It’s not according to me. It’s according to the math. You also provided a data set that I would not use that particular statistic on but that is beside the point. It illustrated what people mean. The variation within each of your categories is far smaller than the variation between the categories and…here’s the missing part…most of the overall variation can be accounted for by the categories.
Sociocultural racial categories allow me to make many reliable predictions. I would even say that taking a bunch of people from Northern Europe and a bunch of people from Western Sub-Saharan Africa and placing those two groups on an entirely new continent would allow me to make many reliable predictions about group differences; especially if, along with the transfer, cultural rules were enforced based on simple identifiers like skin color.
:shrug: I’m simply trying to understand EXACTLY what you are saying.
Earlier, you said this:
I want to figure out EXACTLY how (according to you) one does the calculation to compare these two amounts of variation. There are different ways to measure variation; you have apparently rejected the use of range to measure the amount of variation in a category. Fine, but I want to understand how one would measure it in your view.
My question is reasonable, and I would like an answer:
Just so we are clear, for you the critical point is that the “10” is greater than the “0.63”, and that therefore (according to you), the variation between categories is greater than the variation within a category?
Did I understand you correctly?
Second, you seem to be agreeing that racial categories allow one to make reliable predictions in the same way that knowing whether or not a person is obese allows one to predict that the person has a higher risk of developing esophogeal cancer.
Again, did I understand you correctly?
These are reasonable yes or no questions and I would really appreciate answers.
Before I answer that question, please first answer my questions (which I asked first).
Also, I have my own rules of debate which provide that “if you want to move the debate up a level, you must first explain exactly why you want to do so and you must also lay out your own position on the meta-issue. For example, if you want to discuss my motivations in discussing an issue, you must explain exactly why you want to do so (as opposed to simply discussing the underlying issue) as well as your own motivations for discussing the issue.”
So please explain to me why you want to know my motivations all of a sudden and why you are so interested in the reason in a debate forum why somebody might want to understand your position.
Also, please explain to me why you are so reluctant so simply answer two reasonable yes or no questions about your position.
Lol, because you refuse to answer mine (which I asked first). And because you are obviously trying to change the subject by playing the “why” game like a 5-year-old child.
Anyway, I have no interest in engaging with people who refuse to answer simple questions so that I can understand their position.
P.S. If any lurkers are reading this, I would suggest the reason Inbred suddenly went into evasion mode was that he was starting to realize that if he clarified his position, his double-standard would become apparent.
i.e. that the standard by which he accepts {obese people} as a valid category also requires that race be accepted.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, nobody has ever been able to offer a reasonable and principled standard for rejecting race as a category. When people assert that “there is no such thing as race,” they are engaged in special pleading, as far as I can tell.
I think it’s funny he’s doing so. We lurkers are quite familiar with brazil84 and his racism (as well as his idiocy in other areas). Hell, based on how untrusting he is of the consensus on global warming, you’d think all climate scientists must be black.
I think Lamar Mundane described him best in this post.
What? No you didn’t. I couldn’t even see a spot where you appear to have made a serious attempt to address it. If you think you addressed it, you were so unsuccessful that I didn’t even realize you thought you had.
This depends on the definition used. Here a few definitions of race: (1) Race as ecotype. An indefinite amount of races. (e.g., Coyne, biology.) (2) Race as breeding population. An indefinite amount of races. (e.g., Dobzhansky, biology.) (3) Race as clade. A definite amount per defined parameters (but no set parameters). (e.g., Andreasen, philosophy.) (4) Race as continental ancestry: ~5 (e.g., Risch et al., Levin, biology and philosophy.) (5) Race as geographic subspecies: ~5 (e.g., Mayr, biology.) (6) Race as geographic ancestry. An indefinite amount. (e.g., Hardimon, philosophy.) (7) Race as species devision with hereditarian differences (e.g., Brues, anthropology: "a division of a species that differs from other divisions by the frequency with which certain hereditary traits appear among its members.”)
Yeah, what a hypocrite for failing to track down everyone else doing the same stupid thing you are. Better get writing, TriPolar - you’ve got a lot of outraged emails to send.
[sarcasm]Because the policies of government bureaucrats are the last word in a scientific debate.[/sarcasm]
Even when it’s explained to you again and again why this is a bogus argument, you keep making it.
Your single issue zealotry makes you particularly ill suited for scientific discourse. Perhaps you should leave it to people who can address these issues with a clear head.
