can factually say that A is dependent on C. And since dependency is a relationship, we can factually say that A is related to C. To say that there are no relationships between A and C is false, since there is at least one.

23

Whoops. I was in the middle of typing a post and submitted too early.

24

What I’ve learned from this discussion:

Your genes determine you phenotype. Your phenotype determines what you look like. What you look like determines what race people think you belong to.

Yet these things are unrelated.

25

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
I entirely suspect that if you placed me (a white guy) and a black man in Africa with no tools or food that he would have the better odds of surviving (all else equal) as his body is better made for that climate.
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Blake is right, you are wrong. Well, 99%. It is true that those that have the Sickle-cell gene are more resistant to Malaria than those that do not. And a random black man is more likely to have that gene than you are.

wiki: “Sickle-cell disease occurs more commonly in people (or their descendants) from parts of the world such as sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria is or was common, but it also occurs in people of other ethnicities. As a result, those with sickle cell disease are resistant to malaria since the red blood cells are not conducive to the parasites. The mutated allele is recessive, meaning it must be inherited from each parent for the individual to have the disease.”

So that is by possession of that particular gene, not “race”. Yes, the two often co-incide but not always.

Now, there are a few things where skin color is advantagous or disadvantagous, like Vit D absorbtion or sunburn. But there are “black” dudes with lighter skin than “white” dudes. So, that’s by skin color not “race”. Yes, the two often co-incide but not always. And that’s the critical point.

However, as has been said here “race” is a purely social construct with but tenuous ties to science. For example, a native of New Guinea would be called “black” by many, but his ties to Africa are likely more remote than yours. The genes that control skin color are really not directly connected to point of population origin.

Speaking scientifically, the term “population” more or less replaces “race”.

I suggest you read this wiki article and come back:

26

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
That’s off topic.

The OP’s question was not whether or not race was a meaningful classification of humans. If the sociology professor had said that, I would entirely agree.

But, what the professor did say is that race is unrelated to genes, which is patently false.
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No., it’s not. First you have to define “race”. As I said in my first post, if you define race as it is defined the US, then for most Americans it does have something to do with genetics. But if you’re talking about the whole of the human species, there is no meaningful definition of race and so it can’t have anything to do with genetics.

If you are going to state that race has something to do with genetics for the whole of the human species, then you need to scrap the definition of race as it is used in the US and come up with something that is applicable to the entire planet. That simply can’t be done, because there are no biologically defined races.

27

Perhaps everyone could agree if it was reworded:

Your genes play a large role in determining what you look like (how dark your skin is, etc.) What you look like plays a large role in determining what race people think you belong to, though there is not a simple concrete unique map from the one to the other, part of this being that factors like self-identification and cultural identity play large roles as well, part of this being that there is no simple concrete notion of what the races are, and part of that being that there is not really any significant basis on which to divide people up into discrete categories along such lines. But there are a lot of points of high agreement, nonetheless, in discussions of who has what race, and someone of great information processing power and a masterly knowledge of the human genome could, from an individual X’s genotype, have a good shot at determining what kinds of things some randomly selected person Y would say if asked about X’s race; this could be done, in general, to a high degree of accuracy, significantly better than random guessing.

Or, in short, the concept of a person’s race isn’t any more scientifically useful than the concept of a person’s attractiveness on a 1 to 10 scale, but there is some notion of race anyway, and it does display some correlation with various aspects of one’s genotype.

28

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
But there are “black” dudes with lighter skin than “white” dudes. So, that’s by skin color not “race”. Yes, the two often co-incide but not always. And that’s the critical point.
[/QUOTE]

That race follows genetic heritage rather than appearance actually works in favor of it as a genetic classification, no?

29

[QUOTE=John Mace]
No., it’s not. First you have to define “race”.
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I don’t need to define race, I just need to prove a relationship between race and genes.

But sure to give it a shot, here’s two definitions of race that I could give that I don’t think anyone would disagree with:

  1. A classification based on your physical appearance.
  2. A classification based on your genetic heritage.
30

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
I don’t need to define race, I just need to prove a relationship between race and genes.
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You are going to prove a relation to something that is not defined? In that case, then I guess I can prove there is a relationship between genes and truemtlkambe. That sure is meaningful!

31

[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
Perhaps everyone could agree if it was reworded:

Your genes play a large role in determining what you look like (how dark your skin is, etc.) What you look like plays a large role in determining what race people think you belong to, though there is not a simple concrete unique map from the one to the other, part of this being that factors like self-identification and cultural identity play large roles as well, part of this being that there is no simple concrete notion of what the races are, and part of that being that there is not really any significant basis on which to divide people up into discrete categories along such lines. But there are a lot of points of high agreement, nonetheless, in discussions of who has what race, and someone of great information processing power and a masterly knowledge of the human genome could, from an individual X’s genotype, have a good shot at determining what kinds of things some randomly selected person Y would say if asked about X’s race; this could be done, in general, to a high degree of accuracy, significantly better than random guessing.

Or, in short, the concept of a person’s race isn’t any more scientifically useful than the concept of a person’s attractiveness on a 1 to 10 scale, but there is some notion of race anyway, and it does display some correlation with various aspects of one’s genotype.
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Oh, and I forgot to add, yeah, despite what ever correlations there are, it is still the case that very close genotypes can produce very divergent perceptions of race, and very close perceptions of race may be underlied by what are actually very distant genotypes.

32

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
But sure to give it a shot, here’s two definitions of race that I could give that I don’t think anyone would disagree with:

  1. A classification based on your physical appearance.
    [/quote]

So, tell me how many there are.

That’s circular. But again, tell me how many there are.

33

[QUOTE=John Mace]
You are going to prove a relation to something that is not defined? In that case, then I guess I can prove there is a relationship between genes and truemtlkambe. That sure is meaningful!
[/QUOTE]

Don’t be silly. “race” clearly is defined to an extent greater than “truemtlkambe”, as evidenced by the fact that people are able to use the word with a great degree of agreement and understanding, even if it doesn’t have, and fundamentally cannot be given, a concrete formal definition.

Compare it to, say, “body type” (broad-shouldered, pear-shaped, etc.) or “hotness” or, in another direction, “genre” or “art” or “funny” or Wittgenstein’s famous discussion of the word “game”. Fuzzy concepts, some not even really grounded in any hard science, and fraught with all kinds of judgement calls and differing opinions, but still meaningful nonetheless.

I mean, race is, historically speaking, a concept grounded in all kinds of scientific inaccuracy, but that doesn’t mean the term remains utterly meaningless.

34

[QUOTE=John Mace]
That’s circular. But again, tell me how many there are.
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Sort of depends. But 5 or 6 sounds decent dependent on whether Australia is a different color from Asia in this map.

ETA: And if you want to go by physical appearance rather than genetic heritage, then the standard categories seem to be white, black, yellow, and red. So there would be four.

35

Er, cut out of the edit window.

Ahem.

I mean, race is, historically speaking, a concept grounded in all kinds of scientific inaccuracy, and even today there is little significant biological underpinning for that particular social construct which we refer to by that term, but that doesn’t mean the term is utterly meaningless. When someone walks down the street and you ask me and a buddy to describe his race, we’re going to agree to a level far more than random chance. There’s some understood concept here, the term is denoting something meaningful to us, even if that something meaningful is a fuzzy construct only loosely grounded in a few arbitrarily and superficially categorized biological features as such, and not at all something biologically significant. The term still does have some meaning, and that some meaning that it has does show some correlation with genetic factors.

36

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
ETA: And if you want to go by physical appearance rather than genetic heritage, then the standard categories seem to be white, black, yellow, and red. So there would be four.
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Good, you’ve finally answered the question.

Now you originally said that there are “Quite obviously worthwhile genetic differences between races”.

CITE!

Please present evidence of obviously worthwhile genetic differences between Iroquois (red race) and Yupik (yellow race).

Then you can present evidence of obviously worthwhile genetic differences between an Ethiopian (black race) and an Egyptian (white race).

Then you can present evidence of obviously worthwhile genetic differences between a Nepali (white race) and a Tibetan (yellow race).

Come on, you made the nonsensical statement in GQ, and worse yet when corrected you insisted on trying to defend it. Now it’s time to put up your evidence.

37

[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
Don’t be silly. “race” clearly is defined to an extent greater than “truemtlkambe”, as evidenced by the fact that people are able to use the word with a great degree of agreement and understanding, even if it doesn’t have, and fundamentally cannot be given, a concrete formal definition.
[/quote]

People use it in the context of the US, which is populated largely by people from a few geographic regions. Try applying it to the whole species, and it breaks down very quickly. But if it doesn’t, tell me where the boundary is between “Asians” and “Europeans”. These people all come from the same general area. Are they “Asians” or are they “Europeans”?

As a biological concept it does. If not, tell me what the meaning is. But tell me it’s just something everybody knows. Spell it out.

38

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
Sort of depends. But 5 or 6 sounds decent dependent on whether Australia is a different color from Asia in this map.
[/quote]

You don’t know what you’re talking about. There is nothing in the concept of a Haplogroup that supports dividing our species in to 5 groups. Instead, it’s a way of dicing and slicing into any number of groups that you want. It could be 2 groups or 100. Any grouping you pick is entirely arbitrary.

And yet there are populations that are “Black” (eg, Natives of Papua New Guinea) who are no more genetically related to other population that are Black (eg, Sub-Sahara Africans) than are populations that are “White” (eg. Europeans). So, you can divide people up on the basis of color, but those groups cannot be connected genetically. You have to be able to do both if you are going to claim there is a genetic link to the concept or race.

39

[QUOTE=Blake]
Now you originally said that there are “Quite obviously worthwhile genetic differences between races”.
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White/yellow/red/black isn’t the average categories of race. There are some who feel it is so, but that’s not standard as you’ll see if you look at any US government document that asks you your race. Most commonly it refers to your heritage.

My cite that there are worthwhile differences between races is that “we frickin evolved that way.” We evolved to look different because evolution weeds out people who are less capable of surviving in their environment. If you don’t think that evolution works through this method or you don’t think that survival is a worthwhile thing, then sure, I’m wrong. If you do believe so, however, then there you go.

40

[QUOTE=John Mace]
As a biological concept it does. If not, tell me what the meaning is. But tell me it’s just something everybody knows. Spell it out.
[/QUOTE]

That should be "…don’t tell me it’s just something everydody knows:.