Let’s say that you have a genetics test that says that you have some trait that only happens in 1 out of 1000 people, and that the test is 99% accurate.
Normally one would assume that this means that there is a 99% chance that you have this particular marker, when in reality you only have a 9% chance.
With close siblings this can be dealt with through thousands of matches, but when it comes to assigning some form of cultural background it becomes problematic within just a few generations.
Particularly if there is a small number of STRs which are ascribed to a particular sub-population like Ashkenazi Jews. It becomes even more problematic when only testing small portions of the genome. In some cases it can more closely resemble Cold reading than scientific analysis.
Another link, showing how PCA (Principal Components Analysis), which is the main method used by these sites for ethnic assignment showing that the PCA is more effected by the sample size than the relatedness.
Finally found a link that wasn’t surrounded by matrix math to help reduce induce anxiety levels (but feel free to click back to the article for details)
(It is still a useful tool, but needs to be used within it’s limits)
John Mace, if I’m reading that diagram right, it seems to be saying that bonobos are more closely related to western chimpanzees than either is to eastern chimpanzees. If that’s correct, then shouldn’t eastern and western chimpanzees be considered separate species, or bonobos considered the same species as western?
Figure 1A would imply that, but note that Figure 1B does not. That latter figure results from removing homoplasies from the original data set. This is explained in more detail in the full article.
This is a PC statement of the academic left and should not be taken as fact by those who have an interest in science.
Curiously, those anthropology professors who teach it seem to see no logical disconnect when they proceed in the same class to teach students how to determine race from skeletal remains.
There is a biological phenomenon which might be called race, but it’s almost completely unrelated to what most people think of when they hear that term. Biologically, this man and this man are the same race, while this man and this woman are different races (both from each other and from the first two). What most people think of when they hear “race” is, indeed, a purely social construct.
Let’s not get into a semantic argument. Are you redefining ‘race’?
I think most people would think Trump is White or Caucasian and the other three are Black or Negro. I also think DNA testing or examination of their skeletal remains would give those same results.
What race do you think most people would think they are?
You’re half-right: Most people would call Trump “Caucasian”, and the other three “Negro”. That’s precisely what “social construct” means: It’s what most people would say.
But a genetic test would find that both Trump and the Australian were of the non-African race, and that the other two were of the Bantu and Pygmy races, respectively.
While the human species can be divided into any arbitrary number of “populations”, the biological concept of race is synonymous with “subspecies”. There are no extant subspecies of humans.
This is a cite from anthropologists, not geneticists, and the first statement in bold is rather obviously wrong. Correlations obviously do exist in the traits of human subpopulations, for example the prevalence of some genetic diseases in ethnic groups.
The second bold statement is correct - there are no bright lines, none of these correlations are 100%. Any labelling of subpopulations is arbitrary.
Chronos is alluding to the fact that Sub-Saharan Africa has the most human genetic diversity and the same has been shown to hold true for phenotypic diversity.
Turbal:
For any definition of “race” to be more than a social construct would require there to be more defined groupings in Sub-Saharan Africa than the entirety of the rest of the world. It would also need to explain why on average of 85% of genetic variation exists within local populations, ~7% is between local populations within the same continent, and only ~8% of variation occurs between large groups living on different continents.
Craniometry and/or Phrenology may be taught at some level, but that is due to historical reasons and not scientific.
But lets consider Trump as an example, some have claimed he is descended from Rurik. If his Grandfauther, Frederick Trump, was and had been in the Y hapologroup N1C1* he may have been considered Finnish, and not German and could have been denied entry under the Chinese Exclusion act. It was only in 1908 that the Federal government lost a court case trying to deny citizenship to several Finns that that rule changed. Of course he is not Finnish and the claims were made by people who didn’t know that there is a that genetic connection with Rurik being Finno-Ugric, instead were trying to invoke the viking claim.
Note that at that time, Kallstad where his Grandfauther was from was also considered mostly “Alpine” and not “Nordic” and there was a huge movement in the US to stop the inflow of these undesirables, so he would not have been automatically considered white. Due to both improving conditions in Europe and the Great Depression the influx of these “less desirable” European populations slowed, and due to the red scare these populations were assimilated into the definition of “white” in the public’s eye.
While I refuse to link to the text itself feel free to read Madison Grant’s “Passing of the Great Race” if you think I am making this up.
While I can understand how it would feel like the claim that race is a social construct may sound like a political statement, the reality is that the entire concept of race was purely a political, non-scientific concept in the first place.
The fluid nature of the definitions to meet political goals quite clearly demonstrates this but I am open to cites that show that there is a real, useful, biological bases for the common categorizations if you can provide a cite.
Please feel free to open a thread in Great Debates if you want me to provide cites to all of the above claims.
rat avatar, we need to define not only “race”, but exactly what people mean by “race is a social construct”. If the latter means - “the colloquial labeling system for race is a social construct” - then yes, that’s correct, it’s arbitrary and sometimes wrong. But if it is supposed to mean “there are no identifiable human subpopulations with associated genetic differences”, then that’s wrong. That’s what biologists mean by race.
Outside of genetic diseases directly related to the base trait, like skin cancer and light colored skin, how many of these “prevalence of some genetic diseases in ethnic groups” actually have a cause that is related to the social construct of race?
Consider heart attack rates and stress levels and poverty, or cultural differences in the acceptability to seek medical assistance. The fact that race is a *social construct * and not a biological trait does not limit or reduce it’s impact or potential value in using those mythological, non biological groupings for tracking effect and for targeting efforts.
Money is also a social construct, but that doesn’t mean that it is not a real factor in health or other outcomes in our world. One does not require a belief that there is some scientific biological basis for wealth for it to be a useful tracking method. But also note above how genetic diversity within a group is GREATER than the differences between distant groups, and ignore the most common “racial identifier” used today primarily developed in the area that is most likely to be segmented into one “racial group”.
The problem is when someone takes asocial construct and then tries to apply that to a biological basis for truth testing.
I apologize to the Mods and OP for derailing this thread, but the claim that “Elizabeth Warren just get a DNA test” and that would either reliably map to lineage with our current data sets, or have any meaningful implications is what I am responding to.
Sure you will have some genetic markers that only relate to non-Africans due to factors like interbreeding with other non-human proto-human species, and sure there may be some mutations that are unique to small isolated populations.
The point is that outside of conditions caused by the social implications of the categorization, it is not a reliable predictor for an individual who is a member of that group or a member of another grouping.
A perfect example of this is the typical claim that African Americans tend to have higher incidences of heart disease, but that claim probably has more to do with social pressures than genetics, and this is backed up with the worsening outcomes for white american males compared to recent improvements in these minority groups.
But once again feel free to provide scholarly cites that as a biological trait that historical or modern racial associations are genetically causative outside of traits where the manifestation itself is the cause (light skin/cancer risk due to exposure)
The only ones I can find that seem to show actual cause (outside of small isolated groups) are limited to the intra-species cross breeding with other proto-humans which seems to not have re-entered Africa.
Were you specifically referencing Neanderthal, Denisovan and X inflow? Because as there is more genetic variation in Africa than the rest of the human population outside of those contributions I would be interested in cites that demonstrate your claim. But I have the feeling that confirmation bias leads one to overestimate the value of racial groupings as being a predictor here outside of these edge cases.
Please show that use with humans in modern science. This is petitio principii (assuming the initial point) as this is exactly why the term was used by 19th and 20th century eugenicists and your Cite calls out this difference as a caveat at the top of the page.
If I have missed a modern usage of Negroid, Mongoloid or Caucasoid in modern science assigning humans to a biological taxonomy please share that cite.
The general consensus is that there isn’t enough diversity to do so.
Let me quote the link above’s statement on the Anthro usage of the term.
But also note that Wikipedia clearly states that they are not a Scientific Journal, and that they error to common understandings over correctness.
Your cite would be more palpable if it didn’t resort to an ad hominem attack in the opening stanza.
But he is also incorrect in this claim:
Note the PCA biasing problem I mentioned above, and the small differences here with only 67 populations.
Warning PDF
As a zoomed in version here is one with an “Italian” highlighted that you can’t see right next to Swedish as an image that debunks that political based cite.
And note that the differences here are absolutely tiny across that entire PDF.
Can you provide a cite that isn’t trying to trump scientific methods to justify their political position?
Sorry, but the logic is lacking. There are biological races, but we can’t say how many there are. Or, we can say how many there are, but the number is arbitrary and two equally good scientist will often come up with completely different classification schemes. If he doesn’t know why race is said to be a social construct, I can only surmise that he doesn’t want to know. It’s a social construct precisely because there is no objective way to divide up human populations in any specific way. That makes any type of division subjective. Hence a social construct, as different societies will define race differently. in fact, the same society might define race differently at different times for political reasons.
As far as other traits correlating with “race” goes: Two of the four people I linked to share a fairly uncommon mutation affecting their digestive system. Unlike the vast majority of mammals, or even of humans, they’re able to digest lactose as adults. Can you guess, based on what you think their races are, which two they are? Here’s a hint: They happen to be the two tallest ones.
(but feel free to click back to the article for details)
