# Chen019, you are a liar. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 9, 2012, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246 "2012-03-09T09:43:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/61 "2012-03-11T00:53:11Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > How do you know that? See my post six posts above yours: we know that because \*\*\*many groups of dark-skinned and kinky-haired people … are no more closely related genetically to other groups of dark-skinned and kinky-haired people … than they are to groups of light-skinned and straight-haired people\*\*\*. Likewise, if you and one of your (hypothetical) full-sibling brothers are both blond and green-eyed, and another of your full-sibling brothers is dark-haired and brown-eyed, **you can’t validly assume that you are more likely to share _other_ traits with your blond brother than with your dark brother.** Because you’re equally genetically close to both of them. I should note that **Belowjob2.0** was making this same point back in post #47, where he said: > [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > As I pointed out in the other thread, Torres Strait Islanders and other Melanesians can look exactly like black Africans. This isn’t a case of people not fitting neatly into one group. This is a case where phenotype tells you that people are members of the same group, when they are in fact members of groups that couldn’t be farther apart. If you don’t know the degree of genetic relationship between two individuals, or two groups, who happen to look alike, then you can’t validly assume that they must be more closely related to each other than they are to other individuals or groups who happen to look less like them. ---
**Author:** ![pikey\_pete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pikey\_pete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pikey_pete)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/62 "2012-03-11T00:56:45Z")
I just usually ignore any threads that Chen starts. the stupid burns too badly to even start reading them. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/63 "2012-03-11T01:02:04Z")
Thanks, **Kimstu** , but this pitting has now become just another recapitulation of all the other threads where well intentioned people explain repeatedly and at length only to get JAQ-off replies. That’s why \*\*Chen019 \*\*is being pitted, after all – for misrepresenting his own cites in order to support his racist beliefs. And as usual a full complement of his cronies have now joined in. It’s a circular JAQoff! ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/64 "2012-03-11T01:15:49Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > See my post six posts above yours: we know that because \*\*\*many groups of dark-skinned and kinky-haired people … > > are no more closely related genetically to other groups of dark-skinned and kinky-haired people … > > than they are to groups of light-skinned and straight-haired people\*\*\*. Exactly. Your conclusions are built on circular arguments. Specifically: You believe that any classification of people into different racial groups is invalid because it has never been shown that there are any differences between those groups beyond the traits that define them. And you believe that it has never been shown that there are any differences between those groups beyond the traits that define them because any study that uses racial groups can be dismissed due to the fact that any classification of people into different racial groups is invalid. After that, it’s turtles all the way down. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/65 "2012-03-11T01:22:17Z")
and this > [@](#): > > Because skin color has been under strong selective pressure, similar skin colors can result from convergent adaptation rather than from genetic relatedness. Sub-Saharan Africans, tribal populations from southern India, and Australian Aborigines have similar skin pigmentation, but genetically they are no more similar than are other widely separated groups. Furthermore, in some parts of the world in which people from different regions have mixed extensively, the connection between skin color and ancestry has been substantially weakened (Parra et al. 2004). **In Brazil, for example, skin color is not closely associated with the percentage of recent African ancestors a person has, as estimated from an analysis of genetic variants differing in frequency among continent groups (Parra et al. 2003).** bolding mine > **[The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1275602/?tool=pmcentrez)** > > The global dispersal of anatomically modern humans over the past 100,000 years has produced patterns of phenotypic variation that have exerted—and continue to exert—powerful influences on the lives of individuals and the experiences of groups. The... ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/66 "2012-03-11T01:48:58Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Exactly. Your conclusions are built on circular arguments. Nope, your response is based on misunderstanding. Point by point: > [@Rand Rover](#): > > You believe that any classification of people into different racial groups is invalid because it has never been shown that there are any differences between those groups beyond the traits that define them. Wrong: I don’t believe that “ **any** classification of people into different racial groups is invalid”. It’s possible that somebody **may** at some point come up with a classification scheme (say, skin lightness times follicle roundness times earlobe length, or whatever) that **does** use phenotype similarity as a scientifically reliable proxy for genetic kinship. But at present, nobody has successfully come up with such a valid classification. It’s not just that attempts to treat currently defined racial groups as somehow representing genetic populations are **unproven** : it’s that they’re often _ **factually, demonstrably wrong** _. If you say “A black Australian Aborigine and a black sub-Saharan African are the same race, and therefore we can assume that they are genetically more closely related to each other than to a white European”, the problem with that is not that you’re being “politically incorrect” or something, but that you are literally, provably, scientifically **WRONG**. DNA studies make it clear that those two “members of the black race” are NOT more closely related genetically to each other than to white people. And that makes complete hash of the concept of race as some kind of cross-cultural global category that reliably indicates genetic kinship. Likewise, if you say “The light-skinned heavy-bearded Ainu Japanese are genetically more like Caucasians than darker-skinned smooth-faced East-Asian-looking Japanese”, you are just plain WRONG. So if racial classification based on phenotype characteristics can’t reliably predict genetic relationships, then what’s the use of it? > [@Rand Rover](#): > > And you believe that it has never been shown that there are any differences between those groups beyond the traits that define them because any study that uses racial groups can be dismissed due to the fact that any classification of people into different racial groups is invalid. Nope, it’s because studies on different populations within “racial groups”, like the ones on Aborigines and Ainu that I linked to above, have _ **scientifically shown** _ that the “racial group” classification is not reliable. Now, that’s certainly not to say that **some** populations within a given “racial group” aren’t closely related. I’ve got nothing at all against studying genetic differences between genetic populations that are correctly identified as genetic populations. But throwing a bunch of demonstrably genetically **different** populations into a single “look-alike” category called “the black race”, or “the Caucasian race” or “the Oriental race” or whatever, and claiming that their membership in the “same race” should be taken to imply genetic similarity, is simply horseshit. It would be like a stranger coming up to the three **Rover** brothers whom I hypothesized in my previous post and saying “Well, clearly the blond **Rand** and his blond brother **Ron** are more closely related to each other than to this darker guy **Milton** ”. Sure, it’s not unreasonable as a superficial guess, but _ **you already know, and can scientifically prove, that it’s simply WRONG!** _ If the three of you are all full brothers, then you are **not** more closely related to one of them than to the other, even if one of them happens to look more like you. And anybody trying to draw any conclusions about the **Rover** family based on such a mistaken assumption would merely be a horseshit-generating horse’s ass. And that’s what people are who attempt to draw conclusions about genetic differences between cross-cultural trans-ethnic phenotype-defined racial categories which contain population groups that have been **proven** to be no more genetically similar to other populations within the same “race” than to populations outside it. The reason they’re invalid is not that they’re using racial categories _per se_, but because they’re jumping to conclusions about the genetic kinship of population groups within the same racial category that have been scientifically demonstrated to be—what’s that word? oh yeah—_ **WRONG** _. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/67 "2012-03-11T01:54:28Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > @ **Vinyl Turnip** , does your name refer to your intellect? Good one! ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/68 "2012-03-11T02:26:44Z")
Vinyl, I just typed a long message and it somehow got eaten by my computer. Anyway, as far as your point concerning the Black race and Aboriginals, just because a race my have a characteristic like black skin, that doesn’t mean that all people (or groups of people) with black skin are of the Black race. Simple fallacy. Just because all dogs have four legs doesn’t mean that a cow or a table is a dog. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/69 "2012-03-11T02:43:08Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Anyway, as far as your point concerning the Black race and Aboriginals, just because a race my have a characteristic like black skin, that doesn’t mean that all people (or groups of people) with black skin are of the Black race. Well for mercy’s sake, then what’s the point of having a category called “the black race” if it doesn’t mean “people with black skin”? Not just that it might include the occasional light-skinned individual descended from black-skinned parents, but that it actually **excludes** entire **populations** that typically have black skin? I mean, if you are using “the black race” to mean a specific genetic **population** of black-skinned Africans that doesn’t include other black-skinned populations such as Aborigines or Melanesians or South Indians, then why use such a non-specific term? If “the black race” actually signifies, say, “sub-Saharan Africans of the L2 haplotype lineage”, then why not just call them “sub-Saharan Africans of the L2 haplotype lineage” instead? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/70 "2012-03-11T02:51:20Z")
(Missed edit window) I should point out, by the way, that I have absolutely nothing against the idea of scientifically studying sub-Saharan Africans of the L2 haplotype lineage, or any other actual genetic population, to investigate its genetic differences from or similarities to other actual genetic populations. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/71 "2012-03-11T03:00:02Z")
In fact, **magellan01** , your comments on race seem kind of self-contradictory. In this thread alone, you’ve said > [@magellan01](#): > > When we can see a group of people that are best described as Asian, Caucasian and Black, it’s hard to argue that there aren’t differences. […] > > Forget the term race if you must. Use “groupings”. And example of one such genetic grouping being those people that have dark skin and kinky hair. […] > > Anyway, as far as your point concerning the Black race and Aboriginals, just because a race my have a characteristic like black skin, that doesn’t mean that all people (or groups of people) with black skin are of the Black race. First, you seem to be saying that **all** “people that have dark skin and kinky hair” fall into the same “genetic grouping”, which is called for convenience “the Black race”. Then you say that the category of “the Black race” in fact excludes entire **populations** of “people that have dark skin and kinky hair”, such as Australian Aborigines. This makes no sense. What exactly do you actually mean by “the Black race”? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/72 "2012-03-11T03:01:46Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Vinyl, I just typed a long message and it somehow got eaten by my computer. Anyway, as far as your point concerning the Black race and Aboriginals, just because a race my have a characteristic like black skin, that doesn’t mean that all people (or groups of people) with black skin are of the Black race. Simple fallacy. Just because all dogs have four legs doesn’t mean that a cow or a table is a dog. Conflating skin color with race seems to be a relatively common confusion. Something that[Risch et al](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC139378/) address: > [@](#): > > [A forceful presentation of the second point - that racial differences are merely cosmetic - was given recently in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine [1]: “Such research mistakenly assumes an inherent biological difference between black-skinned and white-skinned people. It falls into error by attributing a complex physiological or clinical phenomenon to arbitrary aspects of external appearance. It is implausible that the few genes that account for such outward characteristics could be meaningfully linked to multigenic diseases such as diabetes mellitus or to the intricacies of the therapeutic effect of a drug.” The logical flaw in this argument is the assumption that the blacks and whites in the referenced study differ only in skin pigment. **Racial categorizations have never been based on skin pigment, but on indigenous continent of origin.** For example, none of the population genetic studies cited above, including the study of Wilson et al. [2], used skin pigment of the study subjects, or genetic loci related to skin pigment, as predictive variables. Yet the various racial groups were easily distinguishable on the basis of even a modest number of random genetic markers; furthermore, categorization is extremely resistant to variation according to the type of markers used (for example, RFLPs, microsatellites or SNPs). (my bolding) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/73 "2012-03-11T03:19:21Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Conflating skin color with race seems to be a relatively common confusion. Maybe because at least some of the racial categories are actually **named** for skin colors? It seems to me pretty obvious that if you don’t want people to think that a category called “the black race” refers to black-skinned people in general, it would make sense to call the category something else. Preferably, as I said to **magellan01** , by identifying racial categories with actual specific genetic populations and referring to them by the names of actual specific genetic populations. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/74 "2012-03-11T11:45:36Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Conflating skin color with race seems to be a relatively common confusion. Seems like more of a deliberate strawman to me. I’ve never heard anyone complain that “The South” does not exist since Wheeling, West Virginia is significantly further north than Cape May, New Jersey. Normally, most people can accept that language and the underlying thinking can be flexible – that a “red tide” is not necessarily red or even tidal in nature. That “SoHo” does not include many blocks which are nonetheless south of Houston street. That “Asian-American” does not include recent immigrants from Israel. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/75 "2012-03-11T12:06:16Z")
As someone who always bristled at forms asking you to identify your race or ethnicity, I had to laugh what a simplistic and elegant solution the government of Trinidad&Tobago arrived at on their national ID cards. Instead of race on the application or card, it lists skin tone which doesn’t carry all kinds of baggage and controversy. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/76 "2012-03-11T13:38:39Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Seems like more of a deliberate strawman to me. I’ve never heard anyone complain that “The South” does not exist since Wheeling, West Virginia is significantly further north than Cape May, New Jersey. > > Normally, most people can accept that language and the underlying thinking can be flexible – that a “red tide” is not necessarily red or even tidal in nature. That “SoHo” does not include many blocks which are nonetheless south of Houston street. That “Asian-American” does not include recent immigrants from Israel. What helps avoid confusion in such cases is that people who use those terms are generally willing and able to define them more precisely when necessary. There are specific geographic designations such as county names and street names that you can list if you need to specify exactly which ones you include in categories like “The (American) South” or “SoHo”. But so-called “race realists” seem unwilling or unable to be similarly precise about what specific genetic designations are included in what they call “races”. Probably because, as I noted above, it would reveal that some of the genetic populations they assign to one race are actually more closely related genetically to populations assigned to a different race than to other populations within the same race, and consequently that racial classification is not a reliable indicator of genetic kinship. Anyway, the remarks of **magellan01** that I quoted above make it quite clear that it’s not the anti-“race realists” who are creating most of the ambiguity around these terms. If you’re going to claim on the one hand that “those people that have dark skin and kinky hair” constitute a particular “genetic grouping” or “race”, and in the next breath claim that Africans and Aborigines—both of whom have dark skin and kinky hair—belong to **different** races, you shouldn’t be surprised when people find that confusing or inconsistent. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/77 "2012-03-11T14:08:50Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > . . . I do not engage with **Kimstu** due to his past weaseling and strawmanning. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/78 "2012-03-11T14:16:10Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I do not engage with **Kimstu** due to his past weaseling and strawmanning. Your comprehension of my posts seems to be about as accurate as your idea of my gender. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/79 "2012-03-11T17:39:29Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I do not engage with **Kimstu** due to his past weaseling and strawmanning. By this token, no one on this board should ever engage with you. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246/80 "2012-03-11T17:43:07Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > By this token, no one on this board should ever engage with you. Show me one instance where I misrepresented another person’s position and did not own up to it when called on it. Or one instance where I misrepresented my own position and did not own up to it when called on it. Just one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chen019-you-are-a-liar/615246.md?page=5)