That is possibly true. Of course, moving from “group” (or, more accurately “population”), to “race” involves a fairly large and unsupportable leap.
On the other hand, it is pretty clear from looking at the anecdotes that support “racial” differences, that lots of people (and groups) with widely varying traits tend to get artificially lumped together as “races.” The most common of these, of course, is the odd claim that the current dominance of sprints and marathons by separate groups indicates a “racial” athletic superiority attributed to blacks. The next most common example is the repeated claim the dark skinned people appear to have some “common” genetic intelligence deficit despite the fact that the various “dark skinned” groups are genetically heterogeneous with at least one of those populations including significant genetic material from European and North American Indian populations.
I think rather than some absolute superiority, you see that a ability is more prevalent among people of one race than among people of another. Genes influence abilities and genes vary in prevalence across racial groups. In the athletic example, there is example is the RR variant of ACTN3, a gene that affects fast generation of muscular force and correlates with excellence at speed and power sports. The opposite variant of the gene is called XX. Tests indicate that the ratio of people with RR to people with XX is 1 to 1 among Asians, 2 to 1 among European whites, and more than 4 to 1 among African-Americans.
Those arguing that there are likely to be zero group differences in psychological traits, must believe that the distribution of genes linked to those traits (which are not yet identified) will be equal across groups. But as noted earlier, with the Williamson paper ('Localizing Recent Adaptive Evolution in the Humans) or Voight (‘A Map of Recent Positive Selection in the Human Genome’) genetic change has continued over the past 50,000 years, including some genes linked to brain development which have been under be under recent positive selection.
I’ve never seen the phrase “dark-skinned people” used in any serious debate about racial differences, except perhaps as a deliberate misrepresentation of the nature-side position from the nurture side. If one were to look at performance success in the quantitative sciences, there would be an enormous difference between “dark-skinned” populations from India and “dark-skinned” populations from sub-saharan Africa, for instance. The average lumper would lump the Indians into “asian” and the sub-saharans into “black” regardless of skin shade…
You are absolutely correct that “race” is over-broad, but incorrect in saying it’s an unsupportable leap to say correctly that “blacks, as a race group, are over-represented for sprinting.”
What happens is that the superset of “blacks” contains nearly all of the subset of “blacks of West African descent” and it is that subset (and further definable populations within that subset) which contains nearly all of the top sprinters. Thus, when compared with another loose group of “whites” you’d still get an overall (and still genetically-based) over-representation of sprinters in the black group, even though the degree of over-representation would be less marked than if your starting comparison pool A was confined to “blacks of West African descent” and your starting pool B was confined to “whites of Scottish descent” (or, for that matter “blacks of East African descent”).
I don’t think any thinking person really argues that “race” is a very tight category or that sub-populations aren’t more specific for containing more easily-defined differences.
It’s my personal observation that angst creeps in most commonly because we humans ourselves self-identify with “race” more readily than sub-populations. When we see “blacks” kicking our butt in the NBA we don’t stop to consider that the category is loosely defined and maybe our fellow Scotsmen could kick the East Africans’ butts (crudely put, but you get the idea).
Oops, my apologies. Putting this in quotes makes it sound like I am quoting you. I was not. I’m sorry. It was not my intention to put words in your mouth.
I should have said:
It would be absolutely correct to say that “race” is over-broad, but wrong to suggest it’s an unsupportable leap to say correctly that “blacks, as a race group, are over-represented for sprinting.”*
This demonstrates why using the overbroad and inaccurate term “race” is silly. You are perfectly willing to lump everyone in sub-Saharan Africa together for various traits, based on separate characteristics from much smaller individual groups. From that, you then feel confident extrapolating other characteristics about the larger amalgam of separate groups under a single umbrella, even when the traits are irrelevant or not present among large portions of those groups. That, indeed, is why I noted “dark skinned people,” earlier, because I see no reason to include Kenyan marathon runners and sprinters from Ghana in some arbitrarily created “race.” What is the point of lumping disparate groups–beyond the point of trying to associate unlike groups together for some other purpose?
As you know (I hope) I agree with you on this general point that “race” is not a particularly useful category.
As I point out, self-identification with “race” is stronger–or, at least, broader–than self-identification with a particular sub-population. We observe outcome differences across the world within those broad categories of self-described race. The charge is leveled that these disproportionate outcomes are based on fundamental unfairness and not differences of innate potential, and in general when this charge is made those making the charge are the ones choosing to promulgate “race” as a category.
Against this charge of fundamental unfairness (disproportionate nurturing) a defense of disproportionate innate ability is presented, and it seems to me that that is the fundamental driver for this whole debate of nature versus nurture.
It’s not a question of whether or not “race” is a useful population category. The question is: Where there is a disproportionate distribution of pie, is the problem nature as well as nurture? Those of us who argue that nature is a major player need to make every effort to not only normalize nurture, but actively lift up anyone (of any “race”) born to a lesser capability. Those who promote nurture as an explanation for any disproportionate pie distribution need to be aware that doing so promotes a reason to examine the contribution of nature in order to balance the charge that there is unfairness at play.
I wonder if it’s your observation that the notion of “race” is promoted more often by those within successful “races” or those in less-successful ones?
In my little niche of medical academia, if we eliminated all characterization by race and defended only whether or not equal opportunity was given to all, (and gave a helping hand to all who were previously deprived of opportunity), what would happen? I would predict (and would be happy to be proved wrong) that the result would be an even more marked skewing of success toward asians and away from blacks.* That those categories are artificial would be cold comfort to the group self-described as “black,” I’d guess.
*Current (2009) average science score of a black medical school matriculant is 8.5; that of an asian is 11.1. This is an enormous gap, not accounted for by a corresponding lack of opportunity to prepare, and cites I’ve posted elsewhere show that these sorts of score differences are also not accounted for by either family income or parental education differences. It seems apparent that there is a “trait” for underperfomance on this sort of qualifying exam that is common to the amalgam of “race,” does it not? And if “race” were eliminated as a construct, how would we get proportionate representation? And if we did eliminate race from consideration and did not get proportionate representation by race, would the protest come from the groups over-represented or from the wrongly-amalgamated “black” group?
Perhaps you have forgotten about the Kalenjin and their remarkaby disproportionate success in the marathon. They may not have genes for power lifting barrels in the world’s strongest man competition, but their genes for running distances have kicked ass.
But back to Mr Obama: from a hereditary standpoint he’s a bit more of a mutt, having chosen half his gene pool from the Europeans.
Right, but do you also find these policies of closing group gaps silly? Because if policy makers insist on focussing on these gaps, then it becomes necessary to look at why they exist.
I doubt this. If this were true, the horror of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict, the current situation in Southern Sudan, the conflicts in India, Northern Ireland, and other locales could not have happened and Spike Lee could never have made School Daze.
When artificial pressures are brought to bear on groups, members will more closely align themselves with people perceived to be more similar than the group bringing pressure, but I see no evidence that people naturally self-identify with larger groups more often than with the more immediate smaller groups.
I don’t disagree with you here, either.
Me, then family, then clan then something larger…
I do observe a rather marked identification (obession?) with (self-described) “race” though. It will be nice to see it supplanted. As an example of progress in that direction, I find myself identifying much more closely with class (profession, really) and perhaps socioeconomic status, and I’d like to think that’s becoming more generally true. I feel kinship more closely with my fellow medical professionals of any ethnic background than any other group.
If the other references are a little dry there is also Jason Malloy’s essay in the wake of the James Watson controversy, which provides a useful summary.