Race, in terms of biological classification, is what is known as an “infrasubspecific” category, meaning that it is a category below the level of subspecies. Within the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, all such infrasubspecific categories (some other such categories include group, form, variety, and morph) have no rank assigned to them; that is, there is no hierarchical relationship between any of the infrasubspecific categories.
I’ve seen older books that used race in describing wolf subspecies. I think it is pretty much not used now, but some older scientists may still hang on (these guys probably still mouth pipette and do tasting to determine what chimical is what, no offence to people on the board that may have done that.)
Oh, shit! You mean that since the 1960’s things have changed.
I’m screwed.
in safety training at UCSF and Wash U. we were bombarded with the message not to mouth pippete HIV infected blood. Apparently every scientist’s deepest, darkest desire is to mouth pippete HIV blood.
I rotated in a bateriology lab where almost everyone mouth pippeted all of the solutions. I did not, after watching too many grad students get a mouthful of broth.
One of my professors related how he used to mouth pipet with ethidium bromide (potent carcinogen) stocks and his alpha-[sup]32[/sup]P-dNTP labels. Fun!
Haven’t these people ever heard of pipette bulbs?!
I personally can’t stand bulbs, i like the electric doo-dads. Our labe didn’t even have bulbs until we moved out to SF and one of the new people wanted them. But sucking up Bact Broth is more disgusting than i can imagine. :eek:
Continuing the hijack. I love the bulbs, that’s what I use for everything except resuspending bacterial pellets and multiple pipetting (making 2 ml aliquots of LB and so forth). I only inherited one of the electric doodads after a tech left the lab and I pilfered it.
In defense of the other bacteriology lab, mouth pippeting is much faster and they didn’t do it with anything harmful. About the most harmful thing they had in the lab was saturated cultures of E. coli, and our lab strains are so tame that you can eat them with no problems.
Another prof of mine used to eat Luria broth for dinner sometimes. Heat it like soup, and eat it. He said it was quite salty. Then again, he said he used to cook autoclave chicken. Dice some carrots and potatoes and use them to stuff a chicken. Stick the whole thing in a biohazard bag and get rid of most of the air in the bag. Seal the bag and stick it on liquid cycle for 20 minutes. He said it was delicious.
Back to the OP, I still don’t see how this is different from some ancestral founder effect. Etiher the SE Asian progenitor population or their descendants, the actual tribe that crossed the land bridge, probably underwent a male population bottleneck – a few males went to settle the New World or populated a region in SE Asia that gave rise to the tribe that populated the New World. You would see exactly this type of phenomenon. Indeed, we see restriction of Y chromosome haplotypes in groups which are clearly not races when this has happened – see the Coll’s cited PNAS literature, the studies in Science about male versus female populations (Basque and Celtic populations come to mind) and all of that garbage about Cohen Modal Haplotypes in Jews, Arabs, and certain South African tribes claiming to be of Jewish origin.
As others have pointed out repeatedly, restricted haplotypes does not mean anything for genetic basis of race. The fact that we are talking about the Y chromosome, which is mostly heterochromatic padding, takes away from the argument even more. The physical properties attributed to race are all autosomally linked – facial structure, hair type, eye color, skin color, etc. etc. – and thus subject to recombination, quick selection, etc. etc. mtDNA and Y chromosome stuff are useful markers for population shifts exclusively because they do not get reshuffled with generations like the above traits. It is this reshuffling and selection that completely obliterates any genetic basis of race. So until you start talking to me about SRY mutations, mitochondrial myopathies and Leber’s optical atrophy being markers of race, you won’t convince me.
Even if the distinction is correct, it’s no better than a spelling flame, IMHO.
It is also worth noting that many people on these boards use the term “gene flow.” (The term even appears in this very thread. )
It seems to me that if you’re gonna get hyper-technical, the term “gene flow” is incorrect. Of course, the term “gene flow” is commonly understood to mean . . . umm allele flow I guess. And guess what? The term “gene” is frequently used as a synonym for “allele.”
Which just goes to show what a childish game the whole thing is.
I have a few theories about why certain posters would engage in such behavior, but I will save them for the appropriate pit thread.
GAH! Unless I’m misremembering what I was dealing with all those years ago E. coli culture was just about the only thing I’ve ever run across where the smell instantly made me want to hurl. The thought of getting that stuff in my mouth is making me nauseous just recollecting.
Thanks a lot :p.
Oh yeah, and what you said about the topic ;).
- Tamerlane
Aren’t there different races of E. coli ? They probably all smell and taste the same. If not, I’m sure its just cultural. 
I remember when I learned that such a thing as “mouth pipetting” existed. My reaction was to question the sanity of the people that did it. Don’t these labs consider safety standards? Are we still in the dark ages here? I’m sure mouth pipetting was cutting edge technology back when we were trying to project the properties of copper onto mercury to synthesize gold, but come ON!
What had begun as a nice heated discussion/presentation of the current scientific consensus regarding the genetic basis of race has now degenerated into a bunch of scientists talking about putting crap in their mouths!
Focus, people, focus… 
oooooh, yes…sure, you WANT to make some kind of E. coli/crap remark, but you won’t…I know you…you’re better than that…
I for one have never mouth pipetted, especially while goofing off in college chem lab with some water and a TA that left the room! (and I’ve always wanted to try that autoclaved chicken trick. And the dishwasher fish trick, and there is a way to cook food by putting it in the engine of your car, but i don’t know exactly where in your engine, and i don’t want shrimp in my starter…)
as for the OP, uh…i disagree…
[announcer]Correct, circle gets the square!
In re the issue of allele versus gene, my dear lucwarm has it characteristically wrong.
When someone, such as the OP is clearly confused as to the actual subject matter and believes in some magical way that Native North Americans are ‘genetically unique,’ the emphasis on alleles as variants of a gene is not simple nit-picking, it is necessary to draw the OP’s attention to his faulty understanding.
Now, in regards to this fine piece of inanity:
(a) It is hardly a ‘claim’ as ordinarily one uses ‘claim’ – of course this presumes a certain mastery of the language – to indicate an assertion of at best uncertain factual support. The data over the past decade have * uniformly * pointed to great African genetic diversity. There is no longer any question in this regard. Some question appears to still exist as to the origins of that diversity and its depth, but the actual greater diversity is no longer a claim (in 98 it might still have been a claim), it is a fact. The original research has been cited here.
(b) While greeny has accidentally in his futile quest to play gotcha, found a usage which no doubt could be changed for further clarity, it remains that practitioners refer to genetic diversity, rather than allelic diversity. This no doubt arises from the fact that the adjective is not as greeny ‘understands’ it, but rather to the general usage “genetics.” Not gene, but genetics. Name of the field.
I’ll refrain from commenting on greeny’s backpedaling in regards to the usage of gene and allele, as undecorous and unconvincing as it may be.
As to mipsman, well let me just note that I have never needed dental work for other than the natural weakness of my molars. My mode of expression has yet to cause me serious dental harm.
That’s all well and good, Col, but what has it got to do with mouth pipetting?
Quite right, sorry to distract from this important aspect of the discussion.
Afraid haven’t any experience with this sort of thing. Unless… well never mind.
If he’s clearly confused, you should be able to demonstrate that without the need to criticize his use of terminology in a manner that’s consistent with common usage, including the usage of many other posters whom you do not criticized in this thread.
Ad homenim attacks don’t help your case much either, IMHO.
If it was so silly why did you respond?
What picayune hijack. And misleading as well. There are quite a few definitions for the verb * claim* in my Merriam-Webster including “to state as a fact” . You should remember from our athletic debates that I rely on greater genetic diversity in Africa to explain some of the superlative traits that arise from the area. In the context of challenging the wording however, to comply with your rigorous demand for clarity between gene and allele, I could not present "genetic diversity " as a fact when I propose “allelic diversity” as more correct. After all. we all have the same complement of genes. Correct?
That was no accident. And my quest is not futile. You just admitted that further clarity in the science of genetics could be achieved by my suggestion. Thats enough for me. But in response to your refuge of “general usage”, I would suggest that Blake could go there as well for his usage of genes.
No, go ahead please. I can’t recall ever disputing your distinction between the two. Just the jerkish manner in which you presented it.
That’s because in real life you probably act like Clark Kent.